goddessfarmer | Recent Entries

In the nothing is ever done department......
The office is done and we are in it, except for 2 light fixtures which are being tricky.
The first floor bathroom is done except for the mirrors.
The front hall and new first floor bedroom are ready for paint - except that the closet for the bedroom needs a floor (seriously, there are down-going stairs there now, those are going away) and the front hall needs it's built-in bookcases.
The painter is coming in the next day or two to paint those and the front stairs, after which the front stairs will get re-carpeted.
The porch is a work in progress.
The final landscaping is nearing completion.
There is some brick work left.
The basement needs the east stairs removed and walls over the insulation.
Then there is a bathroom to renovate, and another bedroom to finish, including building it's closet.
I am very pleased with my GC - even more so because he is my brother. Yes, I'd recommend him, especially for jobs requiring artistry. He takes his time and gets it right.
I am also very pleased with my excavation/masonry guy. He's at least second generation in the family business and despite being fairly young is doing well at the business side of the business, as well as at the "doing the jobs right" side. Having said that, his workmanship is superb, and he operates and maintains his equipment like he loves it. I'm quite happy that he's working out so well, since my previous excavation contractor (who has retired) was exceptionally good.

I am in Sedona, Arizona attending an intensive 5 days of Fire Temple work. Today we had a bunch of lecture and 3 meditations. Mostly I'm using this space to remember the important bits of my meditations. I don't really expect this to be of much interest to my readers here. Typing out my hand-written notes helps me remember things.

( I really don't expect anyone to be interested in this.... )

The hot tub is in place and wired up, I can put water in it as son as they finish the ceiling over it, which might be next week.
The office and south bedroom upstairs have drywall and plaster, waiting on the last coat of mud and sanding. The flooring is here and the trim for those rooms is in the pre-painting stage. Wall paint is picked out and here for both rooms. Maybe 3 -4 weeks on both of those.
The basement has lights and a functional 1/2 bath. When it's done being used as a paint/prep area then it will get the drywall or equivalent that it needs. No rush on that.
Heat is done to all of the rooms that it can be for now, which is everything but the front entryway.
On the first floor, we're still waiting (now they say March 4th) for the flooring for the new bathroom/laundry room. laundry, sink and shower are all functional. Toilet, Door and baseboard trim await flooring.
Also on the first floor, the pink powder room is gone and the new bedroom is framed and has wiring. The new entry is mostly framed and wired. Flooring is picked out and here for both rooms, but it'll be a while yet before they're ready for it.
Things not yet started - demoing the east end basement stairs to make room for the first floor bedroom closet and the dumbwaiter which will come up into what is currently a mop/cleaning closet next to the kitchen. The reason for the dumbwaiter is that the basement is slated for firewood storage, both for the (not yet even selected) wood boiler and the wood stoves on the first floor. It's an easy way to get the wood upstairs and we have the space for it.

Death does not pull it's punches. In the end, we all are headed through that gate. For some she comes swiftly, unexpectedly opening that door. For others, the tide comes in slowly, advancing, teasing, with time for reflection in uneasy waters. I am not afraid of death, although so many are. The dead have no need of our tears, however much we ourselves need them. Today I lost a friend who I knew better in 1990 than I have more recently. He was there for me then when I needed a friend, and I was there for him then too. I didn't make it to see him one last time. Maybe I regret that I didn't do the hard thing by visiting, although that would not have changed anything in the end. Tonight I light a candle to help light your way across the bridge. Rest well, my friend.

It's been quite a while since I updated here on the Big Deconstruction Project, or as my brother the general contractor called it, my Subtraction. So the subtraction part is done. The new heat system in and working in all the areas of the house that it can be at this stage. We are well into "phase 3" of the project - finishing/remodeling the interior.
Things currently in progress are:
Brickwork on the south side at/below grade level - next there will be a retaining wall and final landscaping.
Decking on screened porch - the hot tub is on the porch, but not in final position yet. Yes, I do get a working hot tub well before the rest of the porch is done.
Still working on the laundry room/bathroom which has to be done before demoing the pink powder room (which is holding up some work upstairs, because plumbing, you really don't want me to go into how complicated plumbing can be, do you?)
The new office is 3/4 drywalled. If we had more people working that could be done soon.

It was really cool watching the demo "team" (a guy with an excavator and another guy spotting) take down the east end. In about an hour they had 1/2 of it in a giant dumpster truck - the kind they haul wood chips in. I think the top took 2.5 trucks to take away. The foundation and pool however, were challenging. "Built like a highway bridge" was what the demo team said. It took them 2 days to break up the foundation and the pool - they used chunks of foundation like a jackhammer in the grip of the excavator thumb to break up the bottom of the pool.

The basement still needs it's drywall (or equivalent) and some lighting work. It turns out that we get to keep the downstairs bathroom, but now it's just a toilet and a sink. It will be more like a "clean-up room" for when we're working down there. Which reminds me of complicated plumbing - so in the process of having to dig a trench anyway, I had a new frost-free hydrant installed for the horse paddocks. When the plumber hooked the pipe up in the house, he grabbed a hot water pipe instead of cold, which was not really what we were expecting. When he comes back to re-do it, I'm going to have him put in a mixer so I can set the temperature of the water going out to the hydrant from the aforementioned basement bathroom. Winter is coming.

I don't know if anyone besides me that I know is running gnuCash on a mac, but I upgraded the mac OS today to "High Sierra" 10.13.1 and when I restarted my version of GnuCash it failed pretty spectacularly. HOWEVER, I then upgraded the GnuCash to the most current release 2.6.18 and all was well. I'm running it on an early 2015 MacBook Pro. And if anyone cares, I'm really happy with how GnuCash is handling the bookkeeping that I do, including large batches of transaction imports.

Shadows of tree trunks march like bars

across the barely visible trail

a small weaving gap in the ferns and ivy

thriving in the detritus of old pine needles

and the leaves of beech and birch

soft, damp footing our hooves tread

carefully as if we might disturb

the the freshness of the morning air

(yea, I know, I could have written this weeks ago) First, the MRI report - Nothing wrong with my brain. I have signs of chronic sinus inflammation, however. Dr recommends actually taking my allergy meds, even when I don't think I need them. trying that, but nothing to report yet, that's a long-term solution.
Second, Amitryptiline dosage and effects. It turns out the 25mg dose is about right for me. I have to budget 8-9 hours of sleep every night, but the positive effects are so good, I'm willing to live with that. It turns out that it's "on label" use is exactly the right thing for my brain as far as I can tell. Mood swings are gone. Granted, I feel a little flat, but I'm getting used to that. It's well worth being able to breathe and think in otherwise anxiety-producing situations. It's awesome to not go from "this is screwed up" to "want to kill everyone" in .05 seconds. Seriously - my PTSD is like that, and it's how I've been ever since I can remember, and now I'm not. It's almost like a miracle. Yesterday I was in a situation that I would have previously walked out on to protect the innocent, and I didn't have to, nor do I have to spend a day recovering from it. The other effect it has on me is probably very related to the first, but it's something I notice all on it's own because of the enormity of it in my life. I no longer feel hungry all the time. Again, I don't remember a time in my life when I wasn't always wanting to eat. This is a totally new sensation for me: to walk past food and not have to eat it; to be late for a meal and not be a raving lunatic bitch, to be able to make good food choices because I'm not overwhelmed with hunger. I am eating less without noticing, without thinking about it. I have noticed in the past 3 weeks that I have lost some volume in various places, and about 2 lb on the scale. It'll come off slow, but maybe this time it'll stay off. I've also been adding muscle, just as an effect of riding and working out harder in preparation for competing again. On Thursday I ran my second fastest ever lap (0.1mi) at the gym. I suspect that 48 sec. isn't wicked fast for a sprint of that length, but as a personal time, I'm kinda excited about it.
Life may not be good (although mine is in the context of the larger world) but at least I'm stable and relatively happy.

This is the week/weekend of chimney. My chimney contractor is here now (on Saturday) putting in new flue liners for wood stoves and making room in the chimney for the gas boilers.
The heat system is disconnected and 1/2 dismantled, maybe next week the heating contractor will come back and continue work on that.
The new living room is done, and currently serving as office and living room.
The new bathroom is still in progress.
The hot tub is out.
The foundation on the south side is exposed and new south side footings are poured.
Waiting for the electrician to move the PV cables, the conduit for that is in place.
The east end that is being demoed is cut off from the rest of the house at the second floor floor and the chimney that was there is down to the first floor ceiling.
The framers are going to be working on the new outside walls and roof starting next week.

Down in the field I just cut for hay I saw a bobcat. Later, I saw a rabbit pop out of one of the hole around the edge of the indoor arena while I was riding. So I have seen both predator and prey today.

My house is one step closer to being smaller. Today Comcast's subcontractor came and moved the cable. Now my excavation contractor just has to finish filling in the trenches.
Other things on the pre-demolition checklist:
new living room out of sunroom and hallway - the floor is done, needs trim, bookcases and paint.
new HC bathroom in old laundry room (keeping laundry there) - needs floor, sink, toilet, trim, and paint.
remove hot tub from cellar pool - prep work done, scheduled for movement on Monday
Drain heating system - done
Shut off domestic water from affected area (cut and cap pipes as necessary) - plumber next week?
Kill electric to demo area - 90% done.
remove baseboards from demo area - in progress
remove windows from demo area - trim is off most of them, that'll likely be the last thing pre-demo.
Move furniture from office and library into new living room - library is partly packed, otherwise waiting for space to be finished.
Move buried cables coming up from PV panels to house - the new routing requires lots of earthmoving, which starts Monday after the hot tub is out.
As a side effect of reconstruction these other projects are in the works:
replace oil-fired boiler with gas - step one of acquiring larger propane tank is 90% done; tank is here and gas co should be here Monday to hook it up.
gut and re-flue main chimney - slated to be done concurrently with heat system replacement.

The fact that we are far enough along to even have a checklist is pretty awesome.

Current Mood: pensive

Part of my house demolition involves moving where the Comcast cable enters the house. Last week, they sent out a tech on 'reconnaissance' to see what the heck the person I spoke to on the phone really meant. Today, a higher-up person called me, asked if I was going to be here, and showed up in the 30 min it said it was going to take him to get here. He looked at the job, told me what trenching needed to happen, talked to my excavation contractor who just happened to be here today, and handed me his business card saying to call him when the trench is ready. However messed up Comcast's call centers are, I continue to be impressed by the people on the ground. They guy who came today knows the person who orchestrated the installation of this system in 2011, who I remember as being very competent and easy to work with.

but it's really just the flaky rust on the manure spreader chain.

Is this a better image?

is this a photo?

seems to be. That's a kitty cuddled up in bed. He put himself there.

is this a photo?

old photo of me on a horse

Seems like it is. From 1976. Me on Paleface.

Everything seems to have transferred. Don't know as I'll post any differently than before, but I tend to read friends every day or two.

The morning woke up and stretched
the infinite possibilities of the universe
reaching out before it
but not until after bacon and eggs

There is an interesting point between being "in love" and "loving." Many relationships (of mine too) are a very self-centered "in love". I wanted the relationship For Me: to make ME feel good. Then there are the rare few exceptions, when I've passed through being "in love" to "loving" - to wanting to see that other person happy, to being willing to (sometimes) sacrifice a small bit of my own happieness to help the other person be happier. This is the point at which what would have been previously thought of as sacrifice becomes not-work, becomes the easy thing to do. That boundary snuck up on my recently. I'd been having glimpses of it for a while, but a couple of things happened recently to show me that yes, indeed, I no longer maintain this relationship in a state of need for myself, but in a state of compassion for my partner. "I love you" is no longer "I need you to acknowledge my importance" and is now "how can I help your life be better?" The wierd thing is that I don't know when I changed. Some of the change is probably a product of me being happier and less stressed, but I know that's not all of it. Thank you, sweetie, for loving me long enough and well enough for me to find this place for us.

I'm calling it a cooling party.
I have stuff to give away - bring your own box. Please take my stuff, including this pile of wine glasses my parents left.
I am soliciting donations of empty boxes, especially the right size for books.
If you want to come, and don't know where here is, comment (with a valid email address) or email me.

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goddessfarmer

April 2018

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Confessions of a pagan farmer

practice random kindness and sensless acts of beauty

Recent Entries

Progress report (5)

fire, magic, meditation: Sedona Arizona day 1.

Progress report (4) - construction continues

Good bye for now, my friend.

Progress Report (3)

GnuCash PSA

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follow up on the state of my head

Progress report (2)

things seen today

progress report

adventures with Comcast

It might be art

testing more

more testing

just testing things out here....

here now

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Party: Friday Dec 30, 2016 6pm - sleepy

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April 2018

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