September 26, 2009

7:49 p.m.

Sattidy Morning

I only have a little time; must get dressed and move a big door and some other debris out of the back room so Jody can deliver the little oak hutch I bought a couple of weeks ago for $75. It�s actually an oak dresser with the shelf unit from another hutch perched on top, but it works together and I loved it. Seventy-five dollah! And I can put dishes and linens away. Wow.

I�ve managed to clear more space in the living room, and now I have this strange ambition to actually clear out the whole middle section. Don�t know if I can find places for everything, but I�ll try. Then I can set up the futon. Meanwhile all this other activity will be going on shortly. It�s exciting! I want to be able to call the State Farm lady and say, �Hey! Come look at my house again!�

It�s Porch Demolition Day. I know I am going to be tired from hauling away cinderblocks and so forth, but at least I�ll have a wee back yard where the porch used to be. I wonder what we�ll find underneath the cement. When Marc took out the bad hearth that their former owners had put in (wanting to expose the original one underneath), he found decades-old beer cans. We know the old man drank a lot of beer. But why bother burying his cans in cement when he could just toss them over the hill into the woods?

Anyway, I guess I�d better get ready for the delivery. More news as it happens.

Late Brunch

There wasn�t time to even eat breakfast before Marc came over, wielding 22-lb. hammer and Cat�s Paw. I learned just today what a Cat�s Paw is; it�s like a tiny sort of crowbar, and each end has a rounded, flattened, cloven bit that gives it its name. One is curled more than the other. You place the cloven part by the peskily embedded nail, hammer it in with your hammer of choice until it grabs the nail head, and you can pry it out much more easily.

First we moved the large, extra door into the attic. Then we removed some nails from the porch structure. THEN� Marc brought the Dynahoe over and gently placed the long arm with the big toothy bucket inside the porch, between support posts. A couple of light uplifts and� the whole thing jumped up and detatched itself.

Then he had to go up on the roof and do a little more nail removal so it wouldn�t take house parts with it when it toppled. One piece of molding got broken but it�s not a big deal to replace. Then, another lift, and swish � and the whole thing came down with a creak.

Then Rose showed up and we all pulled nails and utilized Cat�s Paws and crowbars and hammers and pulled all the corrugated metal off the roofy part. We�ll reuse that for the shed. We separated the wood into burn pile, reuse pile and detritus pile. By that time they had to go pick up a generator they�re going to run on waste veggie oil to heat the house and, if all goes as planned, feed electricity back into the grid for a credit. This is a generator that has now been discontinued in the U.S. because it doesn�t conform to something or other. They�re still sold in other countries � I forget where this one is made. But this guy has two left (he had three up until yesterday) and Marc really really wants one. So off they go on this sudden errand.

After they left I was about to make a bigass noon breakfast, but Roof Guy came by with his cute little son to drop of shingle samples. Oooh, pretty! After he left I did make said breakfast � local eggs scrambled with fresh parsley & dried dill, with a little reduced fat swiss, stuffed into a whole wheat pita � and turkey bacon on the side. Tea in a new mug I got from T.J. Maxx for $2.99. It�s big and has a pumpkin painted on the side.

Now I have to do a little further demolition before R&M get back: clear a path for the Dynahoe to pull out a couple of saplings so Roof Guy can work later, and hey! There are still all those shutters to remove. And it�s going to rain tonight so I have to cover all my mowers and spreaders which now no longer have a porch.

Whew. After I do all that I�m possibly giving myself the rest of the day off.

Later

HA! The best laid plans� after removing a few shutters (which involved maneuvering a ladder much too big and heavy for me, as well as discovering some surprise wasp nests complete with wasps behind two shutters, requiring prompt spraying from a safe distance), we spent the rest of the afternoon excavating brush and dragging it to the middle of the field, where we will soon have a huge bonfire. I took great pains to guide Marc and the dynahoe around the dogwood and the black birch. He did accidentally rough up one big root, but I think overall we did well � and my back yard is about ten feet deeper. The dogwood is all uncovered now! It�s a sweet little tree, and now it�ll get a lot more light. Likewise the birch. Marc pulled a great amount of bittersweet and grapevine off of it.

After they left I juiced some carrots and apples, and added half a bottle of ginger kombucha tea (my new exciting fad). It was out of this world. And I got to take the pulp right out to the compost pile. It was then I noticed my phone was missing.

Comprehensive looking produced nothing, so I called Marc and asked him to call the phone.

I heard no ring. This was bad, as I didn�t remember turning it off.

I said my prayers, invoking Mom and all my guides & guardians. Made my reiki symbol, and kept looking. A little voice said it was outside, so I looked around outside, hoping like mad it wasn�t in the dirt we�d filled holes back in with. That would have sucked. But I didn�t find it, and looked again inside. No dice. I called Rose and we both said it could only be in the burn pile. THE BURN PILE! It was huge by now, a massive igloo of branches and debris in the middle of my field. (Not burning yet, of course.) It was also close to getting dark. I asked her to call the phone again and went and stood by the pile.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

My phone was in the brush pile.

I ran in and got a flashlight and my gloves and commenced digging around in the back of the pile. It must have unclipped from my pocket the first time I took the wheelbarrow out earlier. I dug around the back of the pile, making a little cave to stick my head into. I could hear it ring. They kept calling it and calling it � must have been twenty or thirty times. It was so close but I couldn�t see it anywhere. I�d get up and yank some tangled branches aside and go in again. It began to drive me insane. I was looking at plain grass, feeling the earth itself, and the phone was nowhere evident. Finally I thrust my head into the hole, putting my ear one inch from the ground. It was RIGHT BELOW MY FRIGGIN� EAR. I still couldn�t see or feel it.

I started to think there must be an echo anomaly in brush piles. But finally I found it, perfectly covered by the grass, face down so almost none of it showed. Of course the case is black, too. But I finally was able to answer the beeps. Holy cow, I haven�t felt so flustered in ages.

However, as usual, Mom came through again.

Now I�m at the family�s house, aching, my lower back complaining, my right elbow joint tender, the eczema on my fingers burning like crazy. I asked a lot of myself today. Tomorrow we have to get the rest of the shutters and downspouts off, and buy some lumber pieces at Home Depot, but beyond that it might be an easier day. I think I�ll plan on that!