rephetibel

Last Monday I met with my quilting friends.  It had been a long time.  We hadn't been meeting regularly and I'd missed the last couple of times.  I didn't want to haul my sewing machine so I took my knitting instead.  I had such a good time.  I really need girl time, I guess.  Anyway, Chris and Elaine were each making identical table toppers for thanksgiving.  These will go on top of a plain tablecloth.  They were having such fun making them and the toppers were so pretty that I decided to make one too.  Chris gave me the directions.  

Chris and Elaine's fabrics were orange and russet and black.  Beautiful fabrics from a quilting fabric store.  The fabric in our local quilting shop costs $9.00-$10.00 a yard.  It's gorgeous stuff but I can't afford it.  I went to WalMart.  I'm having eight people for thanksgiving and I'll be using my good dishes.  I took one of the saucers to WalMart with me so I could choose colors that would go with it.

I've been having a lot of fun with this project.  I got several of the blocks put together and realized that one of the fabrics I'd chosen (even though it's in the china pattern) was too intense.  I found something in my stash that looked better.  I spent some time taking apart the blocks I'd sewn together and started over.  It's going to be pretty.  I don't know if I'm going to like it on my table though.  I'll have to wait until I have all the blocks done.  Then I can laying them out in various configurations on the table.  Maybe a runner would be better than a square laid kitty-corner.  

This is a real incentive to get my chores done. 

Michael and Scott came back yesterday.  It rained again but the guys just worked in it.  Michael didn't even wear a cap or pull his hood up.  Scott is from Arizona and did both.  He wore a knitted cap and had the hood of his rain jacket pulled up over it.  They ended up shy half a bundle of shingles.  They'll be back in a day or two to finish the shingling.  They also need to caulk here and there and touch up the flashing around the base of the chimney with some paint.  For those reasons, they'll probably be back when it's a dry day.  Can't paint in the rain.

Meggie has been funny about the roofers.  She ass just fine with all the thumping up on the roof but when one of the guys climbed down a ladder and got on the lawn, she barked at him.  She may have been under the impression that she treed them.

The roofers came yesterday (Friday).  I was surprised because there was a steady drizzle coming down.  It didn't seem to bother them.  They introduced themselves; Michael (one earring in each ear) and Scott (multiple earrings in each ear).  They zipped up their rain gear and got up on the roof.  I hoped the drizzle would taper off for their sakes but it went the other way and settled into rain.  I was afraid the roof would be slippery but they apparently have spidey senses that let them work at those heights even when everything is wet.  The stripping crew left brackets with boards across them on the roof.  Those must be a tremendous help.  Michael and Scott got most of the roof covered and will be back on Monday to finish it.

I chose a good color.  The new roof looks wonderful! 

Yesterday morning, just a bit before 8 o'clock. I was upstairs getting clean clothes for the day.  The phone rang.  It was River Roofing.  The crew to get the old shingles off my roof would be showing up, probably, in early afternoon.  I thanked the nice gentleman, gathered up my clothes and trundled downstairs.  Five minutes later when I was in the midst of my morning ablutions, the dogs began barking.  I wrapped myself back up in my bathrobe and went to look out a window.  There were three trucks (one of them pulling a little trailer with an outhouse on it) in my driveway.  I waved one arm out the door at all the guys getting out of the trucks and ducked back into the bathroom to get dressed.

Well!  It was an exciting day let me tell you.  There were 10-12 guys who knew exactly what they needed to do.  Most of them swarmed up ladders onto the roof and began ripping off shingles, occasionally calling out to each other in Spanish.  A couple spread out big heavy sheets of black plastic on the lawn.  That was for bits of debris.  The shingles that could be easily stacked into piles they picked up, set on one shoulder and carried to the front gate.  There was a ramp there up onto the bed of a big truck.  They walked up the ramp and began stacking used shingles at the far end of the bed.  When they came back in the yard and got within range of the house, they made a sing-songy sort of noise, "Ahy-ahy-ahy " (sort of).  I think that was so the guys on the roof didn't need to look before shoving shingles over the edge, they could just listen.

Somewhere around mid-morning I put the dogs (who had been shut in the house) on leashes and took them for a walk.  The walk went well enough - though the dogs resented the leashes - until we stepped over the end of the ramp coming back into the yard.  Meggie backed up, shook her head and was out of her collar.  She did NOT want to go back in the house and dodged out of the front gate.  She headed around the fence towards the back.  I secured Milo indoors then went out the back gate and called Meggie.  She didn't come and I couldn't see her.  The guys on the roof could though.  They said, "Hoy, hoy" (or something similar) and pointed.  Judging by the all the hands pointing to one side of the house or the other, Meggie couldn't make up her mind which way to get to the back.  I finally connected with her, praised her (which she didn't deserve but she was scared by then) and got her back in the house. 

Somewhere around 1:30 it dawned on me that the thumping had stopped.  I looked out the window and the trucks were gone.  In that short amount of time (there was a lunch break in there) they scraped all the shingles off the roof, replaced four sheets of plywood on the back porch, removed the defunct solar hot water heater, covered the entire roof with that black stuff and left the yard clean of debris.

A couple of hours later another big truck came down the driveway.  Two guys unloaded a lot of bundles of shingles and stacked them neatly on a pallet close to the house.    

The newspaper predicts rain so I don't know what will happen today.  We'll see!

I spent probably six hours over the last couple of days getting the third quarter report done for the church.  It always feels good to get that job scraped off my shoe.  The Bishop's Advisory Committee meeting hasn't even been scheduled yet but I'll be ready. 

I reverently laid three books down on the counter at the library the other day and handed the librarian my card.  She looked at it and observed that it would no longer be viable after the 31st.  The price has gone up to $40.00 for seniors.  Did I want to renew it?  Neil bought that card for me after he discovered that I had gone for years without a card because I couldn't afford one.  Over the last year I've gotten used to having all those books available to me.  Of course I want to renew it!  It's just that people can't suddenly spring forty dollar charges on me without having a fan and a cup of cold water handy.  By the time I've read the current batch of books, I'll have adjusted to the idea.  I'll pay then.

All the dogs tennis balls disappeared.  I walked around the yard and looked.  I checked under the dresser in the sewing room and the sideboard in the kitchen.  They are both high enough a ball can roll under.  No balls.  The refrigerater looked too low to the ground but I got down on my hands and knees and bent my head to look.  I had to fend off Milo who goes into an ecstacy of ear licking when I do that, but I finally got a look.  There were three balls under there.  I went in the sewing room and got the yard stick off its nail.  Milo went into crazy dance mode because he knows the yard stick finds tennis balls.  I had to keep pulling Milo back because his face was in the way, but I got the balls out from under the refrigerater.  Oh, joy!  Oh, frabjous!  Throw the ball!  Throw it! 

The summer exuberance of the kitchen garden is past.  I'll pick the green tomatoes and fry them.  The one summer squash plant had overrun its alloted raised bed and had sent vines into the tomatoes and roses and beets.  I pulled all those up and discovered three squashes.  The purple podded bean vines have all withered.  I'll pick all the beans that are left and spread them out to dry so I can shell them.  The two kinds of runner beans still have green vines.  I'll leave them on the fence until the vines die.  The beans have gotten too tough to eat so I'll save them for shelled beans as well.  The cucumber vines are dead.  I picked the last two cucumbers but haven't pulled the vines yet.  The rest of what is out there will hold over the winter.  The rutabagas, the beets, parsnips, carrots, celery, lettuce, Swiss chard and kale. 

I may have to start with book 1 and check them out of the library.  It appears there is now a 7th book.  This quote is from Diana Gabaldon's website.

An Echo in the Bone is the seventh novel in the wildly popular, NYT #1 bestselling, internationally award-winning Outlander series—described by Salon.com as "the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting Scrooge McDuck comic books."

Several years ago one member of my quilting group told us about a book she was reading.  ("Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon)  She liked it a lot.  Several of us borrowed the book from Carolyn when she finished.  It was the first in a series that was still being written.  As each new book came out, Carolyn bought it, read it and passed it around the group.  They are big, complicated books with many characters and there was a lot of time between them.  They really should be read reasonably close together - say, all in the same year - so threads don't get lost.  By the time I started book five it had been probably three years, maybe more, since book one.  I couldn't remember all the side characters and what they'd done.  It was too confusing and I returned the book with most of it unread.  Then book six came out . . . .

Even though I didn't really want to read books five and six, I wondered about some of the situations.  Did they ever find out who the baby's father was?  Did they find out the identity of the Indian ghost (who really wasn't an Indian - he was also a time traveler) who saved Claire's life?  Did he turn out to be someone important?  Did Bree and Roger successfully travel through time back to now?  Questions.  So when I discovered a book by Diana Gabaldon in the non-fiction section of the library entitled "The Outlandish Companion", I checked it out.  Not only does it have book outlines and a list of characters (30 pages of characters) but it tells how she came to write the books in the first place.

"I didn't entend to show this putative novel to anyone.  It wan't for publication; it was for practice.  I had come to the conclusion - based on experience - that the only real way of learning to write a novel was probably to write a novel.  That's how I learned to write scientific articles, comic books and software reviews after all.  . . . . .  After considerable thought, it seemed to me that perhaps a historical novel would be the easiest thing to try.  I was a research professor, after all; I had a huge university library available, and I knew how to use it.  . . . . .  So, while pondering the setting for my hypothetical historical novel, I happened to see one very old episode of Doctor Who featuring a companion of the Doctor's - a young Scottish lad named Jamie MacCrimmon, whom the Doctor had picked up in 1745. . . . . .  I suddenly said to myself, Well, heck.  You want to write a book, you need a historical period, and it doesn't matter where or when.  The important thing is just to start, somewhere.  Okay.  Fine.  Scotland, eighteenth century. . . . . .  and that's when I began to write Outlander; no outline, no plot, no characters - just a time and a place."

Wait a minute.  No outline, no plot, no characters?  But, but . . . .  how is this possible?

A couple of months ago, I choose a roofer, picked out shingles, made a 10% down payment and got put on their schedule for October 15th.  A guy from the company called me yesterday.  They are running half a day behind because of some rain we had.  The forecast is for rain early next week as well.  He said he'd call on Tuesday and let me know how things were looking.  Pretty exciting stuff!

Now that the weather is cooling down, I'm interested in baking a little loaf of sourdough bread to have with supper when Neil is here.  I tried one day when he was here this last week.  It only rose a little bit.  I ended up making several rounds of flat bread cooked in the skillet.  I'd never tried flat bread before.  It worked just fine, and Neil loved it, but I prefer risen bread.  I added a heaping teaspoon of granulated yeast to the sourdough starter to perk it up.  I'll try making a loaf today to see if that worked.  I'd like to get it sorted out before Neil comes again.  A little loaf of fresh baked bread is so nice when it's cold outside.     

It rained last night and occasionally during the day today.  It feels like fall.  I did chores, washed, dried and folded laundry and ran errands in town.  Then I spent most of the afternoon sewing. 

I talked  to Neil on the phone yesterday.  He and Chris went on a spontaneous camping trip.  They had a good time but it rained hard some of the time they were in the mountains.  It had been a while since I checked Chris's photos on Flickr.  A new one since the last time I looked is an amazingly beautiful shot of Heceta Head lighthouse.  The easiest way to see it is to Google chris10eyck and then click on flickr photo stream. 

 I went out yesterday prepared to finish raking litter off the barn roof and get it hosed clean.   There used to be three 8'x24' chicken wire runs in front of the barn.  One of them wasn't used.  The chicken wire sides on it had been taken down a long time ago.   I took down most of the chciken wire roof several years ago.  The section of wire roof nearest the barn was still there.  It was going to be a bear to take down so I hadn't done it yet.  Eight feet of it was stapled to the top edge of the barn.  Another six to eight feet was stapled to the adjacent run.  And a section of it completely enclosed the trunk (just after it began branching) of one of the pear trees.  It was right where I wanted to put the step ladder to reach a section of roof.  Well, I got it down.  What an awful job though.  Sharp edges of rusty wire everywhere and much climbing up and down the ladder.  Everytime I moved the ladder, a trailing blackberry hung onto one of the feet.  After I got the wire down, I got one section of roof hosed off.  That was enough and I quit for the day. 

There are a couple of things I need to do to my barn before the winter rains settle in.   It's a 12'x40' building with a corrugated metal shed roof.  There's a section of roof that has developed little holes.  I see pinholes of light when I'm in that section.  I got a squeeze tube of caulk from Cascade Home Center to try a simple fix.  The roof isn't strong enough to get on top of it so I'm going to try caulking the holes from the bottom.  I thought it would be a good first step to brush off any loose stuff that might be on top of that area.  I lugged the stepladder over to the barn and went up to take a look.  My heart sank.  The barn sits in the shade of two BIG pear trees.  Over nearly 30 years a considerable amount of litter has built up, especially directly under the trees.  It was six inches deep in places.  I have a wand for the garden hose that has a setting where the water squirts pretty hard.  I thought maybe I could squirt the stuff off.  I got the hose from the kitchen garden, hooked it up, attached the wand and climbed up the ladder.  It worked kinda.  It was able to swoosh the roof clean where the litter was only an inch or two deep.  I got a garden rake and tried raking stuff off with it.  That worked great for what it could reach.  I began working my way around.  I was hampered because there are a lot of places where I can't get the ladder next to the barn.  At one of those places, there was a tangle of boards and hoses.  I was bent over pulling the tangle apart when a cage with a plywood top and bottom fell off an adjacent stack and hit me in the head.  It was a ouchy surprise but it didn't injure me.  I set the cage out of the way and finished clearing the tangle.  I became frustrated because there was stuff in the middle of the roof I couldn't reach with the rake.  I looked around and saw a sturdy looking long stalk of Japanese Fleece Flower on the burn pile.  I taped that to the end of the rake handle.  It doubled the length of the rake but the joint was wobbly.  Nevertheless, I was able to give the rael rake handle a kind of javelin throw and carefully pull it back by the extension.  That worked quite well.  I was almost finished getting the litter off the roof when I came down the ladder to move it to a new spot.  I stepped of the bottom rung to the ground.  Except it wasn't the bottom rung.  It was the next one up.  I only fell a short distance but I went right over backwards and hit my head on the ground.  I decided that I'd had enough of that project for the day, brushed myself off and went inside for lunch and a sudoku.   

Today my plan is to finish scraping the roof as best I can.  There will be a section I can't reach even with the extension but I'll do what I can.  Then I'll squirt it clean with the hose.  My fear is that the whole roof will be lit up with pinholes once there is nothing blocking the sun. 

Have to wait and see.

It's been three weeks since Purrl turned up with injuries after several days of being missing.  Her wounds have healed but the nerve damage in her hind leg seems to be permanent.  She still uses it as if it were a crutch.  She can walk and jump.  I don't know if she is able to run.  The toe on her hind leg stays curled most of the time when she walks so it's developed a callous on top.  The toe is flexible and sometimes it's straightened out when she walks.  She still limps on the front leg that was injured.  She's always been affectionate but being injured has taken that up a notch.  She likes to be held so she can nuzzle under my chin.  When she was a kitten she used to give me hickies under my chin.  It made me look as if I was leading a far more interesting life than I really was. 

Neil has been down for a visit the past few days.  When I'm here by myself, I do minimal cooking.  I chop up veggies from the garden for soup most every day and cook my morning cream of wheat.  That's about it.  When Neil is here, I enjoy cooking for him.  We have proper suppers complete with a pot of tea and cloth napkins.  Last night for example, we had sauteed chicken strips, rice, a red cabbage & carrot slaw and steamed Swiss chard.   I could do that for myself but I don't. 

My car is in the shop today.  I have a free oil change coming, the idle needs to be tweaked and he's putting a new door handle on the front passenger side door.  That new handle will be wonderful to have.  For the last year I've only been able to open that door from the inside.

Neil brought Sara with him this time.  When he opened the gate, Meggie and Milo ran right past him to jump around Sara.  The three dogs have been going on walks and playing together all week.  Then they all collapse at once and there are sleeping dogs to walk around.

Neil just came in with a basket of Spitzenberg apples.  After breakfast, I'll make a pie.

Life is good.

A sandwich made of two slices of potato bread, some delicately crispy bacon and thick slices of an Ananas Noire tomato just picked from the garden.

A couple of things.

1.  Update on Purrl.  She's eating well.  She doesn't drag her left hind leg as if it didn't belong to her any more.  She uses it when she walks but more like it was a crutch.  I can hear her coming.  scrape-thump, scrape-thump.  She does pretty well considering.  She gets around the house just fine and can even come upstairs and climb up on my bed.  A sure sign that she's felling better is her attitude towards Milo when he dances around her yipping and wanting to play.  She was so glad, at first, to be back home that she just sat there like a budda cat purring and - when he came within range- bumping heads with him.  She is still a calm purring budda cat  when he dances around her yipping.  For a few minutes.  Then she cocks her right paw.  She hasn't fired the right paw yet, but Milo better watch out.

2.  Neil has been here for the last few days.  Yesterday, we drove up the McKensie.  It was kind of a rainy day but that didn't matter.  The mountains were beautiful.  We stopped and fished several places.  At one place, I saw a salamander swimming down in the clear water.  We hiked the trail to Sahalie Falls.  The falls are gorgeous, Noisy and joyous and foaming.  We met other people and their dogs on the trail.  Meggie enjoyed that.  Milo was okay with meeting bigger dogs.  His two dog friends, Meggie and Sara, are bigger dogs.  The little dogs spooked him and he hid behind us when we met one.  It was raining steadily at lunch time so we sat in the pickup sharing our sandwiches with the dogs while the rain slid down the windows.  We ended up at the lodge at Clear Lake in mid-afternoon.  We sat at a table by a window and looked out at the lake while sipping hot coffee and eating a warm cinnamon roll.  There were a couple of row boats with hunched fisherpersons out on the lake in the light rain.  There were ducks closer to us who were upending themselves in the lakeand swifts darting over the water.  It was like a beautiful water color all in muted greens and soft shades of gray and most peaceful.    

Purrl hadn't been around for four or five days.  I had gone from worried (walking all around outside calling her name) to resigned (looking for her body by the side of the road).  This morning I went out to feed the doves.  When I came out of their room, Purrl was there in the hallway of the barn!  I couldn't believe it.  She looked a bit off balance.  I carefully picked her up (she'd lost weight, I noticed) and carried her into the house.  She was very purry and also very glad to be set down on top of the freezer where her food and water dishes are.  I had to fill her food dish.  I'd emptied it because I thought she was dead.  I watched her while she ate.  She was favoring her right front paw and her left hind leg.  When she finished eating, I set her down because Meggie and Milo were excited that their cat was back.  I made them calm down but Purrl didn't mind at all.  She just kept purring and wanted to butt heads with the dogs.  I called the vet.  Dr. Damewood was able to see her later in the morning.  She (Purrl not the vet) was evidently whacked pretty good in a cat fight and has several wounds.  She lost weight and is dehydrated.  The left hind leg has got damage to the nerves.  It just drags.  Dr. Damewood says we'll just have to wait and see what happens about the leg.  She gave Purrl an antibiotic shot and a painkiller and sent some more home with me.  Purrl has been asleep on the hearth all afternoon. 

I am so glad she's alive!

Here are the highlights since I last wrote.

I ran errands the other day in town.  It was the hottest day of the week and in the middle of the afternoon.  When I came out of Walmart I decided to go home.  I still had the church collection to deposit but I was too warm and tired.  I wanted to sit on my couch and read a library book in front of the fan.  I got home, turned off the car and looked for my purse to put my keys away.  I didn't have my purse.  I must have left it in the shopping cart in the parking lot at Walmart.  All the way back thoughts were galloping through my head.  What do I need to cancel?  What can't be replaced?  Ack!, the church collection!  Maybe some nice person took my purse to customer service.  Maybe some not-quite-so-nice person took the money ($35.00 of my money and $8.00 or $9.00 of church money) and turned in everything else.  By the time I got back to Walmart my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking.  Guess what?  My purse was still in the shopping cart with nothing missing.  That's got to be some kind of miracle.  I deposited the church collection on the way home (three checks and the $8.00 or $9.00) so it safely was secured.  When I got home I photocopied the important bits of information I carry in my purse.    

My wood shed is a 10'x20' canopy with tarps hanging down the sides.  There is a big enough opening on the end of one long side to easily get a garden cart in and out for hauling firewood.  The end closest to that opening is also open.  A year or two ago I'd jury rigged another shelter joining the wood tent so I would have a separate place for the lawn tractor.  It worked well and I could drive the lawn tractor in the open end of the annex and out the wood tent opening or vice versa.  By the end of the summer, the tarp on the annex had drooped and torn.  There was just one long ridge pole still holding it up.  Getting to the lawn tractor was like going into an almost collapsed tent.  So I fixed it.  I pulled off the old tarp.  Then I made a much better arrangement for supporting a tarp roof using two additional long metal pipes and two long arching pieces of plastic pipe going across the metal pipes.  I also cut down some incroaching brush.  I was tired when I finished the framework.  The metal pipes were heavy to carry from the barn and they had to be lifted over my head.  Eveything had to be firmly fastioned together which meant moving a stepladder around.  I took a long break until it cooled down outside and then got the brand new tarp all spread out and anchored.  That was a comedy routine all by itself.  I unfolded it just enough to drape it over the center pole and then unfolded it the rest of the way from underneath while standing on a step ladder.  The new roof framework is much better than the old arrangement of one ridgepole and ropes.  The annex roomier now.  The tarp is long enough that it hangs down the sides to keep rain from blowing in.

Rain!  Only for one day and it wasn't a lot of rain.  We hadn't had any for so long that I was grateful for any amount.  The air smelled so good.

The house always feels a bit blank just after leaves. 

He and his dog Sara are on their way back to Monmouth.  Tomorrow he and Chris are going to help Gail move in with their dad.  He expects it to take at least two days.  It will mean a lot of driving for him.  An hour and a half to his dad's and and the same back home at the end of the day.  Then there is the back and forthing to Gail's place.  Gail has a lot of stuff so it's going to be a big job.  It's a very good thing that Chris will be helping.

Friday.  Neil and I drove to Portland for his dad's 90th birthday.  I hadn't seen Neil's dad for months and was glad to be able to visit with him.  Neil's brother was there with his wife and Neil's sister was there.  A bit later in the afternoon, Neil's son, Chris came by.  Neil had done a lot of work clearing out a good section of the barn for Gail's stuff.  He took me out to admire that.  I had never been in that building and was surprised.  It isn't really a barn.  It was built as a two-story-with-basement, state-of-the-art chicken house.  I am not kidding.  If I owned it, I would be tempted to fix it up as a dwelling.  It's certainly big enough.

Saturday.  We went to our little local fair, The Western Oregon Exposition.  I had entered three things (a knitted hat, a knitted scarf and my crane costume).  I got blue ribbons on two of them.  The judge wrote on the back of the hat entry card that he hadn't been able to judge it was it really machine knit?  No it wasn't machine knit.  The person who wrote up the card had entered it in the wrong catagory.  She needs more training I think.  Next year I will check the class and lot to be sure they're correct.  I had a cord of firewood delivered earlier in the week.  It was piled one one side of the driveway.  Neil began moving into the wood tent and stacking it.  I did indoor chores and picked all my purple podded pole beans and froze them.  There weren't that many but they will be very nice in vegetable soup this winter. 

Sunday.  Church in the morning.  I fell sound asleep after lunch and slept for a couple of hours.  Neil finished stacking the firewood.  I picked up my stuff and the two blue ribbons at 5 o'clock when the fair closed.  We each had a book and read after supper.

Monday (today).  We put our fishing poles in the back of the pickup, loaded up the dogs and went on a exploratory drive with stops for fishing.  Neil is familiar with a lot of the state because of his career with Fish and Game but he hadn't been to the road over to the coast that runs along the Smith River.  That road begins just twenty miles or so from here.  The road was slow driving with lots of curves following the sides of hills.  There were places where we could see for miles out over forest.  We parked and walked talong an old road through some beautiful old growth.  There was a funny smell in one place that Neil said was bear.  He should know.  He's done a lot of trapping and relocating of bears.  We found several places to fish and tried our luck.  Neil caught one which he had to wrap in leaves to bring home.  We'll eat it for breakfast tomorrow.  On the way home Neil stopped the pickup so I could lean over him and look down over the steep drop off on his side and see some vultures sitting in the top of a tree below us.  We had a wonderful time and we learned some important things for future reference.  Next time we need to bring a dog towel, a cooler for fish and something to eat.  The other thing we learned is that two people and three dogs take up a lot of room in the cab of a pickup.