Put Up or Shut Up

Okay, so I've been doing a lot of whining lately. Katie helped put things in perspective with this post. It's time to switch my thinking around.

• I'll never get everything unpacked. => It will get unpacked when it's needed - which is now, so just unpack it. And if it doesn't get unpacked, obviously it's not really needed.


• I can't fit all this in the house with no storage. => Number 1, be grateful I have "all this" when many people have nothing. Number 2, get creative. Or Number 3, get rid of some of it.


• The laundromat sucks! => Yeah, but it gives me time to do the crossword from the paper. Or, have a nice conversation with a local like this morning.


• There are millions of foxtail on my land. It will be impossible to get rid of them all! => Concentrate on the dogs' yard and area immediately around it. I have a lifetime to work on the rest.


• The compost is rotting out there in the big black bags. I need to get it into piles but don't have the time or energy. => Um, it's "rotting", right? So what's the problem?

Thanks, Katie, I needed a kick in the ass today!

Cheek to Cheek

The dogs sharing their bench.
In the old house, Polie spent most of his time on the bench while Angel hung out in front of a French door. Both of them were able to keep an eye on the world. Now, with no French door in the new house, they must share the bench in order to keep an eye on their new world. (Angel is obviously slacking off on the job...as usual.)

They are great watchdogs. Typing up this post was interrupted by vigorous barking, signalling someone walking up the street. Barking interspersed with whining means a person walking with a dog. Whining only usually means they've spotted the neighbors' horses or dogs out in their yards and think they need to go investigate. Whining and running about the house frantically generally means a bunny or quail in the yard. They hate that we give the critters time to escape before "releasing the hounds."

Bad Timing

We've been so engrossed in moving, settling in, and doing repairs, that I've missed a number of good events lately. Often weeks go by without anything happening locally that really pulls at me. In the past few weeks, though, there have been multiple events that I would have liked to attend. I didn't because I was so busy that I didn't have time, or in some cases, I plumb forgot.

What have I missed?

• Solar Rock Festival


• Tucson's first ever Cyclovia


• Master Gardener Spring Plant Sale (where I'd planned to buy more blackberries adapted for this zone)


• Solar Cooking Picnic (where I could have met another blogger)


• Trip to the CSA Farm (usually held during the hot summer months when I refuse to go to Phoenix but finally held during cool Spring temps)

Most of these are annual events so maybe I'll be more organized by next year and can go to them.

Our First Snake

My sweetie is working on the hot water heater now (and I can't wait to be able to take a HOT shower finally). He came in a few minutes ago and ordered me to come outside, but "don't let the dogs out." Ooooohkaaaay...

Although he didn't rush down the stairs, I suspected there might be something he planned to show me. He wasn't being quiet or stealthy, so it couldn't be a bird or a rabbit. Finally, as he rounded the corner, he said, "Hurry, it's getting away."

There, going under the house, was a snake. My first thought, despite liking snakes, was, Oh no, a snake is going under the house!

My sweetie reminded me, however, that this was a good thing. The particular snake slithering through the crack in the cheap plastic skirting was a kingsnake. It will gladly eat most anything it encounters around the place, including small mammals (voles maybe?) and even rattlesnakes. This means we have our very own pest control agent now, living under our home.

The dogs have never reacted to lizards so we hope that they will not pester the snake. I will keep an eye out for it in case it decides to hang out under the porch, an area accessible to the pooches. I'd much rather have the wildlife eating the local pests than my dogs.

I Keep Losing My Shelf Pegs

We prefer real wood furniture but, due to need and limited budget, we purchased some press-board stuff in the past. It's heavy so removing the shelves makes it slightly easier to move. The problem is keeping track of the pegs that go in the sides to make the shelves adjustable. They fall out and are easy to lose.

For a move, I usually remove all the pegs for each cabinet, put them in a little plastic baggie and attach that to the cabinet handle with a rubber band. As soon as we decide where to put the cabinet, it's easy to put the shelves back in. The small bookshelf is more difficult because it doesn't have a convenient handle to hold the baggie. In that case, I usually just put the pegs with the contents of the bookshelf.


In this move, however, I'd already packed the baggies and the rubber bands by the time I got to the press-board furniture. I carefully gathered up all the pegs, put them in a container, and tossed them in a large box. Despite it being a small part of what was in the box, I still labeled it "Shelf pegs" to make sure I could find them. I kept seeing the label as we worked around the new house and was glad I'd be able to lay my hands on those pegs as soon as we made room to place the bookshelf and cabinets.


Last night, we decided it was high time to rebuild the dogs' bench. To do so, though, meant deciding how to arrange the entire living room and then moving boxes and stuff out of the way to do that. Of course, everything always takes longer than planned and we went to bed with an obstacle course of furniture, boxes, and miscellaneous stuff piled up around the dogs' bench. This morning I set to work placing furniture where it would go, unpacking the rest of the books and DVDs, and setting the room up nicely.

I decided where I wanted all the press-board furniture and gradually got it moved into place. Then I realized that I had no idea where the shelf pegs were. Suddenly, I couldn't remember what size the box had been, whether it was labeled kitchen or office or something else. With our rearranging the night before, I had completely lost track of it.

I checked unpacked box labels just in case I'd unpacked it. Nope. Looked through the tower of boxes in the office. Nope. The kitchen? Nope. Dang. I emailed my sweetie hoping he might remember. Nope.


I sighed and just put the shelves next to each unit and piled up the contents on the bottom shelf, hoping to eventually come across the shelf pegs before too long.

As I was moving the last two large boxes out of the way to vacuum before placing the chairs and coffee table where I wanted them, I noticed the bottom box was labeled "Shelf pegs". Yippee.


This bookcase looks so much better with the books arranged on shelves instead of piled up.


Now, does anyone remember where I packed my mind? I don't think I labeled the box very clearly...

Tired of Laundromats

Yes, I am posting about laundry again. One would think my life is ruled by laundry. It's not, but dirty laundry is not on my Top Ten List of things I like to collect so, one way or another, it has to be dealt with. I don't mind wearing shirts and jeans more than once, but there is a limit to the level of stink I want to emit, especially during the sweaty summer months.

Laundromats vary widely in their quality. Some laundromats are nicely laid out with seats that are not miserably uncomfortable and are reasonably clean. Others have little to no seating and look like a kids' soccer team stormed through after a rough game in a muddy field on a rainy day...and the kids had a blast dumping powdered laundry detergent all over the joint and at least one of them left tissues in a pocket - again - so there's shredded tissue in the machines and all over the floor.

Some have TV, some have radio, and some have silence. The really good ones, which are few and far between, allow patrons to select the television program they desire. The really bad ones have the media set on something awful at a high volume.

The machines can range from something left over from the 40s to very nice machines that actually clean the clothes. Be assured, however, that all will cost a fortune and you'll be lucky to fit two t-shirts and a couple of pairs of underwear in them. If you choose the more expensive front-loading machines designed for multiple loads, you can probably get a couple of pairs of socks in with the two t-shirts and underwear. Despite the higher cost, I recommend the front-loading machines. They don't have the agitator which saves a lot of wear and tear on your clothes, and they spin more water and soap out at the end.

Speaking of soap, you don't need all that much, regardless of the type of machine you select. This morning, I watched the soapy display in the other front-loading machines in amazement. Other folks are dumping huge amounts of detergent in with their clothes, I guess assuming it will get them cleaner. Actually, it just ensures that there will be more soap residue left in the clothes at the end of the cycle and soap, ironically, attracts dirt. So, their clothes will get dirty faster....and then they'll probably think they need to use even more soap to get them clean the next time. For a double load, I am using no more than two tablespoons of liquid detergent (one of the "green" brands) and my clothes come out just fine. I also use vinegar for the rinse cycle, especially since I know there is soap residue left from other people's laundry. (I can smell it...)

I learned pretty quickly not to use the dryers in laundromats; they seem to be terribly inefficient. When travelling, one has little choice since letting clothing air dry generally won't fit the schedule. When not travelling, however, there is no reason not to take the wet clean laundry home to air dry. Of course, one does have to consider the facilities available at home. I do not have a clothesline yet so I can't dry more than two loads.

Two loads is actually stretching my current resources. Right now, there are jeans hanging on the shower road, hanging clothes rack, and one folding clothes rack. The cover for my comforter is thrown over the fence outside next to shirts hanging off the fence (on hangers). The second clothes rack is filled with washcloths and underwear while the socks dangle from clips on a plastic chain stretched between a hook in the ceiling and the hinge of the refrigerator door. I can't wait until I've got a real clothesline!

Lastly, patrons can vary tremendously from one laundromat to another and from one time to another. I've had miserable laundromat experiences, dealing with folks smoking right outside the door or yelling loudly on their cellphones or letting their kids run rampant about the place. Last week, I had a scary experience when a car zoomed up to the parking lot and the guys in it were obviously not there to do laundry. I calmly walked out and called my sweetie on my cellphone, getting in my vehicle for privacy. The cellphone was just an excuse to be out of the building when one of the guys went in with a backpack. He came out a couple of minutes later and the car left. What did he do inside? Don't know but my instincts told me it was safer not to stay inside.

I've also had pleasant laundromat experiences where I'm the only one there, the other patrons are friendly, or I've had great conversations with the person who cleans the machines. In West Yellowstone, more than 1,000 miles from home, my sweetie and I were the only ones in the laundromat until the guy that cleaned the machines came in. As we chatted, we discovered that his wife was from my hometown and the guy had grown up in my sweetie's hometown...and had been childhood friends with my sweetie's cousin that also lived there!


Update: Due to an impending storm, I had to bring the damp comforter cover in off the fence. The only place large enough to drape it out was over my bike piled with stuff on and around it.

The ultimate indignity for a bike...

Thanks

I really appreciate the comments from all the folks who rushed to assure me that I am not going crazy, that moving stress is normal, and that I just need to slow down and it will (eventually) all get done. I like to be settled so I know where to find everything but the process is just going to have to take some time this go-around.

This morning, I sat on the porch while the dogs sniffed around the yard and I watched the birds. Be sure to keep an eye on the Yard List I am posting. I just updated it with sightings from the past week. Some things are not identified to species yet, either because I have not gotten a good enough look at the critter or because my field guides are still in a box somewhere.

We'd thought that a round-tailed ground squirrel was digging around in our front yard. A couple of mornings back, I discovered it was something else. As the dogs wandered in another part of the yard, I saw something gray poke out of a hole for a split second, so quickly I thought I might have imagined it. I kept watching and sure enough, a little gray head peeked out again after a minute or so. I've had experience with packrats in this area and this critter didn't quite look right to be a packrat. It had tiny ears practically plastered to its head. The nose was wrong, too. And there was no evidence of a packrat midden anywhere nearby. (A midden is a big pile of cactus and brush made into a safe home - think really messy beaver dam on land with all the stuff cemented together with stinky urine).

After some research online (since my mammal field guide is still in a box), I decided I must have seen my first vole. This is not the one I saw, but a photo to show you what a vole looks like. Voles are constantly active and essentially vegetarian. They are one more threat to a successful garden out here. It looks like we're gonna have to garden in a cage...with four sides, a roof, and a bottom!

Is this normal?

After two plus years of making plans to get our own place and set it up for gardening, energy and water efficiency, and surviving TEOTWAWKI (climate change, peak oil, economic crash), I thought I'd be super-excited and raring to go now that we've got the place. Instead, I find myself completely and totally exhausted - physically and mentally, and emotionally drained. With the crucial initial steps complete - finding and purchasing the place, moving, dealing with paperwork (insurance/utilities/services), getting out of the rental - I seem to have hit the wall.

I need to tackle the next crucial steps of getting settled, doing what we can to improve water and energy efficiency, setting up the compost system, planning the garden, building community, and so on. All I really want to do right now, however, is crawl into a dark hole, hide out for a while, and rest.

Everywhere I turn, though, there are boxes begging to be unpacked, repairs taunting me to tackle, and projects on the to-do list that have been talked about for two years. I try to unpack a box but can't put things away because the cabinet or desk or shelf that will house the things in the box are not in the right place. Either there's no room to set up the furniture or we haven't decided how to arrange it yet. I just keep moving boxes around.

The task of actually settling in, at this point, feels insurmountable. I know what some of you will say: just start working on it and it will get done. Well, I do start working on it but little is getting done other than me ending up feeling frustrated and disappointed that I haven't made more progress. Honestly, I usually unpack with frightening speed but this time I'm painfully slow.

Is this because we invested so much of our energy for the past couple of years trying to get to this point? Is it because when we got to it, we moved really fast and wore ourselves out? Is it because I feel the stakes are higher and that concern/fear is paralyzing me?

What is wrong with me?

Serious Bike Neglect

Photo submitted for Beany's Bike Confessional.

Yes, there is a bike buried in this clutter. No, I can't get it out of the bathroom right now to ride it. Plus, I don't know where my helmet or gloves are. Maybe I can unearth it all by this weekend.

Yeah, right....

The End is Near!

I am SO tired of cleaning someone else's house. Boy oh boy, had I let the rental house cleaning go during the last few months of chaos. It got to the point that we just gave up and figured it would be best to do a massive cleaning after all our junk was out of the house. That may have been the case, but wow. Just wow.

I have spent the last FOUR AND A HALF days at the rental house:

Cleaning up the yard - weeding, raking, mulching, piling blocks in one location, minor pruning, gathering all our garden and yard equipment, hauling old pallets out to the curb (where no-one has picked them up so I'll have to load them up to go to the dump), taking down the shadecloth/bird netting contraption set up for the container garden, moving the big pile of burnable pruned branches to clean up underneath it, sweeping the patio, and on and on.

Hubby sorted the garage stuff into trash, ours, and owners. I dealt with the trash and sweeping up, cleaned the windows (carefully as several have been cracked since we moved in), and changed the lock.

Cleaning the house has taken the most time because I do a thorough job. I am so good that I have only lost part of a security deposit for a rental once, in my entire history of renting, and that was due to corruption on the part of the rental agency. (We didn't use the carpet cleaning service they recommended. I chose one that was listed with Better Business Bureau; he did a great job and guaranteed his work. The jerks kept $176 for "carpet cleaning" anyway.)

So, back in the rental house, I have spent HOURS getting it spiffed up: spackling holes in the wall (including ones that were there when we moved in), dusting the walls and window sills and window blinds, dusting off the ceiling fans and closet shelves, cleaning the wall smudges, cleaning all the inside windows and hosing down the outsides, cleaning mirrors and switchplates and doorknobs, thoroughly vacuuming - yes with the edge tool too, cleaning baseboards, scrubbing toilets and sinks and tub/showers, sweeping and mopping floors - on my hands and knees, scrubbing kitchen counters (a total pain because of the wide rough grout lines between the tiles), cleaning every inch of the refrigerator finally getting off some of the sticky residue that was there when we moved in, doing the oven cleaning thing, scrubbing the stovetop (60 years old and a pain to get clean), cleaning the kitchen cabinets inside and out, polishing the kitchen sink and faucet, and more.

Today I got to the point of really resenting all the cleaning I was doing. The house is 10 times cleaner now than when we moved in. It was like a bad April Fool's joke; we signed the lease on April 1. The refrigerator was gross and had to be scrubbed before we could put food in it. The tan kitchen tiles had weird white splotches like someone had dropped bleach on them; it turned out the tiles were actually white and the splotches were where hot water had dropped on it. Took lots of scrubbing to get them clean. The owner had left clutter I had to beg her to come take away so we could use the garage we were paying rent for.

I am finally done down there. Tomorrow the carpets are professionally cleaned and then I'm turning in the keys. It's time to focus on my house and my future, not someone else's money-
making house!

Do I sound tired? Bitter? Frustrated and a little angry?

Yeah, well I am. Get over it or come help me. There's a ton of work left to do at the new place!

Who Knew I Could Be So Trashy?!

I've spent the last several days working on the rental house we no longer live in. Because we moved so quickly, it's a mess there. I've had to bring loads of stuff home every time I go there - odds and ends that didn't get packed up properly, yard or garden stuff, and trash.

I've always marveled at how people moving throw away so much stuff; they fill their trash cans to overflowing. I won't do that when I move, I'd think to myself every time I saw this happen. I'm organized and keep on top of getting rid of trash and donating things we don't want anymore.

Well, guess what. Last week, our trash can was filled to the brim. I do have to share the blame here, though, as quite a lot of it came from the garage, my sweetie's domain. Despite weeks of pestering to make sure it was cleaned out, all trash was gone, and anything we wouldn't need had been donated, he opted to discard a lot of little odds and ends that nobody would accept as donations.

My computer hutch also bit the dust. After many moves, it began to fall apart when my sweetie started dismantling it for this move. We opted to get rid of it as particle board (or was it MDF?) is simply not worth repairing once it starts to go. He salvaged all the the drawer hardware and then put as much of it in the can as would fit. Rather than overload the trash can this week, I loaded the bigger pieces in the vehicle for a run to the transfer station. We also discarded a really ratty armchair that no-one would want. I started to take it apart to salvage the wood but stopped when I saw it was infested with mealworms... Ick!

Despite the dump run, I still managed to fill our trash can again today. Contents include:

• much dirt and dog fur from vacuuming the filthy house. (Can't compost it as the compost has already moved to the new place.)
• dirt, leaves, and miscellaneous debris swept up from garage.
• raked eucalyptus and olive leaves from the yard. (Bad for compost and mulch. The oak leaves and old mulch from garden beds were all raked under the citrus trees for mulch.)
• pruned branches from citrus, Banksia rose, and mesquite.
• rotted wood planters.
• dry-rotted plastic pipe and twine used for trellis supports in garden.
• plastic zip ties cut from shade cloth and bird netting used to screen in patio container garden.
• Styrofoam lunch container. (Why does the vegan restaurant do their take-out in styro?)

Unfortunately, I have not raked the front yard yet, which has quite a lot of eucalyptus leaves from the neighbor's tree. Maybe they will let me put them in their garbage can. I still need to do some weeding in the front yard and weed-eat in the back yard. However, those won't be going into a trash can. The gal in the neighborhood with chickens said her hens would be happy to have another infusion of greens from my yard.

We're almost out of the rental house. A little more cleaning, the yard work, some minor repairs, and loading up the rest of our stuff (cleaning supplies, vacuum, and a little bit of yard/garage stuff) and we'll be all done. The final steps are getting the carpet professionally cleaned and turning in the keys.

It will be a huge relief when that's done because all these trips into town to deal with that house are keeping me from dealing with MY house and also burning a lot of gas. By Earth Day, I will be starting my new routine of driving into "the city" only once a week to do my CSA work, any other errands necessary, and visit friends. Other than that, I plan to stay home, unpack, and get settled into my new life. Hopefully, this will include being considerably less trashy!

Kitchen Dilemmas

I have a lot of kitchen stuff and it won't all fit in my new kitchen. This has always been a problem and adding food preservation to my repertoire did not help. Food preservation requires a lot of equipment: dehydrators - electric & solar, vacuum sealer, canners - water bath & pressure, canning utensils, canning jars & lids, and fermentation jars. The pots and pans take up too much space, too, because what works best in the solar ovens is not necessarily what works best on the stovetop inside or what will work best in a cob oven once we get that built.

And then there's the food. I like variety and that takes up space. If we could be happy with rice and beans - and only one kind of each - than I'd just need to carve out space for a 25 lb sack of each. But, we like several different kinds of rice, various grains, pasta, and a whole slew of different legumes. There are also the 60 plus herbs and spices to consider, along with the homemade vinegars.

In the last house, I filled the kitchen cabinets and drawers with non-food items. For the food, I put a huge steel shelf four feet wide and six feet tall against an empty wall in the kitchen. In some ways having the food on an open shelf was a pain; Arizona is a dry place so the food containers were always dusty. Anyone coming into my house could see exactly what food I bought and ate. In other ways, it was wonderful. All the food was in one place and easily visible. It made meal-planning easier as well as keeping track of what I had on hand.

This house has about the same amount of cabinet space but fewer shelves in the cabinets. There is no empty wall for the steel shelf, unless I want to put it in front of some large windows with lovely views. I certainly wouldn't want my food exposed to the light and heat, although I could perhaps put some pots and pans on open shelves and sacrifice some of the scenery.

I've got a rough plan for the kitchen layout. I'm not happy with it as it feels like some tasks will be pretty inconvenient. And, like before, the food preservation equipment will not be kept in the kitchen, unless I shove it way up high on top of the cabinets which would then require keeping a ladder handy. At this point, though, I'm just throwing things into cabinets and drawers until I run out of space. I'll live with it for a while and then probably rearrange everything.

Did you struggle with setting up your kitchen in a new place the last time you moved? What personal rules do you follow in deciding what goes where? (Most important one for me is not putting herbs/spices near the oven.)

Sounds at the New Place

Crowing roosters

Calling quail - lots of quail

Raucous cactus wrens

Singing cardinals

Loud peacocks

Lots of other birds

Barking dogs

Braying donkey

Traffic (We're on a busy street - busy for a semi-rural area, that is.)

Power tools

Small tractor


What we haven't heard but heard regularly in our old place:

Police helicopter almost every night

Screaming fights at the neighbor's

Thumpa-thumpa music

High-pitched motorbike engine screaming down the street every night after 11 pm

I'm Home

It's our first night in the new place. Walking through the house is akin to walking through a big storage locker with narrow aisles left for passage. I don't even know where to begin once I'm ready to start unpacking. And we still have a few things left at the old place - we ran out of space in the moving truck, ran out of energy, and ran out of motivation to get every last thing moved today. Plus, we still have minor repairs and major cleaning to do there before turning in the keys....

I only have one more thing to say tonight before dropping off to sleep. Moving sucks! I don't want to do this again.

My Brain's Gonna Explode!

Call the zombies, I think my brain's gonna explode! So many details to think through, so many lists to keep track of, so much packing left to do...

Things are getting ticked off the master list, however, and we hope to be moved into the new place within a week. I can't wait to be able to sit in the kitchen, watching the hawks soar and laughing at the roadrunner's antics in the yard. I can't wait to wake up to the sound of roosters crowing. I can't wait to sit on the front porch and breath in the earthy smell of horse manure.

And I can't wait to not be a renter anymore. I will not miss that. Being a homeowner is not a piece of cake; you're responsible for fixing, or not, every little thing that breaks. But, you can fix the place up the way you want, doing outlandish remodeling if desired. (Hm, maybe I should look at the discarded paint today at the hardware store for some fun colors...)

Okay, that's a long enough break. Dreaming comes later. I need to get back to packing. I'd rather get back to sleeping, but my "normal" wake-up time now seems to be about 3:15 am.