Are We Open Yet?
Part 24
I have removed myself from social media for a month. Maybe longer. There is too much anger, blame and fear surrounding our current situation. I don’t need to be a part of it. I’ve got stuff to do, man!
As far as the title of this blog post goes, no, we are not open yet. But that’s okay. There’s still a lot to do before I can make the house into the experience I want it to be. I have been chipping away at it after work, on days off, anytime I can. I finally got the bed base made in the second bedroom. Two down, one to go. I like the blue front room. The light is really nice and there is a window facing south and another facing east. I put one of the old floorcloths from the attic into that room. It’s the room my cat now prefers to sleep in. It’s not yet dressed. That’ll come last.
The third bedroom is a bit of a stockpile of tools, paint and equipment. I am looking forward to getting the floor sanded and the walls painted. This room is the master bedroom. It is the only room (besides mine) that has a closet. The wallpaper has already been mostly removed, and some of the walls have already been mudded. My work is practically done! The wall facing you as you walk in, is down to the bare plaster in one part and has the remainder of some of the oldest wallpaper in the shape of what used to be a window. I makes sense that there would have been a window there. The original house was quite symmetrical, so it would have been like the blue front bedroom across the hall. I really like this wall, as is, and I think I may leave it…
I’ve not had to water my garden for the entire month of July and into August. It has been divine. Lots of rain, and lots of heat. The garden has been growing like crazy and looks so beautiful. I’m sure I’ve been heard talking to my plants, I try to give them each a word or a touch, at least once a day. The cumin didn’t make it. Apparently, I was not mean enough. I’ll try again next year. The black beans are such a joy, with their always-the-same-size pairs hanging under the top leaves all the way to the ground. I eat them green for a little while, as they come out before the pole beans, and then I let the rest dry.
I have to admit, I have never tried any other method of preserving food than drying herbs or freezing vegetables. Until recently, that is. I spent a day last week trying the first 12 jars of preserves. I canned 8 jars of zucchini pickles, cucumber pickles, pickled scallopini, zucchini, onions and garlic cloves. And I tried fermenting for the first time.
I went to a fermentation workshop once, when I lived in Squamish. My friend Peter and I went to the Brennan Park Community Centre, and watched a couple of women make ferments. We were taking notes, but we ended up the bad kids in class who spent their time writing messages back and forth, commenting on one of the instructors, and on the way she said her ‘s’s when she said “sauerkraut”. We exploded in silent laughter every time she said the word.
So yes, I’ve been burping my ferments every day and they smell good. At some point I think I have to put them somewhere cool so they stop. Oh geez, I didn’t think of that. What if they keep on fermenting and fermenting and burping their sour juices to the point that when you walk in my house, it’ll be like when I was tutoring my friend Cristin’s son in Math. It seemed every Tuesday without fail, I would steam broccoli for dinner. Kaelan would come in and I would smell our house through the open door. The smell of a cooked cabbage type vegetable. Kinda stinky. I am half Slovak after all.
Shortly, I’ll be up to my ears in tomatoes as well. I’m excited to set up a pantry with all my preserved foods in the basement. Then it’ll feel like a true farmhouse.
Did I mention the basement? While all of this rain has done wonders for the garden, it has meant that the lack of eavestroughs on the house has allowed all of the rain to run straight down beside the foundation. And has been for years and years and years and years. So not only is the house sinking in on one side, the basement gets very wet. It comes through the walls and the floor. Initially, I swept the water into the sump pump well and tried to pump it out, but because I hadn’t yet gotten to cleaning out the basement, there was so much fine dirt swept into the sump pump well along with the water that it has now likely clogged the sump pump.
I was reminded of the days before the move here and the basement flood that almost sent me over the top, as I sopped up as much water as I could with a cloth. I left the basement door hatch open to the outside, hoping some airflow would help. After some research on what to do about a wet basement, I knew a dehumidifier was in order.
Those things are expensive. Canadian Tire was having a small sale on them, so I made a plan to drive to Yarmouth and get one. Almost an hour there, and almost an hour back, and I came home with six more lemon balm plants that were on clearance, two pots of red grasses and a fan, because I waffled on the price of the dehumidifier. When I got home and set up the fan, I knew I had to go back and get the dehumidifier. The next day, another hour there and hour back, with the dehumidifier, two stevia plants, and four variegated english ivy, I cursed myself for not just getting it the first time.
It has been a good purchase, I think. It works. I am not looking forward to my next electric bill as I know these things run like air conditioners. Ka-ching.
Oh, I hung a shelf that I’ve been meaning to hang. For way too long, the shelf, my drill, anchors brackets and screws sat at the front door waiting to be dealt with. Finally, I did it. Anchored to paneling (I didn’t feel the resistance of any paster or lath underneath), It seems to be ok. The shelf came from my next door neighbour Neil, or more accurately, from a fallen down shed on his property. Barn board, if you will. I was given a circular mirror when I bought an antique dresser from Facebook marketplace. $25 for the dresser and they didn’t want the mirror either, which wasn’t part of the dresser, so they gave it to me. Lets just hope nobody decides to use that shelf as a rail to hold onto. That mirror is pretty heavy already…
On my way home from the grocery store the other day, it was a foggy day and I had the urge to go to Crows Neck Beach, down the street from my house. I realized, I haven’t been to the beach even once this summer. For all of July I was sick from that stupid tick bite, and now in August I’ve just been catching up. So I went to the beach and I walked from end to end. It took me 45 minutes. There were so many piping plovers, an endangered bird, and protected in these areas, as this is their nesting ground. It was really sweet to see the babies, hopping about on one leg and all of them moving as one toward this parent or that parent. The fog was beautiful. The horizon ended just a couple of waves out and the monochrome quality of the day made the seaweed on the sand pop like colourful sculptures. Such beautiful colours and interesting shapes. I am so lucky to be here, to see this.
Today, I spent the day cleaning the living room windows. I went outside and unscrewed the storm windows so I could take them off and clean in between. Years of trapped dirt, and spiders who had made homes and moved many times. The panes were so dirty that you really couldn’t see outside all that clearly. It was so hot, but the mosquitos have loved this wet weather and have been out in droves, so I had to wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
The first three windows were kind of a breeze. Unscrew, take storm pane off, scrape loose paint, brush cobwebs, vacuum, wash frame, clean glass, and assess what repairs need to be made. I would like to re-glaze all of the downstairs windows this year, and caulk and seal so that I am not losing as much heat through the windows when the cold weather sets in. The fourth window was around the side and was the same as the first three. The fifth and seventh windows were a different kind of storm window frame, and it looked like the only way to get it off was by taking the entire frame off. I wasn’t prepared to do that just then, so I skipped them. It was almost time to eat anyways. I picked a bunch of beans, and a scallopini squash from the garden, and went inside to make dinner.
Next: Beans Coming Out of My Ears
Notes from the Edge of the World 