The Season's a-Changin' - 3

When we moved into this house, there was a puny little crab apple tree smack dab in the middle of the back yard that someone in it's short life had tried to espalier.  I didn't understand it at the time, trying to make a tree flat when it wasn't standing against a wall or fence.  Actually, I still don't understand the attempt.  We  undid the flattening through the strategic use of ropes and pruning and we now have a large crab apple that pretty well dominates the yard. 

I gripe about it because it takes up much of the solar access for the gardening I would like to do, but I love the tree at the same time.  The fall is an exciting time in this tree's world.  The fruit is small and about the size of the pie cherries we grow nearby, and a huge favorite with passing and resident birds.

This morning we counted at least nine different types of birds simultaneously feasting on the apples, the more spectacular among them being the cedar waxwings and the varied thrushes.  LWK sat at the back door like it was the best drive-in movie ever.

It varies from year as to when this happens, but at some point, the crab apples ferment on the branch and we are subject to multitudes of birds flying under the influence.  One year, it was a sunny winter day and the cedar waxwings were feasting on the little hard cider bombs and I heard one hit the window.  I walked out to check on the damage and found a little bird sitting on the deck, listing slightly.  I swear I heard a little voice, "Whoa, man, I totally got the spins!" 

I grabbed it because it was a sitting duck, er, bait for the neighborhood cats and looked at it a little closer.  I couldn't see any major injury, just an inability to stand up straight.  It sat in my hand a little while and then took off, flying rather erratically to a branch where it fluttered frantically to maintain it's perch.  I watched it for a bit as it sat, listing to the side, and found myself tilting in sympathy.  Yup, been there, done that.  Though I don't think I've hit a window.

Heat Wave 2010

We just came through our first little heat wave of the summer. I think the temps got into the 90's (F) and the highest overnight low was about 61. My own lack of planning and/or laziness got the better of me and contrived to settle all my errands on the hottest day of that period. Otherwise, we engaged in our usual "chill the house" routine at night with its concomitant annual discussion of what the best way to achieve this task.

I am of the belief that you chill the house fastest by putting the box fans in the window to blow out and exhaust the hot air. Spouse likes to feel the breeze and wants the fan blowing in for cooling effect. I don't prefer this because it cools the one room the fan is blowing in towards but the rest of the house stays warm.

So a few years back, after a stunning (I mean stunning!) demonstration of the cooling effect of two box fans exhausting the house, we compromised. We put one fan in the lee window of the house blowing out and one fan in our bedroom window blowing in. Resident Kid could care less what we do, because no matter what we do during these times, the house is too cold in the morning.*

And perhaps it is. After all, I feel victorious if we get the house down to 65, and one night this week, we kind of overdid it and the house was a frigid 62. Yes, a little excessive. The boon of these shenanigans being that the house rarely goes above 75 as it heats during the day. I revel in the natural air conditioning we reap in this region and that connects us so closely with the diurnal swings of the season.

Occasionally we bemoan the extra vacuuming and dusting that comes with open windows and the pollen season can be annoying, but I can't envision living with an air conditioner separating me from the outdoors at this time of year. The connection is too valuable to let go. Besides, who could miss the opportunity to be awakened by the local deer herd trying to sneak past your window to pillage the garden?

* Which gives me another glorious parental opportunity to exhort Kid to "put on a sweater." In July!

Home improvements

I long ago learned the value of color in making a space more habitable.  At one point, I thought I was one of those that liked the starkness of whites to "clean up space."  But I am in actually much more comfortable when in a non-white environment.  It feels unnatural at a most basic level.  I have to thank the contribution of my partner in life, because initially, many suggestions for some of the more daring colors we have used have come from that quarter, with the final decision often falling to me.

We have obviously been influenced by the art deco bathrooms we often lived with while residing in the Boston area.  These were prominent by their pink, white and black tile work.  As a result, one of the bathrooms in our vacation rental is pink, though not tile, mostly a sponge type treatment with black coming in from wrought iron accoutrement.  

Other rooms in this house are mainly shades of green and purple, with pink making a subtle reappearance in the kitchen.

This explosion in color is in part due to the fact that we had the luxury of working on a house while not living in it.  But the explosion really had its spark in our own house, which had the working moniker of "our homely abode" for many of the early years we lived in it.

One of the homeliest aspects of the house was the fake wood paneling in the living room.  I'm sure it was added at some point because somebody sometime was scared to deal with the old wallpaper covered lathe and plaster walls that lay beneath.  We were pretty happy to discover this because taking wallpaper off of lathe and plaster is pretty easy and the walls themselves are incredibly forgiving to work with.  My experiences with dry wall have not been nearly so enjoyable.

The interesting part of renovating this living room was the sense of relief we both felt when the "wood" paneling came off.  Even though the walls were a pretty awful yellow wallpaper, and yellow being a least favorite color of all time, we were so much more at peace in the space than we had ever been before.

I can imagine some new age type guru saying that the paneling was giving off some terrible cosmic vibration.  Maybe so ... weirder things have happened.  All I can say that the two colors of purple that now adorn the walls in soft venetian plaster are a joy to live with...even though, 14 years later, the trim still isn't finished.