So I live in the country, right? In a palatial mansion, of course? Hardwood floors, and tiled bathrooms? Washer/dryer, dishwasher, microwave, convection oven, surround-sound, refrigerator/freezer, all in place? Pristinely coifed interior, wainscoted and polished? We’re all on the same page here?
In the order presented, I will address each, attempting to be as succinct as possible. I do live in the country, if being five miles up a dirt road, off the grid, and sixteen miles from the metropolis of Laytonville constitutes being countrified.
I built my home with help from two brothers and a couple of neighbors, back in the early 80’s. Working by myself I added on a dining room downstairs, and a sewing studio upstairs in 2010, the year the Giants seized the first of their three world series rings they have earned this decade.
The largest downstairs portion of the house is covered with CDX plywood, stained a dark color, with the just-mentioned dining room and studio being sheathed with foot-square linoleum tile. The bathrooms have linoleum on the floors and in place of tile, I have the ever-popular sheet-rock, though it is textured. The reason it’s textured is because it’s impossible to do smooth-drywall, unless you’re Davy Therens.
I created two archways into the “new dining room,” but have yet to repaint the inside of the living room, from which we access the dining room, leaving the alluring white of sheet-rock mud. And oh yeah, it’s textured.
We have a washer! Unfortunately, or otherwise, we do not have a dryer, dishwasher (except for me), microwave, convection oven, surround-sound or a freezer. Yes, we have a massive refrigerator which freezes the things we don’t want frozen in the top half, but does not get cold enough to keep dairy products from going bad in the lower half.
The only wainscoting here, is Wayne’s coat hanging on the coat rack. He forgot it.
The house is weather-sealed, except around some of the windows and doors. It’s been on the list for 35 years, so I can probably delay another day or two. And it goes without saying that the house is critter-proof and bug free, except for:
Scorpions: Twice I have found scorpions. Creepy.
Black widows: I found one in the kitchen, right there in plain view and put her in a have-a-heart cage. I named her Molly and she hung in there for two years. True story, as is every word in this narrative. Ask any of my three sons.
Spiders: It's not that there are countless spiders, it's that their webs make the interior of our home resemble a Halloween attraction-all year long.
Bats. Especially in the early years, we awoke to bats in our bedroom on a regular basis. Thank God that He invented brooms.
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| wind-scorpion |
Wind-scorpion: This arachnid freaked me out because it was emphatically NOT a run-of-the-mill scorpion.
A gopher snake slithered in, most likely beneath the homemade back door, and coexisted in the lower living room for an undetermined period of time. I tried to convince Gluten-Free Mama that this was a win-win proposition, because the snake would help reduce the rodent population.
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| They don't eat much... |
Mice. Think of them as Attila the Hun and his hundreds of henchmen, with whiskers and long tails. Destructive, toxic, depressing, deplorable and disgusting. Hurrah for Toby the cat! In their defense they were here first.
Ants: For the first twenty years they were the scourge of our kitchen, those insidious little sugar ants. They even managed to make themselves at home in the refrigerator. Then fifteen or so years ago, they disappeared, never to be seen again. Must be the anteater I had installed…
Flies: Incessant, annoying and impossible to beat back, no matter how dashing and daring I am with a fly swatter. And I am a swash-buckling mofo.
Yellow-jackets/wasps: They come in the same way the flies do, but there is also a variety that emerges from behind the tongue-n-groove pine siding, somehow, some way. There is no feeling quite like rolling over on one in the middle of the night, and feeling that exhilarating sting, in places you never ever want to get stung.
Lizards, skinks, Jerusalem crickets (potato bugs or finger-bite bugs), dragonflies, a Brazilian different types of moths, are among the other visitors.
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| No slugs, either! |
On the other hand I have never seen a cockroach and we do not have snails, unless they hitchhike in on a plant from off the mountain. Nor have we had any wild boars, bears or mountain lions inside the house. Key to a happy existence, is the ability to keep a positive attitude.
After years of struggling with parts of the kitchen and lower bathroom roofs leaking, we installed metal roofing this summer. Now all I have to do is remodel said bathroom, the adjoining laundry room and the kitchen, because of the resulting water damage.
The woodfu%#ers are continuing to destroy the exterior of the south-facing wall of our home, though we did Hardy-board the west wall, which was in considerably worse shape. And Ellie Mae was getting under the house before I finally managed to figure out how that was happening.
Cute Ellie cannot resist the taunting, provided by Crips the cat.
So there you have it, my palace I call home. I am told we were back-to-the-landers, but if you ask me, it’s more like the land came back to bite us in the backside.
Can someone please stop that pecking on the wall?
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| One of my favorite photos of all time... |
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