Bits and Pieces

Time is running out at the library today, the only place I can set up the laptop and work. 

I have several weighty essays keeping me awake at night as I compose them lying in the dark, but no time to work through one and get it out of my head and onto the screen.

The cats, although joyful at our return, have gotten the sniffles, likely from being moved into the cabin and crouching mournfully on the cold floors under the bed.  They look at us bleary-eyed, sneeze on us, but then cuddle up with stuffy purrs wanting to be comforted.

I'm watching their progress carefully wondering if a vet visit must be added to the frantic "to do" list in the next few days.  None of the cases seem to be life threatening,  no one has stopped eating.  They are rather like small children who don't know yet how to blow noses, and present a rather "snotty" appearance.
Pebbles is acting absolutely coltish since our return.  She adores J. and although some of her enthusiasm when we drive into the yard if food based [poor starving horse!] she has had a great deal to say to him and rushes at the fence with whinnies and whickers.

We tackled the storage shed and old barn yesterday, reuniting with some items which I had forgotten I owned but was immediately sure were cherished enough to be crammed into the moving process.
J. drove over South Pass and stayed Thursday night with Howard and Heidi and rumbled back yesterday morning with their large horse trailer.  The trailer is not meant to transport Pebbles who will have to be content with our humbler and smaller trailer.  It is meant to hold the overflow of household goods and J's many and expensive tools.

I do have to remind myself that the house we just sold is no longer ours and the new owners have every right to do it up to their own taste.  That is exactly what we will be doing in the little cottage--painting and some renovating, adding to the gardens which are already there. But, I haven't quite detached from this place yet, so feel a bit like some poor waif gazing from the humble cabin toward the lights of the "big house!"

Wyoming has been a huge change for me this past dozen years, as we were both bred and born in New England. South Central Kentucky where we are headed provides a landscape that seems almost familiar with its beautiful hardwood trees, green fields and historic buildings in every town square.

I think we're glad that the renovation of the land and cottage were untaken before we found it.  Much "dirty work" has been accomplished both inside and out. We caught it just in time to prevent new carpets going down.  We prefer wood or tile floors.  {If you think of many cats hawking hairballs on carpet, you understand!}
The encouraging words from my readers and "followers" during this hectic and exhausting time are so appreciated. There is the too well known physical work of packing and cleaning, the lack of time to rest and --at this point--the guest cabin is so cluttered with cats and belongings that merely being there isn't inspiring.

A friend pointed out that our designated day of leave-taking [Thursday] is also my birthday!  I was greatly surprised to hear that!

One of the nicest things on my "do before we leave" list is to drive to the local garden center and spend the gift certificate given to me by loving church members when my Dad died last fall.  I can choose veg and flower seeds with happy glee knowing that they will all grow where we are headed.

In the dark hours of listening to the cats wheeze, while trying to give J enough of the bed space so that he can sleep well, I conjure memories of spice pinks [were these the gilliflowers of English books?] lavender, scented thymes [Thank you, Angie, for reminding me of lemon thyme!] catnip to dry for the cats.  J. is eloquent on the subject of sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers--and the anticipation of planting good pasture grass to make hay for Pebbles.
Its all about holding on to enthusiasm and stamina at this point! 

We Are Slogging On

Yesterday just before noon our Mexican friend, Nuco pulled in driving his new truck. For a number of years he worked for J. doing both carpentry and mechanical work. Like many men he was lured by the wages for working in the oil fields and has spent the last several years working in Sheridan, WY which is about 3 hours away.  [Every place in Wyoming is about 3 hours from everywhere else.]

He doesn't always return to Lander on his week off and it had been several months since we had seen him. We were concerned that with the haste to be off house hunting we wouldn't see him.

Just about the time that we remark his long absence he arrives.

He seemed not at all astonished to learn we had sold the house and were venturing off on a retirement caper.

He immediately insisted that we get in the truck and he would drive us to town to eat at the Mexican restaurant El Sol.

Kind man that he is, he spent the afternoon after lunch helping J. to move tools and equipment out of the garage and down to the old barn where it will have to remain until we come back from our house search.

While the men labored outside I continued to empty closets and kitchen cupboards, filling box after box.

Today, daughter G. had a dental appointment so was off work.  She appeared and began directing the sorting and cleaning of the kitchen, telling me, of course, that I have "too much stuff."  Grandson D. is off school early on Wednesdays so he was also recruited to help.

G. has taken my plants to her house to care for while we are away.  D. and J. hauled out boxes, removed all but a few sticks of furniture into the van.  G. found a home with one of her work mates for the sewing cabinet I don't want to move.

The excess of clothing, shoes, oddments, canned goods and such have been laboriously stashed in the cabin where we and the cats are climbing over them.

The cats!  A stray cat wandered onto the porch at 4 A.M. and several of our resident vigilantes went into siren mode---singing cat war songs up and down the scale.  J. lept from bed, his big flashlight already in hand and shone it out the door onto the big tiger tom who was now sitting in the drive. 

I stayed out in the living area, trying to calm the cats while J. went back to bed.  Finally, convinced that the felines were "over" the intrusion, I crept back to bed.  I had just gotten warm and sleepy when the outcry came again with even more of the cat tribe adding their voices.

Resignedly, I got up, put on the coffee.

It has been a long day!

I got all the kitchen cabinetry wiped down inside and out--a big job.  Now merely [!] to sort the odds and ends, clean the floors and we'll be ready for the closing early on Friday morning.

I have to pack a suitcase, make sure I have reading material sufficient for the journey.

I must remember to read the electric meters, have the phone cancelled.

I think I must keep my "eye on the prize."

I have a post or two scheduled to share later.

I expect to suffer bloggers' withdrawal.

Staying in the Cabin

J. and Raisin his cat, huddle rather morosely on the futon this morning after a poor night's sleep. 

Teasel took the move to the cabin quite badly.  She has never lived anywhere but in the main house with us.  She, along with Chester, Jemima  and Mrs. Beasley, fled to the bedroom when the men began to carry out furniture on Sunday afternoon.   They soon advanced to dismantle our huge lodge-pole pine bed frame, which left the cats feeling defenseless.  They dashed in here in a panic and flung themselves through the open closet door.

Daughter G. prudently shut them in.  I plopped Charlie and Maisie into the big cat carrier as they were all too interested in getting under the big clumping feet of the menfolk.

The carrier was then too heavy for me to lug, so grandson D. took them to the cabin and unceremoniously decanted them.

Eggnog is so upset by cat carriers that I simply scooped her up and headed out the front door carrying her.

J. took his precious Raisin down at my request, then G. and I dealt with the closet cats.  Jemima was burrowed in a blanket which remained on the closet shelf, Chester, Mrs. B. and Teasel were in a hot trembling pile behind a box on the floor.  G. insisted that she was going to carry Teasel, while I carted the weighty Mrs. B.  [Teasel detests G. who loves to stalk her, but she was so traumatized that she barely twitched a muscle.]  We got all the cats transferred to the cabin without incident.

When I went down a few hours later, the three older girls were obviously remembering that they had lived there before.  Charlie and Maisie spent several weeks there when I was fostering them for Pet Connection.  If you picture Onslow of "Keeping Up Appearances" you have a profile of Charlie.  I could just imagine him strutting about demanding that someone produce a snack and see him comfortable in his new space.

Teasel and the "kittens" didn't put in an appearance until we went down for the night and collapsed with our respective books on the futon.  The rooms were rather chilly, so I put my boots back on and crunched up through the snow to find some fleece throws which had escaped the packing frenzy.

I also fetched the ratty rug which the cats love [and which they scratch!] and a handful of dried catnip. 

After a snort or two of catnip and a wallow on the rug, feline nerves were somewhat restored.  The cats alternately piled on our laps for reassurance and got up to explore their new abode.

It was not, sad to say, a restful night.  A double bed is no fit size for two adults and 8 cats.  The cabin's little bedroom didn't feel familiar any more. The traffic on the road below was more audible than at the main house.

J. has just gone down for the night with the wistful remark that he hoped our fellow boarders would feel more settled tonight.  I expect that is a vain hope.

It is cold and bright.  It was below zero F. last night and early this morning, so cold that the snow squeaks underfoot. When I plunged off the porch yesterday with Eggnog in my arms the snow was up to my knees and somewhat over my boots.  A good many trudges back and forth created this narrow slippery path.

You can see my meandering trail through the drifts and around the side of the cabin to the steps.

Standing at the end of the porch [shivering] I zoomed in on Pebbles having her breakfast hay.

The packing goes on.  I hoped to have the entire kitchen finished and ready to clean, but there are still oddments to be stuffed in cartons. Why on earth do we need so many skillets, kettles, mugs, ranks of glass canisters and stacks of baking dishes and casseroles of every description?

A rhetorical question, no doubt.

I am reading my favorite blogs in harried snatches, without much time to leave comments.  I do appreciate the comments left here, and during my time without internet will feel that I am absent from true friends, just as much as I will be missing those friends who are part of my physical home.

J.'s laptop is going for service on Wednesday and on Thursday, our last day in the house, mine will go to our tech man's shop to be cleaned and upgraded while we are away.

Hopefully we will stay at motels with internet access along the house-seeking journey.

I'm still hoping to snatch time to create some posts which can be scheduled for a later day.

Just so you don't forget me!

The Packing Continues [Indefinitely?]

Who would think I could harbor so many books and projects in this small room I call mine. [The big closet was crammed, bins of fabric pushed under the daybed.]  Two stacks of boxes have gone out and there is still more to deal with.

Several cats peered from the bedroom door as J. trundled in the dolly.  All retreated but Charlie who is perpetually curious.

J. takes a load out to the trailer, maneuvering around cartons and displaced furniture.

Charlie supervises from a comfortable carton.

Raisin says the uproar is upsetting her delicate stomach--the skirting on my armchair holds in warmth from the infloor heat, so she has retreated from the fray.

Still More Books!

I had an errand in town this afternoon and decided to stop at the Book Basket which is a used book exchange.  Our friend Joe mentioned he had seen there a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" which he considers required reading for anyone headed to live in Kentucky.

Someone else had bought the book, but [so I reasoned] I need to use my trade credits before I leave town and I remembered I had by-passed a paper-bound copy of "Lark Rise to Candleford" thinking that I didn't want to spend $10.00 for a paper-covered book.

Given the need to use my credits, it now seemed like a good choice.

The book wasn't on the shelf where it was displayed before Christmas.  Crouching creakily on the floor to see the bottom tiers of a section labeled "Britain" I spied the familiar red spine.  A hard cover copy and for only $6.00!  Nearby was the intriguing "The English Year--A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days."

These came home with me as well as two paperbacks---a mere novel and a book of essays by Canadian writer Sharon Butala.

I need absorbing reading to keep my mind off the perils of a house-hunting trek to Kentucky!

[And I transferred my remaining book trade credits to Joe.]

One of the photos and colored illustrations from the book.

There is a whole page at the back of the book giving, in tiny letters, credit for all the illustrations.

This is an abridged text, but a treasure to amplify my small paperback edition of the trilogy.

J. on his way to bed, has just stood gazing around this room of mine.  I felt that the expression on his face was not a compliment to my hours of sorting and packing.

As he glanced about him in obvious astonishment, I barked, "And whatever are you looking at in such a dismal way?"

He shrugged.  "How can you have filled so many boxes and have so much left to pack?"

 "We will discuss that," I retorted loftily, "when you begin to sort and pack your stuff in the barn!"

Packing is Such Hard Work!

Lt. to Rt. Raisin; Chester; Eggnog--with her feet propped on Teasel; Jemima; and in the rear, Mrs. Beasley.

We have been helping to sort and pack for days.  We have scaled tottering stacks of taped up cartons, popped in and out of empty boxes, shredded paper.  All is disruption. Our TEA was LATE and we had to turn on our most pleading and hungry looks before it was served.

Mrs. B, "You know I spent night before last shut in the new upstairs bathroom---in the cold.  It wasn't my fault that J. didn't see me before he downed his tools and  closed the door.  I've had nightmares and flashbacks ever since.  Just leave me alone!"

Maisie does have a head---tucked under her paws.  She has kept me company through hours of packing quilt fabric.

Charlie has secluded himself in the closet.  Fittingly, he chose to recline on a cat "panel" long ago destined as a pillow cover--which may yet someday happen.

You can't possibly be expecting us to get up and do any more today ??!!

What happened to the warm body that was supporting my feet? 

The sorting and packing--and not enough discarding--continues.  J.'s nephew, also a building contractor, came and relieved him this afternoon of several old job-site work trailers.  We can check those off the list of large items to be removed from the dooryard.

J. started the big diesel motor home [the one left to us after sales of several] and brought it up to the side driveway.  At what point do I begin stashing clothing and such in its chilly depths?

I must admit that most of the STUFF in the house belongs to me!  House plants, books, fabric, a few keepsakes and vintage items, piles of genealogy notes and old photos.  BOOKS!  Did I mention the books in baskets, on shelves, in stacks on the floor, lurking behind chairs?  And then there are the books on shelves and in boxes in the storage shed!

In case I was in doubt, an evening of packing quilt fabric has convinced me I won't need to buy any more in my remaining lifetime! Before the several house showings at the end of January I spent an entire evening sorting all my quilt fabric which had gotten into disarray during the frantic production of two quilts in time for Christmas.  Color coded the stacks, organized my few unfinished projects.  Now it has all been hauled out and reverently stored in boxes and big plastic bins.  I had rather forgotten the craft supplies, miscellaneous fabrics  and patterns lurking on the right hand shelves in the closet.  Charlie the Cat found them and made a nest.

I have to pack the really important belongings first, for at some point both desparation and exhaustion kick in, and I begin heedlessly hurling things into sacks destined for the landfill or the Neat Repeats shop in town.

Packing My Worldly Goods

Grampa Mac's Shaving Mug

Grampa's shaving brush was blue-handled, and the bristly part was longer and had been shaped to the curve of the hot water well in the china mug.  [The red and white brush above belonged to my Dad.]

Grampa didn't shave every day, but on Sunday's he could be relied upon to perform that manly ritual so fascinating to a watching child. 

The farmhouse had no "indoor plumbing" at that time and ablutions of a personal nature were performed by carrying an enamel basin and a jug of warm water to the privacy of a bedroom.

Grampa's shaving, however, took place in the wood-fired warmth of the narrow kitchen.  Between the white double sink cabinet and the pantry door was a window which looked to the east. An 8x10 looking glass hung from a loop of cord high on the wall between the window moulding and the pantry door. Beneath the mirror dangled several leather "razor straps."

The china mug, topped by its round of soap, was fetched from the curtained cupboard behind Grampa's rocker in the living room and its resevoir carefully filled from the ever steaming tea kettle on the wood range.  The straight razors with their gleaming ivory handles lived in a neat leather case in the top drawer of the Hoosier cabinet.  Each shining blade was deftly honed on the leather strap, tested delicately against Grampa's calloused thumb. When the razor was suitably edgey, the soaping process began with the boar bristle brush dipped in the hot water, then swirled persuasively over the disk of soap.

Leaning against the Hoosier, I watched, perfectly absorbed, as Grampa's lower face disappeared in a billow of lather.

Chin tilted and mouth grimacing, Grampa drew the blade in a long sweep from cheekbone to jaw, wiped the prickly residue of soap against the razor strap, made another pass, stooping and turning to view each side of his face in the small mirror. When all was done, he swished the brush in the warm water, sloshed the water into the sink and stroked the brush into a smooth crescent before replacing it in the bottom of the mug.  He seldom bothered with after shave, just a few pats with a hot moistened towel.  I don't recall that he ever knicked his chin. 

One year for Christmas he was given a lidded wooden tub of Yardley's shaving soap and an elegant bottle of after shave.  He condescended to use the soap, but most of the cologne languished in the cupboard.  Sometimes I twisted off the cap to sniff the sharp clean fragrance of lavender or to dab it on my collar.

This beautiful shell resided in a drawer of the wash stand in what was sometimes the long-term hired man's room and later became a spare guest room. We children loved to slip the shell from the Lifebouy scented drawer and stand with the shell pressed to an ear, to "hear the ocean."

I wonder now how such an exotic treasure ended up in an inland New England farm house. I can't guess at what creature was housed in its glossy depths so many years ago.  Did someone in the family make a vacation trip to the seashore?  Was it sent or brought home by a relative?  It had "always been there"----but how long before my frame of "always?"

Since the dismantling of the farmhouse the seashell has lived with me, a taken-for-granted familiar of my personal landscape.

AARRGGH!  My "retreat" room has come to this!  The living area looks even worse.  Boxes already packed rim the edges of the rooms.  Empty boxes loll on their sides, a series of caves for the cats to dive into in hiding mode, only to explode out at a passer by.

Today I packed small breakable bits from my bedroom dresser, removed all but the largest pictures from the walls.  Stacks of spare bedding wobble on the edge of the daybed.

The woman half of our buying couple phoned today to tell me she had word from the credit union that they are waiving house inspection and appraisal---two steps of the closing process which usually take weeks to schedule and carry out.  I was told that a closing could be arranged in as little as two weeks time.

I think my voice slid up an octave as I gasped, "Two weeks?"  I suspect I began to babble.  I stared about the disordered room, thought of the formidable muddle of motley possessions lurking in the storage shed and barn.  The woman's voice continued in my ear, pleasant and calm.  "We don't want to crowd you for time, " she said.  "We have twenty years of belongings to sort at our house and we aren't putting ours on the market until sometime after the closing." 

I think I made feeble, incoherant noises about needing to drive to Kentucky to find and buy the place where we will move.

A bit more conversation, the repeated assurance that the closing needn't take place until we are quite ready.  I stood with the silent phone in my hand for a moment then punched in J's cell number.  [He was down in the barn with his nephew happily rummaging!]

"Oh, fine," he said cheerfully.  "I expect we can be ready to go in three weeks!"

I spluttered and squeaked,  "Three weeks? THREE WEEKS---are you crazy???!!"

My mind boggles.  I stand for long moments and stare at the piles of domestic flotsam bursting from formerly neat closets, the oddly shaped items lined up on kitchen counters. I clamber around my boxes, stowing an item here, dropping another one there.

I made tea and sat here going over the Kentucky properties we have "saved to favorites" over many weeks of internet searches.  I printed out detail sheets, scribbled notes about acreage, made J. go through the properties labeling them as possiblities or pushing them aside as too pricey, too near the highway, house too large, cottage too tiny.

He lingered long over the photos of some lovely looking land, while I wailed that the accompanying house is a dreary wreck. Impossible kitchen, revolting carpet!

We looked at a number of newer homes on our list---- tidy, with personable kitchens and gleaming baths---- but only 5 acres of well-groomed land.

I suspect that the Benificent Being Behind the Scenes, who has surely orchestrated the speedy sale of motor homes, tractors, trailers and our house--in the middle of a long cold winter---knows where we are going to live.  Perhaps He is waiting for us to calm down --or to finish packing. 

Oddments

On the left, a glass prism, its angled spire roughly chipped. In the center, a battered doorstop. On the right is a fragile celluloide swan, remnant of my babyhood.

The heavy doorstop, an elephant, was made in two identical halves.  When he was newly formed tusks and a tail were tucked somehow between and held together.  When I was a child, when we still lived in my grandfather's house, the elephant braced open the parlour door. Even then he was bandaged, a strip of now grubby, faintly flowered muslin stitched around his middle over a binding of twine--likely some of the "saved string" that my grandfather thriftily unraveled from the tops of feed sacks, wound around the paper tags and stuffed into a large Prince Albert tobacco can--all handy when a bit of mending was needed.

The scrap of red cloth, now so rotted and frayed, was wound under the elephant's chin and over his back, secured with more stitching.  In his days of shabby glory I recall the fabric as still a sturdy red swath which neatly hid the earlier mendings.

The parlour sat at the south west end of the farmhouse. My uncle believed it had been one of first two rooms of the house to be built and surely the wide painted floorboards attested to an earlier incarnation. Part of the floor was covered with an ingrain carpet, patterned in flowery swirls of dark gold, blue and green against a dull red background. My grandmother's upright piano had pride of place, flanked by a plaid-cushioned loveseat and matching chairs. A very formidable and stiff black rocker defied anyone to sit in it comfortably. One door, the door the elephant guarded, led into the living room, the other into the narrow center hallway where the staircase with its worn treads rose to the five bedrooms.

When my next younger sister moved to the farmhouse with her family to help care for our grandfather and later our uncle, the dignified square parlour was divided to create a bathroom and a rather dreary little bedroom.  The elephant, by then mysteriously minus his tusks and tail, his wrappings decidedly faded and tattered, now served as a deterent to anyone inclined to burst through the bathroom door without knocking.

Our grandfather died in 1978 and our uncle followed a few years later, leaving the old house crammed full of the belongings of three generations.  My sisters and I, with our mother, sorted for days, unearthing a few long-hidden family keepsakes and treasures as well as an ever growing heap of items which, as my grandfather might have declared had "out-lived their usefulness."

Some of the finer things, to my regret, my mother decreed must be sold. Many items found their way to the trash bin. 

There remained the bits and pieces of no great worth, the oddments to be carried away simply because we couldn't bare yet to  part with these things which had been taken for granted, a part of the familiar trappings of an old home for so many years.

I took the derelict elephant home with me and set him near my bedroom door, where I sometimes stubbed  my toe on his cold heavy form.

I brought him west with me nearly a dozen years ago--along with the cracked celluloid swan and the chipped glass prism. 

I have started packing---stowing newspaper-wrapped dishes in cartons, removing things from cupboards, wandering through the house with a speculative and appraising eye.  My friends at work have donated boxes, our daughter lugged copy paper boxes [with lids!] home from school.

The process of dismantling and packing my household goods is dauntingly familiar. Somehow it will get done and in the coming few weeks the house will become unsettled, less welcoming, as pictures are removed from the walls, dresser tops cleared, books bundled into the stacks of boxes which will soon rim the edges of each room.

I wonder if a few decades hence, someone will wonder at finding among the hoarded oddments of my lifetime a broken doorstop in the form of an elephant. Who will remember the part of his story that I know?

Perhaps I should make him a new red bandage.