Southbound Train

Spring Report #6

Spring Report #5

Spring Report #4

Spring Report #3

Spring Report #2

Northbound, Southbound, whatever...

…. That damn train that runs behind the house needs to be muzzled. We think they are working on the tracks during the day, so the train is running at night. It has an erratic schedule on the best of weeks, and usually I don’t notice it, but all week it has gone by just as I am dropping off to sleep (so somewhere around midnight) and the driver is working hard to make sure he is wide awake. If I hear that damn whistle blow (who came up with that, whistle? It isn’t a whistle, it is a honking horn, loud enough to startle the pigs, make the cat yowl and wake Mike from deep sleep, which is really saying something) ONE MORE TIME at midnight I’m calling the railroad and complaining.

I understand the whistle, or the horn, or whatever we’re going to call it. There are two crossings on either side of our neighborhood that are un-guarded. Each is about a mile from the house, and I do understand that the HORN needs to be sounded to warn the unwary. Both these roads are so lightly travelled during the day, though, that I can’t imagine a steady stream of traffic is tying up the tracks at midnight… A few short honks would do the trick, but I think the driver is hitting the horn at one crossing a mile to the north and leaning on it ALL THE WAY through to the other crossing a mile to the south.

Two miles of earsplitting horn in the middle of the night gets old, train guy. And I guarantee you that the one little dinky farm road in the middle – the one right opposite our house with the rusty gate and lock that has clearly rusted shut? Yeah, no one is crossing the tracks on a tractor right there. Especially not at midnight.  That extra burst of sound you like to lay on for the benefit of that potential farmer? Pretty unnecessary. So lay off the horn, already. It isn’t like it is as cool as the mournful hoooooonk of the Monorail. And until it is, SHUT IT.

Septic System Facts (learned the hard way)

• They lurk underground
• Nothing, but nothing, should be put in them other than, well, yeah (try explaining that to guests)
• When they start to get backed up, all the pipes in the house make scary gurgling noises
• Pumps are a necessary component in the whole solids/liquids/3 tank system
• All the gentle, non chemical cleaners in the world can’t prevent a blockage if the pump isn’t working
• Pumps that were NEVER CONNECTED TO THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM by your home builder don’t (go figure) pump
• A septic system that has no pump working on it for an entire year gets backed up
• See above about scary gurgling noises
• Plumbers who say “I have never seen this in my career” when referring to your lack of a powered septic pump are going to leave a bill that you do not want to pay
• Opening the covers to the septic system and peering inside exposes one to a rather unpleasant smell
• The “unpleasant smell” is really worse than unpleasant and leans more toward violently putrid
• Waste inside clogged septic systems forms something referred to as a “raft” but not one you’d like to float on
• The “raft” is probably the source of the putrid smell
• Water escaping from under said “raft” forms a geyser, but not one you want in your vacation photos
• I never knew I would be so happy to see a toilet bowl fill or a sink drain normally
• I prefer city maintained sewers

That is all.

Happy Halloween!

We're headed next door for trick or treating, but the porch is ready. All that spiderweb will glow under a blacklight once it is dark. Bring on the witches!

Six Months Ago

 Six months ago today, we hadn’t even been here a week. Our stuff was still in boxes, and I’m pretty sure that we were still using the travel toiletries we’d crossed the country with. I was working from a tiny space I’d carved out of the boxes in the kitchen – the kitchen itself was more of a storage area than a place where food was prepared . The yard was wild with spring growth and we had nary a blade to cut it, the John Deere being merely a twinkle in Mike’s eye. In a practical sense, I felt that we’d be living out of boxes forever. Emotionally, I wasn’t sure what was happening.

Six months ago today, we were dealing with the loss of Sidney, who predated our marriage by more almost two years. He’d enjoyed the cross country drive, but small dog old age got the better of him before we’d even begun to settle in. In considering the shock of losing him, I had to also consider that he was eleven, and how could we possibly have been living together that long? Weren’t we just out of college, still?

Six months ago today, the reality of just how far we were from friends and family hadn’t really sunk in. As constant travelers, being away wasn’t anything new to us. It certainly didn’t feel permanent, here, and anyway, people were coming. It wouldn’t be until after I’d put a number of people on airplanes and driven home in silent tears that I would realize just how far we were.

Six months ago today, we were explaining to the crazy frozen meat shipper that no, we didn’t have a forklift, and no, we didn’t know anyone we could borrow one from, and in fact, we really didn’t know anyone at all. The immensity of that not knowing was strange. Really, there was no one we could call, save our realtor, who was likely sick of our calls anyway. Having lived in California all of our lives, we just weren’t used to the idea that there was no one in a ‘hop in the car’ distance that we knew, or that knew us. We were invisible, undefined and unknown.

I realize that all this sounds bad in the retelling. Really (with the exception of little Bids) it wasn’t. There was a lot of liberation in being somewhere completely new, of being completely anonymous. We had the space to focus on us, to enjoy each other’s company and explore this new place together. It has been fun to develop the yard, to plant trees and drag the hoses around to keep them watered, to eat pesto from our own garden and enjoy the surprise luxury of hastily planted melons. The box part of the unpacking wasn’t fun, but seeing the house come together has been.  Even better has been getting live in the house, really sitting at the kitchen counter drinking with friends rather than talking about it, having a glass of wine on the screened porch and counting fireflies. We’re nesting, and we’re doing it together in a way that we haven’t in the past.

We know our way around now, but there is still so much to learn. Watching the seasons change is fascinating for Californians – it seems that every week there is some new thing – this week we’ve been seeing huge furry caterpillars inching their way along the drive. We’ve slowed down enough that we notice the caterpillars. Six months ago, I don’t know that we would have. I started this adventure willing myself to pay attention to the small things, and with six months of practice it’s become a habit.
We’re meeting people, too. If we walk in the neighborhood, we run into people to stop and talk to who know our names. Last night we stood on our neighbor’s porch and chatted for a long time, and two nights before that we had people over for dinner, people we knew really not at all but who turned out to be great dinner companions.

Six months ago today, I wouldn’t have had any idea what today would look like. I didn’t know how much I would appreciate the way fallen leaves swirl behind a car on a country road, or how much I enjoy seeing the local whistle pig fattening up for hibernation. I didn’t know that I’d be spending Halloween with my neighbors, who I like very much, and I didn’t know that  I would have met enough people to have a small cocktail party. I didn’t know how much I liked the afternoon light in the living room, or the quiet stillness of the house in the morning. I didn’t know that as much as I miss people in California, I wouldn’t be missing California itself, that six months of time would be enough to feel (most of the time, at least) like I lived here.  A year ago today, all of this was beyond my imagining, so different of a place was I in then. And two years ago today we were camping out in Castellina, plotting how we could move there. Move we’ve done … not there (not yet) but closer, closer, in so many ways. And now we’re here, today, now, making cheese and baking bread and looking forward to sweater weather, learning to live somewhere different, and liking it.

We’ve come a long way.

(photos of the house, then and now, are in the Ponteuf's Burrow album, over on the left side of the blog)

If only I had a table...

The house came with light fixtures that wavered between nice and, well, not me. The chandelier in the dining room was greatly improved by changing the tiny faux tapestry shades to these larger, far more elegant silk pagoda do-hickies, and I'm much happer. I'd be even happier if my hard won (and for a great deal) Restoration Hardware Parsons Chairs (no relation to Parsons, or Parsons Brinkerhoff, for that matter) in goldenrod were actually sitting around a table, the cherry surface of which will be ever so delicately lit by these shades. Alas, it is not yet to be, and the chairs are waiting under plastic for their prince.

Majestic Yellow

Ah, glorious new Kitchen Aid mixer, how I love you, with your larger bowl, slightly more powerful motor, improved splatter shield and beaming yellow countenance. You coordinate so beautifully with the kitchen and I promise to care for you, in cake batter and in frosting, in mashed potatos and in bread dough, so long as we both shall cook.

Thirsty?

I've always liked advertising art (those that knew me in the CMC days will remember the wall of absolut ads) but it can walk the line of tacky when hung anywhere but, um, a college dorm. Quite pleased, was I, then, to find real old soda signs in the antique store. With a bit of rust and some scratches, they become bona fide relics and totally cool to hang in the kitchen. Plus, I really like camels.

It’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

I didn’t want a new house. When I thought about moving, I always pictured us in a leafy, in-the-city neighborhood, fitting ourselves into an early 1900s house with hidden secrets, odd bathrooms that were fitted in long after the house was built and storage problems. I like the character of old houses, I like wondering about who lived there and what happened in each room. I like the permanence of them, and the mellow grace they acquire as the trees in the front grow taller and the wood on the floor mellows. I’ve always had a daydream of living in a Norman Rockwell neighborhood, with a front porch and a screen door and a little picket fenced yard. I was willing to take less space and more hassle to fulfill that daydream … but in this case, more practical minds (read: Mike) prevailed. Our last house was built in 1946; I was hoping to buy its gracious elderly aunt. Instead, I’m living in its modern, New South grandchild.

Sixty years makes a big difference – and not just in the square footage. These new windows open easily and shut firmly; this new house is airtight, and the temperature inside is constant. I miss the look of the old wood paned beasts from LA, but I so enjoy the lower levels of dust that I’m not complaining. The garage is big enough for us to pull in AND get out of our cars without interesting yoga moves, and we never had to worry about where the John Deere would live – it fits in front of my car. The laundry is in its own room, IN the house, and my days of walking in and out of the garage and having to back a car out to wash clothes are blissfully in the past. Mike is thrilled that hanging art no longer involves drilling into plaster and hoping like hell that the first hole is right, because taking it out will create a crater. My kitchen could probably hold three of my old kitchen, and you won’t hear me complaining about that either. Ahh, progress.

Before we go spinning off to the modern and convenient future, though, I must succumb to my inner luddite contrarian and look out the windows, where I am dutifully reminded that all the wireless networks and linen closets in the world can’t replace established gardens; virtual picket fences do not a charming front yard make. New houses, for all their interior goodness, tend to look like they’ve been plunked down on a stretch of open space, with none of the gracious permanence that trees lend. Our house was a year old when we bought it, and its landscape is, correspondingly, just learning to walk. There are beds in front, and there certainly is a lawn to mow (albeit a disturbingly weedy lawn). There’s even a deck sticking off the back, with steps down to… well, to nothing, more or less. With two acres, I don’t expect every area to be manicured, but I really dislike that the areas around the house look raw. Enter, stage right, Zach & Calvin & Angie. Enter, stage left, my checkbook. Lather, rinse, repeat.

We’ve been talking to landscape and stone people for about a month, and they’ve run the gamut from professional and not exciting to young and unorganized to failing to call us back with a bid to just plain interesting. The guys we chose, Zach & Calvin, not only do beautiful stonework, but they seem to know everyone in town, have done all sorts of interesting things and are just plain fun to talk to. They’ve been in charge of the stone, and Angie is in charge of the trees, and I’m learning as much as I can about growing things here every time I talk to her. I ruined a pair of shoes walking around the tree lot in the mud, but she helped us pick trees and told us which ones to avoid (regardless of popularity) and what would really grow here. This is such different climate that I’m going to be learning as I go, so it is nice to talk to someone who really knows and is happy to share.

The flagstone patio off the deck was step one, a giant puddle of stone that seemed to grow every time we discussed it. It took Zach and Calvin about a week to create, and I loved going out in the mornings to chat with them as it moved from roped off green area to poured cement (there was a cement truck! In my back yard! I think I was instantly transformed into a 5 year old boy from the excitement!) and finally to laid stone. We moved the patio furniture and the Pig down last Friday and it feels good to have an outdoor space that is ours- no longer does the deck step down to nothing. Trees are coming next – last night Angie stopped by to flag the spots for the magnolia, the redbuds, the dogwoods, the tulip tree, the fruit trees, the Japanese cherry AND the Japanese maple – and the lilacs! I think that by the time I get back from LA, I’ll be coming home to a place with a little more tree-lent permanence, and a few less bare walls meeting bare earth. Now that’s progress.

the beginning

the middle

the end (full set of photos in the Ponteuf Burrow album)

Take THAT Calico Curtains

Custom curtains? Are expensive. And take 10(ish) weeks to be made and delivered. And HONESTLY, that's just a bit much for me. So after "panel hunt 2008" with my mom, and the huge amount of curtains that came through the house and were hung and discarded and returned, these were THE ONES but they weren't hung in a "custom" way. An evening with stitch witchery and the iron, however, and wa-lah! I'm feeling rather chuffed about the whole thing.

It still begins with a "B"

but at least it is a "bunny" and not a bird... My mom bought me this guy when she was here, and the photo doesn't do his green bark fur justice. It does show off the great old lard can and metal flower basket from one of our antique shopping excursions, though.

Ahh, more birds

These I didn't buy, I promise! They were a last-house housewarming gift from Claudia, who always could find the most charming things. I've always liked this family of chickens, but they never had a proper home until now, when they hold down the old cookbooks I'm collecting against my better judgement.

 

Ziggy

I know I must be getting bird crazy when I start buying art, but I couldn't resist this guy. The artist, Vicki Sawyer, is local, and she puts hats on birds (I really like the idea of hats on birds) and names them. King Cardinal here is Ziggy. He's since moved to our bedroom, and the more I look at him the more I like him. Resisting more bird paintings may be hard...

It's a Good Thing....

For an OCD…

Anal Retentive…

Hoarding…

Alcoholic…

…to have created a new, accessible, color coded spice drawer, organized a special drawer just for prep bowls, unpacked all the matching canned goods and set up the bar. Especially the bar, as the unpacking of boxes packed by people with a complete lack of organization (or spelling skillz) is beginning to grate on me.

Still and all, progress is being made. The kitchen and laundry room are basically complete. The screened porch is useable. The living room is set up and the table is only marginally a dumping ground for items without homes. Our bedroom is taking shape, and the closet gets a little better every day. I did the master bath right at the beginning, I don’t know why, but I do appreciate showering and brushing my teeth in relative calm. The dining room has been stripped of its forest of alcohol boxes as the aforepraised bar is complete and the wine is sorted and waiting for delivery of a 150 bottle containment unit. The Geepers are sharing the room with just the art these days, so I guess I can get my antique sideboard scheduled for delivery. Oddly, the garage is mostly unpacked.

Upstairs (where I don’t go) Mike’s office is looking pretty good, and the movie room would be great if we had furniture in it. The guest room and bathroom are functional but still harboring a few boxes. We’re not talking about the attic storage, and for purposes of sanity, my office does.not.exist. My mom comes in 7 days and counting, and if I don’t want her to be horrified, I’d better get to it. The Jones in me, however, is pointing out that the bar? It is set up and needs to be broken in.

He also bought a weed whacker

Two acres? Is a lot of space. And the mowing is going to take some serious time. I think the upfront work is going to be the worst, just to catch the yard up after who knows how many months of neglect, but the weed whacking is harder than just riding the mower around, and I did a good chunk of it, thereby earning a nice soak in my giant whirlpool tub. I was covered in grass flecks after an hour of grass shredding, but in a satisfying way – I’m looking forward to keeping up this yard. I know that Bob is laughing right now, and certain people think I should have “outsourced” but I like the satisfaction of looking out the window and knowing that I made the manicure happen. I’m excited to plant the sort of things that didn’t grow in California: lilacs, dogwoods, hostas, bulbs. My front yard is calling for some flowers, and the back 40 is getting a nice selection of blackberry, raspberry and blueberry bushes planted this weekend. Oh, and I have ferns!

In case you were wondering about my new fancy office...

This is it:

And this is the view the other way: