fire waiting to happen

Some of the wiring in this house gives me nightmares. There are a few electrical outlets connected with Romex wire and installed in blue plastic boxes and we had 2 GFI outlets installed, but now I'm finding outlets jammed into wood planks without a protective box and there was a fabric-wrapped wire snaking up through a couple of two-by-fours with the light switch inserted into a cutout section of a LOAD-BEARING post. And then I come across something like this that really freaks me. I uncovered this section of bare wire while cleaning out a rat haven of acorn shells and such piled about four inches deep on an inside wall. I was lucky I didn't touch it while cleaning out the rat debris. We've put out cakes of rat poison which disappear quickly so we assume rats or squirrels are absconding with them. Last Saturday we were met with the unmistakeable odor of decomposing bodies. I hope it's rats and not cats.

status update

I haven't been keeping up this blog as planned; it may be more sporadic than I thought, but after spending both my weekend days tearing out boards and sheetrock, I can't work up much enthusiasm to sit at the computer. I'm hoping I will build up some arm muscles, as I'll be able to put them to good use. There's more damage than I expected, but apparently that's to be expected in old houses. Have I already said that? It turned out the ceiling in the kitchen was being held up on one side by a termite-riddled plank and after I removed the plank the ceiling sagged. I finally got to look in the attic and saw the ceiling was being held up only by a couple of two-by-fours nailed weirdly to the rafters, so I'm going to have to pull the ceiling down as well. We had a contractor look at the kitchen and he will probably give us an estimate this Friday. We're just going to have him do the basic construction: moving the wall, insulating the ceiling and replacing the sheetrock, and new wiring. I will apply the texture to the sheetrock, do the painting, and install the cabinets and vinyl floor. It may take a month for me to install the cabinets, but we need to save our money for the things we can't do.

demolition continues

Now I'm getting down to some of the bones of the house. The termite damage extended farther than I expected. It appears to extend upward along 3 studs and then spreads to the left and right when it reaches the kitchen ceiling. The base wall is made of six-inch-wide planks of soft wood and the top two planks were so damaged I could snap them with my hand. In some places the boards were nearly paper-thin. I got most of the damaged boards torn off and now I hope I can save some of the undamaged planking for use elsewhere in the house. Imagine my surprise when I found the wall on the other side of the studs (living room wall) is also planked. It is covered with some kind of mesh-like material that's been plastered over. I can only do about 3 1/2 to 4 hours of work before my arms and shoulders start to give out, so there's at least 2 more days of work before I get this wall torn down. It's also more time-consuming when you're trying to save the wood so it may be three days.

I found yet another layer of wallpaper and an assortment of wiring from different eras including loose wires that I didn't want to touch in case they were live. I hadn't thought to bring a voltage tester with me. A few of these older wires were threaded through the studs via a hollow metal tube. I'm sure I'm going to be finding a lot of code violations. I found one electrical outlet simply jammed into the hole cut into the wood without any kind of box around it.

I got a book by George Nash called Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes that's already proving useful. Now I may be able to date the old wiring I found to add to my historical as well as my structural info about the house.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

down to the bare wood

I'm in uncharted territory!

As my minor demolition progressed in the kitchen I started to realize I was going to have to get a different mindset for dealing with this house. This house is truly Old and folks did things differently in The Olden Days. It was one thing to "fix up" my Oak Cliff house, a 1940's tract house built as a single unit with a floor plan laid out in a blueprint; it is quite another thing to work on a house that was created in pieces, beginning in an age that lacked modern plumbing and electricity. I guess I was subconsciously expecting to find 2x4 studs spaced neatly under plasterboard; instead I found these rough horizontal boards covered in layers of newspaper. I haven't determined if these pages came from a newspaper or a magazine as the paper is so brittle it almost disintegrates as it's being handled. I found one small piece of paper with "March 1933" on it, so it seems likely all the layers of wallpaper and burlap were pasted on sometime after that date.

I need information! What should I do with bare wood walls? Should I preserve them and hope they add character to the kitchen or should I just slap on some drywall and make it modern? I'm gonna have to get myself educated, it seems.

yukon do it!

The paste that held everything together has mostly lost its stickum power and I was able to uncover most of a large piece of burlap behind the wallpaper. It was from a 100 pound bag of flour manufactured by Yukon Mill & Grain of Yukon, Oklahoma. I found that by 1915 Yukon Grains was the main business in this small Oklahoma town (current population 21,000) and it received its "official" charter in 1921. The company suffered a series of lawsuits brought by angry stockholders (can't translate the legalese or I'd tell ya why) in the 1940's and was acquired by Shawnee Mills in 1970. So I'm guessing this bag was pasted up sometime between 1921 and 1970.

old photo of the mill from a vintage postcard.
Go to the Yukon Flour Mill for more pics & info on this historic structure.

oh, yeah, as all you CW music lovers probably already know, Yukon is the home of Garth Brooks.

first discoveries

We began work on the house yesterday. We worked outside for a brief time, my mom sawing down an unwanted fig tree which had intermingled with an ancient rose bush and me digging up a few of the many bricks scattered in the yard and piling them neatly next to the fence. It was after 2 pm and the temperature was soaring to its maximum of 103 so it wasn't long before we were overcome and had to retreat indoors. Thank goodness the air conditioner works!

I then began demolition of the kitchen, starting with the small built-in drawer & cupboards on one wall. There was a lot of termite damage to a vertical support which had been concealed by the trim around the door. It was old damage, like that of the joist under the kitchen floor that had been removed just the week before, and my main worry was how far up the damage extended. I found that whoever had constructed the cupboard had used corrugated cardboard for the sides of it. After the trim, shelves and cardboard were removed, I started on the wall. The top layer was a material not quite plaster and not quite drywall. It was about 1/4 inch thick, maybe less, and showed signs of at least 3 layers of paint: white, yellow and dark green. Under this plaster-like material I found the first layer of wallpaper; actually the last layer if you look at it from an archeological point of view. It was an unusual design, not too bad on the eyes, but what was peculiar was that it was apparently pasted to a burlap base made from flour and cornmeal bags. I guess this is how they attached wallpaper in the days before pre-pasted papers were available. Instead of scraping off the old wallpaper, which was probably a nearly impossible chore, folks would paste up a burlap bag so the next layer of paper would have something to adhere to.

My New Baby

Here's a photo of my new house....my new "old" house. This was scanned from something the inspector gave us so it's not as clear as it could be. I've held off posting anything about the house or even telling many people about it as I wasn't sure I was going to get it and I didn't want to jinx the deal. The house was built in 1900 or maybe earlier. It has been empty for the last four years and no one has really cared for it for much longer than that. Now things are looking up for this little abode as I'm hoping to give it the TLC I think it deserves. The foundation has had a lot of work done to it and there's a brand new roof but it will be at least several months before it's really ready for me and my mom to move into it. I'm hoping to keep up a blog about the renovation; maybe I can pass along things I learn.

narciso

Here's a small spider I spotted on the ceramic sill of my bathroom window a few nights ago. The white tile kept glaring back into the lens when the flash went off and although i tried several angles I didn't really expect any shots to come out very well. This image is amazing to me because you can't really see any of the critical spider details with the naked eye. At least not with MY naked eye. I love the huge eyes and the stripes on the legs. I'm pretty sure this is one of the jumping spiders, who have excellently sharp vision. With those eyeballs, i'm not surprised.

I've named him Narciso, after Narcissus, because now that I've photographed him he's migrated over to the bathroom mirror and apparently spends day and night admiring his reflection. I've tried coaxing him away to no avail. Ah, well, when he gets hungry i'm sure he'll seek for prey elsewhere.

Copyright (r) Partridge/Jennings

remnant of a favorite t-shirt purchased at a thrift store in the '80s. I can't believe how many people don't get the pun!

I was inspired by something I found on Stephanie's Snurrhuvud and did my own take on it with one of my favorite bands.

Choose an artist (or band) and answer only in song TITLES by that artist: Morphine
Are you male or female: A Good Woman is Hard to Find
Describe yourself: You Look Like Rain
How do some people feel about you: A Head With Wings
How do you feel about yourself: Test Tube Baby
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: All Wrong
Describe where you want to be: Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer
Describe what you want to be: Good
Describe what you want: Cure for Pain
Describe how you live: Early to Bed
Describe how you love: So Many Ways
Share a few words of wisdom: Do Not Go Quietly Unto Your Grave

scurius uprising?

There's been talk lately of squirrel frustration.

According to recent reports in the local newspaper, more than a few citizens have become concerned with the unusually high amount of destruction rendered by these bushy red rodents. Incidents of teeth marks on wooden fences, plants unearthed from their pots and contents of said pots scattered about, and mass attacks on bird feeders have advanced rumors of possible revolution against humans. Retribution by homo sapiens has already begun. In an upper class residential neighborhood three dead squirrels were found nailed to a wooden fence. Officials were debating about whether a crime had been committed, as it could not be determined if the squirrels were dead or alive when crucified and in any case, there is no law on the books relating to cruelty against rodents.

Some naturalists attribute the squirrel frustration to the unusually dry weather; we've had only half the amount of rain we normally get in the past year. I think they're pissed because they had a bumper crop of pecans last year and this year they only got acorns.

victory

apologies to my co-workers from Okla- homa....

I don't usually root for football teams, either professional or collegiate, but something about that orange and white longhorn logo from UT just gets me. When I was just a little tyke, knee-high to a grasshopper, as they say, and before my family moved to Texas, I became enthralled by the idea of living here. In fifth grade when my class was studying the individual states of the U.S. I schemed to be the one who got to do their big report on Texas. Unfortunately the state of Oklahoma was included in my assignment and I did next to no work on it. I'll always remember two lines from a poem I found in my first explorations of a research paper (I don't remember where it came from) that colored my perception of the state even to this day.

Other states were carved or born;
Texas grew from hide and horn.

Those Last-Minute Christmas Shoppers are Murder!

Hope you're safe and warm at home.
Happy Holidays to one and all!

Hope Despairs

Today I get the lab results from my blood and urine samples to see if my thyroid or something else may be causing or greatly contributing to my depression. For once I’m hoping I’ll be able to get a prescription for an anti-depressant. As much as I’ve disliked them in the past I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my sanity if I keep spiraling downward. Maybe they’ve invented something that won’t kill my art. It’s a hell of a trade-off - selling your creativity to feel ok. Imagine Van Gogh on Prozac.

puzzle

I’m finding pieces of my life popping up in the oddest places.

My latest enthusiasm is for podcasts. The metal walls and roof of our building at work make it very difficult for radio reception. Listening to baseball or basketball games on an AM station is an impossibility and weaker stations that carry jazz, classical music or NPR are barely audible. Until recently we could get a few internet radio stations on iTunes but the new firewall prevents anything from coming across. So podcasts are a lifesaver. I can get at least an hour or two of NPR via their variety of podcasts and a smattering of music and other stuff that I’ve only begun to explore.

I’m recommending three podcasts this week: LOST, RhinoCast, and Ritmo Latino. Ritmo Latino is, as its name implies, a one-hour program of strictly Latin Music. It may be flamenco, rap, cumbia, or any of a variety of salsas from the Americas, Europe, and beyond. Highly entertaining and energetic – updated weekly and I’ve just begun to listen to the February episodes. You can learn more at RitmoLatino.org

The Lost podcast that I refer to is the “official” ABC podcast, which is mostly discussion by the writers about the writing and production of the show with a few brief appearances by cast members. It doesn’t reveal any secrets, so you won’t miss anything by not listening, but I enjoy hearing about the writers’ creative process. The podcasts started just two weeks ago, and are added each Monday to the iTunes site.

RhinoCasts is, of course Rhino Record Company, notable for re-releasing so much great classic rock’n’roll music that might otherwise have been lost in obscurity. There are ten episodes currently available. The first episode focused on Lowell George, famous for his band Little Feat, and on “Weird Tales from The Ramones”, a new boxed set of Ramones music along with some great comic-book type art. My immediate conclusion was the podcasters were fanatic about their particular subject, so if you like the minutiae of music, this may be for you. I still have 9 episodes to listen to; hope they’re as good. See the Rhino Records site for more great stuff.

orange peel

I’ve developed a penchant for the color orange and it’s creeping, ivy-like, across my walls and floors. Most of my life I never cared much for yellow or orange, but preferred instead to decorate my home with blues and purples. The house I live in now is dark, and I soon despaired at the dark paneled walls of the living area. I tried painting the wood with whites, then pinks, then ochre, and finally covered it with a medium bright yellow. Maybe I like yellow because it gives the illusion of sunshine. Now the oranges are insinuating themselves in the curtains, in the design of the carpet, in accents accompanied by red. More than the feeling of light, it feels like hopefulness.

The holiday season is here, which means I’ll have no time to enjoy it. It’s the beginning of our second-busiest time at work as we prepare catalogs for spring, easter and summer. It’s a sad and sorry situation. We have to produce a certain number of pages to meet a company-set goal but the work comes in waves; we have a few months of almost no work and then we have a few months where the work is almost insurmountable. The work in the peak period can’t be done without all hands working extra hours and/or hiring temporary personnel to help us but the net monetary gain is lost from money paid in extra wages. We have to cut back on personnel and then we have to work more hours. So the holidays are a humbug for me.

freeze, suckahs!

The flamingos cursed their luck. Having finally persuaded the current homeowners by their pinkness that they should rightfully be kept not in the garage but on display for all the world to see as it trafficked by, the foursome were met with the garrulous winds of the first November freeze and found their pinkness sombered by a thin coating of ice. It had taken months to acquire their feted position but in the garage they’d had no concept of time or seasons. All their pink shrimpness was a waste. Junior stuck his head in a rock, protesting their fate.

Next September they’d eat rotten brown bananas.

sign o the time

GO here for my flickr fotos

I'm almost always surprised when I see any anti-bush displays in Dallas.

I've just discovered the Al Franken podcasts on the iTunes site. I recommend the recent episode with guest Bebe Neurith. (take THAT, conservative talkers!)

leafmonster

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

---Thank you, Lewis Carroll


Here’s where you can find the original “Jabberwocky.” There are some translations and parodies of the poem, too. Kudos to any translator who can convey the feeling of the original!

phoebe vs the squirrels

I helped Phoebe spy on the squirrels on Saturday and now she thinks I should be out there all the time….. We have red squirrels which seem to me to be more rodent-like than the grey squirrels I’ve seen in more northerly regions. I don’t know how smart they are, but they seem to love teasing my dog, perching on the birdbath or in the leaves, just out of reach and leaping to safety at the last moment. It drives her crazy. She’s almost cat-like in her patience but has only killed one that we know of. She spends most of her waking hours watching and waiting for them.

It’s a poor year for pecans; hardly any on the tree in our front yard (or the rest of the neighborhood) so the squirrels are extra-active in the oak trees. It’s not the bumper crop of acorns that we saw last year but there’s a good supply. We have a single oak tree in the back yard so it’s easy to watch the squirrels doing their balancing acts while they select the tastiest acorns. Often there are 3 or 4 at a single time, pillaging in all corners of the tree. They have defined trails – they’ll run along the low skinny branch over to the wood telephone pole, then up and over the electrical transformer where they scurry along the wires to the next house. Or they’ll take the higher branch which has so much sway that it gives the air of a trapeze artist in motion as the squirrel swings down several feet and leaps over to a branch extending from the neighbor’s tree.

There are a lot of dead squirrels in the streets. Some of them may have fallen from their wires or branches but the majority have probably been hit by cars. During their seasons of high activity you can see squirrels darting back and forth across streets, playing “tag” with other squirrels, chasing off intruders, pursuing the opposite sex. They have a peculiar habit of running into the street and if a car is coming they freeze for a moment, act as if they will keep running, and then pivot and run back the way they came. As someone who’s nearly killed several squirrels, I can tell you this is a driving challenge. There’s hardly any way to avoid hitting the squirrel unless you can stop immediately. Hard to do that unless you’re on a residential street with no traffic.

what's in YOUR wallet?

Depression brings out the psychic in me…..

I’ve been thinking about the Tarot off and on since I discovered that “Rueda d’la Fortuna” card with the white bear on it and wondered what it had to do with “LOST.” I finally found my old dusty Universal Waite deck and am becoming reacquainted with its metaphoric imagery. What I call “iconography” (or the use of images) was one of my favorite aspects of cultural anthropology. It was so amazing to find that the ancient Paracas civilization on the Pacific coast of Peru used many of the same symbols as the ancient Egyptians. Unless you believe in Atlantis, you might conclude that there’s some kind of universal human interpretation of magical forces.

And reading cards might turn out to be a good party trick, eh?