Town

Yesterday Earl and I made our monthly trip to The Can (Spokane, the local metropolis of 215,973 souls – and a Costco, and a fine bookstore, Auntie's).

Our very kind younger daughter Emma took us to Costco for serious cheese shopping. (Young Liam helped by making motor noises from his stroller.) I had a quick lunch with my work buddies. Bought gas. Bought a month's worth of Canadian and Mexican beer. And met with an angelic woman from SNAP, to apply to have our mortgage reconfigured to lower our payment, since we're on disability now. She was great, and we are hopeful.

Then a quick stop at WinCo to score a month's supply of Guittard milk chocolate. Will it last a whole month? We don't know. We are hopeful. C. has offered to hide it, and allow set amounts each day, but I'm afraid I might turn violent.

Today C., Earl and I hit Deer Park (pop. 4,000) for Blue Sky cola and some miscellaneous groceries I didn't have time to buy in Spokaloo.

I think we're set for the month, and we're happy to stay home now.

The weather has turned wet. I think the usual fall monsoons are here, though late. We need to hit our mushroom spot for fall pickings.

Today C. went up on the roof and cleaned out the stovepipe topper. She poked around a bit, looking for the causes of our usual leaks.

We have some money set aside for roof work, and talked to a nice local guy about it. He has no sense of urgency, though, so we may need to call one of the more businesslike places. I do not want to be bailing out the back door this year.

We've had a couple of deaths in the last month or so. Birdie, our neurologically damaged house chicken, died. And Walter, our granddog the pug, struggled with a horrible autoimmune disease and was finally, mercifully, euthanized. He was only 6.

I keep busy feeding and watering the animals, hauling firewood, and reading. And thinking about next year's garden.

And older daughter S. gave us her old Nikon digital camera, so we should have some good shots to post!

No eggs today. None yesterday.

Snow day

The snow got serious, and we must have five inches out there. It's not a lot, but it's enough to keep me mostly inside, reading and listening to Jango internet radio. Ruthie Foster's "Death Comes a Knocking" is playing. Crank it up! Great song.

First snow

We've got little dusting of snow out there today, but it's mostly melted away.

Earl and I hit Deer Park for groceries (mostly chocolate) and chicken food. The roads were bare.

I've been reading and puttering instead of posting, so here is a recap of recent events.

First, my mom is doing well after surgery. :)

Just before the temps plummeted, I insulated the pipes in the pump house.

Here's the before shot. The pump and pipes are in a big (10x10x10 feet), loosely insulated room inside the cinderblock building. We run a small heater in there, but it's still frozen three times in the last five years, generally at the elbow in the upper left foreground. Last year's busted pipes sent spray cutting through the fiberglass and foam insulation around the room. What a mess. I planned to build an insulated plywood box just big enough for the pipes, and run a little milk house heater in there, but did some research online and decided to make better use of the heat tape and add the recommended inch-and-a-half of fiberglass insulation. I think I'll wrap the whole thing in plastic before it gets really cold. Fingers crossed!

Granddaughter Ciri celebrated her first birthday with a gathering at the restaurant where her parents work. Her friends Eloise and Landon helped open the packages when she got tired. We had fun!

Here's a gratuitous shot of Smokey, our angora house rabbit, with amaranth. He's a very cool fellow.

I'll be posting a final tally of the preserves in the pantry soon. The last of the tomatoes are still ripening in the other kitchen, but I think we're done with canning. Huzzah!

One egg today.

Thinking of my mum

Who is having surgery for noninvasive breast cancer tomorrow. She's 79, her name is Suzy, and she's pretty damn tough. I'd sure appreciate any kind thoughts or prayers you'd send her way. She says she's not worried, just really pissed off over her bad luck.

She and my dad raised us four kids all over the West, from New Mexico to Alaska, before retiring to Texas.

Hang in there, Ma, and get well!

Big wind

No, not me. There's wind storm out there, rocking the pine trees and stirring up dirty grey clouds. The wind advisory firm the NWS calls for gusts up to 50 MPH.

If we're lucky, the big pines will stay rooted in the ground. If not, some of them will blow over, taking power lines with them, and the area will have no lights or water for a day or three.

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The wind got a little scary there, and I shut down the computer. But all is well – no power loss or downed trees. The ground is littered with pine needles, though. Might rake up some for kindling.

The forecast is for rain, for the next week. And likely until the snow flies next month. Not excited about the fall rains, mostly because of the leaky roof, and the relentless grey skies and muddy ground. Snow usually comes as a bright, clean relief.

I'm pleased I managed to finish the rooster house and the roofing over the basement stairs before the rain hit.

During the storm, I made the rounds of the building, blocking that floppy window in the stairs room with bricks, and the north door with a heavy can of paint. Locked the south door to keep it from blowing open, and added a few chunks of heavy wood to the metal roofing over the woodpile. Hauled in some bigger logs for the stove. Brought four bowls of nearly ripe tomatoes from the other kitchen. Left a message at SNAP, a local HUD agency, to see if we can reconfigure our mortgage and lower our payment since I'm officially disabled now.

That's it for work for me today. I'm reading "Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones" by Lana Witt. Good book. Just finished "Dancing Bear" by James Crumbly. Also good.

Earl is out barking at coyotes.

Tamale pie for dinner. One egg today.

Puttering

Chilly, windy day.

I stacked on the pile of wood the kids brought.

I winterized the duck house that A. gave us last year and Em and R. moved over to the rooster quarters. Basically, I covered the bottom, sides and front with thin plywood, which stiffened the structure quite a bit. The roof is metal, and lifts for human access. It should be quite snug for the four fellahs. C. helped me prop it up on 4x6s to keep it out of the snow and ice. Higher would be better.

I added a stout branch for a roost, and tossed some layer crumbles inside so they'd check it out. They moseyed in to eat the crumbles, then went back out into the wind to roost on the brick windowsill. Idiots.

I'll cover the floor in straw, and maybe as the weather worsens they'll move inside.

Then worked on putting a tin roof over the outdoor stairs leading to the basement. I've had to cobble together scraps of the tin to finish the thing, so am adding some wooden supports in a couple of places. (Yes, it'd go quicker if I bought new materials, instead of scrounging roofing from the barn leftovers, but hippies don't do that.)

Hope to finish that tomorrow, and go on to reinsulating the pump house and a bunch of other jobs.

I've managed to put behind me (snort) the hideous image of my old-woman butt. And my tailbone is feeling better after that fall, though it still hurts to sit down, lay down and get up.  Seriously, I need to wear some protective gear, since my natural bumper back there has shriveled up and fallen down. Something like an orange life jacket, stuffed into my underpants. A whoopee cushion, duct-taped to my jeans?

Three eggs today.

I'm in shock

Seriously rattled.

I made the monthly trek to town yesterday, lunch with buddies, pharmacy-grocery-beer-gas-chicken-food shopping, and dragged my tired old butt home.

Em, Richard and Liam (with a pumpkin cheesecake) were here to celebrate C.'s birthday, and they'd brought two loads of wood from a neighbor of my garden-club friends. It was awesome. R. unloaded the wood, and the car. Em made dinner. Liam and I read in the big recliner.

Then I helped Em deliver plates of cheesecake and the GF carrot cake I'd made yesterday, discovered I was without my cane while I crossed the kitchen holding two plates of cake, and in ominous slo-mo,  windmilling, fell backward onto my butt on hardwood floor. Richard lunged to catch me and managed to save one plate, but not me. Boom.

Nothing was broken, not even me. I hurt some, and I'll be taking it easy for a few days. The shocking part came when I checked in the bathroom mirror for a bruise.

Sometime in the last 30 years, something has happened to my ass. Now, I've lost weight in the last year,  thanks to my doc's ban of gluten. Maybe six belt notches. I don't pay much attention – after all, I'm in here, not out there. I don't look in mirrors much. (Who knows how many times I appeared at work with my hair sticking up, or tags on the outside? I don't. I have kind friends.) And I've gotten old – 59 at last count.

This morning I met my butt face-to-face. Or face-to... you know what I mean.

And I'm still reeling. (Mentally, I mean. Though if I forget the cane and am tired, physically, too.) Where there should be a robust bumper of butt cheek, there is a... sort of saggy hollow. And the cheek bit is a shriveled thing, way down there. Whoa.

What happened?

I'm going to go sit on the heating pad now, and read some escapist fiction.

Do they make helmets for the butt? Or do I have to wear my old fanny pack backward?