Summer Dust

It's not all the same.  Summer dust is totally different from winter dust.  In the usual rain-every-few-days-except-in-August Portland, we can safely say we never have the summer kind.  Summer dust is the result of dry:  dry fields, dry dirt roads, dry earth combined with wind.  Rain puts an instant stop to the very thought of summer dust.

This past summer and fall it was amazing to see fine grit on the furniture--summer dust.  It rested most on the window sills left open to welcome a breeze and admit the comfort of fresh air during the night.  Though not much of a duster, I removed the grit more frequently than I thought possible in August, September and October.  When the rains put an emphatic end to grit in the wind, it seemed that perhaps all the summer dust had been removed from the house.

Gritty "summer dust" behind hidden behind the books
on the library wall.

However, when Things I get to do today encompass taking down a wall of bookcases in order to paint the surfaces behind, unknowns become known.  Behind the books (and even in front of the books--gasp!) lay a significant amount of summer dust.  Perfect time to see it on its way and dust the books.  Perfect time to settle into the rain and damp of middle fall and winter and to allow time to gently bless all surfaces with the lint and fluff of winter dust.

Happy Damp Dance

The opening lines help set the tone.  When the morning began with heavy cloud cover, the stage was set, the play about to begin.

I didn't want to miss this.  Already moisture glistened the patio, and drops could be seen on their vertical plunge to dampen the earth.  I grabbed my rain coat for a few "quick" Things I get to do today before it became seriously wet.

Canna pods scrubbed clean.
Fresh and renewed.

But the pace of this show surprised me.  The rain was immediately steady, dense, heavy and very wet.  Delights in every drop!  The girls in the hen yard were stunned.  Three months is close to forever for a chicken.  I think they had forgotten that water can fall from the sky.  The rest of us nearly had. But now we're pretty much all mixed into the first act of this show, everyone in their own version of the Happy Damp Dance.  Let it rain!

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!

Life From the Sky

Daphne with its morning drink

It's been over two months, now.  This morning before dawn, before being even slightly awake, I could smell it through the open bedroom window.  Moisture on parched earth--the finest of perfumes!

On a fragrance wheel, perhaps it was between "fresh" and "woody."  An artist of the trade would talk of head notes, heart notes and base notes.

Fresh rain:  fragrance that can't be bottled

No rain for more than two months makes rainy Portland a very dry place.  The Things I get to do today are all now soothed with the balm of this heavenly substance.  The fully-ablaze zinnias are shining wet.  Leaves that have felt only hose water for a very long time are refreshed and serene with real water.  They and I say the fragrance is a blend of "heart" and "heaven."

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.