Long Weekend, Long Day

To one and all,

Lots has happened since I last posted. Yesterday I spent about 11 hours on the place, doing a variety of things. It was one of those days I seemed to bounce from task to task based on the heat and my energy level. That had a very "organic" feeling to it, which I enjoy, but the list below doesn't sound like I accomplished anything big. So in roughly chronological order:

-Tinkered with the plumbing and got the cistern pump up to 32 psi. I'd hoped to get up to the hardware store and get a new pump for what I'm calling "the shallow well" but I kept puttering and the day slipped away before I made that trip.

-Replaced the P-traps on both kitchen and first floor bathroom sinks, they looked like sieves.

-Tried to unclog the kitchen sink with liquid drain opener once the new trap was in, but with marginal success. The standing water did go down after several hours but I didn't have time to flush it as the directions recommend. (I'll know more when I can turn on the water heater and get some fresh hot water flushed down there.) I used that "foaming plumber's snake" stuff, which did foam but the rest remains to be seen.

-Scrubbed out and flushed clear both toilets so at least we have two of those that are functional, if not totally "Lysoled" by this point.

-Swept out the back porch and rearranged the tools I've had stored there helter skelter so they're more visible and organized and I'm not hunting for things. It needs a good pressure wash and a scrub with disinfectant to get the goat smell out of there. (The previous owners had a goat living in a cage there, I was told.)

-Discovered that there were two dead birds in the woodstove in the kitchen. I scooped them out with a shovel and gave them a decent dumster burial. I'll need help to get the stove out of the kitchen though, it weighs a TON.

-Picked up miscl trash around the place, just policing up little bits of plastic and debris that make the place look junky, even when the big things are gone.

-Carried out three or four boxes of "leftovers" from the house that I can use in the barn/shop. Old dishes and silver ware I'd never use for food might be cleaned up and put to use to store hardware and stir paint.

-Discovered that the kitchen cabinets were not as empty as I'd thought. I pulled two full garbage cans of old kitchen dishes, old food and miscl junk out of the cabinets.

-Tinkered with the electricity, trying to figure out which circuit breaker works which plugs. There was an old radio in the house so I turned it on real loud and kept moving it around the house. When I flipped a breaker and it went off, I marked the panel. It's a mish mosh, but a more identified mish mosh now. ;)

-Dragged off dead limbs and small dead trees and brush hogged a section of weeds on the north side of the barn with my push mower. It borders my neighbor John's lawn. He'd come over with his riding mower the other day and did my whole front and side yards. That saved me from doing it all with my push mower. (I still haven't found a riding mower that fits my needs and budget.) So I figured it was the least I could do to repay the kindness.

-Cleaned out the junk from the basement I'd missed on earlier "trash roundup" missions. Sleeping bags, old video came console parts, rotted wood, potting soil, you name it. There are still about 75 empty mason jars but I'll leave them there for now. The basement stairs also still need a lot of work (the bottom five steps had rotted away and you have to climb down onto a stack of cinderblocks right now) so hauling the junk out was a little more work than I'd hoped it would be. Lots of it I was able to toss out the window, but some had to be lugged up the "stairs."

As I was shoveling a somewhat large pile of potting soil into some five gallon buckets my brain began to ponder why someone would dump potting soil in a totally dark, damp basement. And then I glanced to my left at this funny little room we'd noticed. It was all painted white inside, white stone on the floor, and plugs in the ceiling with these little pulleys in strange places. All of a sudden it all clicked into a meaningful pattern. Somebody'd been set up to grow pot in the basement! I'd heard about places like this over the years. Since the place had been let go to "pot" it makes sense...

My friend Tim dropped by and I showed him my little discovery and it made sense to both of us. His basement flooded this week with all the rain so I offered him some dumpster space to jettison his trash, which he did.

The dumpster is due to be picked up Monday, and I'll be interested to hear what the final tally on it's weight is. There's got to be a couple tons of just dirt from the burn pile in there, and I'm only allowed three tons before they charge me extra. But I'll gladly pay it, just to get that stuff off the property and into a landfill. What a mess!

That's about all I can recall at the moment for yesterday. Thursday my buddy Todd came over and we worked about four hours clearing up junk around the back "door" to the fenced in yard. Right now the opening in the wall has plywood nailed over it, that's why "door" is in quotes. But it looks 150% better outside now. We hauled all sorts of rotted lumber to one of three burn piles on the place. Each pile is about the size of a medium sized car. When we get some more rainy days, it'll be bonfire city, now that I can get some reasonable water pressure out of the house.

Earlier this week I pooled some birthday and Christmas money and bought myself a first class "mechanical goat." I got a Stihl brush cutter, with the big "bicycle handlebars" and it's a dream to cut brush and weeds with. It just zips through them like they were nothing. It's sort of like scything, but with more horsepower. :)

Today I head to my cousin's house at the lake for some time with family and then down to my sister's for a few days, through the Fourth. May you all have a wonderful time with family and friends, see lots of fireworks and attend a parade or two.

But most of all, remember that the freedom we enjoy was purchased at great price. Please stop and say a prayer for the men and women, and their families, that have given so much to us all.

I've seen various authorship attributed to this, but the point remains true:

"It's the Soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It's the Soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It's the Soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to demonstrate.

It's the Soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

And it's the Soldier who salutes the flag,
who serves the flag,
whose coffin is draped in the flag,
that allows the protester to burn the flag"

poem by: Father D. E. O'Brien

I would only add that we owe a HUGE debt to our Founding Fathers for bestowing on us a system that is capable of operating on the "golden mean" between chaos and repression. We are so blessed to have a system that can produce "ordered liberty." It's never perfect, but it only works as well as we do. Get involved and be persistent.

Gratefully,

Doug