First of all, I just experienced the most amazing moon rise in years. The big orb in the sky comes up much earlier than at my old place, and with the clear country air and patchy cloud cover backlit by moonshine, it was a magical experience!
Every day brings new closeness to the property. The house is under heavy remodeling, but the yard is getting better quickly. I've so far sent 50 cubic yards of rubbish to the dump, and am working on filling the next 20 yard container. 15 cubic yards of scrap metal left last week, and I have a new partly-filled 20 yard dumpster for more recycling. Thomas used the SeQuential truck and trailer last Friday to haul out a half-ton of old tires, taken to the city to be buried at the quarry.
Here's the second load of rubbish being hauled up on the truck to be taken away.
All of the lumber in the foreground is going on a burn pile, as soon as fire restrictions in the surrounding National Forest are lifted. The bed of the red pickup is also filled with scrap lumber. There is so much of it, that we've begun tossing it into the dumpster, which costs me $45 a ton to get rid of. The alternative is a burn pile that is so huge that I'd spend weeks picking it all up again to toss onto a fire (you're not supposed to torch off a pile of wood that big when engaging in "backyard burning").
Much of the crappy fences, old rabbit cages, overgrown bushes and assorted yard debris on the south side of the driveway is gone, and I've been mowing summer's dry stubble down to reveal fresh new shoots of grass brought forth by the few rain showers so far this season.
We've set up a nice camp for the Housetruck and Prakash's camper to the south of the house. We have a picnic table, power and telephone, and have a fire in the fire pit most nights:
Prakash gets kind of crazed when he goes into cleanup mode, and letting him too near the house has resulted in all of the windows being removed for cleaning, all of the interior doors and frames removed and thrown into the rubbish dumpster, along with all of the baseboards, window trim, etc. One day last weekend, I went into the city and when I came back, all of the kitchen cabinets were demolished and thrown into the rubbish dumpster. He found gigantic mouse nests behind the paneling above the fireplace mantel, under the kitchen cabinets, in the soffets above the overhead kitchen cabinets, and all throughout the walls behind the sheetrock in the kitchen. Additionally, the floor of the kitchen was thoroughly dry rotted, and has been cut out to allow replacement of the damaged structural flooring members. One of the two bathrooms is stripped bare, but I managed to get him to leave the toilet in the bathroom we are using. He did rip out the vanity and sink, though, so now there is no sink at all in the house.
Here's an action shot of Prakash making splinters out of the kitchen floor. Note the dry rot going up both the walls...
Today, I went into town (the small, coastal town, down where the county road meets the highway back to the big city) to pay some bills, get a post office box, stop by a client's radio station and eat lunch and take a nap on the beach. After arriving home at 4:30 PM, I went to work on mouse-proofing the garage (a start, at least), and removed more debris from the rafters and prepared some shelves for tools and storage. Getting the garage converted into a working shop is taking a back seat to home repairs while Prakash is here to help with that important work.
So, where's all this leading? The house cleanup/fixup is turning into a major project, it's no longer a "fresh coat of paint" job. Most likely, it will take me working by myself the better part of a year to put the house back together.
The inside of the Crown looks like a rummage sale. I used it as the moving van, and there is stuff strewn all over inside, some orderly, some just a jumble. The bus is sitting where I parked it after driving in, and not at all level at that.
The housetruck is little better off. It's still mostly packed up for travel, and barely level, sitting on a few blocks at the side of the yard, and propped up on the road side by a 22 ton jack. I need to get it properly leveled and up on blocks and posts before winter.
Winter. I don't have enough fire wood to make it through a Valley winter, so I need to scramble about and find some dry wood and put it up or else hope that the season is much less cold here and that I can keep warm using electric heaters. The power price from the public utility is twice as expensive as in the city.
Prakash leaves in a week, hopefully in that time we can get the house put back together enough to be weather proof and mouse proof. After his departure, I'll switch modes to unpacking and securing the bus and truck for the winter, as well as keeping up with cleaning up the yard as much as possible.
Moving turned out to be the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder even than burying my Mother. I never want to go through it again, and advise anyone with more possessions than will fit into a compact car to avoid the experience at all costs.
-=But=-
When I step outside and see that moon rising over the eastern ridge, when I realize that I have gone days without hearing a siren or a train or industrial noise, when I don't smell pollution, pollen, or the sewage plant back in the city... I know it was all necessary and worth it.
. Also, now you can answer that age-old question, "Does a bear s--- in the woods?" NOT NECESSARILY!