A planting we will go, a planting we will go, hi ho the merry-oh, a planting we will go.
My body say’s I’m doing planting for the season. Oh, my aching back/legs/arms/knees!
Seriously though, THIS YEAR we have finally twigged the formula for the new-to-us property. It’s taken 2 years but it’s coming around. And no bones were broken and there are still acetaminophen pills in my bottle!
I wanted to add some color, but not a super amount of leaves. I wanted trees, but not lots of far-reaching branches — or even a LOT of branches. Part of me really wanted to plant a ginkgo and a dawn redwood — both of which would be hardy in Milwaukee, but I did a second and a third think about them both and opted against them.
Instead we added:
a sand hill cherry with reddish purple leaves sort of in the corner of our lot – where the alley meets the street. I’ve seen too many end-of-alley homes that have had bad drivers miss the entrance to the alley and end up against their neighbor’s house — so a little physical buffer that isn’t quite as damaging as putting a big boulder in the same spot.
an elderberry bush/tree. I love the color of the leaves and the blorssoms — yeah, I know it’s a bit of a messy tree/bush but I’ll put up with it and maybe even make some elderberry cordial some day
an Eastern Redbud. — these have pink spring flowers and what I really like about them is that they aren’t super “branchy”. They tend to have a more open and graceful shape than a straight up and down tree like an oak, elm, maple, pine.
and finally, I picked up yesterday a european hornbeam. I planted on 30 years ago at our old apartment building and I love them. I was careful to get the variety ‘fastigiata’ — which means that it’s more of a columnar shaped tree that will keep its branches close to the trunk rather than spreading. It’s not what you’d call a “shade” tree. :-)
We cleared up the little lavender bed near the rose bush on the East side of the house — they are doing well for the second year.
At the front of the house we tried last year planting one variety of lavender and several rosemary plants. For whatever reason none of the plants in that planter survived the winter. So, we added more soil, and tried two other species of lavender and we’ll see if they survive or not. Lavender is iffy in Wisconsin. I notice that garden centers are getting worse and worse about not telling you the varieties of the plants they sell and so it’s harder to find plants that are actually what they little plastic insert says it’s supposed to be. And I’m surprised that local nurseries sell varieties like Spanish Lavender which isn’t going to survive our winters. We’ll see what happens.
Peg’s been planting her planters — she has her favorites and is getting better about keeping them alive through the summer. We gave up on hanging baskets — spending too much of the summer away from the house and not getting them watered often enough.
And we bought a cute little solar powered fountain pump that doesn’t pump very much water but just enough to keep our bird bath water agitated and hopefully diminish plant growth and maybe the sound will attract more birds.
So, now I’m all ready to sit out in the yard and do nothing.
I talked with the upstairs tenant and he’s wondering if we’d mind if they built a raised bed for veggies in one corner of the yard — and they are turning out to be really good tenants. For a couple sub 40’s they are quiet, friendly, and great tenants. And they’re “makers” which kind of makes me feel good — I like creatives.
Everywhere we have lived I have always been an aggressive landscaper. Until now.
Berms, pergolas, paving, you name it, if it’s part of garden design — I’ve done it. And yet at this house I seem unable to even concoct an actual plan for what to do.
I have always felt that the house, the property will talk to you and tell you what it wants to be, and perhaps this one will, gradually. Still, it’s we are heading into the 3rd summer here and I can’t say as how I really have a feel for it yet.
All of this comes down to the fact that for Peg’s birthday our daughter and son-in-law “gave” her a shopping trip to a garden center to pick out a plant/tree for the property. Now, mind you, they said the same thing a Christmas or two ago, saying that they would buy a tree for the property when we picked one out; I don’t know if we aren’t moving fast enough for them, or if they forgot about the first offer, but at any rate the topic is back on the table.
I have always been in favor of more trees. 30 years ago I managed to wrangle 12 trees, 8 to 10 foot tall, from the City of Milwaukee as part of their “greening Milwaukee” campaign. At the end of the season they had lots of unplanted trees from the program and as we had an apartment building they gladly let us have our choice. I drive past the old place from time to time and most of them are still there, doing wonderfully. Several fell prey to disease of some sort and have been removed but the property looks like a lovely refuge from the hectic pace of the city if I do say so for myself.
Elderberry a bit bigger than the 2 gallon pot individual we bought yesterday
Yesterday we hit 2 local garden centers. We did find on plant we agreed upon. It’s a black leafed elderberry. And we have been talking about them for a while after seeing multiple British YouTubers talking about elderberry trees. They are an interesting plant and I’m looking forward to figuring out where we are going to put it.
And, you see, that’s the problem. Where to put them. We have a front yard space, a side yard space, a rear yard space, and a 2 foot swath of grass covered ground along the fourth side that really isn’t much good for anything as it gets covered with snow during the winter and, yeah, there’s some salt in the alley every winter so the grass doesn’t do well — although a peony bush has hung on there with reasonable vigor. We also have a 6 foot tall privacy fence about 8 feet wide that blocks view of the rear yard from the front and Peg is bound and determined to do something about that fence.
We have in the past had good luck with redbuds here in S.E. Wisconsin, and we are thinking about one of those. I have always loved the look of European Hornbeams — and 40 years ago I planted one at a previous home and it did really well. They are more pyramidal and if I could find another that was in good shape I would be happy with that. But this year the nursery stock has been looking pretty bad. Perhaps because it’s still early in the season? I don’t know.
Typical European HornbeamCommon Redbud
It’s all rather a muck at the moment. I’m not actually sure either would suit the site and we just have to ponder, ponder, ponder a bit longer. It’s fun. Granted. But not actually accomplishing anything yet.
Ok — enough for my ponder for the moment. Take care and I’ll be back again tomorrow. :-)
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
As a junior high school student my English teacher required us all to memorize the Prelude to H W Longfellow’s poem Evangeline.
This was the first time I thought about inanimate objects communicating.
Does your House talk to you? No, I’m not being silly, and no, I am not talking about haunting. I have always found that the places I have lived each have their own personality and they all communicate with their residents.
A Variety of radiators!
A good part of our life we have lived in homes with hot water heat — that is, a boiler and radiators of some form (cast iron, baseboard, architectural). Other times we have lived with “forced air.” We have had apartments with single space heaters too.
We have lived in apartments, in conventional homes, in re-purposed industrial spaces. In each I have found that the plumbing sings different songs; some during the day, others at night, still others when under duress.
The winds outside too have their impact on the homes we’ve had. Most of my life I’ve spent in homes with SOME degree of masonry construction: full masonry, partial, and even decorative brick that didn’t “do” anything other than look cute. The degree to which the outside environment could penetrate made a difference in the noises the homes made and also in how they responded during heating and cooling seasons.
Where we are now is the WARMEST home we have ever lived in. Back in the day when I was a landlord to a 12 family building I used to joke about two of our twelve units that were surrounded on 5 sides by heated spaces — other apartments and basement. I joked because I’d seen their heating bill and it cost them so little to heat — because their neighbors were heating most of their space for them — that they almost had got money back from the electric utility. Not really, but compared to our apartment at the time exposed on more sides than most it was cheap, cheap, cheap.
And that brings me to the actual conversation part of living in a home. A forced air furnace makes a lot more noise than hot water running through a radiator. Where the furnace/boiler is located in the property too makes a difference in how obtrusive the furnace may be — or may seem. Here, our central hallway sits directly above the furnace for both units — ours and our tenant upstairs. We HEAR when either unit turns on, more than when they are actually running, but we do get sounds of air blowing in various pitches or notes throughout the house. Not objectionable — just sounds.
I don’t know if you use a set-back thermostat where you live. I like it cooler for sleeping than for being awake, so our heating system shuts down at 6pm and starts up again at 4:30am. The warming cycle doesn’t usually awaken me, but I do think that the gentle “thrum” through the air vent helps me get an extra few minutes of sleep that I might not get otherwise — it masking the noises from outdoors.
In our hot water heated homes we either had to open the windows for cooling (also letting in environmental noises) or we had to turn on the Air Conditioner. That was fine. Here we turn the furnace fan to constant on and it brings cooler basement air up to the residence with a slight murmur.
In other homes, and being a landlord attuned to their property, I often heard the plumbing sounds from other apartments. I don’t hear as many plumbing noises here; it’s only a couple living above us and they are pretty quiet and don’t take hour long showers. But they are noises, sounds, a certain rhythm nonetheless.
For the 7 years we lived in our Diesel Motorhome we enjoyed very different noises. Both from the motorhome, and environmental noises that permeated the very-much-thinner walls of the coach. They were pleasant, except for the few times our campsite was overly-close to a railroad track — which we had for 14 days the first year we were RV’ing. That taught us a good lesson and we avoided train tracks for the rest of our time on the move. Still, it was a way in which our “home” spoke to us, and rattled, and shook with the approach of yet another freight train.
It’s taken 2 years. I think I’m getting used to the noises and smells from this home. I didn’t mention that our upstairs neighbors like Middle Eastern and Oriental food — they use WAY more garlic than we do, but they are (or seem to be) pretty decent cooks because the aromas aren’t ever bad — even if they ARE way more garlicky than I might prefer.
Fortunately I grew up on Milwaukee water. Water is different in every city and whether it’s good or bad, I am accustomed to the taste of water here, and the taste of water in our home. Yet another sense, and another way of communicating. There’s concerns in some areas of town about the possibility of lead in the freshwater supply lines — pipes laid 100+ years ago. Our place was built in the 1950’s and as a relatively newly developed area we are mentally spared concerns about that issue, and the water still TASTES the same as I’m accustomed to, so there’s that.
I’m not yet at the point when I know the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of our new home well enough to anticipate problems. I’m sure that will come — if my senses don’t fail me as I age. I do understand when some things are happening. Particularly whether the heating system is on. We had a couple little error codes pop up on our furnace which kicked the unit offline for 3 hours — and it wasn’t the cooling temperature that cued me in to the failure, it was the fact that we hadn’t heard the furnace fan for a longer than usual time. The error code happened to relate to back pressure and we deduce that it’s related to high winds from the Southeast that funnel an extra amount of air through the narrow passage between us and one neighbor causing high pressure where the furnace discharges spent gases. We know what to do now.
I don’t think that a visit to a prospective new home can ever really clue you in to how your new home might communicate to you. I suspect a lot of folks never even think about communicating with their homes — and then some time later they find that there are things about their house that they absolutely hate and have trouble correcting. Some things about a house are just their personality and you’ll never change — just like marrying someone and thinking you’re going to “fix” their personality flaws. Just doesn’t happen.
I should add that this house is WAY, WAY, Way brighter than most of the other place we’ve lived. So much so that we have been working on ways to reduce light from outside in one or two rooms. I never thought I’d say a house was too bright — and for a 1950’s built home I never expected that to be the case here. But we have two sides with no near-adjacent buildings and large-ish windows, so we get a lot of sunlight. I’m happy — for my plants, but you notice I still have grow lights!
OK — that’s it for today. Take care of yourself and your loved ones and I’ll be back soon to chat some more.
There was a time when “rich people” had servants who hid all the workings of their estate from sight and created a pretend world in which disorder, mess, and hard work were hidden. But the staff living “below the stairs” (for all you who were binge watchers of Downton Abbey and other such period television programs) had all the same mess and hard work that most of us today still have to deal with.
A quarter century ago I started paying attention to friends and colleagues who went on vacations wanting their hotel rooms to mimic all the absence of toil attributes that they were seeing on TV. During the ensuing years that trend has only increased. And a great many work-a-day people — and families — want to live as if they were actually rich.
Peg & I have always been interested in how people arrange their homes — when we were younger we periodically spent Open House afternoons touring homes for sale just for the sake of learning how others managed their spaces. Living in both a 6500 sq ft former school and a 230 sq ft RV has given us a lot of variation in our own living spaces and even now, having bought a home for our declining years and having no intention of ever moving — we still enjoy watching the odd design or remodeling program.
We came across the YouTube channel Never Too Small and have been taking in a few of their productions. One in particular made a comment about designing the kitchen without the “distraction of seeing appliance” and I said WHOA!
I come from a different time. This is my mom’s mother — a “good polish girl” who emigrated to the U.S. in her mid teens. Upon her arrival the lived for the first couple years with her brother Lawrence who had come a few years earlier. By this time Grandmother had married, and had 2 of her three children and they had a little cottage on a lake 40 miles from Milwaukee — made possible by gramps job as a Gear Grinder at a heavy manufacturing firm.
In those days there was no such thing as hiding appliances. Actually, folks were lucky to even HAVE appliances! At this time they were still using an icebox — which meant periodic trips to the iceman — or for those lucky enough a visit by the iceman to deliver 50 pound blocks of ice to keep their perishable food cold.
Peg’s parent built their own home and the house on the then-outskirts of Toledo Ohio. He was a union painter (houses and offices) who for most of his life worked hard during three seasons of the year and then had nothing to do during Winter as no one was building or remodeling during the worst weather of the year.
The had no “option” to hide appliances. In fact they lived their life in a kitchen with linoleum countertops that needed regular maintenance to prevent the surface from deteriorating, and a 24 inch electric stove/oven and what was about a 11 sq ft refrigeratior. It was all very humble — but being built right after WWII it was actually “cutting edge” for the time. No fancy finishes. In fact, instead of a tile backsplash the same linoleum like material used on the counters bent around the corner and went up the side of the wall to the bottom of the upper cabinets making a seamless “look.”
By the time we married in 1968 the world was looking better but our kitchen was really no better, and I don’t have any good photos
This photo does show that cabinets were limited and so was workspace. That space behind us was all there was other than the gas stovetop and our kitchen table that was really only big enough for 2 bodies. Making pasta or bread was a challenge. The only easy feature was that we heated the whole apartment with a small freestanding gas space heater the top of which I could use as proofing space for dough.
I like to look at new houses but I always hearken back to the old days. We managed just fine with a lot less and we never knew we were missing anything in life because everyone we knew lived pretty much the same way we did. Sure, some folks had better jobs and fancier houses but in those days small business owners who employed most of the workers in our area lived right there in the same neighborhood as their workers. They made more money than the workers but not the obscenely disproportionate salaries that we see in the 2020’s
So it is that when I see modern kitchens, or hear architects talking about their current projects I almost cringe to think of the expense we go to in order to hide the fundamental aspects of life. And in spite of the fact that in the U.S. average family size is declining it seems that parents are more and more obsessed with having spaces that almost appear sterile even though there are children in the family who want and need to play and make a mess and be creative and destructive and all the things that go into becoming a real, well rounded human being.
It’s not my place to decide what house others should live in. And I really don’t care. But it does speak to me about why we are facing world problems. As a people — a corporate body of humans living on the same planet — we surely seem to want to pretend we are different — and in particular, wealthier than we are.
The Greenest House
is the one that is
Already There!
It’s fun to look at remodel projects, but it really hurts to see dumpsters overflowing with perfectly usable materials — and no effort (or minimal effort) being made to reduce, reuse, or recycle. We can talk as much as we want about building greener housing but the greenest house really is the one that’s already there and it’s relatively rare to see American who are willing to do the work to find ways to make their existing property work cleaner and more efficiently.
There is a lot of deception in how we think about our homes. There’s a street nearby that I have always admired. It faces Lake Michigan, It’s on a bluff that is 50 feet back from the edge and not in any likelihood of ever being swept into the lake. Homes there were build between 1900 and 1950. By then the street had been filled. Over the years original owners have retired/died/moved away and new owners have taken over the properties. Every single re-sold house has been torn down — depending on the current phrasing of the tax laws — to provide the maximum remodel to be accomplished at the best tax rate. Instead of having 5 to 10 feet of garden space on either side of the new homes the owners have build out to the extreme buildable edge of Each and Every property. What has gone up are not homes for families but rather statement homes designed in impress — and several of them aren’t even investing in adequate maintenance to assure they homes continue looking as they were when completed. Sadly, keeping up with the Jones’ is still a big thing and not having to be distracted seeing one’s appliances is just the start of the disease.
We cannot save the planet as long as we obsess with living beyond our means and pretending that we are what we are not.
That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime take care of yourself and yours. :-)
Living in Wisconsin, or any of the northern tier states is bounded by the extreme of cold. All of the wonderful things about this place are tempered by the reality of winter. Some of us love it; some of us don’t but there is no escaping it’s reality.
Brrrrr
I have always had mixed feelings about the cold. 40 years ago during one of my stints as a truck driver I got stuck out on the highway with a fuel line freeze near Pocatello Idaho and another trucker with a can of fuel line antifreeze saved me from perishing in the -40°F temps. The side effect of that was a case of frostbite that has marred my ability to enjoy the cold in ways that a lot of my family do. But, I’m still here and I figure that’s a good thing.
Most of our life we have lived in apartments. Oh, we owned “single family” homes in the past, but probably 75% of our married life has been spent in an apartment of one sort of another. There are wintertime benefits to be had and after looking at my first winter monthly utility bill I’m reminded of them. Our 12 family apartment had 4 out of the 12 units in the center of the building meaning that at least 4 out of 6 faces of their apartment were shared walls that didn’t have to be heated or cooled. And there were 2 units on the first floor center that were bounded by 5 interior heated walls. One of those two units had been rented by the same family for 30 years! They figured they would never find a place with utility bills that low so they just adapted their lives to living with us. The other of those 2 units I had an an office and I too loved the fact that I didn’t have to heat very much and could enjoy the luxury of cheap heat.
Living in a single family or a duplex is quite a different story. You’re a big honkin’ box in the middle of the world and if you want heat you have to provide it for yourself cuz mother nature ain’t making free gifts of heat.
I recently saw a photo of an apartment complex in Russia from the 1950’s that housed 18,000 families. As much as I have no interest in living in a large apartment complex I had a moment of envy when I thought to myself that there would have been a lot of apartments that benefitted by the warmth their neighbors generated.
This morning in my Instagram feed there was a short reel about putting two candles — just your ordinary tea light candles that burn for 15 hours and then are done — putting one candle each under a terra cotta pot and on the floor in an otherwise small unheated greenhouse in order to help keep the temperature above freezing. And they showed that while the outside temperature had dropped from 38° F to 20° outside the interior of the greenhouse had only fallen to 27° — saving the plants from freezing. Given methods of capturing heat — like a heat sink in the form of terra cotta — that can be radiated gradually you can do a lot more to keep a place warm than just heating the air which cools almost immediately.
You can find lots and lots of photos of European homes that to this day use masonry and porcelain wood burning stoves to capture the heat and gradually radiate it throughout the home. Our U.S. obsession with forced air heat is a long way from the smartest way of heating our homes.
When we bought our school in 2007 we hired a contractor who came in and installed a hot water boiler and radiators in the building. I have pondered the idea of doing that here — at least for the lower unit — but I doubt our budget would allow that so I guess I’m stuck with forced air heat.
Moving out of the last apartment to here has been interesting. That was a ground floor unit with only two exposed walls and they were the narrow sides of our rectangular apartment. It was a hot place during the summer — we did run the A/C a lot to keep it cool. But it was a toasty place during the winter. And as there was no basement, the floor stayed pretty much the same temp year round — the earth being a super efficient heat sink.
This is the first time in a while that we have had hardwood floors throughout and it’s been interesting getting used to cold floors. My houseslippers are seeing a lot of wear. But we are happy and surviving in the chilly days of this winter.
None of this is a complaint. It is what it is. And we’re happy to be here. But that doesn’t mean we don’t think about how things are and whether there are ways to improve them. I have pondered the idea of insulating the basement. Might be something we talk about. We are using a small humidifier to make heating efficiency better — the same amount of heat with a moister atmosphere feels warmer — something to do with how our bodies function that I don’t understand. Still going from 30% to 50% makes the same temperature feel a lot better. Would I consider putting a humidifier on our furnace? Might do. We’ll have to see what the future holds.
Then again, in a few days we should be past the extreme cold and starting into the gradual warming — technically the coldest days of the year lag behind the shortest days by 1 month — and that’s where we are right now. So the subject may be moot in a few days.
But, such are the things that an old man thinks about in the middle of winter. There’s money in the bank to pay the utility bill and perhaps next year I’ll have the same conversation with myself — or not!
Take care of yourself until tomorrow. I’ll be back with some thoughts about something. Cheers. :-)
That’s the front of our old house. We had two sidewalks to the front door, one from the city sidewalk that no one ever used and another from the parking lot that everyone used. Not long after moving in we repurposed the path to the sidewalk and made a pair of columns and a mini-pergola between them upon alongside of which we planted a pair of wisteria bushes that grew prolifically and did flower — although this photo doesn’t show any of the flowers.
I had been thinking about maybe planting wisteria here at our new place. We have a short fence alongside the house that I thought might have been a good climbing base on which to support a vigorous wisteria.
But…
I started looking for plants.
And I didn’t find anything.
It turns out that the State of Wisconsin outlaws the sale of wisteria in Wisconsin. Any species. Any variety. It’s considered invasive and unwanted.
What the heck?
The options for flowering vines here in zone 5 don’t really trip my trigger. We have done a trumpet vine at one house. It was OK. Just OK. I know some people like clematis. They are pretty, I agree. But I will confess to miserable success, or amazing failure in growing them. In Wisconsin the vine pretty much wants to die back to the ground every year and I never get repeat growth. Whether it’s the vibes I send out or the earth we have or some other faux pas I just don’t do a good job with them.
I’m going to keep looking. After all it’s the first year in the place and you don’t have to do everything immediately but At the several places where we have grown wisterias in the past they were always among the first things we put in the ground to allow for a couple years maturation before they would flower. I’ll find some solution that I like.
I mentioned trumpet vines and they are pretty but somehow I just can’t get excited enough about them to want one of my own. But I do want a vine. Oh well. Back to Google and wait for the nurseries to start putting out plants this spring.
That’s it for today. I’ll check back in tomorrow and we can see what’s on the menu… or the program… or on my mind. Take care. Talk to you then.
It’s hodgepodge day here. No great themes to discuss just a little housekeeping.
We had a plugged kitchen sink on Sunday — a day when I had made an unusually large number of dirty dishes. Mike couldn’t make it to snake out the pipes to we had to wait till the next morning. but then something came up in the morning and it was noon before he got over here. Not starting a plumbing job after noon is something he learned from me because of the frequent occurrences of “extended” simple projects that plumbing is prone to. So, he could have come over Saturday at noon and been just as far ahead as he was on Sunday. Oh, how life does play with us.
Then Monday the same sink backed up again. I am learning that this house is very, very different from other homes we’ve had. In the last 20 years we haven’t had a sink back up ever. There isn’t a lot of difference between what I can see of the plumbing installation — accessible pipes in the basement. But somehow the waste flow seems very different here than in other similarly aged buildings I’ve been in. In the end he came back and snaked out the lower sections of pipes too and we seem to be in business. But I think my kitchen habits will have to change to adapt to this house.
My collection of baby plants / propagations is growing, but it’s also doing reasonably well. Most of what I have propagated is showing signs of life and I’m encouraged.
This morning is the coldest of the season and I think mostly i’m just trying to get functional on a day when the body doesn’t seem connected to the brain.
We previously owned a single family home that we sold in 2005 (I think it was). It was a lovely home on a corner lot. And it had forced air heating just like this place does.
Then we moved into our old schoolhouse…
That was not only larger so that the furnace was in the basement on the other side of a concrete floor, but it also had hot water heating so there was zero sound from the furnace/heating system.
Then we went RV’ing and heard everything about the heating, the cooling, the hot water, just everything that was going on. Surprisingly we got used to that quite quickly.
And after that when we moved back to Milwaukee we also had hot water heat, that made zero noise. The rented place was nondescript enough that we never bothered taking many pictures. Still, it was comfy enough for 5+ years.
And now we’re HERE. And every day there’s something about this place that jogs my brain just a little bit. A glitch, a sound, a something that hasn’t yet decided it’s “normal” or our new normality. When Mike was over to take care of the plugged sink he also looked at the furnace — something I asked him about a couple months ago. We’ve been leaking water from the forced air furnace — a dribble across the concrete floor to the drain. There is a plastic tubing that’s SUPPOSED to carry the condensate from the furnace to the drain but for some reason it wasn’t working and water was (I presume) setting in the drain pan and eager to turn to mold. He investigated and found that the lines had become disconnected — hence the leak.
Screenshot
There was a time not long ago that I would have looked into that a long while ago. But I guess I’m trying to figure out how to “BE” with my son-in-law in this new relationship as “sort of” landlord. We had a chat after the tubing was reconnected about how long things should take, how quickly to come running, how — even — to get in touch (when you are self employed you don’t keep regular hours and I often am at a loss about whether to message, call, talk to our daughter and let her relay a message, or just what works best for him — and ideally for us too. The chat was good. Funny, they’ve been married +25 years and I’m still trying to “build a relationship” with him. But it’s all good and we really do well together we are just completely different people.
Ok — today’s excuse for a blog has reached its potential and I’m gonna sign off for now. Talk to you tomorrow. In the meantime, take care of yourself and be kind to one another. :-)
I am actually writing this on Boxing Day with a few posts written ahead that I’m not going to reorder so as to post this closer to the date. We had Mike and Katy over for Christmas Day — it’s the first time in a while that we’ve actually had the space to really have both Peg’s Christmas decorations up and displayed AND to have the family over for a self-made meal. We’ve been doing most of the holidays at their place which is much bigger and doing cooperative meals — each contributing portions. And when the grand and great grands come down for a holiday it’s easier to do it at their place.
Our daughter and son-in-law turned this old industrial place into a combination shop and residence.
Being out of practice being host and hostess it took a bit of concentration to get the timing down pat for all the dishes and to actually do a decent meal plan but we managed just fine.
As long as I put up the photo of the outside of Mike & Katy’s “Magnet Factory” as it’s been named — the original use for the building being the manufacture of industrial magnets in the early 20th century. Here’s a glimpse of the kind of uses the building gets put to. So often you’ll find lots of people having a good time — and so not Peggy and I — we just don’t do big groups — but all the more power to the kids.
From a previous “pop-up shop”In advance of a gallery nightA different kind of gallery exhibition
Anyway… we got through the day and had a great time. Today we’re both tuckered and not much is happening. I’m pondering moving plants around in the house. It’s not quite 3 months since we moved in this lower flat and we are still moving things around and trying to make it “home.” It’s a work in progress.
AND… I still have to figure out what to do with the basement. Mike’s “deal” with the previous owner wasn’t so much a deal as a capitulation because he didn’t want to lose the purchase by being too demanding — so the old owners were allowed to leave a lot of “stuff” that normally would have been cleared out prior to closing. Being previous property owners they gradually brought all the bits and bobs from some 20+ properties to this one which was the last of their rentals to be sold. WE have a pile of kitchen cabinet doors, probably 30 gallons and 5 gallon container of odds and ends of leftover paint, glass globes and lamp parts and …. well… all sort of junk …. still sitting in the corners of the basement. I have a right handed workbench for a left handed homeowner. I’m still trying to find electrical outlets and decipher which are on the electric meter for our unit and whether some of them are on the meter for the upstairs. Every day I spend a few minutes down there mulling over the situation and making little changes. I finally got my vise bolted to the workbench that’s there. I’ve been doing potting down there — taking cuttings from plants that should have been repotted months or even years ago — gradually making friends with the space.
I think a lot about the section of Under the Tuscan Sun where she is responding to the advice upon moving into her new villa to take a room at a time and to live with it, and listen to it and to hear what the room wants to be. I know I botched the wording but I think the sentiment is about right. And that’s what we’re doing — except not that orderly. I putter a bit here, and putter a bit there. Kind of like my approach to my Ficus. Look at it, and get used to its line. See what’s growing and what isn’t. Get rid, first of the dead bits. Then look a little more. Trim off the cross growth. Look a little more. Nip some of the leaders. Look some more. A month on and there is less tree but there are a lot of green little shoots even during what is not really growth season. We’ll let it adjust and see what it needs and wants. Fortunately we haven’t lost a lot of leaves — so that’s a sign that we’re keeping it happy.
Now I need to find a way to see whether the house is happy with our changes here. This place really is so completely not what I would ever have picked myself that “communicating” with the house is proving an unexpected challenge. Little did I realize what agreeing to the purchase would mean; but hey — it’s gonna be great eventually. Still — this really is like learning a new language. There is so much about this place that is completely foreign to my brain.
Ok — enough whining and complaining for now. Talk to you again tomorrow. Cheers.
From the Far Side of '70 
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