Sweet Sorrow

Don't want to say goodbye!  "Parting is such sweet sorrow."  We linger, savoring the moments, intending that this space in time will continue on uninterrupted.  Forever.  But the only thing that is for sure is change.  We will be parted, summer and we.

The laundry is nearly dry before it is hung!

Our dry, blue skies have been an amazement to visitors, to Portland folks in general, and especially to the weather forecasters.  And we, as we read the forecast in the paper, day after day, week after week, month after month figure we must be three sheets to the wind to see uninterrupted sunshine for nearly all of three months.  Sun worshippers are in heaven.  Rain lovers are nervous.

Daily humidity for our area averages 50-60%.  Of late it has been for weeks now between 10 and 20%.  Line-dried laundry freak that I am, this has been bliss.  My garden, flowers and grass are not so happy.  And, I admit to being a rain lover.

For the past two or three weeks the Things I get to do today include spending a few moments each day deep in my imagination, smelling the rain, listening to its patter on leaves and roofs, hearing it gurgle down the gutters and into the empty rain barrels, seeing the plants bask in the life-giving moisture.  The weather forecasters say the dry blue will be gone on Friday.  Showers, they say. Rain, they say.  Thank you to all heaven, I say.

PS: This morning's newspaper says we could have up to 3 inches of rain this weekend. Perhaps I've overdone it!

Cedaring the Barrels, Part Two

Save the best to the last.  It's definitely a plark to put a bungie-cord belt around a big-tummied rain barrel, and then slide in its fancy new outfit.  It seems less work to create the top edge up, down and all over the place than to attempt to have it even and level.  Some constraints still apply: too great a variance in the board heights is not pleasing to the eye.

By proclamation of a passing neighbor,
"That is really pretty.  It looks beautiful!"

The remaining finish work after arranging the staves is the application of the barrel straps.  It was a month-long search last summer for the best material.  None of the lumber/big-box stores could help us with anything other than narrow plastic-type stuff used for strapping lumber.  Strong, yes, but it would deteriorate in the sunlight (why am I worried about that?).  Fastening the ends together would also be a problem.

Then one wildly adventuresome worker at our near-by lumber yard suggested galvanized steel strap.  And my engineer husband* showed me how a hose clamp could be used to fasten it round the barrel.

Hose clamp cut and positioned

Wiping my hands on the front of my aproned, carpenter-styled, bib overalls as the last strap tightened securely was the most satisfying of the Things I get to do today.  All the public barrels are now handsomely covered.


*Engineer husband has also designed an "anatomical pressure-relief valve."  To see a pink picture of it you'll have to email, and I send it to you direct.

Cedaring the Barrels, Part One

Cedaring: v., transitive.  The act or process of putting cedar "staves" around the rain barrels. Creating the look of a wooden barrel by using cedar boards that have been shaped so they will conform somewhat to the roundness of the circumference of a large plastic-material barrel.

Very public.  Not subtle.

Rain barrels are on every corner of my house.  Five of them--we have extra corners because our house is not an exact rectangle.  Previous blogs have given the reasoning behind this strange ritual of saving rain when our last nine months have provided more moisture from the sky than can possibly be absorbed by the earth.  Logic says we are saving it for a (non) rainy day.  We'll, no doubt, have two or three of them this summer when we have a strong urge to turn on the outside faucet to water something.  Rain barrels to the ready.


Purpose aside, rain barrels au natural are not pretty.  The scratch-at-your-eyes bright blue does not blend.  Not in the slightest.  Last summer's installation all around the house was followed by a fancying-up of the barrel by the back door.  I put cedar around it.  Suddenly it was handsome, attractive and good looking.

Removing "Diaper" scattered the sawdust a bit.  It was
easily 6" deep inside the metal supports.

Things I get to do today says now is the time to finish the most public barrels that remain naked blue.  One day was spent shaping the staves--3 1/8" wide and an 8.5 degree slant on the edges. (Blog of 9/20/11 "Diapers for My Table Saw," shows the dust diaper I made last fall for the table saw.)  Shaping the cedar for two barrels created a mountain of sawdust.  The diaper did an excellent job of keeping it off the rest of the workshop which is really more garage, storage, and work-out gym.

I was all ready to slap those babies around the barrel, when I remembered that they needed a coat of waterproofing.  If you ever embark on any such project, here's a tip valued to save several hours.  Use a paint pad to spread the solution.  My paint "tray" was a recycled lettuce box.  My work surface was set on a little slant so the solution stayed at one end of the tray and could be worked into the paint pad easily.

Home-made paint tray.  So easy to "clean" up.

Tune in tomorrow when the actual cedaring begins.

Righting the Rain Barrel

Dried mud-coated landscape fabric "carpet

"Sweep and mop the garden paths" was not on my list.  But I did it anyway.  I'm not OCD, but convincing the woman walking by on the path (rather quickly, I might note, saying only "Hi.") would have been difficult.

Things I get to do today included, however, checking out the rain barrel.  But it all started here: Some years ago landscape fabric was placed between the garden beds as weed control. Changes in the garden had left slimy puddles in the paths and borders of weeds. A willing weekend guest offered his outdoor services, and we went to work, pulling up all the fabric, leveling the surface underneath, folding the fabric "inside out," and tacking it back down.  The bottom side of the fabric had a thin coat of mud on it.  How that could happen in Oregon is no mystery.

Barrel, listing slightly to the left,
leaking it contents into buckets

Here's where I get to vindicate myself.  I am totally fine with the mud on the path carpet.  As it dries on a sunny day, I'm OK with the dusty dirt.  But the rain barrel was listing to one side, and we had already had soil shear failure this past week when my rhubarb leaf bird bath tipped over.  If the rain barrel goes over, the damage is real.

Empty, plumb and ready for rain

Righting the rain barrel means it has to be drained first.  Using the available hose on the barrel tap was so slow that the predicted rain would fill it up before all the water had dribbled out.  I decided to let it flow directly into buckets.  But what to do with 55 gallons of water when nothing in the yard is thirsty?  I sloshed it on the garden paths--all seven of them--and broomed them down while the next bucket filled. I was just finishing up when the woman walk hurriedly by.

Swept and mopped.
Ready for bare feet in the summer

Perhaps there should have a sign on the fence that says:

RELAX.  

SHE REALLY IS HARMLESS.

A Boot Up on the Barrel

Birthday boots

It's boot weather.  My daughter gave them to me for my birthday last year so I could slog in the finest of mud to watch her ride through the same at cyclocross races.  But we had a dry fall.  The best foot wear this year was regular running shoes.


Not to worry,  I've used these gifted boots three times in the last week. Yesterday I walked the two-mile round trip to Tai Chi in them.  They had some mud streaks and dirt, but I was exceedingly grateful for them on the way home when the rain/snow/rain returned with steady intent. On the going and coming, however, I pondered spiffing them up a little for my next venture into public.  Can't recall when they were cleaned last.

And today, pressing right up against my conscience in all the Things I get to do today is clean out the chicken coop.  The weather and the girls and the need to be protected have worn out the shredded wheat-straw on the coop floor.  Time to send this load in a wheelbarrow to a grateful neighbor's garden bed.  Boots are designed for this kind of plarking (see side bar for definition of "plark").  They feel good on my feet, and the chance to spread fresh straw and diatomaceous earth on the coop floor is most rewarding.

Y-e-e-u-u-p.  It's time.

All too soon, I wade through the sloshy back yard and into the house.  Time to clean those boots up--really time after setting the hen pen straight.  Half way to the utility sink, I do an about face. What? Use drinking water to clean the chicken stuff off my foot wear?

Water a plenty with more coming down
by the minute

I grin to myself about having a rain barrel full of water when the little world of my yard is swimming in it.  Now is its time to shine.

Wasting Water is Weird.  Not doing that here!

Moments later the boots are sparkling and almost ready for a public appearance. Must remember this story when mockers and naysayers talk down about my many rain barrels.

Life, Death and Beyond

Filled bucket and liner

Saturday was the beginning of the ban in our town.  Sounds like it could be serious.  For some it was.  Those who need to carry their goods in a plastic bag when they leave the big stores are out of luck.   On Saturday plastic was no longer an option.  Arguments for paper or plastic will go on for as long as the arguers have breath.  That discussion is not the point of my thoughts.  It was, however, the trigger for looking at what I do with the still-legal produce bags from my local market.

While making breakfast, first of the Things I get to do today, I reach for the compost bucket--the final resting place for the egg shells.  The liner for my current bucket is a plastic bag in its second life time.  It feels pretty good to repurpose in this way (see post:  Love My Mayor), but revealing the full life cycle of these bags seems appropriate based on the recent momentous events in city hall.

Filled liner ready for visit to the compost

Compost bucket is full.  Liner (plastic bag) and its contents (kitchen scraps ready for their own next incarnation) go into the hen pen to the compost bin.  The bin is one of those big black, plastic, lidded contraptions sold by Metro over the last dozen or so years.  It reminds me of a giant version of the shiny black head-gear worn by an ominous villain who made sucking, raspy sounds when he breathed so I call it the "Darth Vader."

After the bag has given up the contents of its belly to Darth Vader, it can no longer go back to the kitchen. It is rinsed out at the rain barrel, checked for major holes and tied onto the fence by the path.

Plastic bag on its way to heaven.

Dozens of dogs and their owners, dog sitters, dog walkers, runaway dogs and random people use this path every day.  At times some have been a bit careless about picking up after the four-legged critters.  I put up a little sign to remind them that the dog, no matter how devoted to them, cannot clean up after itself, and I provide these third-time-around plastic bags for the job in case they forgot their own.  For a final resting place and an afterlife, is that heaven or hell?