Attacking the Chaos

I'm really trying to get after the dump my house has become. Today is "cobweb day"! I don't care how festive they are, Halloween is only on October 31st. I also need to muck the henhouse before my chooks die of literal "vapors".

Insights from fiction

Just read this in "Homunculus", by James Blaylock:

"He despised the current fashion in gaudy furnishings. It was little wonder society was going to bits, surrounding itself as it did with fakery and ugliness. ...-empirical study would bear him out. Men were products of that with which they surrounded themselves. And men of substance could hardly spring from the cracker-box, factory-made trash they cluttered their homes and inns with." (p. 43, Babbage Press edition)

This was meant to illustrate the world-view of a character in 1880s London, at a time when "factory-made trash" was indeed beginning to clutter and devalue the material world of the average householder. Unfortunately, things haven't changed much since then, and the quote applies equally well to the current day and age. I struggle with this in my own home.

When we moved into this house three years ago it was a study in 1980's tacky "white box" architecture, with a few garishly inappropriate attempts at color and character. This little shoe box of a WW2 tract house had been clad in white vinyl siding (to come off soon, I hope), had its hardwood floor covered in maroon(!) wall-to-wall carpeting, had the bedrooms painted a bilious dark pink (walls and ceiling), and the front room a stultifying industrial mint green (walls and ceiling). The kitchen: carpeted in grey. Carpeted. Think about that for a minute. No, the previous owners didn't cook in there. They barbequed outside and ordered takeout. A lot. The carpet is going soon, too.

Anyway, the green and pink walls have been re-painted, and the other frights are on the list. It's hard to relax in a house that resembles a trailer. Putting up racks of Renaissance, 18th and 19th century weapons and armor has helped, as well as some good antique furniture and many book shelves. Gradually our little tools of everyday life (cream pitchers, butter dishes, plates, cups, tables, chairs, storage devices, etc.) are being changed from "factory-made trash" to handcrafted items or at least older things that give off an old-world or antique vibe. It just makes for a more comfortable home, in my opinion. I can not bear a "glass & chrome" aesthetic, or even a "Danish Modern" one. Cheap overstuffed sofas in synthetic pile give me the willies, and loud, practically flourescent 60s type color schemes make me cringe. Give me earth tones and clear, jewel-tone colors. Turkish carpets and walnut furniture and tiffany(type) lamps.

Of course, I'm typing this on a computer that has not been modded by the Datamancer, which makes me wistful...

Domino Effect

Now that I have working heat in the garage, I've no excuse to keep putting off setting up my sewing room/studio in there. The giant chest freezer is gone (yay Craigslist!) and so the scrap lumber and tent poles are gradually going in the alcove where that sat.

The biggest domino I have to shift is the pile of military surplus that I was supposed to eBay for a friend. It's just not going to happen for lots of reasons, so now I have to bite the bullet and start weighing it so I can figure what it's going to cost to ship it all to LA: ugh. It will feel good to get that gone, though, so I just need to do it.

Oh, and I need to go photograph my old truck canopy and the old lock box from the back of the big truck so those can go on Craigslist as well. I'm starting Spring Cleaning early, needless to say, and it feels good.

Some of the oak paneling in the garage is going to finish the inside of the henhouse. Why didn't I think of that before? Duh. I have two trim pieces to cut and nail on and the south wall of the henhouse is pretty much ship shape. Well, it will be after I scrape of the "Neighborhood Watch" sticker on the door window, attach the handle and latch, and paint the door spruce green. Right now it's electric blue: bleh.

That's just the house. I still need to finish the actual run, versus the rinky-dink half-size thing they have right now if I don't want to let them into the yard (see photo of annoyed chicken in the snow eating catfood, right). As soon as I get that together I can transplant a couple of climbing roses to the south side of it so they'll have shade in the Summer...and we'll all have more privacy from the neighbors to the north.

Catflap

Got the cat door/insert thingy more or less finished just in time for the rains to start in earnest. If we get a nice warmish day next week maybe I'll put some paint on it so it doesn't look quite so okie.

I just glued the shims/spacers in because I was too lazy to find screws, but that can be retrofitted later.

At least it's sealed and not just rattling around in the plywood anymore. Now, if the cats can just deal with having to open their own door (the horror!)...

When I said The Rains had started, I wasn't kidding. Yesterday's gale force winds have sucked major moisture in off the ocean, and we're about to get a good soaking. For those of you who think it rains non-stop in western Washington, I have news for you: it doesn't. Yes, we have a lot of gray days, but actual garden-watering rain? Nah. To quote a preacher from Uganda who was guest speaker at our church late this last Spring on a misty Sunday morning, "Never have I seen such small rain!" You want "big" rain? Visit his home, or anywhere in the tropics, or the Carolina's. There's a reason it's humid back east in the Summer. Unless you're out on the East side of the Olympic Mountains in the official rain forest (one of two temperate rainforests in the world), it's just not that rainy here. But I digress...

As I puttered away on the cat door project it grew darker and darker. Then just as I was installing it, there was a flash of lightening and a huge clap of thunder...which seemed to roll on for much longer than was warranted by such a quickie lightning strike. Concerned about the horses, I hurried over to where I could see into the pasture. Stampede? Agitation? Anything? No, our animals are poster children for the "Too Dumb to Come in Out of the Rain" society. That's Woody, too mellow to notice the life-threatening fire from the sky, which is fine by me.

Today's Happy Homemaker Hint: Get your husband to split some cedar logs salvaged from your dad's summer tree trimming project, then stack the logs by the wood stove. Instant cedar room freshener!

Storm a comin'

Looks like we're going to get the first big blow of the season sometime late tonight and into tomorrow. The jet stream is diverting our way, pushing down from the NW and into the center of the western states...which means Texas and points east are in for a rough ride. I need to get off my hinder and finish the cat door and chicken doors (in the henhouse, of course).

Update, 21:38: Got a temp hatch on the ventilation hole in the henhouse (read: put a hinge on the polygonal chunk that Bev cut out several months ago and slapped it back up with some roofing material as an additional rain-shedding device.) The cat door is crudely in place. The cats did NOT help... It just needs weatherstripping around the edges, and shimming around the actual cat flap (it's built to sit in an actual exterior door, not a piece of 1/4" plywood). Tomorrow is another day...