Ramblings

 Time for another miscellaneous post.  In no particular order.

SPRING.  It's spring.  I have a hummingbird at the feeder.  The fireflies are out.  Unfortunately, so are the mosquitoes and ticks (I'm not too fond of my evening ritual of standing naked in front of the mirror, and also running my hands over myself to find the little bastards.) My turtle has shown back up again.

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She's been in the blog before.  I just find it amusing that she's been coming around for at least 5-6 years now, and will even walk up to me.

Also the borer bees are back.  I actually think they're cute, the way they will hover in the air and look at you.  But they are destructive - I had to wood putty and stain my front railings last year after they built their nests, and then the woodpeckers tore up the rails to get them out.  There are various ways of killing them, but I don't want that.  So to protect my rails, every time I see a new hole being built, I stuff steel wool into it.  They eventually get discouraged and go elsewhere.

FLEECE.  I have more wool than I have sense.  I love spinning it, but it's rarely cold enough here to wear anything.  And yet . . . I can't resist.  Someone on line was practically giving this one away, and it's a breed I haven't worked with yet (cross between Rambouillet and Columbia).  It's big - 6 pounds.  And, if nothing else, I have to get it washed before I store it.

BLOG.  Working on the blog.  I had mentioned that I wanted to save it, just in case this web page ever goes away.  Bit by bit I'm doing the copy and paste - and of course I have to read them as I go along, and a lot of that - especially in 2022 when I really faced my demons - is heartbreaking.  But it's also like doing a fast-forward through my healing process.

CEILING. The damned ceiling.  When the original owner added the bedroom extension on the house, he gave it a flat roof, which is a really stupid thing to do in a place with this much rain.  Periodically it leaks and we get it redone. Sometimes 10-15 years ago part of the ceiling fell in.  Putting up drywall on a ceiling was beyond us, and I hated the idea of paying a few thousand dollars for someone to put up a boring ceiling.  I loved the look of pressed tin ceilings, but the price of those is astronomical. Even the faux plastic tiles were ridiculous.  So, after talking to an artistic friend, I made my own tiles by covering square of luan with textured wallpaper and painting it.  Then using screws and liquid nails, we got it put up.  And I loved it.

A few years later, the roof leaked (in another area) and while they were replacing that part of the roof - part of the ceiling came in.  Heavy sigh, more luan, more wall paper, and rebuilt that part.

Come 2020, and not long after I lost Bob, heavy rain, roof leak, roof repair, and . . . part of the ceiling fell in.

And that's been the situation for almost four years.  I did, on one of their visits, get Rob to take to me Lowes and buy a sheet of luan.  And it stalled out there.  I couldn't manage a 4' x 8' sheet of luan to cut my 42" squares.  Every time the kids came to visit, I'd ask if we could get it cut - and be told "I'll bring my track saw next time - it's easier that way."  On the last family visit, when Rob and Don came over to see if they wanted anything in the barn before I cleaned it out, I said we were going to cut that damned wood.  Rob started with the "next time" and I cut him off, saying I had been hearing that for 3 1/2 years.  So with Rob and I holding it, Don grabbed the circular saw and I got my squares.  Granted, that was last last October, but I got involved with cleaning out the barn and repairing the chicken coop.

But I finally got my panels made.  First thing - I realized that I needed 41" squares, not 42" - but I was able to cut those myself.  They've been wallpapered and have the first coat of paint. (the edges look gnarly but I just have to trim them.

Next step is to take a good look up there.  The panel next to it is sagging because the drywall has fallen and it's just the luan holding it up.  I might have to pull that panel down (oh, fun) and replace it as well, which is why I made two.  And I need to buy some insulation.  But at least I'm moving forward.

READING:  When Jeff was here, he said he was trying to get back into the habit of reading, and had started with Moby Dick (seriously?  How about something fluffier?)  He was having a hard time motivating himself - so I offered to co-read.  MB can be a real slog (I know I've read it before, but it may have been abridged and it was when I was in my teens) until you accept that's it's mostly meditations on philosophy, human nature, and natural history, and just a bit of whaling adventure.  It's also a lot gayer than I remembered (Ishmael definitely has a thing for Queequeg).  Thing is - I had promised Ebaida to co-read another Victor Hugo novel when she had recovered from Ramadan (which is now over) so I need to get this finished.  And Jeff is going slowly.  So I'm taking notes to discuss things when he's ready.

SQUIRREL  Sometime last year, Heather at the museum asked if I would take and release some squirrels that she had raised.  She knows how to raise squirrels - raise them with other squirrels, and try not to imprint them.  One squirrel had other ideas; she warned me that Crazy would be all over me.  Not a problem - they generally get their natural wildness back.  Not in this case.  Crazy - now known as Crazy Ass - will still not hesitate to jump me and try to grab for peanuts (whether I have any or not).  I don't want this - squirrel bites hurt.  I do put out sunflower seeds and peanuts for the squirrels and birds every morning, but Crazy Ass is usually at the door waiting for me.

And when I start to open the door, the idiot squirrel will dash in - twice he's smacked straight into a cat. In both cases, fortunately, the cat was startled enough that I could chase him back outside again before he got grabbed.  Now the procedure is that I open the door just wide enough to poke a peanut out, wait for him to grab it and run off, then dash out and put the rest of the food out before he comes back.

Thing is - that's my sitting area out there, where I like to have my coffee and read.  But now, I have to put a line of peanuts on the rail first.  He doesn't eat them - just grabs, runs, hides, and comes back.  So I have to get up every few minutes and put down another line.  If I get involved in my book - next thing I know that little bastard is on me.

Glad that I rebuilt my swing out front so I have a place to sit and read without getting molested.  Yes - it's annoying.  And I could likely stop it if I just stopped putting any food out (which wouldn't be fair to the other squirrels and birds).  But it's also rather cute and Heather gets a kick out of it.

CHICKEN COOP.  I think it's finished.  The door wasn't meeting at the top, and I was trying to think of ways to fill the gap (only a couple of inches, but raccoons don't need much) when I realized it was hitting the top of the jamb.  Some attention with a hammer and a shim solved that problem.  I've been baiting the coop with stinky food for a week now, and will for another week, and then I'll just have to take a deep breath and put Rocky and Djali out.   My little chicks are getting bigger - and I'm starting to suspect that two of them are roosters.  Oops.

WALKING.  I finished my Hadrian's Wall (90 mile) challenge.  I was having mixed feelings about these Conqueror challenges, now that I've finished three.  On the plus side - they're fun.  At the end of the day you enter your walking mileage (I have a Fit app on my phone that counts steps).  It shows your total, what you have left, your place on the map, and you can tap a Google Earth icon and see where you are.  On the con side they're a little pricey ($35-$40) and while you do get a very nice enameled medal at the end - I don't really need medals.  I found my answer - I chose one where I circumnavigate Iceland - some 830 miles.  That ought to hold me for awhile.

OK - I think that has the random stuff caught up - and it's time for bed.