Domination, Pug Style

July 15, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 3 Comments

Last night when I took Coco out for her nightly, she didn’t make it past the brick walk because a toad was sitting there next to the planter box, just minding its own business. This was not the first time I saw this toad (I assume this same toad) on the bricks like that. It was nighttime, just like the times I saw it before, dark enough to need a flashlight. Maybe the bricks retain the heat of the day and the toad likes it. Whatever its reason, if it has reason, it sits there. From my height I might easily overlook it or mistake it for a leaf blown in or a rock that got kicked there. We are outside for one purpose only. Toads are not on the agenda.

Coco instantly fixated on it. Neither dog nor toad moved a muscle.

Toad: If I just sit here, maybe that gigantic creature will go away.

Coco: Now what am I supposed to do?

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The toad appeared to rely on its ability to camouflage itself here the way it does when it sits in the dirt. Very often you pass by such creatures and never see them at all. Dogs, even pugs with a comical faces, need no lessons, no direction, no encouragement. Dogs have dog noses. They know a toad when they smell one.

“No,” I said matter-of-factly, “this is not why we are out here.” It was late and I was tired. Coming out here so she could do her business was the last thing before bed. Coco, however, does not understand English beyond five simple words, including her favorite, “treat!” At that moment, except for this toad, nothing else in the world existed for her. (I’m sure I could have said “treat!” and she would not have moved.)

I picked her up — we don’t need a leash where I live, and she wasn’t about to come of her own accord — and relocated her to the fallen leaves at the edge of the yard, this apparently being enough of a signal and change of scenery to remind her of the purpose of the outing. She obliged, good dog. Off she trotted back toward the front door.

Lo and behold, the toad!

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It’s a toad all right. Not a very smart one. Clearly it did not realize that I had removed a much larger creature with teeth. It had not used the window of opportunity to find a hiding place.

Instantly Coco fixated on it again. I wonder: Did she forget about the toad when I physically removed her from its presence (“oh, look, leaves, I know what to do in leaves”)? Did she refocus her energy to the business we went out there for and then discover the toad anew when we came back toward the porch? Or did she acquiesce when I picked her up (“fine, I’ll go do my thing, that toad isn’t going anywhere”)? Did she humor me knowing she’d get no peace to enjoy her prize until and unless she obliged?

I have evidence of the toad’s intelligence, but just how smart is the dog?

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Whether she thought she was lucky enough to discover a toad twice in one night or was simply glad to get back to it after humoring me, this was an unexpected thrill for her. I grant that. I gave her a moment to relish the domination or fascination or whatever might be in her pug brain. I see it from both sides.

Toad: Uh… this is a rather dangerous situation.

Coco: It’s my turn to be the big, strong one.

I let the toad feel its vulnerability. I let Coco feel her power. I watched as she moved closer. One could rightly say she towered over the little toad.

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Those paws remembered their ancient job. Harass the object of domination. See if you can get it to move. Sure enough, one little tap and the toad jumped. I gave this game about ten seconds to play out, watched the toad (finally!) hop to a safe spot under the porch, then had had enough. I was tired. It was time for bed. “C’mon, Coco.” She knew she was beaten and followed me in.

This morning it was still dark at 530. Once again I needed the flashlight to take Coco out. Don’t you know, there was that toad again. The bricks couldn’t still be warm, so perhaps there is another reason it goes there. The same scene played out: Coco fixated, the toad froze, I got impatient and relocated Coco to do her business, she obliged, we walked back to the house, same toad still there, Coco assumed domination stance.

This could be interesting, I said to myself. I left the flashlight on the railing pointing toward the dog towering over the toad and went inside to get my camera. It didn’t take me more than 30 seconds to do this.

When I got back, no toad. Slobber hanging from Coco’s mouth — not her prettiest moment. Considerable licking going on. Pugs do that sometimes. They stick their too-long tongues out over and over again. Like a broken record they repeat the curling motion. The unique sound that accompanies this habit sometimes gets annoying. It’s gross even when you aren’t wondering if they just ate something they shouldn’t.

What just happened?

She is not, as a rule, a slobbering dog. The licking did not make the slobber go away. I used a paper towel and wiped it off. She did her where’s-breakfast dance as usual and I made her sit and stay as usual. Still the licking. More slobber. Another paper towel. Should I feed her? Did she already have breakfast? Outside? In the form of a toad? Could she really have eaten it that fast? Toads have bones. Did she swallow them too? Toads have blood. The slobber didn’t. Do I want to think about this?

I gave Coco a little less food than usual. She inhaled it as usual and found her spot against the pillows on the couch as usual.

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I decided that this comes into that category of things we don’t know, we can’t know and maybe, sometimes, we don’t want to know. If there is a toad on the walk when we go out tonight, I’ll assume I saw the slobber of hope, the slobber of anticipation, the slobber of disappointment. If there’s not, well, what would you assume?

My son Samuel said to me just last night – on a completely different subject – that to him, a person’s ability to know the limits of their intelligence, their understanding, their abilities is an impressive marker of their development. To know that you don’t know everything, to be able to admit this, to be open to learning something new – these things set you apart. They indicate humility, a far more admirable trait than arrogance. They portend success because people who see themselves realistically and who are willing to see a new perspective or try a new approach are going to be nicer to be around and going to stretch and strengthen their intelligence, understanding and abilities, i.e. going to know more in the long run.

Did the dog eat the toad? I don’t know!

Somehow I don’t think this kind of not knowing is what he had in mind. I don’t think it qualifies as impressive.

Uh-oh. More licking is happening…

Mermaids Live!

July 14, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 1 Comment

Imagine if there really were mermaids. The myth is ancient, the allure unending. Imagine moving through water effortlessly, changing direction gracefully, thrilling the audience thoroughly. Oops, did I say audience?

Yes, my mom and I (Mom with her eye patch, note coordinating color) were part of the audience at ACAC Four Seasons in Charlottesville. It isn’t every day you get to go to a mermaid show, but today was our lucky day.

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On this hot July afternoon we watched a dozen or so young ladies twist and flip and splash and do underwater acrobatics in as much synch as they could manage after (believe this or not) only one week of half-day lessons. It has to be hard enough to twist and flip and splash and do underwater acrobatics all by yourself, but to do it in synch with others, following the music and the instructions of your coach, that’s quite something.

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As with any performance, each player plays a part but cannot see the overall picture the way the audience does. I wish they could see how amazing they were. Imagine coordinating leg splits! No wonder they used to call this a swim ballet.

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Look at the pointed toes, the nine swimmers all upside down and doing their thing at the same time. And yes, that’s a tailfin you see on the edge of the pool. Part of the fun, surely, is not only getting into the water with other girls who want to swim gracefully together, not only learning to do things you’ve never done before, but also being able to enter that surreal, make-believe world where you are something you usually can be only in your dreams.

Yes, to be a mermaid just for a little while!

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To feel the water all around, to get a little idea of what it’s like to be a fish (a really pretty fish!), to feel sleek and strong and otherworldly, to be an elegant creature just long enough to know that you can, to feel a thrill like no other – this is a portion of what sustains us when such days have passed.

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The mermaid in this photo is Mackie, who came from California for two weeks to demonstrate techniques and to encourage and help train young swimmers. (Behind her you see the shadow of her dad, Mitch, who not only brought her here but also films the mermaids under the water while wearing scuba gear. Hats off to you too, Mitch!) Ten years ago, when Mackie was seven, she met and started training under Wendy Carter, Coach Extraordinaire, and kept on swimming in synch even after Wendy moved to Virginia. She swims with joy, passion and great skill. She also has a beautiful smile!

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Wendy directs mermaids any chance she gets — that is, when she isn’t on her way to the Pan-Am games herself to be compete with her masters team! I hope ACAC knows how extremely fortunate they are to have her on staff.

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Wendy gives these kids so many gifts every day, not the least of which is confidence. She wants them to go home and think and share and maybe shout from the rooftop (okay, maybe not the rooftop), “Wow, I did that!” And doing the next challenging thing because of having done this challenging thing will be that much easier.

We live in a world where the stories about what other people are doing are continually in front of us. Every day on the news it’s so-and-so did this fantastic thing and her brother did that unbelievable thing and this other person in some other random place did this other truly amazing thing. I think it’s great that those people are doing those great things and I don’t mean anything against them or their achievements.Watching people do their thing (and do it well) is all fine and good, especially when you can’t get out and do a thing yourself, and it’s inspirational and instructional no doubt, to say nothing of fun. We all do it sometimes, like Mom and I and a whole bunch of other people at ACAC did today.

But watching other people do their thing is a quite different than doing your own. Watching other people make their own story too much, instead of making your own, when you could be making your own, is kind of a shame. You get only so many hours each day, only so many days each year, and you don’t know how many days you have, let alone years.

The kids Wendy coaches are not watching videos about synchronized swimming. They are in the water doing it. I love that Wendy is giving them a chance to make their own stories. It doesn’t matter one single bit if any of them makes the news or ends up competing at the master’s level. What matters is that sometime down the road, they get to tell their own story, own their own memories, recall their own experiences. Not someone else’s. Theirs.

Similarly, I love that my sister read a book about straw bale gardening and decided to try it herself. Her vegetables are growing like crazy! I love that my son, who had a dream of building his own unique house, is building it. His pentagonal foundation is in! I love that my neighbor is raising her own pigs, moveable fence and all, so that she can have her own pork. I love that my aunt is going to a workshop to learn to paint pictures even better than she already does.

I love it when people make their own stories, follow their own interests, ignite their own passion, walk their own unboring path. I don’t need to see it on the news. Nearly everyone I know is doing a thing they love whenever they can, within their means, within their ability, inspiring me in different ways, in multiple ways, in spectacular ways. Today I saw mermaids in the water, daring to do something they couldn’t have done last week. What did you see? What did you do?

Funky Eye Patch Makes the Day

July 12, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 1 Comment

There are distinct advantages to growing older. For one thing, you become wise and can dispense your wisdom at will. More so than when you were younger, you can say what you want to say (regardless of how wise it is), you can wear what you want to wear, butter your bread any way you want, disregard consequences, abandon caution, go for broke. As you wish. Let the world think what it wants.

Of course there are downsides to aging as well. Last week while making a bench in the basement with my 80-year-old Uncle Ernie, he said several times (usually after trying to move without the full cooperation of his body), “Don’t get old.”

“What is the alternative?” I said.

Nevertheless he didn’t stay in this chair very long.

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It’s true that in later years the body stops cooperating as well (if it ever did! some would argue). Ernie’s legs don’t necessarily go in the direction he intends. Older people will sometimes tell you about other non-cooperative bodily functions that are best not discussed at the dinner table. (Feel free to tell them when they cross this line.) Sometimes the non-cooperation is gradual as in, “This pan seems heavier than it used to be.” Sometimes the shift is a little more sudden, as in, “Whoa, where did the subtitles go?”

That’s what happened to my mom last week. On Tuesday her vision seemed a little off. She thought maybe her glasses were smudged. She cleaned them and carried on, but felt her vision was still a little off. So she cleaned her glasses again. She played the ignore-it-and-maybe-it-will-go-away game. The next day she was watching a movie and noticed that if she covered her right eye, the subtitles were there as they should be. When she covered her left, they disappeared.

This is a problem. Need to call the eye doctor pronto. The tech to whom she described the situation on Thursday morning advised that she come to the office to be checked. A few hours later the doctor said the words “ophthalmic vein occlusion” in practically the same breath as “I hate it when I see this.” Basically, an important vein in Mom’s eye burst. Then further hemorrhaging happened, and some swelling. Vision was 20/200 in that eye.

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The image on the right is what the wall of the retina should look like (Mom’s left eye). The mountain on the left is the swelling that resulted from this event (right eye).

Not pleasant or comfortable. Definitely scary. We appreciate having good eyes. We want our eyes healthy. The good news is that this is not a disease nor anything degenerative. Sometimes the veins can heal themselves, the doctor said. Sometimes not. In a year your vision could be back to what it was. Or not. Best to see a retina specialist. An appointment was made for Monday morning.

The time between Thursday and Monday was long. Mom experienced disorientation, fatigue, and no small measure of anxiety about the long term prognosis, as would anyone. She slept a lot and mostly stayed in. To help combat the challenge of seeing normally with one eye and very weirdly with the other, her dear friend Jerry got her an eye patch at the local drug store. He got the kind you get at a drug store, black and somewhat conical, presumably to allow you to blink more easily. Mom described it as a falsie. A what? You know, the thing that in other settings has another one next to it and tassels hanging from the points…

The falsie idea sounds good except when you want to wear your glasses. The point sticks out too far. (Some women would kill for this problem, I mean, uh, when the falsie is in its usual place….) After Mom mentioned this problem to me on the phone, I pawed through my scrap fabric boxes and got to work. A few hours later I texted her and asked if I could stop by quickly. I’m sure she was not expecting what I brought, but in the middle of a tough day, it had exactly the effect I hoped for: She laughed and laughed.

I want the world to see how genuine her smile is, how bravely and positively she faced this challenge, how game she was! I tell you, when my mom gets out of the box, she gets out of the box!

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She tried on one after the next and kept on laughing. Jerry got into the act and played right along. They are quite the duo!

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Those are little watermelons on Mom’s – perfect for July, right?

The specialist on Monday was as encouraging as the situation allowed him to be. He gave her a shot to reduce the swelling so the veins can more easily regrow, and explained what she can expect.

On Tuesday we went to Sam’s Club together. Mom wore a patch with no qualms, finding one-eyed navigation easier than the disorientation of using both eyes. Her glasses fit easily over it. She sported the orange flower-power patch on the right. It went with her outfit the best.

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When we returned to her apartment building, we ran into some of her friends in the hallway. They got the story, expressed concern very kindly (“Why do these things have to happen to the good people?”) and then said, “Leave it to you to be so stylish with your patch!” Leave it to Mom to face a difficult situation with humor, grace and determination.

Go, Mom!

Parallels in the Weed World

July 11, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 2 Comments

When I was a kid, my mother used to say she loved gardening because after she got all dirty, she could get all clean. Going from very icky to fresh as a daisy is more thrilling than going from almost fresh to fresh. The same is true for weeding.

Weeding a bed that is overrun (why don’t we call it de-weeding?) has a different, greater level of satisfaction for the weeder once it is decent again. This morning did not turn out to include a train ride to DC and a day with friends as I had hoped, so at 7am I hit the strawberry bed. It was in great need. It was bad.

Do you see strawberry plants in there among those rotten (but thriving!) tall things? See the spikey grass trying to get some sun? This photo doesn’t reveal the half of what was trying to crowd out my precious fruit-bearing plants. The following photo reveals even less, but I am trying to capture the scope of the situation. The strawberry bed is eight 8-foot fencepost-widths long, or about 64 feet.

Before it got too hot, I went to town on the mess. See all that fuzz toward the other end. That’s the really bad part.

While pulling out the Bad, I thought about a few parallels to human life.

The Bad tries to push out the Good. That’s the first thing you notice. I had a lovely strawberry bed earlier this summer which produced lovely strawberries which turned into lovely jam.

The weeds weren’t there then (though now that I think of it I found numerous half-eaten berries out there when I picked them – surely the work of hungry squirrels). Why can’t the weeds just find somewhere else to grow? Why can’t the squirrels eat the gazillion other edible seeds and nuts on this property? Why can’t bad people leave good people alone?

2. The Bad tries to masquerade as the Good, tries to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, tries to fool you as counterfeit among the genuine. The tall, overachiever weeds are obvious, as is the spikey grass, but hidden among the strawberry plants are various weeds trying to look like strawberry plants, trying to infiltrate and blend in – playing their can’t-catch-me game. They think I can’t tell the difference, but pretty doesn’t always win (some of the nasty ones are pretty – does that sound like real life or what?). I’m smarter than that, but they are robust intruders with determined roots that get a foothold in an area by wrapping their strong tentacle-like roots around the (supposed-to-be-there) strawberry roots. I am ruthless. However…

3. You don’t always get all the Bad out. See these horrid little roots?

You can’t get all that. Insidious is the word. The next time they get water from rain or the sprinkler, they will begin to come to life once again, you can bet on it. They keep their agents hidden but ready to pounce at the first opportunity. Sound like anything else in this world?

But someone has to get the bad guys. Whether you are part of crime dramas in real life or you watch them on a screen in your living room, you notice that the detectives and the police have unrelenting obstacles and are perpetually short on time, facts and help. They bumble, they see false clues, they have their own issues that trip them up. Yet they are determined to expose the wrong, get the bad guys and make it right. They keep going. Our military, God bless them, also keep going despite the danger and setbacks. Strong fights strong. What if it didn’t? What if it just said We’ll never obliterate the Bad altogether so why try? But it is also true that…

4. You can’t save all the Good. Some of the good, healthy, wonderful strawberry plants ended up in the wheelbarrow because they were just too entwined with the Bad. In the bigger world, the innocent are often victims for lots of reasons, and you don’t have to look far for examples. Watched The Eichmann Show on Netflix last week – unspeakably horrendous. Follow the news every day and there are always new, sad images. But just because there will be loss, terrible, sorrowful loss sometimes, doesn’t mean you don’t do what you can. The Good has to keep going…

5. Let the exposed part lead you. With some of these weeds, especially where the situation at ground level is rather thick, I start where I can see and work my way down to the base. Then I pull. If you pull too soon, you just break it midway and that’s pointless — the thing will be back in no time. Same for our everyday. Take care of what you can see in front of you as best as you can, and then move on to the next thing. As you make headway, you can see what you couldn’t see before and you have some experience and can do a better job with the next thing. I like how Jordan Peterson puts it: “Clean up your room.” Clean up your own room before you start addressing the ills of the world at large. Do what’s in front of you first. If you can’t get a small thing under control, if you are inept at the small things, what makes you think you can tackle the big things? If you don’t get the weed you can see out of the way, the situation is overwhelming. One thing at a time.

Along the way, surely…

6. You sometimes encounter nice surprises. Some people would say this fellow is a pest and I should relocate him to the woods. I think he’s nice (to say nothing of funny-looking) and I don’t mind him a bit. For the most part my garden plants are in raised beds which he cannot possibly get to. Then again, maybe he is the one who left all the half-eaten (ground-level) strawberries behind!

I went to the garden to weed the strawberry bed. I moved slowly from one end of the bed to the other, mostly on my knees, mostly looking down as the job requires. Sometimes though, you have to stand up to stretch or move to a new space, and then you see things from a different angle, you see the big picture a little better, you see things you didn’t realize were there. Once when I stood up I saw that the lilies had opened! Just yesterday they were still preparing for their grand show. What a nice surprise!

Do stand up and look at things from a different angle sometimes. It’s amazing what another perspective will reveal!

7. Reuse and recycle has all kinds of applications. What did I do with the wheelbarrow full of weeds? Gave it to the chickens! If the chickens could get in my garden (how they would love this!), they would eat a variety of greens – and mostly not the ones I want them to eat of course. But they do love greens. And they are discerning enough to pass by the less desirables. So I gave it all to them, and I expect they quickly found the good stuff, including forfeit strawberry plants, the ones that were growing in the path or too entangled with weeds. And they have something to play around with for a while. Maybe a worm or two got transferred as well. Happy, happy chickens!

When the weeds were mostly out (I say mostly because I am not anal about such things) I went and got the old towels and sheets that would serve as a barrier between the earth and the mulch I planned to put in the path to help prevent future weeds. This was another good re-use because what else am I going to do with all those old things? (And again thank you, Bertie!) I started laying them out and guess what I discovered?

8. There’s a comedian in every bunch! As soon as I laid a towel down, Coco appeared out of nowhere.

What? she says, Is there a problem here? I proceeded to lay out the rest of my cloths and she held her ground, snoozing happily away.

I said to myself, How long will she stay there? How much mulch does it take for her to get the idea to move? You tell me:

Okay, a little more. Don’t let me disturb your beauty sleep.

Fine, then she just moves over to the next bit of soft.

Coming closer, still no concern.

Hey, trying to relax here!

There really is no choice, sweetie pie. You have to move.

Of course she finally did.

9. Sometimes you are the only one who sees the difference. I know that the world is not going to come to an end if I don’t get my strawberry bed weeded. But I’m glad it is, and it’s a far sight better than it was yesterday.

P.S. The tall plants in the foreground are rhubarb. They do belong there.

Pigs in the Backyard

July 10, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 1 Comment

First of all, not my backyard. Not my front yard. Nor my side yard. Nor my woods. To anyone who knows me: Don’t worry. I do not have pigs and I am not getting pigs. I do like pork though, and thank God some people want to raise them. There is a fabulous little breakfast place on 2nd Street in downtown Charlottesville called Bluegrass Grill. The first time I went in there I knew I’d love it because the staff wore t-shirts with “Don’t Worry, We Have Bacon” on the back. They even have bacon jam! It’s on a menu item called Smokey Joe, and available in little jars too, to take home. You want to try this, believe me.

My neighbor Tracy has pigs in her backyard, two of them this year. They are gilts, not barrows, which I learned from her means female, not male. These are fine gilts, each about 80 pounds now in early July. They will get to be about 300 pounds by the time their short but wonderful life is over.

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Pigs love acorns, and acorns make very good pork. If you are going to raise pigs for meat, you had best put them where they can eat acorns. Tracy’s pigs live on prime real estate:

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What you see is a fenced enclosure skirting the tree line. Those are mature oaks producing a feast of acorns for two constantly-eating pigs. Here, have some more, I imagine the oak trees saying to the hungry pigs during a rainstorm or a windstorm when their acorns rain down. What do I need with all these acorns? Every few days, or however often she deems it time, Tracy moves the fence along the tree line, which is not as problematic as you might think. The fencing comes in 100-foot lengths and has stiff uprights every ten feet or so with sharp points you can poke into the ground.

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The beauty of the system is that she can make the fence any shape, she can go around or in front of trees or other immovable objects in the landscape, and she can contain the pigs in one part of it while moving another part. There is a solar-powered electric zapper around the perimeter to keep them from trying to escape, but seriously, if you were these pigs, you would not want to escape.

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They have sun, shade, mud to wallow in, a terrific bath for cooling off, acorns galore, bugs, grass, leftovers. Pigs’ noses are as sensitive as our fingertips so they find the best food even among the rocks, sticks and other natural inedibles.

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I met Tracy a few years ago after she and her husband moved in. We all have our busy lives – work, family, meals, rest, projects, outings – and I hardly saw her until a month ago or so when I needed eggs. What? I needed eggs?? I have 27 chickens in my coop and I needed eggs?

Chickens don’t start laying until they are 4-6 months old and mine hatched in early March. That makes them four months old now. I know I will be inundated soon, but I’m not yet, and I wasn’t a month ago. Tracy has 14 chickens I think, and I was happy to pay her for some. A couple weeks later she asked if I wanted some for free because she was about to be overrun. I gladly took them and gave her a jar of my homemade strawberry jam in return. She mentioned the pigs, and I said Can I come see them sometime?

There are pigs practically in my backyard! I did not see the ones she had last year, nor the previous year. I did not see this year’s until I needed eggs. I could have bought eggs at the supermarket but farm eggs are better. Most people know this. I’m so glad I needed eggs, contacted Tracy and got hers. She’s really nice, and now, besides getting great eggs, I have met her pigs, toured her garden, borrowed a book (Edible Landscaping by Michael Judd) and lent a book (Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier – she will love the chapter with the hog). I laughed when I asked her what those tall pretty flowers in her garden were and she said, “tall pretty flowers.” (None of us have to know everything!)

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I got two bunches of wild onions for my woodland garden (aren’t they beautiful?!) and learned something about raised bed berms – and she told me I am welcome to come get rocks for my stream bed. If you had six feet of stream bed left to lay and you saw all the rocks in Tracy’s field and you could go collect them, I bet you would, just like I am going to. Right?

Maybe today is a good day to contact a neighbor of yours. Maybe you don’t need eggs, but you can connect or reconnect for some other reason. Chances are good you have a neighbor who is really nice too, maybe someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Maybe your neighbor is on the shy side or otherwise hesitant to call you but would welcome a friendly hello.

Maybe your neighbor doesn’t have pigs (okay, most likely your neighbor doesn’t have pigs), but you will find something very cool to talk about anyway. And you might learn something, or exchange funny stories, or find something in common that you didn’t know about before. And it will be a better day.

The Purpose of a Dropcloth and What Dogs Do Well

July 9, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / Leave a comment

You thought I was kidding about the bench, right? Nope. Just yesterday morning, my Airbnb guests – on their own – went out to visit the chickens and take their own photos of the ridiculous birds. Can’t you just imagine the smaller one on the left saying to the one front and center: Hey, sister, I wouldn’t say this in front of the others but I need to tell you, that spikey look really isn’t working for you. Maybe try a new a shampoo?

It thrills me to see people having fun and admiring the chickens. (Perhaps they are not admiring, perhaps they are pooh-poohing. That woman thinks these birds are interesting? Pretty starved for good entertainment, wouldn’t you say?) Well, you think what you want to think and I will think what I want to think. Guests from Ohio earlier this week left a note that said, “We loved being secluded in the woods, watching the trees sway in the wind and admiring the beautiful chickens.” See? Admiring.

Some admirers will stand and stare, or walk all around the perimeter, or scooch down and get face to face. I found guests earlier this week standing right in the coop with them. She held one of the pretty ones, smiled hugely (the woman, not the chicken), while he took her picture. They left a note behind that said, “We love your feathered friends in the coop next door.” The one before that said, “So nice meeting you and hanging with the chickens!”

Some guests will want to sit, to admire from a fixed spot, to ponder the multiple ways a simple egg-laying bird can move and contort its funny little body or peck at a bug, or they might imagine the chickens’ conversations with each other, their hierarchies, their vanities, their grooming techniques (how will she get those spikes clean?).

The sitters would want a bench for all that. Maybe they would even bring their coffee out there with them in the morning, and sip and stare at the same time. The more I thought of this, the more I thought that a 4×6 on its side as the top of the retaining wall, practical and unobtrusive as that is, might not fit the bill entirely. A bench would be better.

My Uncle Ernie and Aunt Vivian called a few weeks ago to plan a visit. I had not seen them in a few years and was very much looking forward to the visit. Ernie is an extraordinary woodworker, and I mean fine woodworking. The craftsmanship and expertise behind his own beautiful kitchen cabinetry, and what he has made for his children, to say nothing of his wood carvings, leaves no doubt. He has the right tools, he knows how to use them, and he has been practicing for years. I think he easily fits Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule from the book Outliers: Over the course of time, if you been passionately engaged for a total of 10,000 hours or more honing a skill or developing a craft or being deeply, technically and seriously involved in a specific subject, you are likely in the upper echelon of experts in that field. This applies to playing the violin, writing computer code and fine woodworking just the same. You don’t get to be an expert unless you put in the time.

You see where I’m going, right? By contrast, when it comes to woodworking, I am almost completely a novice. I know what a router does, I understand the value of built things being square, level and plumb, I have a healthy respect for any tool with sharp teeth that rotates at 30,000 rpm’s. But as my guests from this past week will tell you, there is a difference between watching the chickens from outside the fence and getting in there and picking them up. Other than being the gopher, the tidy-upper, the drink-fetcher, the supply-orderer and the holder of things in place while someone else uses the power tool to secure it, I have not been as involved in construction projects. All right, I’ve dug a lot of dirt, moved a lot of rocks, and sanded and painted and stained. I’ve even zip-stripped – which is not as exotic as it sounds!

So my expert woodworker uncle is coming to visit for two days. I want a bench for my chicken coop viewing area. Now surely you see where I’m going. I asked him if he would guide me through the building of a simple one, at least to the point where it is together and all that remains is the finish sanding and painting, which I can confidently do. I told him I would follow his instructions, do what he said. If your uncle looked like this, you would do what he said too.

Just kidding, Ernie. He really is a great guy. Some people can reinforce how amateurish you feel or make you feel like the subject at hand is overwhelmingly difficult and you really should leave it to the experts. Just buy a bench, right? But Ernie didn’t do either of those unhelpful things. He walked me (he didn’t rush me) through every step and couched all of his technique demonstrations with: Let me show you why this way is better, or What you need to remember is… or Look how easy this makes it. He was patient with my ignorance but kept things moving all day. Goofy is also in his repertoire.

Before they left, the base was together and the top slats were ripped. I learned how to use the table saw and a biscuit joiner and how to get the same exact length of board as many times as I need. (You want the legs to all be the exact same length, think about it.) I glued in the biscuits per his instructions using the right amount of glue and a cheap tiny paint brush and he showed me how to make two shorter bar clamps do the work of one longer one. I understand better how to allow for the width of the saw blade when using the chop saw.

In the end, the vertical pieces are strongly secured to the horizontal ones. We flipped the base right side up, put the slats on it loosely and made sure that three people will be able to sit on this bench and watch chickens. Or sit in the basement and pose for the camera.

That’s Aunt Vivian, an artist in her own right. She kindly brought me this beautiful painting she did herself. There’s a lot of talent in that family!

We said good-bye and I routed the long edges of the slats and legs and any other part of the put-together bench base where the edge of the wood needed softer corners, then hauled it all up to the deck on the back of the house for finish sanding and painting. The sawhorses and drop cloth were still there from when I had given all the boards a first coat before Ernie and Vivian came.

What I did not anticipate was the involvement of the dog.

Coco misses Samuel, who went off to San Francisco to seek his future, so she sticks to me. Where I go, she goes. Last week I set things up to spray paint a metal table base. I set up a cloth out to the side, special for her, away from the work area. Heaven forbid she should have to lay on the mulch.

Next thing I knew, she was off her designated spot, nearer my work space, not a good place for her. You see how close to my space I had placed her space? But no, come closer, be under foot. That’s a thing dogs do well.

She did the same when it came to the bench on the deck. All that deck to lay on (not even mulch under her delicate little limbs!). But no, under foot again.

The drop cloth laying on the deck under the saw horses has a piece of plastic under it because (you may recall) my friend Fred recently power washed the deck. Let us safeguard our assets. I now have a clean deck and want to keep it that way. Someone else (a smarter person) would have put down (and would have advised anyone else to put down) a bigger piece of plastic and a bigger drop cloth, covering more surface area against the possibility of paint randomly flying off the brush and landing outside the protected area, but I am a risk-taker as well as a careful painter, and was impatient to get going, and did not do this. (This scenario is not as risky as it looks. That bench was more to the left when I painted it and was moved to the right when I was not painting it. Slats also came more toward the center for the actual painting. When they are drying I don’t care. I did work over top the cloth, really I did!)

Now look carefully, kitty-corner behind Coco’s right shoulder. That is a drop of red paint from the bench above. (I know, I know, it could have so landed easily on the deck instead, and I have such a pathetically small drop cloth under that work area. Do not chide me. This is about the dog now.)

This drop of paint is a problem why? Here’s what happens when the dog goes to move to another underfoot spot:

Do you envision little red marks all over my deck? I do. I did. So I cleaned up that paw and my deck was saved. This time. I know, I could put her in the house. I should put her in the house. Why can’t I just put her in the house? Take a look at her face again. That’s why.

Morning Bumbles

July 8, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 1 Comment

I play tennis on Sunday mornings with Scott, Cheryl and Pat. It is possible that we talk as much as we play, but I have never timed the breaks between every other game and every set, so I can’t know for sure. Nobody seems to mind, and we learn a lot about each other and our families, and of course solve the problems of the world every week.

Here we are after this week’s three sets:

Pat opened today with a doozy of a story about what happened at her house this morning. She was preparing her morning coffee — feeling a little fuzzy-headed yet, it being so early — at the same time as she was looking for her cell phone. “I can never find my phone,” she said. Bumbling around, still half dazed, her routine is to zap her coffee in the microwave for 30 seconds, which is what she thought she had done. Thirty seconds isn’t very long, but at the end of it, there was a bad smell and she opened the microwave to discover her melted cell phone in there!

This is what NOT to do, even when you don’t want to talk 🙂

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Scott said his morning wasn’t quite that bad, but when he went to get his coffee, which he prepares in the drip maker the night before, he said to himself, “I wonder if I remembered to put the coffee in.” When he got to the kitchen he discovered that he had indeed not remembered to put the coffee in, nor the water (!), which of course did not result in a cup of coffee at his usual time.

I am a tea drinker, and often use a terrific little strainer that my sister Lynn got me. It sits in the cup. You put the loose tea leaves in it and pour the water over the top. Then you can take out the strainer and the leaves come with it. Left behind in your cup is the hot drink that has been my steadiest companion for years.

Only today I poured the hot water into the cup without the strainer in it. Dope. So I got the strainer and the tin of loose tea and put a spoonful of leaves into the hot water in my cup and put the strainer in after that. A lot of good the strainer does if the tea leaves are not in it!

The leaves float to the top, so if the leaves are in the strainer it will not look like this:

It will look like this:

Cheryl said she went to feed the dog and found herself pouring Cheerios into his bowl!

We told those stories, cracked up and started hitting balls to warm up. The weather was perfect, low 80s, sunny, light breeze. We then played three sets of really good tennis, lots of great shots, close games and good points. We did what people around the world do every single day, and what every sensible person should do: Do not let your morning bumbles get in the way of your fun!

Scrap Wood Unwasted, a.k.a. Cheap Runs Deep, Part 2

July 7, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / 1 Comment

In the beginning was the idea to build a new chicken coop. This was because certain (unnamed, and possibly including myself) people had gotten overexcited about the idea of chicks and bought sooooo many there had to be two separate enclosures in the basement. They were awfully cute back then.

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Of course they got bigger and the basement started to smell. Getting them outside sooner rather than later kept us working as often as weather and time allowed.

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The coop took shape. Chickens need to scratch around outside too, so there would have to be an outdoor enclosure (a run). But it turned out that the one set of basement chicks was growing at the speed of light, far outpacing the other set and looking gigantic in comparison.

Chickens are nasty, you know. Integrating one flock with another often leads to shows of blood. Pecking order is a very real thing. Peck, peck, peck on the back of the neck. Big over little. Strong over weak. Murder happens. I have seen this. It’s not pretty. Mine were used to their separate spaces. Keeping the giants separate from the dwarfs would be the best approach.

So okay, two coops, two runs – adjacent but with a chicken wire fence between them. Is this unreasonable yet?

It got to where there were two sets of doors, leading into one run and the other, with a concrete (soon to be brick) entrance. That’s all there was going to be at first, just a flat, sweepable way in. That garden bench was still there at that time (fancy table too, huh? cinder blocks and a piece of 2×8). I had been sick and it was nice to have a place to sit down, and then when I felt better it was too heavy for me to move by myself and not really in the way… yet…so it just stayed there.

Clearly we already had some bricks for that area in front of the doors. Clearly not enough. There is a salvage place in Louisa that I had never been to before and will never go to again, but they did have bricks, and I bought as many as would reasonably fit in my Prius. At 20 cents a piece I deemed it worth the trip. These still were not enough, but that problem would wait for another day.

Set the bricks aside and ponder. Sit on the bench and stare. Cute chicks. Darn slope. From the top of the old coop’s stoop to the height of a brick on the concrete was 14”, way too high a step. Someone would surely get hurt if I didn’t do something about that. Plus the mulch would wash over the bricks every time it rained, the run would get the overflow water and it would all be a mucky mess.

There had to be a way to terrace the land right there. One way or another it had to be leveled out. I started digging without much of a plan in mind, which I realize has the potential to be problematic. But I was feeling stronger after having been sick for a month and was happy to be strong enough to dig. First I took out the old coop’s stoop.

Once I did that I was committed so I just kept digging.

All the while I’m thinking vaguely This has to be flat. So I kept digging. It is hard to think deep thoughts when you are busy digging. I realize that following a plan has merits when doing a project but sometimes I just keep going. When I got it dug out, I had a flat and reasonably level space with a new drop-off, this one at the front corner of the old coop. Some kind of retaining wall would solve the problem, would be obvious enough that people wouldn’t trip on it. Plus it would keep the water away from that area. I played around with some very heavy concrete blocks that are made for retaining walls, but they were too unwieldy and I couldn’t make them fit in the tight corner. Also they were kind of ugly.

A deck then. It has to be a deck. That would tie the coops together, make a bigger clean space for approaching (and viewing!) my peaceful (non-murderous-because-they-are-separate) chickens and fit the setting better than concrete.

This, however, is where it is going to look funky to those of you who have ever made a deck of any kind. What on earth is she doing with all those short, scrap pieces of 4×4 and 4×6? Bear with me here. This is not as crazy as it looks!

What I was doing was using the shorter pieces to get my trench level and prepared. Truly I was, but I also stupidly thought I could actually use them there. Sandy took one look at that and said Uh, no. I didn’t yet have the longer 4x4s that you see up and to the right, which he insisted were a necessity. I so wanted to use up all that scrap wood! No, he said, you have to have solid pieces on the sides.

But okay, once the solid sides were in and once they were solidly joined to each other making a solid frame around the whole thing, the rows in the middle would still need wood to screw the decking boards into. I had an itch to scratch, you see, and by golly I was going to use those shorter pieces! End to end, snug in against each other and against the outside framework, c’mon, this works. Then once you screw in the boards from the top, those babies aren’t going anywhere. The ground is hard pack clay (like concrete if you are familiar with Virginia “soil”). And this method does not require me to throw the scrap away (they are pressure treated and can’t be burned) and I had to buy a little less wood (thank you, Bertie!). In the end it looked like this — perfectly solid and perfectly wide for every screw from above to find a home.

The landscape fabric and sand that ended up on top of these should have been put down below them, I know, but by the time I got all this in place, and level and square, I wasn’t moving anything again. I have my limits after all. So the fabric went on top, then sand, then I punched a bunch of holes in it for rain to get to the earth a little more easily. I didn’t want little pools of water under the deck for the mosquitoes to breed in.

For the retaining wall side we used two 4x4s on top of each other, connected with timberlock screws, plus a topmost 4×6 on its side to serve as a somewhat more comfortable seat. You can sit on it and look at chickens. You would want to do that, right? You would want to if you saw my chickens.

Then came the fun part, laying the decking boards. I got real comfortable with the cordless screwdriver I got for Christmas (the one that got lost for six months, but that is another story). There were a lot of screws. This is grunt work. I see why the new guys get the grunt work.

With a few more bricks from Lowe’s I figured out how to make them all fit without cutting any, which was a relief because believe me, it was time to have this project be finished!

This is the whole picture now, viewing deck ready for guests (and do they ever use it!), solar lanterns up, solar panels in place to power the chandeliers inside the coops, flower pots to look pretty, fluffy chickens showing off. The only thing left is the siding, but I am content to wait for that to be milled.

The topmost 4×6 on the long retaining wall works as a seat for me, but maybe not for everyone. Anyway now that I am so experienced, I think I’ll make a bench besides…

A Chicken Coop With a Viewing Area?

July 6, 2018November 16, 2018 / eponine3 / Leave a comment

Building a new chicken coop was, all by itself, quite an undertaking. You’ve had those projects too perhaps, the ones you think will take a weekend. Ha! This project started at the beginning of April when the chicks were one month old, still under the heat lamp in the basement, still cute. Three weeks later the new coop was skinned but not yet roofed, covered to protect it from the rain, and connected to the old coop only by the framework for the doors that would lead into each run. I had only the murkiest of thoughts as to what this area would look like in the end.

It’s hard to see in this photo, but if you look at the stoop of the old coop, you can see how the land slopes toward the left. That sloping would mean mud and yuck under the feet of the chickens in their run if rainwater continually washed in that direction. So I thought — and this is as far as I thought at this time, really, though perhaps those bricks might have chimed in, the ones holding down the black plastic around the fresh concrete securing those posts – How about let’s make a bricked area just outside the doors? That will allow for easier access when we have to get a wheelbarrow inside to clean up or get just ourselves inside to feed the silly birds. At that point I had no idea what was going to happen with the old stoop, and didn’t want to disturb it. The simplest thing seemed to be to dig out the area defined by the three posts with bricks around them (you can imagine the fourth corner).

This wasn’t as hard as digging the post holes for the run because 1. There were not as many roots here and 2. I didn’t have to go as deep.

There were ten 50-lb bags of cement sitting on the pallet in the woods behind the run, all that was left after we had filled all the post holes (we had mixed up 20 bags already). I have no idea why I figured that ten had to be enough, but I did, and it was. The last weekend of April I felt really tired, but the forecast for the coming week said we would finally have day after day of sunshine, so it made sense to push through and get it poured so it could set.

Chicks Rule indeed! (though no one else will ever see that). When I scratched that message in, I didn’t know I was getting sick, so this concrete pad was pretty much the last thing I did for a month except take a photo occasionally of the progress Sandy was making on the construction of the coop, which was great. I think I laid these bricks in, just to see how well they fit. But I am not sure.

How fun it was when Brad, Beth and little Piper came for a visit!

All chicks were outside by now. In the photo above you can see that the ones getting huge were confined to the old coop, and in the photo below you can sort of see the smaller ones confined to underneath the new coop. At least they were out of the basement! The predator who unsuccessfully tried to dig under the fence to get to them made me get a little overprotective (just a little) and ask Sandy to put those boards and cinder blocks in its way, should it decide to try again. (Let it just try!)

May was a beautiful month all in all, and Sandy moved right along, first by checking the fit of the metal roof panels…

… then by skinning the roof….

(In the photo below it’s a little clearer how the land slopes. See the difference in elevation between the top of the old coop’s stoop and the concrete pad below? It’s a drop of about 14″. The wheels in my mind were turning every time I looked at that slope: It’s going to be a muddy, mulchy mess every time it rains.)

…then by papering the roof (which I’m sure is not how you say it).

Then Sandy got the new red panels on (matching the old coop – thankfully they had the same color still available after seven years). I vaguely remember standing next to the concrete pad, holding the first one in place on that side while he stood on a ladder and screwed it in. Once the first one is in, the others are easy because the panels have grooves that fit, one on top of the one before. “Easy” is a relative term.

That’s Coco under the brooding boxes with chicks behind her. All you had to say to her, even while she slept soundly (which she did, quite often, next to me on the couch), was Wanna go see the chicks? And she hopped to!

But see how muddy and yucky it looks there after it rained?

It’s fascinating to me how things evolve. As it turned out I was quite sick during the month of May. I didn’t drive for at least two weeks and spent a lot of time indoors resting. But I would wander out there sometimes, looking at that slope, looking at that mud, thinking This is not okay, something has to be done here. There was no thought of a viewing area, I assure you, just thoughts of slope, mud and a way to get a wheelbarrow in there.

One sunny day Sandy put a camp chair out there for me so I could sit and watch at least, and then when Bradley came they brought that bench from the garden. Chicks were still underneath because the fencing of the runs was not yet finished, but progress is evident: ridge cap, doors, brooding box shingles, etc.

I sat on the bench. It was nice to watch the chicks, nice to be where the coop-building action was. I sat there a lot, too sick to help, though thankfully this was before the flying, biting insects came out in full force.

Without planning it that way, I had myself a bona fide viewing area. A viewing area is a good idea for me, for my Airbnb cottage guests, for friends, for family who come to visit….

Cheap Runs Deep

July 4, 2018July 28, 2018 / eponine3 / Leave a comment

People often don’t know how they touch the world, what kind of mark they make that others notice and perhaps admire or emulate. My friend Kim’s dad was a make-do sort of man. I admired him greatly for many other reasons before I knew this about him, and when Kim reminded me not long ago that he would always find a way to use what he already had, which I do myself whenever I can, I felt proud to share a good trait with a great man.

The first time I realized I was being like Bertie in this way was when I was making war with weeds this spring. Well, maybe not war, but as much as possible, I was determined not to let them get the upper hand this year, especially in the paths between the raised beds in the vegetable garden. I have piles of mulch right now from when two big trees were taken down in the winter. It’s just sitting there, asking to be useful. Asking in its own way.

That empty middle section was as big and deep as the piles on either side of it.

Before I made (many) trips back and forth from the pile to the garden, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of mulch, I put down some very expensive landscape fabric (that had been kindly given to me) as a barrier between the dirt and the mulch. Weeds would pop through in no time if I didn’t. (Note what happened in the planter box of yesterday’s post – oh, that’s what I can do! I’ll make a barrier against the aliens!)

This was a good plan until that roll of very expensive landscape fabric ran out and I was in the middle of the job and rather grubby and quite unwilling to go to the store, even if I was willing to spend the money, which, despite my understanding of the need for such a thing, at that moment I wasn’t.

Barrier, I need a barrier.

You know that little birdie that sits on your shoulder sometimes and whispers good advice in your ear? (And you either listen or don’t, depending on the day’s measure of good sense vs. stubbornness?) Well suddenly the little birdie was Bertie, and I heard, “All those old cotton sheets you have in the basement, those old towels… they would serve….”

Indeed they are as good a barrier as anything. Water can get through them but weeds can’t, they will break down just the same over time and didn’t cost anything, and I didn’t have to go anywhere to get them except the basement! (And now I have a solution to the alien invasion besides!)

You’d never know it, but the part right between the bench and the bed with the lemon grass behind it has old sheets and towels under the mulch 😊

Some weeks later I decided that the two chicken coops needed a deck between them. You might have seen previously how this looked as a finished project (finished except for the siding on the new coop, which I am still waiting for):

In the next few posts, as I go through the steps it took to get to this pretty picture, I’ll show what’s under those nice deck boards, and you will see that Bertie was whispering in my ear once again.

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