Roofs & Roofing

The Mister, working off the rent on our first abode, circa 1972

They finally finished the roof on Monday. The roofers understandably are trying to do too much before the weather changes so there are few details to take care of and more clean up to do but the new shingles look very good.

I hope this is my last roof, the last in a lifetime marked by several roofing jobs. 

The Mister was doing roofing the first summer we lived together and then did the roof and siding on the house we rented after we got married. 129½ West Washington Street, Athens Ohio.

After several years in Connecticut and New Jersey we bought our first house in Ashland, Kentucky. It was fairly decent new construction but the roof was put on without any felt and The Mister ended up putting on another new roof by himself while I repainted the siding.

Twenty-three years ago we bought these two acres knowing we would have to have professionals replace the original roof of cedar shakes covered by two layers of asphalt shingles, three layers on the porch. We used our lifetime allotment of landfill with the debris from that mess. I also remember we had an official drought that summer of 1988 until, of course, the roofers started to do the tear off and before they were halfway through we had a torrential storm that forced the closing of part of 81 due to flooding.

Now we've had this one done again and I'm glad to say it's probably the best looking roof we've ever lived under even if The Mister didn't do it.

Shutters

Although we didn't do the roofing, we did replace the double-hung windows ourselves that first year. The working shutters we removed in the process were in bad shape and for various reasons we put off replacing them – for twenty-three years. Where does the time go?

Anyway, the roof looks so good now and there seem to be so many more replacement shutters available nowadays that we're planning to replace the working shutters in the spring. We'll also be replacing the front door and I plan to finish it a chestnut stain. It's gonna be beautiful!

Buster!!

Buster, October 17, 2011

The saga continues. I suspect that Buster returned to see if the red squirrels were still occupying the attic, to see if the attic was going to be available for the winter. Cindy will keep it in her barn for a few days and then let it come and go, eventually deciding for itself whether or not to join the other flyers on and around the farm.

I'm not sure what we'll do now and Cindy says it's up to us. We don't want red squirrels in the attic for any length of time but as it gets colder the flyers are at risk if they're stuck in a trap for long. I guess we'll keep the traps going for a couple of weeks and then see where things stand. I just wish we could get the red male...

Not Buster

I'm not at all sure how I feel about this but the squirrels we're currently removing are NOT flyers after all, they're just some of the troublesome red squirrels. I don't know what happened to the flying squirrels that were in the attic last winter, I don't know if they left of their own accord or if the more aggressive red squirrels drove them off but none of the squirrels we've trapped in this week (now five) were Buster.

I didn't really look in the traps Thursday for fear of disturbing them but Cindy told me Friday and when I took a close look at the next capture I saw it was indeed a red.

Still neither The Mister nor I will forget watching Buster glide from the top of one chair to another one evening last winter before we ushered him/her out the front door. I hope there are flying squirrels gliding around somewhere nearby and I get to see one again.

Meanwhile I haven't checked the attic this morning but we will continue to trap what we can until spring when we'll remove the end-wall of the closet and critter-proof the vents.

Page Wildlife Center

I just can't believe the flyers squirrels stayed in the attic through all the roofing and I can't understand why I didn't trap any for a week or more and then yesterday, two! This morning I heard noises while I was still in bed and when I went up to check there were two what-look-to-be youngsters eating the seed that's scattered around the trap. This may take a while...

At least it seems flyers are a favorite of rehabilitators including Cindy Page and she will be eventually releasing these squirrels on her beautiful farm near Delphi Falls. Thank you Cindy and all the other dedicated people who do this kind of thing.

As for the attic, I don't think the squirrels are showing up in the traps because the they can no longer get out. I'm embarrassed to admit it but I think I finally figured out the most obvious entry point yesterday.

I had been focused on the driveway end of the house because of the dilapidated chimney. I knew the screen on the vent next to it had rusted away but the chimney ran inside the house and there wasn't purchase for critters to get to that vent. I completely overlooked the fact that the situation at the other end is an entirely different matter.

Unfortunately previous owners built a simple but useful closet at the other end of the attic and in doing so they eliminated human access to the two vents on either side of the fireplace chimney, the chimney that runs on the outside of the house giving the flyers an excellent climbing surface. It's one of those features of, as people often point out, an Amityville Horror House.

Buster's Back?

WR&E

Damn. I was trying to beat the rain yesterday and didn't check the traps before I scrambled out to the garden. Since the work started on the roof I'd had two traps set in the attic but when the days passed with no sign of the squirrels I'd figured they had moved on. Anyway this morning I found a squirrel in one of the traps and I don't know how long the poor thing has been in there. He seems okay and now I'm just hoping I can keep him alive until I can get him to the rehabilitator this afternoon. Damn.

Wicked Good Quince

I still haven't made a galette but I did cook up the first of the quince on Saturday. The week gave them a chance to ripen further. By the time I cooked them their fragrance filled the house and the cooked fruit is proportionately intense in flavor, absolutely wicked good.

The weather has been spectacular and should continue a few more days. I'm trying to use every moment to do what didn't get done the past couple of months for various reasons.

Today I head to garden where several of those reasons wait to be relocated. Halfway through my reconstruction of the garden beds I ran into a cache of debris that must have been buried when the flagstone walkways were constructed at the back of the house. I take these rocks as a particularly nasty insult because I really dislike the flagstone...

The Cradle Will Rock

We had a lovely evening out last night. We had a nice Chianti with my paella (a delicious, very rich version, more like a risotto) and The Mister's jerk chicken at Dolce Vita before we walked over to the theater to see SU Drama's "The Cradle Will Rock".

Rodney Hudson and his students staged another top notch production and fittingly ended it with no curtain calls. There are occasions where I often find curtain calls unhappily break the spell created by the performance and especially with works that have real dramatic impact, I prefer to hold on to the experience as long as possible. Sometimes I don't even want to talk about it too much.

Driftwood

The truck arrived at 8. I think they should have waited until the roof dried off but they're hoisting the shingles up and slowly moving around as they unload them. Everything is very wet this morning from a very heavy dew. The neighbors' roofs look like there was some frost but the vegetation I can see from the house doesn't look like it was cold enough to kill anything.

So we're gettin' 'er done. The old shingles were still okay but like so many things they were going to have to be replaced while we're still here and only likely to get more expensive over time. There's also the happy prospect of not having to look at the shabby old, stained, faded, moss covered roof any longer but I'm not sure exactly what the new one will look like. Picking out the new shingles was a bigger chore than I expected.

I looked at brochures, samples and online photos and I swear no two looked the same for any of the colors I liked. We finally dragged home full sheets of several colors and I ended up holding them from a window while The Mister took pictures.

It was worth the trouble I think. The color we first picked turned out to be almost as light as the old faded shingles so we've ended up with the darkest of our choices, Driftwood.

Quince!

It was a dreary morning so I putzed around and got to the market late. I knew it was my only chance to get quince and I knew I was probably too late to get any of the small crop that's usually available but, lo and behold, there were five baskets left! And I took them all!

As the dozen I have in the kitchen have warmed up, I've been able to catch a whiff of their lovely fragrance. First I'll make a galette to follow a dinner of Canada goose breast with porcini and polenta. In my book that makes it officially fall.

Keepers

With some things there's never been a moment's hesitation; I always loved this relish dish. It was a wedding present to my parents from someone who must have known how much my mother loved Lilly-of-the-Valley. When I was growing up it was my job to arrange the cornichons, olives and crudité on this plate for special occasions.

I've had this plate now for more than ten years but during that time it was still, to my mind, my mother's plate. It's one of those funny, unexpected little shifts in the universe that happens when someone dies but only now does it feel like it's my plate.

The question remains what to do with it. I don't see the point in having such things just to stick them in a cupboard somewhere to be brought out for the increasingly rare, more formal dinner party and I don't have a breakfront where these things can be displayed.

I do have a lot of table top that I prefer to keep free of clutter but I've decided that I'm going to change that and keep at least one 'heirloom' on the dining room table or the sideboard, changing it every so often.

For the time being, the relish plate sits on the sideboard.

Delish

I have a habit of putting the last of something special aside, hoping to delay the final moment of pleasure as long as possible. Unfortunately I often wait too long and whatever it is goes bad before I eat or drink it.

There have been a few bottles of wine that we have finally opened when the wine had passed its peak and I was prepared for as much when I pulled a crumbling cork from this bottle of 1989 Mount Veeder Meritage Saturday evening. But, BUT, it – was – fabulous!! It still had plenty of tannin and a big smokey, spicy, plum flavor. Delish.

This was the style of wine that got us interested in wine over thirty years ago but that's no longer made. Now no one wants to wait fifteen to twenty years for a wine to mature naturally. It's all made to drink as soon as possible and very little of it is likely to be around in twenty-two years if anyone dares drink it then.

Trappy

This is Trappy. Trappy was with my mother's unit in Belgium in 1944-45. My mother was a nurse with the 30th General Hospital. She and four of her classmates from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing joined the army and served together in Europe for over two years. They called themselves 'Riff Ram'.

One of the group bought Trappy in Brussels and gave it to my mother's closest and dearest friend, Peggy. Peggy was also one of the most important women in my life and before she died she gave Trappy to my mother with the understanding that he would eventually be with me.

Now he is and he has been reunited with Joshua, another charismatic little monk that Peg picked up over the years.

Clearing Out

Being away so much this summer the garden was pretty much a bust. It seems strange not to be spending long days in the kitchen, canning tomatoes, chutneys and such. On the up side though, this winter, for the first time in a long time, I may actually empty my cellar shelves of all the canned goods.

I've been spending the time instead clearing out the attic. Over the years my mother foisted upon me boxes of things that belonged first to my grandmother, then my great aunt, followed by remnants of my parents' move from house to condo and then my mother's move to assisted living. I often took some things with me on my visits and we reminisced as we went through them one more time, making decisions as to their final disposition but there were still a lot of boxes in the attic.

The attic is big and it's been easy to just keep hauling stuff up there but now there's no point in keeping most of it. No one else has shown any interest in any of it and I have no children to whom I can leave even the things I will be keeping.

I guess I will never understand the lack of curiosity that characterizes the surviving members of my family. My mother and father weren't anything like that, my grandmother wasn't either. That's why there are so many letters, photographs and mementos in my possession. It's a rich history, well documented, and it seems it will disappear with me.

A Revelation

My grandfather gave this watercolor to my grandmother on their 10th wedding anniversary. It became part of my life when I was little and visited my grandparents in Lakewood. In the past twelve years I made sure it stayed with my mother through her various moves but when I visited after my brother moved her last year I found the painting had been stuck behind a dresser. I pulled it out, cleaned it up and put it on the wall.

The morning before I left on my last visit I asked my brother if he wanted any of the artwork hanging on the walls. He looked around and finally said he'd like to have the cardinal, a print that my mother never really liked, that I kept moving with her just because it fit in anywhere, filled a space on a wall.

I told him I was taking the watercolor. I reminded him of its history but he didn't shown any sign of recognition, didn't seem remotely interested in its significance.

I've known it for some time but somehow that last conversation with my brother made it final; it was probably the last time we see each other. There is no longer anything binding us.

The most remarkable thing though, about this painting is that it now binds me more strongly to people who have died.

I thought my mother had had the watercolor reframed at some point but when I took it to my framer and we began to disassemble it, it seemed clear to both of us that we were removing the original framing. We worked on it face down and when it was free the framer lifted the bare painting to face me.

It was such a revelation I cried. Over the years there had been so much ghosting and discoloration of the old glass that much of the painting's beauty was hard to see. The color and detail that I saw that day at the framer's was breathtaking. For the first time I could remember, I saw what my grandfather saw when he bought the painting and what my grandmother saw when he gave it to her.

Done and Dusted

mjb8216

I am home, I am home. I feel like I've been away for months but now I'm home. I made it in my sleep-deprived state because my mother sent Red-tailed hawks to watch over me as I drove east on 90. I must have seen a dozen hawks yesterday, not perched in trees or on poles as I usually see most of them but circling overhead on a perfectly glorious afternoon.

I'm not sure if I will ever be able to voice in detail what I experienced Tuesday evening but I know with every skeptical fiber of my being that my mother's essence, her consciousness, her spirit, her soul, whatever one chooses to call that ephemeral thing that makes us each a unique being, I believe it left my mother's body in those moments. I didn't fully recognize it myself at the time but later I realized it was then that everything changed and while there was still a breathing body my mother wasn't in it.

My mother to my mind is gone and she went in peace after a week filled with many lovely moments. No one should have any regrets, my mother would never want that and it would be unloving not to let go of everything but the sweetest memories.

Earlier on Tuesday I asked her if she would like to go out with Yo Yo Ma playing and she said, "I would." We listened to the music and I opened the window. I told her the robins that had been nesting when I was there the end of June were now outside the window feeding their fledglings and she said, "Nice." I wiped her face with a cool washcloth and put some of her favorite perfume, the Hermes Caleche, on her forehead where I then gave her lots of kisses. I said, "Lots of kisses to the end" and she said, "'Till it's over."

All week long as we took care of various end-of-life tasks I would tell my mother, "Done and dusted", a phrase she and her mother used a thousand times over the years. It still rings in my ears.

Teasers

As usual the first tomatoes to ripen were the yellow cherry varieties, Mirabelle, Sungold and Sundrop. I picked the first almost two weeks ago and they were followed within days by Supersweet. I might have had some black/brown cherry tomatoes and some Isis Candy but I put them in the Boxelder bed and the Damned Doe got to 'em. This week we ate the first small tomatoes, Jaune Flammè, Tigerella and Stupice and a few Black Plum, Brown Berry, Super Snow White and Green Grape. The first Marmande sits on a windowstill, the first Ramapo should probably be brought in before some critter takes a nibble and there will be several Carmello tomatoes this week.

But we're still savoring each taste and making sure we have enough for the next few days. I'm ready for the more-than-I-can-eat harvest to begin...

Le Tour 2011

I swear if it hadn't been for Le Tour I would have thrown myself in front of a bus last week. The heat, the vehicular homicide in Yates County, the carnage in Norway, my mother's day-by-day condition...

It was a spectacular tour, the final standings only determined on the last days. Now I go through the usual withdrawal. If only the tomatoes would speed it up...

New Neighbors

Several weeks ago when I was out back repotting veggie starts I thought I heard a faint call that I've never heard around the yard before, I thought I heard a bluebird. I listened but didn't hear it again, didn't leave my pots to go looking because I couldn't believe there were bluebirds in the neighborhood. I heard the call at least a second time but again didn't take the time to look for the source.

Monday morning I heard it so loud and clear that I had to look and there he was, a beautiful male blue bird on the top of the feeder pole! And then I saw a female on a little stake at the edge of the new bed! I tried to take some pictures but the light on my dirty window made it hard to get a clear image. They spent about an hour repeatedly dropping down to the grass where we could see every bit of their bluebird-blue.

We aren't seeing them often so I think we're on the periphery of their territory. It didn't seem like they were feeding nestlings somewhere and there weren't any fledglings around so I don't know if we'll see anymore this season or not. I'm just grateful for their visit.

Meanwhile the two houses that have been on the market for the past year or more have sold so we wait to see what the new human neighbors are about...

And So It Goes

So March was consumed by pneumonia, April by the monsoon weather, and May by the termination of The Mister's employment and my mother's order for hospice care days before her 92nd birthday. The Indians are not, at the moment, the pleasant distraction they were and yesterday I found my first tick bite on my leg, near my knee. My primary source of discomfort however is still the damn pollen.