Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

Snow Friday and Saturday nights, mostly melting by early morning.

Ji-kitty has spring fever, and has twice in the last week "hunted" all the mousies from the basket in the living room and left them on the bedroom floor or in the hall.

The daffodils in the front flowerbed have mostly bloomed. There's a second wave of buds, but I think those are mostly the double flowering ones. They're getting really clumped together, and I should dig them up and redistribute them this fall. (I was going to do it last year, but my thumb got so sore that I couldn't.)

The peony and iris stems are a few inches tall, and growing pretty well; the giant crocuses have mostly finished blooming (flower lifespan shortened by snow and cold rain); the old "dutch" hyacinths are budding and flowering; many of the roses we moved last year have teeny leafs starting, etc.

J put the pond pump in last weekend, and I've had to do some reconfiguring of settled rocks so that the water isn't leaking out the sides, rather than going down the rill. The birdies appreciate the running water, and I see them bathing in it when it's not raining/cold.

We are in the beginning stages of replacing the furnace & AC units, and have had both the electric and gas companies in to do a free basic Home Energy Assessment. Got a new showerhead and bathroom faucet aerators, and nine(!) candelabra base dimmable LED bulbs for the dining room chandelier, and a few feet of water pipe insulation for the water heater. And a recommendation for more insulation in the attic, with the proviso that we talk to an insulation expert about proper venting, because thicker insulation will block the vents we have now.

essentially.

DB is over his cold and extractions are healed. whee!

I'm still in the thumb splint; still do something to make it hurt 4-5 times a day. I have emailed People in the band to let them know that I won't be back until 14 Jan, best case, and much more likely that it'll be March before I can play again.

J wandered off to Isher last weekend, and has "movie night" tonight, so still no workroom access. Tomorrow I have a lunch meeting, and he's making noises about having the painting done by the time I get home from that. Still will be a day or so after the painting is done before I can move the shelves back and reclaim the workroom -- he needs to wash the floor before I move the shelves back. so maybe next weekend.

I got a new chair for the den. The old recliner (bought shortly after we moved out here, so it's nearly 25), had gotten uncomfortable enough for me that I didn't like sitting in it, so I replaced it. The recliner went down into J's lab as a TV chair. I've mentioned repeatedly (and recently) that the it was a bit wobbly and needed to be tightened. J and DB got it into the lab space, and J says "hey, this chair is wiggly". um. yeah?

The new chair didn't go with the old rug (which we got from Nana when she moved to Dearborn because it went with the recliner); so I ordered a new rug, which goes much better. (and incidentally, coordinates with the rugs in the dining room and in the hall. Not intentional, but I'll take it.) Not sure what I'll do with the old rug - right now, it's rolled up in the corner in the basement.

The ceiling fan in the upstairs hall is operational for the most part. The louvers do not open all the way due to an installer error, so that will be fixed, after the bookshelf rebuild is done. J realised that one of the reasons it was hot upstairs was the heat pouring in through the built-in bookshelves (insulation+panel, but no drywall or moisture barrier), so they got stripped and ripped out, an actual wall will be built, and the shelves replaced in front of the wall. Meanwhile, there's 80 linear feet of books stacked in the nook, under where the fan went in. I guess it's a good time to thin the herd some more.

The flowers have really started to bloom -- the red and white peonies are blooming heavily. They're really sagging this year - I think they grew too fast and the flowers are really big, so the stems aren't quite strong enough to hold them up. The 'red' peonies (more of a magenta) are fading very prettily in the sun. The pink-to-white range of daisies is in full bloom, and the red columbine is flowering. The blue one is down to a single leaf - I don't know why. The tall crown imperials in the E garden got swallowed by the daisies before they bloomed this year, and I should probable move them in the fall. The white irises are blooming, as are many of the flowers in the 'wildflower' section of the garden. There's a lupine-y looking thing that I think will be this year's recipient of the "I don't remember planting this" award. I have been weeding all over the yard, so much that my hands hurt from grabbing and pulling. Disassembling a rose didn't help.

J and I spent much of the Memorial Day weekend moving the 20 year old rosebush that was far too close to the deck. We dug a trailer load of compost into a cleared area (spade fork for the win!), and J started digging out some of the outside clumps of the rosebush. After digging around the bush and getting 8-10 decent size canes out, J decided it was time to get the heavy equipment to pull out the center. An hour later, and multiple goes at it with the lawnmower and the car, we had an over 4' diameter root ball yanked out. We wiggled out half a dozen long root+cane sections and planted them. Then the rains came, and that was the end of that. The thunder didn't start until we had finished planting the 4' long root section we were working on, at which point we came in. And it *rained* - 2" in 2 hours or so. Sunday I went out and filled up the area that J had dug out. There's still a good 30% of the rosebush by the deck, but I think it's just going to go into the burn pile, unless J decides to just dig it out and plop it into holes in the easement and see what happens.

Monday I wandered off to the Brigadoon band in Franklin. DB did not come with, as an actual tuba player had volunteered to play. DB was a pretty good HS tuba player in his day, but he's out of practice, and had no problems with ceding his place to someone in practice.

I have finished off another year of shelving books at the K-2 library (all the books theoretically are back on the shelves now, all that's left is inventory).

Now they're on to the south side of the roof. (Thursday saw no roofing done, as it rained just enough to make and keep everything slippery.) The south side is easier (no dormers or porch roof), but there's a lot of vent stacks to work around, and a bunch of roof/attic vents that are being removed so there are holes to be patched. Still, they should finish today. Sunday when they were telling us that we were going to get storms, J and I pulled the ladders down. Then the storms were somewhat less severe than originally predicted (to be fair, the Weather Service downgraded the predictions as the day went on). However, we got a lovely out-of-nowhere storm with 30mph winds on Monday afternoon, so it was not wasted effort.

Saturday, J put in gable vents. Those things let a lot of air move through, and just doing that should cool the upstairs quite a bit. Then the ridge vents go on, and those should help even more. Putting the gable vents in included bonus 'can you climb this 30' ladder and pound on this for me' action -- J was creeping around in the attic (120F, dust & fiberglass everywhere), so I can't complain too much. Still, not my favorite thing to do.

Monday, we packed up the car with two saxophones, three music stands, two instrument stands and three people, and wandered off to Franklin (MI) to play in the Brigadoon band. The Franklin Community Band officially disbanded about 8-10 years ago due to dwindling numbers, but a friend from the Farmington band recruits a small group to play for Franklin's Memorial Day celebration. I took both the tenor and the bari because I didn't know which they'd need more. DB came along with a tuba mouthpiece -- it was surprisingly easy to get him to do so "hey, d'you wanna come play an old sousaphone? It'll only be an hour or so." "sure.". J came along to take pictures. (I saw him chatting with a reporter, so DB and I may wind up in the local paper.) I played tenor sax, and played TSax, baritone (treble clef), and 2nd Cornet parts, depending on what I had music for and what was needed more. In retrospect, I should have played bari on one of the marches -- it has a tricky tuba part, and DB was flailing, and it's one that I transcribed the bari part from the tuba part a few years ago. It's been two years since DB's played sousaphone, and other than that piece he did really really well. He said the hardest part was getting used to the weight -- the Franklin sousaphone is probably 80 years old, and is tightly wound plated brass. He said that he wouldn't want to march with it. :) (I suspect it's more tightly wound than current fiberglass sousaphones so that it's easier to wear.)

This year's recipient of "I don't remember planting this" is five oriental poppies in the side garden. They haven't bloomed yet, so I don't know what color they are.

Saturday and Sunday, J and I moved that ton and a half of block. This time, it's in a wall. It got pretty squishy at the base of the wall, where it's just tamped dirt -- we got 2.5 inches of rain between when we laid the first course on Saturday evening and when we got outside Sunday afternoon. Now we get to figure out what goes inside the wall, other than "no chipmunks". I am creaky today.

The weeds are getting ahead of me again -- I can either move block or weed, and moving block has been winning or the weather's been unsuitable for weeding. Last week, when DB and I unloaded the block, it was 80+F; two days later it got up to 59F with drizzle.

The van is visiting the church parking lot, as there's a skip in the driveway -- the roofer starts tomorrow, weather permitting. He's expecting materials (shingles, OSB, ridge vent) to show up later today. (We've been in the house for over 20 years; can you tell? New floors, new appliances (and we're semi-looking at new fridges), new roof.)

The cranes are still hanging around in the backyard. They're usually pretty quiet (not much to worry about if you're a 3.5 foot tall bird), but today they were answering the civil alert siren test.

I have mostly finished cutting back things in the garden -- the larger daisies still need to be done, as does the blanket flower, but leaving them uncut all winter doesn't do them any harm, it just looks ragged.

The tree is up but undecorated. We may get to it next weekend, we may not. DB will be working a show Fri & Sat, and I may be working the recount. That depends on the outcome of the suit filed against the recount petition. If it's on, I go in at 8am Wed and we work 10 hour days until the count is done. Including weekends, because we need to be done by 14 Dec. Training is Monday afternoon, and we find out then whether we're actually doing the count.

My back has been being variably cranky for the last month -- I think it will get better if the weather ever stabilises.

Roper posted about his game of furniture tetris, which reminded me of our next match. (to be accomplished RSN, but I need to finish an Edwardian skirt & jacket costume* first, and get either J or DB to help).

1. shift the storage boxes away from the basement wall about 8 inches


2. move the cheap mattress and bunkboard from the bed in the upstairs nook into the newly cleared spot; shift the boxes back up against them


3. disassemble the bed and put it in the garage attic


4. move the futon from the den up into the nook


5. move the recliner from the basement into the den


6. move the printer & its stand from the master bedroom into the den

Eventually, the plan is to be able to open the closet door in the den all the way, and make both the bedroom and the den feel less crowded. With SR gone, we can use her room as a guest bedroom, and the futon in the nook will be the extra guest bed it is now, but in a less central area of the house. (the basement is clean and dry and fully habitable (if a bit chilly), and is thus a safe place to store a mattress)

* Last Thursday, I got a call from the lead cat-herder for the historical cemetery walk -- one of the ladies had backed out, could I fill in? Sure. And then I realised that my Victorian peridot taffeta skirt would be a bit too fancy for a 1901 midwestern farmer's wife on market day. I have a skirt & jacket pattern, and the fabric (and a couple of white blouses in my closet that will work). I just need to put them together. But yesterday was picture day for the church directory, and J was doing pictures and I was doing data entry, which pretty much killed the day. Today I'm working on layout for a newsletter, and there's FCB rehearsal tonight.

Sunday was the FCB Holiday concert. There's a lot of notes in that there music. And I played nearly all of the ones in mine. I did miss a couple, but then, I think everyone did (as long as someone in the section/part got them, it's not critical). I was able to find a reed that allowed me to get all the notes -- one of my rehearsal reeds is just about used up, and it was being extremely picky about notes on Friday during the stage rehearsal. I no longer have that reed. :) The concert went well, I think. We had extra bonus 'move-those-chimes' action, as the band borrowed a set of chimes from Chelsea HS, so J and I got to load chimes after the concert and then unload them at CHS. DB was still there -- resetting the stage for concerts after the ballet (the middle school holiday concert is tonight, with lots of activity to follow. IIRC, the stage is in use every night this week.)

Also on Sunday we started working on the instrumental parts for the Christmas Eve service. Neither of the kids is playing hand chimes, but one or the other may be singing with the choir. We'll figure that out next week.

Friday the carpenters came and routed off some material on the front stiles of the cabinet. I can fit the microwave into the cabinet now. They also left me with paint to finish the routed edges. Whee. So that's today's project -- paint the stiles (I sanded them on Saturday - orbital sander for the win! It's a maple cabinet, so it's a very hard wood, and would be a pain to sand by hand).

Wednesday morning, I emailed the designer I'd been working with at the lumberyard, asking what the ETA on my cabinets was (they said 4 weeks when I ordered them 6 weeks ago). Got a call back "Um, yeah. They're in the warehouse. They came in the same time I had two big orders, and I missed the notice. Would tomorrow morning be good for delivery?" Thursday morning came and went, and just about as I was ready to call the lumberyard and ask, the truck pulled up. It was a Penske rental -- one of their trucks had not started that morning, so they got a late start on the deliveries assigned to that truck.

Oh look, it's in pieces -- 'sallight, I think we can probably assemble a base cabinet/upper cabinet unit.

Or not. The upper cabinet is not what I wanted -- the microwave may not fit in the space, and did I really order that bottom shelf? because that's so not what I wanted. A note into the designer, and we will see what happens.

We have placed the base cabinet and set the countertop on it. J will actually install the countertops today -- yesterday he was monitoring returns, as it's a quarterly due date.

The warehouse called early last week, and scheduled us for installation on October 1. We shall see if that actually happens. The crew will call early this week and schedule a time to drop off the wood, and then we have to move the appliances, finish painting (the cabinet wall and behind the fridge & stove -- didn't want to move them twice), and patch the vent we don't want. I should probably also find the decorative vent we have, but as it's the same size as the one there, it's not critical.

Theoretically, the cabinet should be in sometime this week as well. I hope they're willing to hold it until the floor is installed. I ordered these things four weeks apart, so you'd think I'd get some spacing in delivery, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

My weekend was eaten by the gig monster. Two FCB gigs, one in Westland, one in Franklin. Loaded the truck after both, and unloaded after Sunday's gig. Then I went out for dinner after, so didn't get home until 8pm either night. Whee.

And of course, that meant that I got nothing done in the garden. Today is cloudy and cooler, so it's not as much fun to be outside, but it needs to be done. "They" tell us that it will continue to cool for the rest of the week. The froggie count is 14.