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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Wednesday, August 11, 2004 Back to some kind of normal life We woke this morning, for the first time, to a kitchen without ants. The exterminator came again yesterday evening and determined that they were coming into the house not from somewhere in the ground underneath but down a branch of a nearby pine tree that touched the roof at a rear corner. They had made a trail down through the wall and underneath the floor and were coming up into the kitchen behind the stove. He sprayed not only the tree and branch, but also around the inside of the house, requiring that all the furniture (and all the still unpacked boxes) be moved away from the walls. But finding the kitchen ant-free this morning was worth the work. Boxes are still everywhere, the porch is still unfinished, the grass and weeds in the back yard are approaching monumental proportions as I work on other things, but the end is in sight. I said when I came out here that I would never move again. My intentions were good, but circumstances conspired against me. When I agreed to keep house for Shelley this past year, the plan was that at the end of the year, she would be returning to find a local job and I would just move my and Clarence's personal things back home. No one anticipated that she would decide to stay on the road and that I would end up moving not only my own posessions, but hers as well, and also have to clean and close up her apartment. The worst of it is over, though, and I'm grateful to the people who helped in one way or another. The handyman who came out after working a full day at another job to put a new faucet in Mike's bathroom, the mechanic who noticed that the rack was coming off the roof of the Jeep and fixed it, when I'd taken the Jeep in for brake problems, without even mentioning it to me. It's a measure of how tired I am that I didn't realize until last night--a full week later--that the rack was properly attached again. The pest control man who agreed to come out here after his own day of work was over to take another look at the ant problem. The guys at the nearby country store who drove over to jump the battery on the Jeep when I'd inadvertently left the headlights on. The people in the grocery store where I hadn't shopped for a year who said, "Hey, where ya been? Haven't seen you in ages!" and made me feel welcome again. There are still multiple problems, the mind-numbingly slow dial-up internet connection being one of the worst. We're 9 miles from the telephone company central office, on the wrong side of two sets of compression equipment, and 26kbps is about the best I can get here on a good day. On a rainy day, water must get into something, because I'm lucky to be able to connect at all. I had thought I would just have to get used to the slow service--start my inspection uploads and go away to do something else for a while. The first stores I did from here changed my mind on that account. I couldn't upload the pictures at all, not the whole batch at one time. The server on the other end would time me out before they were all sent. I had to send two at a time, sitting in front of the computer for six hours just to do two stores. So we're going to have to go with satellite internet--$600 upfront and $60 a month after that, and I just have no choice but to spend the money. I'm off to take Clarence to the doctor in Christiansburg, and then to take a final load of stuff to storage, and tomorrow I'll be back to my normal life for this time of year--on the road doing inspections. Politics has been far from my mind for a while now, and promises to remain that way for another couple of weeks at least. posted by Liz @ 7:16 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 Feedjit Live Blog Stats
We woke this morning, for the first time, to a kitchen without ants. The exterminator came again yesterday evening and determined that they were coming into the house not from somewhere in the ground underneath but down a branch of a nearby pine tree that touched the roof at a rear corner. They had made a trail down through the wall and underneath the floor and were coming up into the kitchen behind the stove. He sprayed not only the tree and branch, but also around the inside of the house, requiring that all the furniture (and all the still unpacked boxes) be moved away from the walls. But finding the kitchen ant-free this morning was worth the work. Boxes are still everywhere, the porch is still unfinished, the grass and weeds in the back yard are approaching monumental proportions as I work on other things, but the end is in sight. I said when I came out here that I would never move again. My intentions were good, but circumstances conspired against me. When I agreed to keep house for Shelley this past year, the plan was that at the end of the year, she would be returning to find a local job and I would just move my and Clarence's personal things back home. No one anticipated that she would decide to stay on the road and that I would end up moving not only my own posessions, but hers as well, and also have to clean and close up her apartment. The worst of it is over, though, and I'm grateful to the people who helped in one way or another. The handyman who came out after working a full day at another job to put a new faucet in Mike's bathroom, the mechanic who noticed that the rack was coming off the roof of the Jeep and fixed it, when I'd taken the Jeep in for brake problems, without even mentioning it to me. It's a measure of how tired I am that I didn't realize until last night--a full week later--that the rack was properly attached again. The pest control man who agreed to come out here after his own day of work was over to take another look at the ant problem. The guys at the nearby country store who drove over to jump the battery on the Jeep when I'd inadvertently left the headlights on. The people in the grocery store where I hadn't shopped for a year who said, "Hey, where ya been? Haven't seen you in ages!" and made me feel welcome again. There are still multiple problems, the mind-numbingly slow dial-up internet connection being one of the worst. We're 9 miles from the telephone company central office, on the wrong side of two sets of compression equipment, and 26kbps is about the best I can get here on a good day. On a rainy day, water must get into something, because I'm lucky to be able to connect at all. I had thought I would just have to get used to the slow service--start my inspection uploads and go away to do something else for a while. The first stores I did from here changed my mind on that account. I couldn't upload the pictures at all, not the whole batch at one time. The server on the other end would time me out before they were all sent. I had to send two at a time, sitting in front of the computer for six hours just to do two stores. So we're going to have to go with satellite internet--$600 upfront and $60 a month after that, and I just have no choice but to spend the money. I'm off to take Clarence to the doctor in Christiansburg, and then to take a final load of stuff to storage, and tomorrow I'll be back to my normal life for this time of year--on the road doing inspections. Politics has been far from my mind for a while now, and promises to remain that way for another couple of weeks at least.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
RSS Feed
PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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