I’ve been hustling the last week to catch up on summer projects before the first autumnal rains hit tomorrow. The rains will be much appreciated by the poor, fire-scorched people east of the mountains; what a terrible summer they’ve had! Even here, near the coast, a real rain will be a blessing for downing dust and cleaning sometimes-smoky air. Normally, sea breezes keep our air clean, but it’s been eye-stinging a couple of times this week. I can only imagine what the poor east-of-the-mountains folk have been enduring. —– I apologize to the Commentariat members who left interesting or helpful…
24 CommentsCategory: Home improvement
R. You’ve been working on this house a long time. Where do you live? Me. Across the street from C_____. ‘Bout a mile from here. R. Directly across the street? Me. No. Two doors down. R. Ohhhhhh, my great grandfather built your house! And the house farther down on the other side was my grandfather’s place. And … (goes on at some length) Me. Cool. I knew the whole road had been owned by family a long time ago, but I didn’t know it was your family. R. Yep. Your place wasn’t much more than a chicken coop when great…
10 CommentsSometimes it’s so nice just to be. We forget that. Well, I do, anyway. This weekend was perhaps the nicest of the summer. We’ve been having glorious weather for the most part, but often way too hot. A few weeks ago, the southern Oregon coast sweated through several days of 100+ temperatures, and it got to at least 97 here. When it’s that hot it saps you, even when you’re huddled in the shady house with a ceiling fan spinning. I know you folks in the midwest and south have it worse; so no complaints, really. But this weekend was…
5 CommentsPanama was already better than many countries on guns. A smidge, anyhow. Now, in hopes of combating rising crime, they’re about to get better. Only a little better than the original smidge, but it’s something. Even the most worthless of petty bureaucrats now think they deserve to be treated and feted like Oriental pashas. Who are these people, anyhow? Once again, at least a few on the fringe are sending the message that they’ve had enough. (Tip o’ hat to jed) Yeah, now let’s see if the EPA and its employees get treated like a private corporation and its people…
13 CommentsThis is a story about an act of serendipity that happened yesterday. To tell it, I have to begin with something that happened in 2000 or thereabouts.
20 CommentsMid 60s with a gentle breeze. A few horsetails of high cloud in a blazing sky. Going to be ice tea weather in a few hours. This year’s wild blackberry crop is enormous and right on schedule. The dogs and I enjoy handfuls of sweet berries on our morning walks. I’ve so far done no serious gathering as I don’t have a stove to make jam or syrup (and a hotplate is too tippy). I’ll soon head out with a bucket and grab some berries for the freezer. The dogs wait patiently for their share. They could easily gather their…
13 CommentsI really like this tiny house story (via Shel in comments). These folks aren’t trying to be trendy or green or holier-than-thou. They just know what it’s like to have been economically clobbered and don’t want to be vulnerable again. Cops kill an unarmed white kid and the world says ho hum. In Montana: another Oath Keepers operation to protect miners against fedgov intrusion. 😉 Kickstarter campaign raises billions to wall off the Bay Area during Burning Man. (Via A.G. in comments) Islamists hack to death a fourth non-theist blogger in Bangladesh. Boy, I’ll bet the fedgov wishes it could…
6 CommentsYes, it’s conclusive now. I was insane to begin this project at all and plugging at it for most of two weeks has not improved my mental health. Quite the contrary. You may soon read news reports of some poor, pathetic nameless woman picked up by police after running down the street, covered in sawdust and sheetrock mud, babbling wildly about cursed beadboard and claiming to be possessed by demonically acute angles. But though it may have cost the final threads of my sanity, it’s getting close to done now. A couple more trim pieces. Lots of caulk, two coats…
23 CommentsI’ve been working on my complicated ceiling for nine days now, along with some related projects on the walls and trim. Feels more like nine weeks. And of course, this being an old ill-built house, every step of progress reveals some new problem. I’m making only a few hours progress a day, but at least it’s getting there. Slooooowly. Why was I not born wealthy so I could sit by a pool sipping a pina colada while someone else gets paid to do this sort of thing? Oh well, when it’s done, I’ll brim with satisfaction about how I did…
22 Comments