Tropical Fauna

  Today went pretty well although I might have overdone it a little yesterday-- the headache tried to come back. I tried to be better today. I had hoped to do three things that didn't require big eye focus commitments in addition to all the screen time I could stand to answer emails and stuff. They were: clean out a small desk no one has done anything with in decades. A load of laundry. Make celery soup.

I managed the emails, I got the desk about half sorted and the laundry washed but not dried. I thawed the soup stock. There's always tomorrow. After I worked a little while I got shakey. Well, I just have to accept that. My eye did let me read a bit during the down times. I've listened to a lot of podcasts and things like that, but since audio is my weakest input channel, I'm getting really tired of it.

Anyway, sorting the desk included finding two clay birds that Omer's mother had brought us as gifts from Mexico. In the same place, I also found the conch shell that my grandmother had brought home from one of her trips.

Meanwhile, a couple of years ago, I had found a set of frog ashtrays that were my mother's. They have just been sitting out ever since, because I didn't want to lose track of them. I think they are humorous.

Now we have to switch and talk about what I did just under a year ago when I came home from my Jauary trip and found my bedroom a total mouse mess. I cleaned and redecorated. I still love it! You need the reminder that the curtains are a tropical print. You can see a link below with more pictures if you want. But the point is that I have that bright tropical fabric. I have four metal frog hooks on the walls (you can see two of them in this pic and a slice of the curtain.



So today I added the conch (Bottom shelf), and one bird and frog above that.

A couple of shelves up are the other bird and frog. Incidentally, the shelf is a walnut plate display rack my mother had custom made (to go with the walnut dining table and bureau). I've tried to sell it, but no takers, so I just put it in a narrow space beside the big window.

I still want to make the soup. I'm eating almost normally, but not up to sandwiches yet, so another batch of soup will be good. I got some from the store, but even the low-sodium ones are way too salty.

Thanks so much for all the encouragement!

See The Project Done

The Vermin Inspire a Personal Record

 Never in my life (I'm pretty sure) have I deep-cleaned a room twice in one year. However, the mice led me to a complete room cleaning and re-do in February, and the whatever-they-are have caused the cleaning to happen again, just 7 months later. Here is my sports equipment. (Well, OK, not the toaster.)

I took the suggestions of a couple of people and added a spacer between the two layers of mattress and box spring in the car to better distribute the heat. Today there were about 6 hours over 120 degrees inside. I'm hoping those little buggers (literally) baked to death.

I cleaned the whole room, and sprayed with a product made to fight bedbugs (I still don't think that's what I have, but this also kills ticks, fleas, and mites- basically arachnids), and it's stronger than most products. It's only been in the last few years you could buy a home product strong enough to kill bedbugs.

Then I put it all back together again.

If it is some kind of small spider, spiders really don't like peppermint. So there are now cotton balls with peppermint oil in the corners of the room, and it smells like a candy shop. I hope it doesn't drive me out as well as the spiders. Strong odors bother me too.

This was a total shotgun approach, so if there are no more bugs, I won't know what kind they were. But I wasn't going to try one thing, then another, and keep tearing the room apart between each attempt to identify them.

One piece of good news is that I could get the spray and the oil in Scottville, so I didn't have to drive anywhere. I couldn't! To get the bed parts in the car I had to move the seats as far forward as they will go. That made it tight for even shorty me to drive. Thus, another 3-mile walk.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be selling books at the Scottville Fall Festival.

Miles walked in 2024: 431.7

See The Project - Done See There are No Bugs on Me

One Thing Fixed

 Well, I've been working on not being discouraged at the number of large projects there are to do here right now. Forget the small ones I was hoping to do. Gotta go with the crises. One of them is taken care of.

Our lovely on-demand water heater has to be flushed every year. They said that when it was installed, but I didn't quite appreciate what that meant. A little too complicated for me to do just from watching videos. Way too expensive to have done professionally every year. Anyway, it's flushed.

Notice the dirty water. He did two buckets like that. Now the hot water flows great again.

They gave us a "deal" because they installed it. Some deal. This is way to big a yearly expense for us. I will have to learn how to do it. I made extensive notes, but there are a lot of things to get right and valves to deal with, and...o

I am increasingly feeling like I am too old to try to take care of the upkeep on a house. The big projects keep pushing the small ones out of focus, and small things add up to crumbling infrastructure.

Other than that, I worked on the program I'm giving at the NCT Celebration and tried to get ready for this weekend at the Wild Blueberry Festival in the UP. I need to finish that because I'm being picked up at 8:30 in the morning.

See Hot Water

Close Enough!

 I'm starting with the trailer loaded to go to the township cleanup day last Saturday. That's because the long-term solution to my house cleaning problem is that a lot of stuff has to GO. Well, we made another little dent in it.

One big issue on my list was the sink I was unable to unclog very well last summer. The reason there are so many links at the end of this post is that although this iteration of "the big sort" is nothing like really cleaned up, it's light-years better than the previous working status events shared at various times over the last year.

Got the fitting apart without much trouble. I guess I was just too frustrated after the big toilet fix in July to apply myself to the problem. The assembly that holds the stopper under the sink is just a little too long to fit nicely between the pipe and the wall, and it's a pain in the you-know-what. But I got it apart. Here's the culprit.

A video would have shown this better, but I think you can get the idea that the water is gushing, and not collecting in a pool. Just because it's mandatory, I have to tell you again that I hate plumbing.

One big piece of cleaning up the house was to open the trailer for the summer. I can't leave cushions or fabrics in it over the winter because I've had problems with mold. So the cushions and all kinds of stuff have also been piled in the dining room. Long term, I have no good storage options unless I do serious cleaning in our one good outbuilding. Not happening soon.

So, I uncovered and started airing Sunny out a couple of days ago.

I'd been getting the cushion covers washed over the winter, so I did the final two. Put everything back together and did a moderate cleaning. No immediate plans for us to go traveling, but I want Steve to be able to see my Sunny.

Now for the inside spaces. Here's the living room. Still stuff piled behind where I am, but this is an amazing amount of usable space given what it was. I still have to run the vacuum cleaner, but I'll get that done.

And I saved the stunning transformation for last. OK, there are still piles you can't see in the picture off to the left, and not everything got dusted, but I am rather amazed that I was able to sort and condense what was there enough to basically clear the necessary space to use the table.

I still also have to clean the upstairs bathroom, but that's not a huge project. It just needs a quick cleanup.

Steve will be here about 2 pm tomorrow. I have a car full of stuff to recycle in the morning, and a trip to the store to do.

Let's not talk about all I did not get done. I know this still isn't anything like CLEAN. But little by little it's getting done. Maybe I'll live long enough to sort it all. The next crisis will be to get the lawnmower going.

No writing happened except to edit a couple of files in response to some emails that gave me up-to-date info on some places.

I'm whipped, but I do hope to run the vacuum yet, and maybe start on the bathroom.

See My Little Sausage See Acountability 101 See Dining Room and Trailer Tetris See Ain't It Fun?

Progress Report

  I worked so hard today! I got 208 miles of campsites done. That leaves me with about 1200 miles to go.

I also worked in the dining room. Remember, this is not a 100% cleaning job. It's creative re-stacking with some sorting and organizing. But things are looking good.

I did go substitute at a practice of the Pentwater bell choir.

I have a few things yet to do this eveing, but I wasn't quitting on the book until I got over 200 miles!

See Accountability 101

Acountability 101

 This is almost a "before" picture. I've already moved a few things, and I have spent some time sorting hardware.

The best I can hope for is to restack all the piles. However, there is good hope that there is room to do so in a way that would allow us to use two sides of the table when Steve comes for a visit next week.

You will hold my feet to the fire to make that happen, right? Nobody has eaten at this table for about 6 years.

Meanwhile, I did 162 miles of campsites today. I still have 1600 miles to go (I thought it was 1600 after yesterday, but I actually added it up today), so I have to keep my focus on that project too.

I am reminded of a sign a former pastor had on his desk. "Keep your eye on the ball, your shoulder to the wheel, and your nose to the grindstone. Now try to work in that position."

And of course, the grass started growing overnight.

See Dining Room and Trailer Tetris

Team C-J for the Win Yet Again

 Well, it appears that the last time I had the living room really clean was 2018, although Nov 2019 was probably close. And, no, it's not really clean now. And I didn't take a before picture, but this is the after. I know... there's still a lot of stuff. But you should have seen how much there was. Cathy came over and we spent two hours tackling this mess.

The couch is out of the picture on the right side, and it is clear (which it wasn't two days ago). As in... people can actually sit on it and use it as designed.

When I started working in earnest on the trailer project, all the wood, foam, moldings, etc were stored in the area you see here, in addition to everything you can still see.

So, where did all that stuff go?

We still have one viable out building. There was so much junk just thrown in the entrance way... We broke down about 50 dead boxes and pulled out some things that can go to recycle or the township cleanup day this spring. Again, no before picture. Not even an after picture. This is the middle of the project when it was cleaned out enough to move all the leftover building materials to this space.

Sure, I prefer having a cleaner house, but what has kicked me into a higher gear? Steve is coming for a visit in 2.5 weeks. We need enough space to at least have four people hanging around together and to eat meals. I have some hopes for part of the dining room table, but I'm not positive.

And, I edited, and managed to get 100 miles of campsites logged. I am whipped.

Just for perspective, You know I've been lamenting the utter mess here since I finished the hike. Well, I have emptied the boxes from and cleaned the kitchen (the floor was covered with boxes), cleaned and redecorated my bedroom, widened the aisle through the dining room by one whole row of boxes, pretty nearly finished cleaning the pantry (I'm still puttering on that), and the bathroom isn't bad. I guess I should feel a little better about my progress.

See Boring but Necessary

Strange Plastic

 I returned to the abandoned pantry-cleaning project today. It got sidetracked by many other things.

But what I want to show you is something very strange. In fact, I've never encountered anything like it. I like unique and unexplained things, so this qualifies.

Stored in the pantry were a pile of these large plates that Om had purchased a number of years ago. I picked up the pile and took them to the kitchen to wash them.

But when I removed one plate from the pile it made a funny crunching noise and disintegrated. The patriotic design is a thin film stuck to the base plastic. The white base plastic crumbled as the film peeled. The oddest thing about it is that the plastic has a very strange non-plastic odor to it when broken. If I were to keep playing with the plastic pieces, they could be broken down by hand in to a coarse sand-like pile.

I have NO idea what these things are made of, but needless to say, they are now headed for the trash. It's almost like they are made of biodegradable plastic. But why would anyone make something that is supposed to be durable from a biodegradable product?

In other news: I edited, I wrote, I worked on taxes.

See One More Pantry Section

The Project- Done!

 Here's how this began. When I returned home to a house that had been unoccupied for a month, the smell of mouse pee in my room was so strong I had trouble getting to sleep. OK, I may not clean as often as I should, but I do know how. So I emptied the room into the kitchen. You saw that mess.

When I got started cleaning, I realized that the walls were pretty dirty- not cleaning up well with washing. So... #1- Omer was still gone. #2- He had given me some money to buy myself something on my trip. However, I didn't find anything I wanted. #3- The room was already emptied. #4- Why not?

I went hunting for paint and curtain fabric. There have never been curtains in that room. However, the only place left locally to buy fabric is WalMart. They didn't have anything I wanted. Then I remembered that I had bought fabric that I really liked for curtains when I was still in Ann Arbor (grad school), but then I gave up my room there. I actually found it without too big a fight, and there was enough.

Back to the store for a shade of yellow paint that I liked to go with the fabric.

Meanwhile, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

You saw the curtain brackets the other day. The rods are just a fun little personalization. The long one is a hiking stick made from a dowel that I was given for speaking to a club long ago. The shorter one is the hiking stick that I used on the entire first NCT hike. Its name is "Chickenspit." It began life as a spit for a chicken way back in 1993, before Marie and I did our first big NCT hike. Marie, David, puppy Chips and I camped and hiked for a week at Apple River Canyon in Illinois (near where I was working that summer). David and I love playing with fires, so we roasted a chicken, and the spit became my walking stick. I retired it after that hike when it finally developed a split. But I think finding its fourth use (tree branch, spit, hiking stick, curtain rod) is a perfect role for its retirement years.

Another fix is that I'm attempting to make a home for the everpresent pile of current clothes. We'll see if I can be disciplined enough to hang them on hooks.

I repaired several other things as well. Had to wait for the curtain rings to arrive before I could finish that job, and then the sewing machine has joined the list of things that needs work. But I got it to hang in there to do this.

Now the room smells faintly of Murphy's Oil Soap (a huge improvement), and it makes me happy when I look at the walls. I have a bunch of silly memorabilia that means nothing to anyone except me. Rocks from paddling trips, beach glass, my blue bottles, a few cute plaques, and a few awards, my dad's tie rack...

Omer came home today. So, the kitchen was cleaned up before he got here, and tomorrow I will move on to spending some time on one of the many projects that I should be doing.

Oh yeah, I've caught seven mice since I got home.

See One Little Piece

One Little Piece of THE PROJECT

 Years ago, before there were dollar stores, I bought two of these swing curtain rods somewhere cheap. Maybe K-Mart. I know I didn't pay more than $2.50 apiece, probably less. But they only had two. I really wanted four.

I haven't been able to find anything like them that isn't cast iron, and I don't need that level of sturdy. They also don't have to swing. I could get a set of cast iron brackets with a grapevine design for $90. Just no.

I looked on places like Etsy and Ebay, and found a used set for $20. Yes! So I bought them. Then the seller contacted me and said he had made a mistake in the listing and there was only one bracket. Well, that won't work. So I got my money back.

Meanwhile my brain started to function and I thought I remembered a pair of old shelf brackets that I had saved from something. Found 'em. It only cost $4 to get some verdigris paint. I cut out some grape leaves from cardboard, and painted the brackets poorly to make them look even older.

Then I antiqued the whole thing with some black paint.

Glued on the leaves and put them up. I think it's just fine! I'm all for eclectic anyway.

I MAY finish this project tomorrow. I'm pretty close.

The car has gone to the shop to hopefully be fixed. Did errands and edited today as well. There is one more pile of stuff in the kitchen that doesn't really have homes to deal with. Ugh.

See Focused Activity

Focused Activity

 I hunkered down and got a lot done on the project today. Here's your hint of the day.

Tomorrow is a SPW Chapter hike and activity. Not sure how much I'll get done after I get home, but I think I'll come close to finishing everything on Sunday that can be done until my order with some small items arrives.

See Your Next Hint

Now What?

  I got bitten by a "bug," but you'll have to wait a few days to find out what kind.

Here's a better hint.

So far, only two trips to the store and rifling through six or seven boxes of stuff.

See Yankee Springs and Home

One More Pantry Section Done

I can't believe I've spent two weeks cleaning these six shelves, but it has, indeed, taken that long (working on it anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour a day. More than that today because I wanted to finish). I did get into some awful messes of mouse activity in a couple of boxes. One of those had to be really seriously cleaned up.

I've already taken one large box of stuff out of the house to be donated, and I have two more ready to go. There are now some more open places on these shelves. However, there was so much loose stuff in the room, I'm sure the spaces will be filled before I'm done.

Here's the last section to do that I'll take on next. In a picture, it doesn't look as bad as it is. However, I do think this part is going to be easier. I don't think there are as many things there that might have interested mice. Stuff will need to be washed, but I don't expect the horrible piles of poop and ick.

In other news: I edited, and I started re-reading two of my own books. I want to enter the best one in a contest, and I need to evaluate them side-by-side to choose the best-written one. I'm about 2/3 of the way through Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe, and I will admit that I think I did a pretty good job with that one!

See Two Spaces Done

Washing Machine Tales

I thought I'd give you the whole washing machine saga starting with 55 years ago. When you are done rolling your eyes, we will begin.

When we were first married, it was laundromat land. We lived in tiny masonite campus housing affectionately called "the shacks." They were demolished the year we moved. This is a good thing.

We moved to Michigan to a much larger house than the shack, but no washer. My Mom brought me her old Easy Spin Dryer which was how she washed all our family clothes until I was about ten. This is not that machine, but it's the exact same model. The large side is an agitator tub , then you transferred the clothes to the spin dry side. When I was a kid, we also had a separate wringer (mangle) that we would put the clothes through to get them even dryer before hanging on the line. This machine was new in the 1940s and now it's 1970 when I'm trying to use it.

If you are local, you'll remember Briggs Hardware, and Woody Briggs. He was so awesome. He had a basement room full of all kinds of parts for pretty much everything that was out of date. At least twice he helped me fix that washer until it finally gave up the ghost.

We bought one of these. It's a little Hoover Twin Tub washer that used the same principle. Wash on one side, transfer the clothes and then spin them. It hooked to a sink faucet. It worked well enough, and was adequate for two people. Mine was brown. I think it cost in the neighborhood of $55.

I just looked at the pictures of when we moved to this property, and that is the washer we brought here. However, it wasn't long after that we started taking in foster kids. There is no way you could do enough laundry for a family in that little machine. I don't remember if it died, or if we sold it. And I don't remember how we got our next machine or what kind it was. It was probably not new. I think the Griffis family from Pentwater might have gotten it for us. Roy was either still doing appliance sales and repair, or had recently switched to carpeting.

Anyway, that one really and truly died in the summer of 1977. Marie was visiting me. So we had three adults, three small boys, and an assortment of random teenagers that sometimes stayed here, usually ate here, worked on bicycles here, and generated mucho laundry.

This created a total crisis. I was doing about two loads of laundry every single day. I'm telling you all this because it led to an unusual (for me) situation. There was still a Sears catalog store in town, and they did have appliances on the floor. Instead of doing careful comparison shopping and thinking about the purchase for at least days, if not longer, Marie and I went to Sears. They had a large capacity washer on sale, and I brought it home somehow. I believe it cost $250, and I also have no idea how we got it here. I must have borrowed a truck from someone.

Anyway, that is the washer I'm still using. It has actually worked for more years than the Easy Spin Dryer.

It has had to have some serious repairs one other time. At that time, the repairman (the same one who came yesterday) said, "You want to keep this washer running as long as you can because the new ones just aren't anywhere near as good."

When he came yesterday, he said the new ones are even worse than when he was here before. He still had a few parts that would fit this one in his storage. It got a new pump and a new belt. We think it should be good for another 10 years, which is all I'll need it to last. If you can see the belt, there are a bunch of the teeth broken right out of it.

This is Steve, of AC/DC Repair Service. No web site. Call 1-888-736-7872. He's willing to actually fix your older appliances if he can get parts. He also kept my stove going when the oven failed a few years ago. And if that stove goes, I may give up cooking altogether.

Today's news is almost all research for the book. I did errands from Scottville to Ludington, went to a number of places trying to find information that I want for the book. And I took a walk. No actual writing, but I think I'm ready for the next segment.

Futon Fix

I am nearing the last of the aftermath of the basement flood in January (link below). The old pull-out couch had been dead before the flood, and since it had been just dumped in the yard, we simply hauled it off to the township trash day this spring. It was so heavy I had to get help every time it needed to be seriously moved.

In June, Cathy helped me and we went to pick up a used futon I found for a reasonable price.

It's a really nice frame, but the person was selling it because the zipper on the cover had completely failed. You can see that the stuffing is blossoming out from inside on three sides. I knew I could replace the zipper.

However, I quickly realized that replacing the zipper was a bad plan. The cushion had been made with a zipper, but then after the cover had been put over the padding, buttons had been fixed through it to hold things in place like on a regular couch or chair. If I were going to replace the zipper, I'd need to cut all those out, and then replace them too. Sure, I know how to do that, but it seemed unnecessary. The cover doesn't need to be removable. I decided to just sew up the old cover. That turned out to be a s-l-o-w job. Easy, but slow.

Anyway, I finished today! I also re-hung two pictures that had to be moved because some of the bookcases got moved. The downstairs really looks like a living space again!

This futon is nicer than the other couch ever was.

I also managed to do laundry and some other odds and ends.

See Not the Day I Planned What Happened with the Basement