When I got home the other night, The Light of my Life™ was sitting bundled up in scarf and fleece sweater. “I think there’s something wrong with the boiler,” she said “I can’t get the house warm”.
“Well, do you realize how cold it is outside?” I asked “That could have something to do with it.”
Our house is comparatively small, which means it heats up very quickly, but it’s also made of papier-mâché and spit, which means it cools down very quickly too. Our gas fire only has two settings, “On” and “Not On”. When it’s running, it has the living room toasty in no time, when it’s off, things cool down fast. So, we spend a lot of time hopping up and down to meddle with the switch.
However, the fire only heats one room. The rest of the house relies on an ancient and rather frightening boiler which sits in a cupboard and emits loud rattles and clunks at regular intervals. The thermostat seems to operate under its own volition with very little regard for the actual temperature and we’ve spent many a happy night, lying awake listening to it fire up and switch off, fire up and switch off, sometimes several times a minute. We’ve been warned by people who know about these things that it will need replacing soon, but at the moment we’re frittering away our income on food and car repairs so it will have to wait. And to be fair, it does a passable job of keeping the house warm.
Except when temperatures plummet the way they have this week.
Our friends in Phoenix were horrified when we announced our relocation to the frozen wastes of Colorado.
“Don’t you know it’s cold up there?” they asked. Well yeah, of course we did but as I pointed out repeatedly, it’s supposed to be cold in winter. And one of the many delightful things about Colorado is that even in winter, the sun shines most days so while there may be snow on the ground, and ice in the shady spots, it’s usually still comfortably warm outside.
But not this week.
I was spoiled on Monday because I drove the Subaru to work. With its powerful heater, road hugging tires and best of all, heated seats, I cruised down that hill and back up again at night, all the while wondering what everyone else was complaining about – the roads were fine, the snow wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t that cold. Sure, there were hurricane force winds out there (109mph recorded in Golden) but they didn’t affect me. What’s the big deal? I found out on Tuesday when I was back to driving my usual transport, Angus the 4Runner. Now I love Angus to bits, and he’s taken me places I would be scared to attempt in the shiny Subaru, but it has to be said, when it comes to luxury, the car manufacturers have moved on somewhat in the eighteen years since he rolled off the production line.
The heater works, sort of, in that it dries out your eyeballs while making no discernible difference to the temperature. The tires don’t hug the road so much as caress it, in a gentle stroking motion. And worst of all, the seats have to be heated manually, namely by placing your bum on them for 45 minutes or so. Even the tape player refused to be roused from its slumbers, forcing me to rely on the radio, which never helps my mood.
Although the drive through the mountains wasn’t too bad. It was only when I hit the town that things got really gnarly as a winter storm was in full force and traffic at a virtual standstill. Still, I made it into the office eventually, much to the surprise of the city dwellers who hadn’t expected to see me at all. Having arrived late, I had to remain shackled to my desk until well after 7pm, but at least, I thought smugly, the roads will be better now. Wrong again Einstein.
Although the snow had for the most part been cleared, the ground itself was slick and shiny as sub-zero temperatures caused everything to be coated in a film of ice. There’s nothing quite like that exhilarating little thrill when you feel your car begin to slide beneath you, especially if you’re surrounded by much bigger vehicles, often traveling faster than you are. 2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive, it’s all the same when you’re on ice and I think that’s the best workout my heart’s had since the last time I attempted to go jogging.
Creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. About 1/4 a mile ahead I saw her taillights suddenly begin to zig-zag as she fishtailed across three lanes of traffic. Luckily the drivers around her were driving cautiously and each had time to avoid her so she ended up on the hard shoulder, completely unharmed. As I passed her she was staring fixedly ahead with her knuckles white on the steering wheel. About 5 miles further on, creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. Sigh.
Still, Angus and I made it home unscathed and in no time I was indoors and ready for dinner. There’s nothing like a big bowl of steaming hot, home-made soup on a night like this so it was a shame we didn’t have any. Instead, I microwaved a pizza and munched disconsolately while huddling over the space heater. By bedtime we were, according to our cheapo thermometer on the front deck, down to -13F. I talked to the dogs to see if I could persuade them not to pee until say, May, but it was no dice. So, wrapping myself up like Nanook of the North, I dragged them outdoors for their evening constitutional. It was ear nipping, toe stinging, snot freezing cold out there – the kind of cold that sucks your breath from your lungs. Still, there’s something inherently comically in watching a dog try to pee without putting any feet on the ground.
When I dragged my bum out of bed at 5:30 the following morning, the windows were coated in Jack Frost’s artwork – even on the inside. Cheapo thermometer told me it was -28F, which is bloody cold. I took one look at Angus, buried in a cocoon of ice, another look back at the kettle, and thought.
“Today, I’m going to work from home.”
Tag: Home
Working on the Railroad
First Published: 25 January, 2005
Like many kids, I had a train set when I was growing up. And like many kids, I didn’t appreciate just how lucky I was. The layout was permanently attached to a huge board and therefore had to live out in the garage. Every few months I would badger my long suffering Dad until he dragged it into the house and set it up for me. Once he’d devoted most of his weekend to getting it working, I would kneel in the center of the board and play with my toy cars, completely oblivious to the model train running around me. Truth be told, for all that I loved my train set, I was really more of an automobile man in those days. In time, my train set became just one more outgrown toy, forgotten and neglected, never to see the light of day.
It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I began to feel the lure of steam, the smell of grease and hot coals, and the haunting cry of the whistle late at night. Now that I was a grown up, I desperately wanted a train set.
The biggest problem was one of storage space. While my Dad had the right idea in mounting my childhood set on a board, storing it outdoors in a damp garage was no way to keep the tracks in smooth running order. They rusted horribly, which caused a marked decrease in the train’s performance even though he painstakingly sanded them clean as part of the set up. (I learned later, that this increased the tendency for the tracks to rust – there are better tools than sandpaper). I needed room not only for when the set was in use, but for storage when it was not. In my bachelor days, this was out of the question as I lived in a small flat. After marriage, the size of the home increased slightly but being the male in the partnership, my share of the storage space dropped significantly. I was lucky to have a place for my socks, much less a train set.
Our current house, while tiny by today’s standards, is (arguably) large enough for a modest set up, perhaps in one of the smaller scales. However, the next challenge is that Santa Claus has long since given up checking to see whether I’ve been naughty or nice and is simply assuming the former. At least I think that’s why he no longer responds to my repeated demands for consumer goods. Either way, my family, friends and workmates are long accustomed to my annual bleating that once again; I found no train set under the tree come Christmas morn.
Recently, a friend told me (probably in an attempt to shut me up) that a local model railroad club meets each Friday evening, in the basement of Denver’s Union Station to swap model train information and gawp at an elaborate layout permanently on display. While I’m well aware this might take me dangerously into ‘Star Trek’ style geek territory, it does sound like a good way to get my model train fix. Even better, Union Station is close to my office so the meeting would be simple enough to attend before going home from work. However, this is still a short-term solution – not the same as having a train set of one’s own.
The hard truth remains, that if I want a train set, I’m going to have to buy it myself. Or so I thought.
Last weekend I joined a bunch of friends for a social gathering at a local hostelry where to my surprise, I was ceremoniously presented with a large polystyrene box containing a second hand, but obviously well loved, toy train. 4 carriages, a station and a plastic bag full of track, realistic choo-choo noises and a light on the front. I was in heaven.
The only challenge was; I couldn’t get it to work.
The batteries live inside the coal tender; the lid of which completes the contacts. Sadly this had two broken snaps but the good news was; the manufacturers had thoughtfully backed them up with two tiny screws, thus assuring a tight fit. But one of those was missing. Replacing it proved, as visits to the hardware store always do, to be harder than I expected although with the help of an enthusiastic employee, I eventually found one that looked as though it would work. I nipped off the extra 1/8 inch with a hacksaw and I was in business. Or rather, I wasn’t. Even with both screws cinched down tight, the locomotive refused to do locomotive things.
Until later that evening, as I was forlornly fiddling with the lid of the coal tender and nearly had a heart attack when the locomotive suddenly came to life in my hands. With bell ringing and lights flashing, the wheels began to spin and I nearly lost the whole thing for good by dropping it on the kitchen floor. I’m no spring chicken and frights like that aren’t good for me. Turned out, one of the screws wasn’t seated correctly and the contacts weren’t being made. It was the work of moments to correct that and in no time I had a working train set for the first time in 30 odd years. With the plastic track laid out on the living room floor I can scare the heck out of the dogs to my heart’s content.
Except now I’ve really got the bug and more than ever I want a proper train set. With electric power and a metal track, and hills and tunnels and a signal box and and and…
We were in town on Saturday afternoon so I persuaded The Light of my Life™ to take me to a place called Caboose Hobbies which is basically a model train shop on steroids. Apparently it’s the largest of its kind in the world and I spent a happy couple of hours wandering the aisles and lusting after all the model train related do-dads I’ll never be able to afford in a million years. Despite my whining, the big meanie refused to let me buy the set of my dreams, but she did allow that I could save a bit of cash from each month’s housekeeping until I have enough to pay for it outright. So, it will take a while but by next Christmas at least, I should be the proud owner of a working train set. Woo hoo!
I wonder if my Dad will come and set it up for me.
Let’s be thankful
First Published: 30 November, 2004
As any American history nerd can tell you, the Pilgrim Fathers landed on what is now known as Massachusetts in 1620. There’s no evidence they actually landed at Plymouth Rock or carved the date which appears on it today; that was more likely the handiwork of some enterprising member of a later Chamber of Commerce. What is evident however is that the onset of winter is a particularly bad time when it comes to founding a new colony.
Well-meaning and enterprising they may have been, but as pioneers they were hopelessly ill-equipped. Lacking even a basic knowledge of agriculture and having neglected to bring a single cow, the effects of the harsh winter were soon to take their toll. By spring, over half the original band of 102 souls were dead. Indeed, as popular lore has it, the remainder would not have survived had they not been befriended by some English-speaking natives who taught the pilgrims a few survival tips and earned themselves not only a place in the history books, but a slap up turkey dinner to celebrate the first harvest.
And not only turkey. Venison, pumpkin, and corn were believed to be on the menu for the feast which ran for three days. Although it soon became an American tradition, Thanksgiving was not celebrated as an official holiday until 1864 during the Lincoln presidency and it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who moved it to the now customary date of the fourth Thursday of November. I’m not sure which president arranged for the College Football games to be on television around the clock, so I’ll need to get back to you on that.
While I don’t think I’d be up to three days’ worth of feasting, Thanksgiving is without a doubt, my favourite holiday. No commercialization, no religious bickering, no decorations to put up (or take down), just lots of food, drink, and the company of good friends. And the chance to take a moment and reflect that no matter how tiresome the humdrum aspects of life may be, we’re still one heckuva lot better off than many other people on this pretty blue globe and we’d all do well to remember that.
This year, The Light of my Life™ and I were invited over to the home of our friends, Kris and Mario. The last time we’d been in their house it was in a state which could charitably (but inadequately) be described as “messy”. We’re not the world’s greatest housekeepers but our house is like Martha Stewart’s compared to theirs. So, we were wondering how in the world they would have it clear enough to accommodate the anticipated twenty bodies. As it turns out, Kris and another friend had spent four days with a pickaxe, a shovel and a flame-thrower and between them, had removed the clutter and restored the house to the attractive, light-filled and eclectic home we knew it to be.
Two long tables were placed end to end, although at a slight angle in order to provide more side edges (the better at which to sit people) and chairs had been borrowed from all quarters. There was no room for mingling; you arrived, you sat down, that was it. Nobody was particularly sorry that three people failed to show as even with the reduced numbers, elbow room was at a premium. But fit we did and it was a happy bunch that sat to give thanks this year.
Everybody had been instructed to bring a dish with them. The Light of my Life took along her specialty pumpkin pie. She opens a can of pumpkin like nobody, that woman. I had been commanded to provide the mashed potatoes, something well within my culinary repertoire. I cooked them, mashed them and creamed them to perfection. They were faultless. The only problem was they ran out before the bowl had made it round the table. Note to self: Seventeen people eat a lot of potatoes.
Even the finest meal is no pleasure if the company is poor but this diverse group of people made the evening an event in itself. The professional chef carved the turkey. The artist and the chiropractor bartered paintings for a session of spinal adjustment. The published author and the aspiring writer exchanged tips. The child and the schoolteacher swapped stories. And the British guy sat back and marvelled at the wonderful concept which is the American Thanksgiving dinner.
When nobody could manage another bite of dessert, the plates were cleared away and the jewellery designer brought out his wares. Long anticipated as the highlight of the gathering, the womenfolk went into paroxysms of joy as each bracelet, necklace and gemstone was held up, tried on and snapped up. Like most of the other men, I was torn between the despair of seeing my hard-earned beer money disappear so quickly and the relief of realizing I wouldn’t have to suffer through the hell that is Christmas shopping.
More beer, more wine, more coffee, more pie anyone? With the exception of potatoes, there was still enough food to sink a battleship and I suspect Kris and Mario are even now working their way through the leftovers. Sadly, my work hours and long commute have turned me into an early riser, even though my soul rebels against such a thing. One of the many downsides to this is that even when I have no work the following morning, my aging body starts to shut down around my regular bedtime. So, the night was still comparatively young when my eyes started to droop and my head to nod.
We made our goodbyes and gathered up our belongings before heading out into the night. The moon was almost full, and its light sparkled on the snow like a billion brilliant-cut diamonds. Tired or not, it was impossible not to enjoy driving in that wonderland. We pulled into the driveway of our little cabin among the trees and stepped out of the car to admire the canopy of stars under an indigo sky. Before entering the house, I took a moment to consider how truly blessed we are on this Thanksgiving Day.
Mind you, I had cause to reflect on that a few minutes later when I was on my hands and knees cleaning up an ocean of dog vomit and diarrhoea. No idea what Wiley ate this time, but it obviously didn’t sit as well as my Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn’t do to let too much positive thinking get in the way of real life, but hey, even with a sick dog in the house, things are pretty darn good.
Home Improvement
First Published: 28 December, 2004
Leatherman™ multi-tool pocket-knives currently have a magazine ad running which always makes me feel a little…inadequate. The photo is of a handyman, tool kit in hand, ringing a doorbell while the caption reads something like “Take back your life”. The message being that you aren’t really a man if you need someone else to come and fix things for you and if you simply had a Leatherman™, you’d be able to fend for yourself. I don’t have one although Dear Wife has. (A pink one). However, being realistic, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference if I had. When it comes to those little jobs around the home, I’m what might charitably be called “useless”.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s just that through no fault of my own simplest tasks turn into disasters of biblical proportions whenever I try to tackle them. I’m aware of the adage, “Measure twice, cut once”. But for me it’s more a case of “Measure 16 times, cut it too short anyway, spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find another piece”.
Take the time my sister misguidedly decided that as I was living rent-free at her place, I could build a box enclosing the bathroom pipes prior to her hanging new wallpaper. Her fiancé-to-be outlined the plans and they seemed straightforward enough. Four long pieces of wood running from floor to ceiling, with cross struts every foot or so for support.
Putting the uprights in place took less than a day, although the cross-struts proved to be a little trickier. Three of the first four I cut turned out to be about 1/8 of an inch too short, and I was in danger of running out of wood. When I came to drill screw holes, I found the electric cable of the drill didn’t reach and it took me almost a full day’s walk to obtain another. On day three I dropped the chuck key through a hole in the floorboards, spent the rest of the day finding a replacement and had to put the job on hold while I went to visit friends over the weekend. Fiancé-to-be took advantage of me being out of the way to finish the job in about 90 minutes.
In Arizona we decided the outside of our house could do with a fresh coat of paint. This hadn’t been done since it was built, and the yellowish walls with brown trim must have been ugly even then. The first day I learned that not all paint rollers are created equal. A rough surface, such as the stucco plaster of our walls, requires a much courser roller that the (indoor specific) one I was using. Not only that, but after eighteen years of Phoenix sun, the stucco had the characteristics of a bath sponge. It was sucking the paint off the roller by the gallon, without the colour changing in any noticeable fashion. After 8 hours of solid slog, I’d barely covered 2 walls.
The trim was just as bad, with the added bonus of yards of intricate work under the eaves, requiring hours of neck wrenching toil. My weeks’ holiday came and went with the job barely started. I kept doggedly at it although I suspect most people could probably have completed the task in less than the 2 ½ years it took me. (Although technically I never did get finished as the front door was still an unattractive shade of grey undercoat with masking tape accents when we sold the house some four years later.)
One task which almost went well before fate stepped in once more was when I replaced a bathroom tap. This is a comparatively straightforward task, even for me, in that all you need to do is loosen a couple of bolts, lift out the old unit, drop the new one into place and tighten the new bolts. The old metal pipes were to be replaced with modern, flexible plastic ones, but even that was simply a case of unscrewing the nuts at either end. It’s true; I did need to make two more trips to Home Depot after discovering that the pipes were of different lengths, and the one I should have returned was, somewhat predictably, the other one. Even so, in less than a morning, we had a shiny new fixture, installed and functioning and all without a hint of bloodshed. It was perhaps the ease of this project that led me to get a little giddy.
The package came with a new plug attachment, and looking at the old, stained one, I decided it would be the work of moments to replace this too. Quick explanation for British readers (or Americans who’ve never had occasion to look): Here, plugs are usually a chrome disc which fits in the hole. A metal bar runs vertically down from it into the drain and by means of a wee arm, attaches to another metal bar which in turn, runs vertically up through the middle of the tap unit. Lifting or lowering a button on the top allows you to open and close the plug. To attach the arm of the new plug to the bar of the new faucet unit, it’s easiest to simply unscrew the top section of the plastic drain, so you can see what you’re doing. No real problem until I came to re-attach it and discovered that rather than unscrewing, our old, decrepit drain had simply snapped off at the thread. Right on a bend, right by the wall. Several panic-stricken conversations with people who know about these things established that the broken joint couldn’t be mended and the only way to replace it was to dig it out of the wall. As the lowest professional estimate we received was $600, we knocked something off the price of the house when we sold it.
We had a workman in the house this week, as it happens, who for $40, fixed our sliding glass door (without using a Leatherman™) so it opens smoothly once more. We’re thrilled to have it working properly even though it was a short-term fix, and he tells us we’ll need to replace the door eventually. Following this, he endeared himself to me for ever when, without even knowing my track record, he advised we have it professionally installed as “old houses like these can often cause unexpected problems”. Yep, I like the way that man thinks.
As further proof that he and I are kindred spirits; he left his crowbar behind when he went. Now, I wonder what needs doing around the house that I could use that for.
Update: 7 November, 2021
I ‘do’ now have a Leatherman™ and have had for some time. As I predicted almost 17 years ago though; it hasn’t made me any more of an accomplished handyman.
Of Mice and Men
First Published: February 17, 2004
I’ve never been a huge Mickey Mouse fan, seeing him as more of a corporate logo rather than a cartoon character per se. That and the fact that my humour tends more towards the darker, more cynical style of Warner Bros. In fact Wile E. Coyote’s life so parallels mine, I’ve often wondered if we weren’t separated at birth.
The reason I’ve been thinking about mice though is the recent discovery that we’re sharing our house with a herd of them. If you remember, a couple of posts ago I was recounting the multitude of creatures, which had chosen to join us in our home. Wasps, squirrels, flying beasties and other assorted wildlife moved in around the same time as we did. They were summarily dealt with and, at least as far as we were aware, there were no other squatters on the premises.
However, the other night while watching TV, we heard what could only be described as a scratching sound coming from behind the fire. A full-scale investigation whilst lying on my stomach with a flashlight revealed absolutely nothing. The scratching continued unfortunately, which led me to believe that once again, we were not alone. My initial conclusion that after several weeks of sub-zero temperatures, the squirrels had decided, quite sensibly, to move back indoors.
We have a half cellar beneath our house, home to the well pump, a few soggy pieces of insulation and many spiders. I haven’t been down there in over a year and quite frankly, am in no rush to change that. The entrance is currently buried in snow and accessing it would require more effort than I’m interested in attempting right now. Cold weather notwithstanding, I’m in no particular rush to come face to face with something unidentified in the dark. So, job number 352 on an ever-increasing list of unpleasant jobs to do around the house got neatly filed away in the “If I don’t think about it, it will go away file.”
That is, until The Light of my Life™ was rummaging around in the cabinet under the sink and discovered unmistakable evidence that we had mice. Mice droppings are fairly recognizable but curiously, we could see no means of them getting in and out. Now it’s an old house, with numerous nooks and crannies, located on an acre of pine forest so it’s no real surprise that rodents have found their way in. If anything, it’s a wonder we haven’t seen them before. That said, animal lovers though we are, we don’t want mice living under our bathroom sink. In case I was in any doubt about this fact, The Light of my Life™ reminded me in a very loud, unnaturally high-pitched voice.
The following night, we were discussing our plans to resolve the matter and during the conversation I opened the cabinet and began sorting through the odds and ends we had stored there. I’d barely got started when I was treated once more to the ear-splitting sound of The Light of my Life™ in the early stages of a hysteria attack. It was some moments before she could form sentence coherent enough to communicate what I had missed. In a plastic bowl, which had been living under the sink for some time, sat a small, rather cute, and very much alive, mouse. He wasn’t wearing red shorts, or suspenders but a mouse he quite definitely was. And The Light of my Life™ wasn’t willing to have him in our bathroom cabinet or anywhere else close by. That much was clear.
It was the work of a few minutes to carry the bowl outside and set him free near our neighbours’ horse barn. However, the decision had been made and the mice had to go. The next challenge was to determine how this should be done. Now, as I said, we’re animal lovers and would never deliberately harm one. As much as possible, we shop responsibly, ensuring no animals are harmed in the manufacturing of the products we buy. While my stint as a vegetarian only lasted a few years, I still feel somewhat guilty about reverting to meat-eating and in this area too, we try to be responsible in our purchases. And we donate more money than we can really afford to animal charities. So, it was important to both of us that this was handled as humanely as possible.
The Light of my Life™ went shopping and came home with something called a “Glue Board”. It’s essentially a piece of sticky cardboard, which you place near the skirting board, or somewhere the mice are known to travel. The idea is, said mice will then stick to the glue board until such time when the homeowner removes them to a different location and releases them unharmed, to begin a new life in someone else’s house. Sounds fine and the system worked great right up to the point where I read the instructions.
I’m not going to describe the process here other than to explain that it involves heavy-duty industrial rubber gloves, a 5-gallon bucket, vegetable or mineral oil and “a blunt object”. Not only is the process decidedly icky, there’s also the thorny problem that any animals caught overnight would have to wait until I returned from work, many hours later before they’d have any hope of release. Even though this method may not kill them, it’s hardly humane.
So, animal lovers or not, we agreed this should be handled the traditional way, with a good old-fashioned mousetrap. The expression “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”, is often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, although we’re now told he never said it. Misquote or no, there may still be some truth in the saying. Once I’d figured out exactly how the mechanism worked, painfully smacking my thumb knuckles several times in the process, I had it baited with cheese and in place for the night’s hunting. So far, it’s been out for 3 nights and we’re running at a success rate of 100%. Which only leads to the question – just how many of the bloody things are in there? We’ll keep using the trap until I start finding it empty for a few days in a row.
One thing’s for certain. The first time I hear any songs from the Mickey Mouse Club coming from under the bathroom sink, I’m calling in the professionals.
’tis better to travel hopefully
First Published: February 10, 2004
Coming as I do from good Scotch-Irish white trash stock, it was inevitable that I would one day heed the call of the wild and like so many of my forebears, pack my belongings into a covered wagon and head out for the wide-open lands of the American West, giddy with excitement over the life of wealth and adventure, which surely awaited.
Although if you want to be technical; I’d travelled west in an aeroplane in 1993. This 2002 migration was north and a little bit east. The covered wagon was more of a Hertz truck and as for giddy excitement…I was bloody exhausted before we started.
I’d been working in Colorado for a couple of months, while The Light of my Life™ stayed in Phoenix, to handle the house sale. When it was time to move, I flew down on Friday night, anticipating that she would have all our worldly goods and possessions packed and ready to go. We were scheduled to close on our new house, first thing Tuesday morning so intended to load up and get a couple of hundred miles under our belts by Saturday night. Of course, it didn’t work out that way. She’s something of a pack rat and after 18 years in the house, had found the task overwhelming so had barely got started. We worked through the night but by the time our helpers arrived on Saturday morning, had still hardly scratched the surface. Leaving them to continue, we went out to collect the hire truck I’d reserved earlier in the week.
Which wasn’t ready. “Nope, sorry, nothing available” said the clerk; making it quite clear he couldn’t give a monkey’s. So, back home and a session with the Yellow Pages before finding a truck 50 miles across town. It was lunchtime by the time we got back so already we were seriously behind schedule. Next task was to collect the horse trailer, which had been in storage. One of the tires was blown. Not just flat, but completely exploded. Reflecting that on balance, it was better to have happened now than on the road, we decided it would be as well to replace all 4 of them. That neatly filled the rest of the afternoon so the planned Saturday evening departure was a complete write off.
We did sleep for about 4 hours Saturday night and on Sunday (most of) the friends showed up once more for an unscheduled continuance of the process. I never realized just how much stuff we owned and even after leaving a phenomenal amount for the new house owners, it was something of a squeeze when we finally pulled shut the door of the truck. Almost exactly 24 hours behind schedule we waved goodbye to our old life and set off towards that night’s target of Flagstaff, which is almost entirely uphill. With a top speed of around 45-50 miles an hour it was nearly midnight when we pulled in.
Up bright and ugly the next morning and our first challenge was that the moving truck keys were nowhere to be seen. We hunted all over the room, in our pickup truck, the horse trailer and the ground around, before eventually finding them in the ignition. A good job nobody else had found them first. We made pretty good time over the next stretch of the journey and at Santa Fe, decided we had time to pull in and eat a proper lunch. Now Santa Fe is a beautiful town and quite rightly, is a magnet for tourists from all over the world. So nice in fact, you can’t leave.
We know now that the while I-25 does indeed head north after passing Santa Fe, it’s quite definitely an east-west route close to town. Which meant that there was no way to access it from the northern end of the city as we were trying to do. Or at least we would have tried to do if we’d been able to get out of the city center. Built in a different age, Santa Fe’s streets are narrow and nowadays, thoroughly traffic choked. No place to be trying to maneuver a 24-foot moving truck when you’re so tired you can barely see. After about 12 circuits of the main plaza and multiple tours of the city’s residential districts (some of the gardens really are spectacular by the way, and you can fully appreciate them when you’re up high) I finally blocked traffic for 20 minutes or so while a friendly native explained the facts of life. After an initial misunderstanding, where I thought I was debating the village idiot (“You want to go south” “No, I want to go north!”) I finally understood he meant “You need to go south”. So we did and hey, lookit! There’s the freeway just like the man said.
One of our dogs was still in Colorado; The Light of my Life™ had the eldest with her, while the youngest was with me in the moving truck. I’m told house moves are just as stressful for animals as they are for humans and in addition, we’d only adopted her a few weeks before I left for Colorado. She hadn’t seen me for weeks, didn’t know me all that well in the first place and now after all these strangers had emptied her house, I’d loaded her into this strange vehicle and was keeping her trapped for hours at a stretch. Perhaps not surprisingly, she began shedding hair at an astonishing rate. So much so that I spent large parts of the journey trying to de-fur my eyes, nose and mouth.
At around 3am we pulled into Pueblo and spent the next 45 minutes searching for a cheap place to stay, where we’d be able to bring the dogs inside without needing a room inspection before checkout. We finally paid $80 for 2 hours sleep and a hot shower and it was worth every penny. Breakfast was eaten at the wheel and after negotiating Denver’s rush hour traffic for the first time and grinding our way up the hill, we finally pulled up outside the estate agent’s office with 40 minutes to spare. Only to find the office locked up and empty because they’d moved. Fortunately the office next door explained they’d simply relocated across the road and we were still able to arrive on time. We looked like death, but we were on time.
Frankly, I have no idea what I signed that morning although should we ever have a child, I don’t believe it will belong to us. I also think I might be married to the village chief’s daughter. However, we must have done something right because after several hours, we were handed the keys to our new home and only a few hours after that, spent the first night, blissfully asleep. Under grubby blankets on the living room floor.
There’s no place like home.
It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive
R.L. Stevenson
(A) Wild Life in the Mountains
First published: February 3, 2004
Although our home is rather small by today’s standards, we share it with a number of different critters, 3 dogs and 3 Siamese fighting fish, to be exact. In addition however, a number of other forms of wildlife have chosen to share their lives with us.
Shortly after moving in we became aware that we were not alone and that the scampering noises we heard so frequently, weren’t from squirrels on the roof, as we had hoped, but in the roof. A whole scurry of them, (yes, that is the collective noun) trotting around on the plaster ceiling. Also, mild though the weather was, we were astonished at the number of wasps in the house. Nobody likes being stung by a wasp but The Light of my Life™ suffers from extreme allergic reactions so it simply wasn’t an option for her. The first local serviceman to visit our house was the Pest Control Guy.
He traced the wasps to a hole in our living room ceiling, and neatly sealed it up. End of problem. The squirrels were a bit more of a challenge, but according to the Pest Control Guy, the trick is to catch the female; then the lads will mosey away on their own. A trap was set not too far from the back door and in short order we had a small and apparently female squirrel, neatly caught in the trap. Did I mention we had 3 dogs? Did I mention the trap was close to our back door? I’m not sure who was closer to being driven insane, them or us but it was a long two days before the Pest Control Guy came to take it away.
Before very long however, we learned that the theory of just catching the female is a bunch of hooey. Less than a month later our attic was once more party central for the local squirrel population and the hole, carefully sealed the last time, was now twice as big. We called a new Pest Control Guy this time and he set traps all over the place. In the roof, on the roof, in the trees, everywhere. It took about 3 days but we snagged pretty much every squirrel in the neighborhood and beyond. The pest control guy took them off to a ranch in Montana, where I’m sure they’re living happily to this day. The hole was sealed up again and while squirrels are still frequent visitors to our trees (much to the fury of the dogs), they have yet to seek lodgings in our roof.
Other wild animals have been much more welcome. Mainly because they haven’t attempted to live inside. We live on an unfenced wooded acre, and while houses surround us; the neighborhood still has a very rural feel. Deer and elk are regular visitors to our property and as long as we don’t make too big a deal out of it, are more than happy to ignore us. We need to ensure the dogs are kept under control of course, not only is it illegal for them to chase the wildlife, we don’t want to discourage the animals from coming. On the bright side, we do have our own early warning system to let us know something interesting has wandered into the yard, which is nice when it’s very early in the morning. Even though we’ve been here almost two years now, this is still a terrific novelty and we’re constantly calling each other to “Come quickly, look!”
The deer are the most common visitors, but there have been others too. For a spell we had a little blond fox living nearby. He could be seen quite often, just sitting in someone’s driveway, watching the world go by. As far as I know, no coyotes have come close to the house, although we can occasionally hear a pack of them singing, late at night. If you’ve never heard coyote song, it’s a haunting, eerie and primal sound that makes you wish humanity would just leave this planet and take all their detritus with them.
Probably our most exciting visitor has been a large black bear. As it happens, it’s not really a good sign that a bear is spending time in an area inhabited by humans. If he’s come to rely on us as a food source then he’ll lose the ability to survive in the world. Also, it’s a sad fact that if there’s any conflict with a human, he’s going to end up the loser. Unfortunately, we perhaps contributed to the problem by breaking one of the cardinal rules of mountain living when we accidently left our dustbin out one night. Maybe he was just passing through, maybe the empty pizza box attracted him, but either way, I was headed out to fetch something from the shed when I spotted two eyes shining back in the beam of my torch.
Black bears don’t usually attack humans but either way; I walked sloooowwly backwards to the house. Some idiot once told me that making lots of noise will scare a bear away so I collected some pots and went back outside making enough noise to awaken the dead. I probably awakened the neighborhood at least, but the lure of our garbage was too much for the bruin and he only backed away a few paces. I figured if I at least got the trashcan away from him; that would help, so I bent sideways to pick it up. Of course, you can’t pick up something that heavy one handed unless you’re really giving it your full attention so all that happened was it slid along the ground. Making a noise…not unlike a large, angry, unidentifiable animal. The bear certainly thought so and this achieved what my percussion had not. He hightailed it out of there and our dustbin has lived in the shed ever since.
However, that was in no way the most dangerous creature we’ve had visit. This singular honor goes to a harmless, quite attractive looking dragonfly type flying beastie, which found its way through the insect screens late one night. I know it was late, because I’d been asleep for some time when The Light of my Life™ awoke me to deal with it. Grumbling obscenities I shuffled over; caught the insect in my cupped hands and proceeded to give The Light of my Life™ a lecture about how she didn’t have to wake me to deal with every harmless creature she saw. It was at that point it bit me. I still don’t know what the insect was as it was hard to identify after I’d beaten it to death with a shoe, but it caused my hand to swell up like a balloon for several days.
It’s dangerous up here in the mountains.
Pray for me, I drive 285
First published: January 20, 2004
Said a popular bumper sticker around these parts when we moved in. The reason behind these pleas for divine intervention, was the love-hate relationship many locals have with the picturesque, but overly trafficked and at times, deadly stretch of road known as Colorado State Highway 285, which leads southwest from Denver into the southern parts of the Rocky Mountains, before ultimately making its way down into New Mexico.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when SH285 was nothing more than a meandering mountain trail and old-timers tell how it used to take the best part of a day to drive down into the city for supplies. Not surprisingly, they only made the trip once a month or so. Nowadays, it’s possible to do the same journey in under an hour, a fact, which has encouraged many people to, like us, make their homes in the foothills while making their living in the metropolis of Denver. In fact, the 50 miles of SH285 between Denver and Bailey, the route on which I commute daily, now serves one of the fastest growing commuter belts in the country.
According the 2000 Census figures, Park County where our home is situated, experienced the nation’s 5th fastest growth during the 1990s. Park County residents can also lay claim to the nation’s 5th longest average commute (44.8 minutes). I’m guessing these people work on the west side of Denver because I make my way to the south east of town each morning and would love to talk of a commute so short.
Sitting in a car has never been my idea of fun. Oh sure, like most people, I’ve daydreamed of roaring around the mountain roads of Europe in an open topped, sports car, with a supermodel in the passenger seat. However, I’m also well aware that for most of the time, those roads are choked with tour buses and nose to tail traffic, much the same as the roads here. I spend 2-3 hours a day driving to and from work, but the bulk of that doesn’t involve tearing up the highway, but crawling along at a snail’s pace, beside everyone else.
I consider commuting to be time essentially stolen from me. I’m not earning money, I’m not practicing a hobby, I’m certainly not getting fit – I’m just, sitting there. Audio books help pass the time and if I listen to “intellectual” books I can even tell myself I’m improving my mind, but it doesn’t alter the fact; I spend a large part of my day wishing I was doing something else.
When we first moved here, I worked in downtown Denver, a drive shorter than my current one by only by about 3 or 4 miles. However, I could usually complete the journey in a good 20 minutes less. Curiously, the traffic into the centre of the city moved faster than that heading into the sprawling office park where I work now. However, driving home that summer was a whole new adventure due to the fact the Colorado Department of Transportation was engaged in the painfully slow act of widening large stretches of SH285. You know, to accommodate all these people who like us, were in the process of moving in.
To make matters worse, my little car, which had served me well on the pancake flat, ruler straight roads of Phoenix rebelled when I asked it, not only to pull me up a twisting turning gradient, climbing from 5,250 to 9,000 feet; but to do a large part of it in stop and go, low gear mode. To be blunt, it didn’t like it and expressed its displeasure by overheating every few days and leaving me stranded by the roadside for 30 minutes or so while the radiator bubbled and fizzed. If the summer heat was a problem, the ice and snow of winter made it throw up its hands in horror. OK, it’s a car; it didn’t have hands but work with me here.
I moved to Colorado in April and even though winter was almost done, we still had a few heavy snowstorms and the car just didn’t know what to do. As it happened, the very first snow we had, 3 days after moving in, left me completely stranded. The roads were clear but I was unable to get out of our driveway. That didn’t tend to happen in Phoenix. Another winter was fast approaching and we knew the car would be unable to continue the daily commute once the bad weather really kicked in. So, we shopped around and eventually cleaned out the remains of our savings account by investing in a 15-year old Toyota with 4-wheel drive, big chunky tires and battle scars. Now this is a vehicle for the mountains. His name is Angus, by the way.
I’ll admit, I got a bit of a disappointment the first time I drove in snow when I found my wheels mysteriously spinning and Angus slipping all over the road. After all, the 2-wheel car had handled the snow better than this! A lesson I learned that day was to check that both the front hubs were turned to 4-wheel drive, not just one. I’m not sure if there’s a term for what I had; 3-wheel drive doesn’t sound right, but for the record, it’s nowhere near as good as 4-wheel, or even 2-wheel drive.
We looked for a car with a stick shift, working on the theory that they would be more reliable than an automatic of a similar age. That certainly made economic sense, but we didn’t allow for the fact that clutches installed in the late ‘80s require a lot more effort to pump than their modern equivalents. What’s the problem there? I hear you ask. Well, as I slide, kicking and screaming, into old fartdom, one of the symptoms I’m experiencing is an arthritis sort of discomfort in my left knee. My clutch knee. Regular shifting when changing gear isn’t a problem, it’s the constant up and down motion required to move along in heavy traffic. Oh, I don’t like heavy traffic at all.
There will come a time when I will figure out a way to live up in the mountains without having to commute down into Denver on a daily basis. As yet, I don’t have a clear idea as to how I’m going to do this, but winning the lottery will probably be involved somehow. In the meantime, “Pray for me, I drive 285”.
A Few Words About Karma
First Published: January 13, 2004
\Kar”ma\, n.[Skr] (Buddhism) One’s acts considered as fixing one’s lot in the future existence. (Theos.) The doctrine of fate as the inflexible result of cause and effect; the theory of inevitable consequence.
The first few weeks we spent in our new house in Bailey, had me thinking a lot about karma. Specifically, bad karma.
Oh, we were thrilled with the move of course. Our house sits on a pine-wooded acre down a dirt road, with the foothills of the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop. After nine years in the concrete wilderness that is Phoenix, Arizona I was amazed at the good fortune that had brought us here and even now, almost two years on, the place we call home is still an endless source of delight.
However, back then, in those early days, I was beginning to wonder if I’d done something seriously not good in a previous life, and was now being required to pay for it. You see, in that first two or three weeks, we had a run of what can only be described as…shitty luck.
The day after we signed the contract on the house, a major wildfire broke out less than three miles from the house. Colorado has been in a state of drought for some years now and wildfires are the inevitable price we all pay for living in an area which was virgin forest not that long ago. Even so, we weren’t quite ready for our first to break out quite so soon. Some kids messing around with matches behind the High School managed to set the fire, which eventually burned over 2,300 acres of forest. After a few nerve-wracking days, the volunteer firefighters had it under control and our house, along with all the others in the area, survived unharmed.
The week after we moved in, a second fire broke out, slightly further away this time but much bigger and more destructive. For a spell it was headed our way, in the words of one firefighter “like a tidal wave”. Over 90,000 acres were lost this time, but once again we were spared. Nonetheless, we learned which news sites had merit and which were junk, then kept the good ones open on the computer most of the summer.
Unloading the moving van was a major project and we couldn’t have done without the assistance of the estate agent’s son and his friend. Two strapping football players, they called The Light of my Life™ “Ma’am” and treated me with a respect usually reserved for people over 70. They wouldn’t let me lift anything heavier than a shoebox and between them, had the entire load in the house within a few hours. Nonetheless, The Light of my Life™ still managed to strain her knee in the process and for several days, was walking with a cane.
The next adventure was when our water ran out. Like most properties in the mountains, our property is served by a well so as part of the purchase process, we paid to have this tested. Or rather we didn’t. You see some previous prospective buyers had already done the honours and as the well passed with flying colours, there seemed little point. Of course, we weren’t to know that the contractor who’d performed the test was a charlatan and his figures were entirely fictional. The well had apparently collapsed some months before and contained no more than a few gallons of water. Having a new well drilled is a costly process but not one that can be rushed. (Something to do with a too fast drill cauterizing the rock and sealing the fissures that replenish the water). So, for several days we had a trailer containing a water tank parked in our back yard, so we could bathe, wash dishes and flush the toilets. We could not however, wash any of the items we were still attempting to unpack.
I nearly ruptured myself loading our fridge onto the van in Phoenix, and then we damaged one of the front porch steps unloading it here. As it turned out, we needn’t have bothered as it had died somewhere on the journey. The delightful avocado fridge left by the sellers froze everything solid, so in short order we had two broken fridges sitting on our front porch. Does that officially qualify us as rednecks Mr. Foxworthy?
The sink, which worked fine during the home inspections leaked like Niagara Falls, as did both toilets. Somewhere between us buying the house and moving in, the sliding back door decided it would rather stay shut thank you very much and requires two hands and a lot of back muscle before it will open.
Our youngest dog, no doubt stressed from all the upheaval, decided to forget the rules of housetraining. The house we bought had very nice carpets. The house, in which we now live, does not. To be fair, she’s not entirely responsible for the carpets. Our eldest dog developed an allergy to the food she’d eaten for years and got into the habit of regurgitating it wherever she happened to be when the mood struck.
Inexplicably, the insect screens developed large gaps around their edges, allowing entry to all manner of curious beasties, including one particularly harmless looking thing, which bit me on the hand causing it to swell like a balloon. The insects were joined by a plague of wasps in the plaster ceiling of our living room and a family of squirrels in the loft.
Our problems weren’t confined to the house either. My car, which had provided 180,000 miles of semi-trouble free service, blew a cylinder head gasket and had to be towed to the mechanic. No doubt feeling lonely, The Light of my Life™’s truck coughed and ground to a halt at more or less the same spot, the following day. It’s not easy living in the mountains and working in the city without transportation. But we managed. Actually as it happens, we’d just purchased a third vehicle. A shiny new mountain bike as a sort of birthday cum mid-life crisis present for me. The first time out on it, less than two miles from the house, something went twang in my left knee and it still bothers me today. I doubt if I’ve put a hundred miles on the bike.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining. I didn’t then and I’m not now. We really do love it here. But considering this all happened in the space of about three weeks, I’m just…. wondering. Karma, hmm. Wonder what I did. Whatever it was, I hope I enjoyed it.
The Gunsmoke Diaries 