Different

 This morning, I had two birthday cards to mail out to my granddaughters. The envelopes cautioned that they might require extra postage, so I decided to take them to the little post office. The area is so sparsely populated that the post mistress is only there from 8 - 12. The locking post boxes are on the front porch. 

So I scooted over with my cards. We put up our mail box at the end of the driveway, and wanted to find out how we went about setting up delivery. I also needed a book of stamps.

She greeted me cheerfully, and calculated the extra postage required as we talked about setting up mail delivery. I finished up with '...and can I get a book of stamps while I'm at it,' as I pulled out my debit card.

She cheerfully said, 'I can't take a card. No internet. I am supposed to be getting a new modem tomorrow.'

I was mortified, because I didn't even have 59 cents on me for the extra postage she had already affixed to the two cards that she'd tossed with the outgoing mail. 'Gees,' I said, looking at the clock. 'Let me run home...' I still had ten minutes before she closed up shop.

She waved her hand as she reached in her pocket. 'Don't worry about. Drop it off the next time you are passing by.'

It is different here.

Moving

Just an explanation: We have not moved the computer to the new house so I'm posting and commenting from my phone which is a much slower process for me, so posting might be a bit spotty until that move happens. Of course, before we do that, we've got to build the computer desk. And figure out how to manage wi-fi. We're thinking that we'll buy the $100 phone card for one of our phones which will permit us to use it as a hotspot, but we've never done that before. It's all new. 

Freddie and Houdi seem to be settling in okay. After a few scares, Houdi seems perfectly content to be an indoor cat, and I'm perfectly content with his decision. Freddie, though? We had a few go arounds. We don't want him out at night. He's smart enough to know that what 'no!' means, I'll give him that. He quit yowling at night, but as soon as he hears us up and about, he heads straight for the door and sits there politely until he is let out. He generally spends the day outside but at night he returns to the porch where he sits quietly waiting to be let back in. 

We have not seen the bear since his first visit last week. However, it is worth noting that we haven't seen the deer either, which makes me wonder if the bear is somewhere close by. That is interesting to us and something we are keeping a close eye on. 

We had to buy a trash can this week, and for the first time in a long, long time, we had to think about raccoon- and bear-proof ones. While no can is 100% effective with bears (due to their size) a galvanized metal one with a tight fitting lid will prevent the enticing aroma of your trash from encouraging the bear to investigate. However if they do investigate, prying the lid off will make enough racket that  you will know they are out there and can shoo them away. We've got motion detector lights set up to let us know as well. 

Of course, I'm composting again, so who knows how that experiment will turn out. My rotating composter is not bear proof. Life's for learning, I guess. We might have to build an enclosure for both the composter (and the garbage too, if it comes to that.)

Life has become much quieter despite all the things that we are doing. The biggest shock to me is how much money one doesn't spend when the are not pouring it into a renovation or a new house. We've still got to get the house sided. We've still got some things to do, of course, and I don't see that changing any time soon. 

I think however, Tim is learning to take pleasure in spending time working on his own house. He built an addition to his tool shed for his stuff, and carefully outfitted it with shelves and storage, and he was so pleased with how it turned out inside that he needed me to come and look. He's got plans for his garage, too. 

I will admit a shameful thing. Things had been getting quite rough between the two of us. I just felt as if we were moving in two different spheres. He had his ideas. I had mine. I wanted to stop. When I retired from my job, my plan was to go to visit my granddaughters every month or so. I wanted time to go kayaking with William, volunteer for Head Start, things like that. 

Tim did not want to stop, and he just kept pushing and pushing. He began talking about buying another house when Mia's mortgage comes through. This made me mad and I dug in my heels. He began to push back.

I began to be very resentful. I did not want to go to work every day. I got tired of hearing him say, "I need you to do 'x' and 'y' " with the implication that I was simply going to do it, day after day. If I didn't do it, I felt very guilty because I wasn't doing my share, even though I had literally begged for him not to buy this last house. I felt as if I had traded one boss for another, and this boss followed me home at night.

Now the renovation has been taken over, that workload is gone, and while we may be working on our house, it is our house and there is a pleasure in doing for yourself. I have time to do the things that are important to me. Tim is a lot less demanding. He has stopped talking about the next house. In return, I'm not nearly as bristly with him. The dynamics of our relationship has changed.

Today, I met him at the old house to bring a load of stuff back to the new house. He gave me a bouquet of flowers.

Surprised, I said, "What are those for?"

He said, "Because I wanted to." 

Things that make me go hmmmmm...

 This morning, we were driving back to the old house for another round of things. We also needed to go to a couple stores. 

I was driving, following a red SUV which began to slow down and then suddenly whipped off the road. The driver side door flung open and a man leaped out. He took off at a dead run.

My flabbers were ghasted when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw two men running for all they were worth down the road.

I said, "Where did that second guy come from? Was he the passenger?"

"No," Tim said. "He was walking down the side of the road."

We had a brief discussion. Should I turn around and head back? "At least if something happens, we could get the plate number from the vehicle..." 

It is hard to know what to do in a situation like that.

But we did turn around. The SUV was just pulling away. The 'walker' evidently was a pretty good runner too, because we saw him cautiously coming out of the woods some distance down the road.

I was headed to the intersection to turn around and head back in the direction we had originally been going, but Tim said, 'Slow down,' and leaned out the window. "Do you need a ride?"

I was a bit horrified. It seems to me that when someone stops driving to chase a person down the road, well, there just might be a reason.

 But the man smiled broadly, his teeth white in his deeply tanned face. "Nah, I am just going to Garland. I haven't got far to walk. Thanks a lot, though."

I am awfully curious, but I guess we will never know.

Tim got the letters for our mail box which we put up yesterday. I picked up some picture hangers and did this: 

 Silly, I know, but another thing in the place it belongs and it makes me happy. I got a frame for Jim's photograph and hung that too.

We might have different views, but I guess we are birds of a feather.

Speaking of different views, a MAGA faithful opined that she could not wait til we take over Canada. She is sick of breathing in the smoke from their wild fires.

I wonder what she is smoking, bless her heart. 

At Home

Slowly but surely, the new house is beginning to feel like home. Things are starting to find the places where they will belong: baking dishes here. Pots and pans there. Appliances. Clothes. Bathroom supplies, kitchen supplies. Food even. As things are put away, the house begins to look uncluttered. 

After living in a big house that I could never quite keep up with, this house is wonderfully simple. Two bedrooms, one bath, the pantry, and a combined livingroom/kitchen.  I can sweep the kitchen, bathroom and pantry in ten minutes. I can plug the vacuum into the receptacle in the hall and vacuum the whole house in about the same amount of time. This morning, getting the house in order took about an hour. I watered and weeded the gardens. I fed cats. I put diatomaceous earth around the foundation of the house (ants), and dragged building scraps to the burn pile. 

 I had cucumbers from my garden in dill and sour cream for lunch. Now I am sitting in a quiet house listening to crickets outside and wondering if it is going to rain. The clock strikes the hour: 1PM.

There is still plenty to do. Furniture moved in. We don't have our dressers for example. No pictures on the wall.

It will happen, and I am remarkably unbothered by it.

I am marveling at my own contentment. I realize that this quietness is what I have been missing.

Home free.

 Today, I had a job to do up at Levi and Mattie's house. They are appealing their property assessment and this requires photos. He asked me if I would do it. Of course, I said yes. 

Something about the Amish is that it is a very serious violation to capture their images even accidently. Probably the saddest thing I ever heard was Mattie's story about her father. As he was dying of covid back in the early days of the pandemic, he was in isolation. His family called him on the phone but he longed to see their faces. He said, "I know it is wrong, but I wish I had a picture of my family."

There are things I don't understand about their way of life, but they are good people and I respect them. I don't need to understand. It is their life.

So I was taking pictures of the buildings from all sides, being mindful of where the kids were at. At one point, Rudy came running into the shot. I lowered my phone quickly. Levi sternly admonished Rudy in German.

I assured Levi that I was being mindful. He said, "I know you are, but they don't need to make the job more difficult!" 

As we worked our way across the property, photographing the sawmill, the workshop, the barns, the poultry sheds, and the two houses (theirs and the home they built for grandma). As we walked by grandma's house, there was a bit of a ruckus. Grandma found a snake in her beans. Levi got a stick and took care of that. 

I waited and I saw the thing that made me sickish the first time I saw it last summer: a sparrow trap. The birds fly into it, triggering a lever which drops them into a wire cage where they are left to die. 8 sparrows fluttered desperate to escape.

Levi and grandma walked over when he was done. They were afraid they had offended me. Thing was, they hadn't. I have killed snakes too close to the house. We have set mousetraps when we needed to. Tim shoots woodchucks in the yard because there are just too many. I have euthenized pets. And really, a woman who eats venison has to acknowledge the circle of life.

But those birds were suffering in the sun.

I said slowly, 'No. I am not offended by the snake. But, Levi, today, I am going to charge you for my work.' 

I have never done that before. He looked surprised, but quickly assured me that was fine. I said, 'My price is those birds,' and I gestured to the cage.

Two more shocked people you never saw in your life. Levi said, 'What would you do with them?' 

I said, 'I will take them to the new house and set them free.'

Grandma said, 'Don't you have sparrows there, then?' in a truly curious way.

I laughed and admitted that we did. I admitted that I couldn't bear to see things suffer. 

I am sure they think I am very peculiar, but when I returned with the photographs a couple hours later, the cage had been moved to the shade. I picked it up and put it in the back of the car and covered it with a blanket to settle the frantic things.

I drove the half hour home and when I got there I set the trap on the garden and opened the door. I watered the garden, and one by one, they left the cage, flying into the trees. The last one hesitated and then flew into the tomato bed, fluttering up and down in the spray in a joyous little dance.

A Tale of Two Kitties

 Houdi made himself comfortable pretty quickly at the new place. It was my fondest hope that he would make up his mind to be an indoor cat.  

At the old house, he did wind up being an indoor/outdoor cat. He was persistent. After he escaped a few times, I accepted he knew where he lived, and that the two ferals that hung around our house did not seem to be aggressive, and that he did not seem to roam. 

At this house, it is different. At least two ferals here can be aggressive. (Tiger actually shot across the field after the bear last night.) And...the coyotes are predators. The road is not a quiet city street. It is a highway, a truck route with a 55 mph speed limit.

The first night, he was here, he slept happily at the foot of the bed as usual. Also (as usual), he went to the door about 4 am and meowed to go out.

We argued about this for some time, but he kept up his yowling. I put him the basement  but the stairwell actually amplified his yowling. 

 Nobody was getting any sleep. I finally gave up and let him out. He did not come back and I spent the day calling him and looking for him to no avail. That evening, I heard a familiar yowling. I went to the door and called him. He shot past me into the house. 

I am not sure what happened, but he suddenly seems very content to be an indoor cat. When the door is opens, he runs the other way.

That is a relief.

So that's the tale of one kitty. I promised you a tale of two kitties.

Remember Freddie? He belonged to an elderly neighbor down the street. He started life as a feral, but she brought him in and he lived a comfortable life for a couple years. But the neighbor's declining health required a cross country haul to Arizona. She could only bring two cats and made the decision to keep the two cats she had all their lives. 

The street cat named Freddie went to a lady across the street. When she was evicted from her apartment, she left Freddie behind.

It is only a guess, but I believe left to his own devices, Freddie tried to return to the only home he knew. I believe the new owner was mean to him. He fled and showed up at our house, sleeping on the second floor balcony for the winter. 

When I noticed him, he got fed. He hissed and spit when I tried to get close enough to see the name on his collar. I am sure it was a miserable winter, but gradually, I was able to pet him and see the name tag and using Facebook, finally got his whole sad story.

I couldn't bring myself to leave him behind again. He and Houdi got along at the old house.  

Today, I matter of factly picked him up, popped him in a cat carrier and brought him home. He was very anxious during the car ride. I took him him into the basement and opened the carrier. He stuck his head out. I assured him that he was home. 

He is down there somewhere. He has all the necessities of life there while he makes up his mind. The basement door is open, so that he can come upstairs when he is ready.

A Night In The Woods

Quite a few years back, Tim was at a yard sale and saw the leaded glass window above. He has always loved it, but we really had nowhere to put it. A few weeks back, I caught sight of it and thought 'you know what????',brought it to the new house and realized that, widthwise, it was the perfect fit for right inside the front door. We finally got around to installing it and framing the window in.

Once the schefflera grows back, it will disguise the heighth difference a little, but Tim is pleased with it. 

When we were done with that, we headed back into town. Our newest  tenant Jaimee met us at the old house and got the livingroom set from the library, a dresser, a desk and chair, two area rugs, an end table and a couple lamps. We hauled two truckloads of furniture down to her apartment, and up the stairs. 

I did not want to ride the truck back and forth because I needed to get some steps in.

On the walk back home, I heard someone holler 'hey, old lady!' It was my bearded buddy Jim. He is another tenant. I think an awful lot of him, but things got heated during the first reign of tRUMP. He blocked me for a while, but you know what? We all have to be led by our own consciences, and if we feel compelled to speak, we should do it.

Things have eased between us in the intervening years, and I was glad to see him. I leaned against the passenger side window and we had a friendly chinwag just like the old days. 

Jim moved from the country after a bad fall made him realize that he could no longer handle the work required to live in the woods. He was very apprehensive about life in town but the apartment looks out over the Conewango creek. He realized that he was seeing more wildlife from his apartment than he saw in the woods, geese ducks, eagles, deer, and a front row seat too.  

He invested in a good camera, and began doing wildlife photography from his back porch. He spends hours there. He told people, 'I forget I am even living in town.'

He had a present for me: 

Perfect, isn't it? I will call it 'Different Views'. It will hang in a place of honor.

We hauled my cedar chest back. We have blankets to be stored away for winter. We also brought this back: 

Poor picture, but a ticking clock has always made a place feel like home to me.

The clock was striking 8 when, as usual, the deer came from the woods to feed. In very short order, they 'flagged' and bounded away en masse. 

Tim said 'Something scared them. I will bet there is a bear nearby.' Right on cue, a black bear ambled across the little footbridge and lazily made his way across the yard. It was too dark to get a picture. 

We are sitting in the dark watching fireflies. A great horned owl calls from deep in the woods.