home sweet home

The Kitchen Project.

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

Eight months ago, my husband & I bought a new house.  And by new, I really mean 250 years old and in need of restoration.  While structurally sound, parts of the house needed to be rebuilt, others merely updated.  The kitchen fit into the latter category.  It was from the 1950s, the oven didn’t work well, but everything else was fine for the time being.  We made the decision to postpone the kitchen until spring, when our tax refund could cover improvements.  Last month it arrived.  Our refund wasn’t huge, but it would be enough.  And in true If You Give a Moose a Muffin fashion, one thing inevitably led to another, and…

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An anchor in the storm.

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

Well, I’ve not yet abandoned ship, but if my basement takes on any more water I might have to.  Several weeks ago I had a dream – a nightmare, really.  My husband and I were in a new house – not this house, but ours all the same, big & old.  We were in the middle of a flood and an enormous tidal wave was coming; I could see it rolling toward us through the window.  My husband had just gotten home in an old paneled station wagon full of kids.  Ours?  Who knows.  He came into the house with two of them, a boy & a girl.  I turned for a moment, and when I looked back, I saw the children had drowned in water coming up through the floor.  My husband pulled me from the room.  We ran to the top of the basement stairs, but water was pouring in from beneath the door.  We turned and ran to the upstairs staircase.  Water was streaming down the walls.  We flew up the steps, trying to get to the attic, but I knew we were going to die.  Then I woke up.

Last week Portland received a record rainfall, which flooded our already wet basement and has yet to recede.  Though we live at the top of a hill, we’re sandwiched between two rivers, the Fore & the Stroudwater, and several aquifers run directly beneath our house.  While this might have been a plus back in colonial times, for cold storage and food preservation, nowadays it’s just a mess.  Although the former owner sealed the basement floor with cement, there are several holes in the foundation through which water still rises.  When the whole basement floods, like now, you can actually see the water bubbling up in places, evidence of the underground stream/s.  Although we have a large drain pipe running from the basement to the outside, it’s been blocked for who knows how long.  And because it’s buried underground, we have no idea where it is or goes.  If we did – trust me, we’d have cleaned it out already.  We have a sump pump, but it’s old and just can’t keep up.  It doesn’t help that our basement floor is sloped such that water pools in areas where it can’t possibly drain.  So my husband & I spend part of each day downstairs, using a snow shovel to push the water towards the sump pump hole, shuffleboard style.

In addition to our problems inside, things outside aren’t much better.  I’ve spoken before about the compost ravine at the back of our property.  Where we would dispose of sticks, twigs, garden refuse.  Pretty much anything biodegradable got tossed down there, including last Halloween’s pumpkins and the better part of our next door neighbor’s dismantled trees.  Well.  After last week’s rainfall, parts of the ravine, heavily laden with all this stuff, have completely collapsed.  My older daughter & I went out one morning to change the guinea pigs’ cage, and discovered a big chunk of our land has cascaded down the hill in a silt-slick mudslide.  And now much of that refuse, sticks twigs and all, rests two doors down, at the bottom.  The waterlogged ground surrounding the top of the ravine has also become saturated to the point of collapse. The only thing keeping it in place is a tree at the top.  But even that seems to be tilting slightly, how long its roots will hold is anyone’s guess.  Large parts of ground surrounding the ravine are riddled with cracks.  We’ve warned our children not to play anywhere near there – especially on the rope swing now dangling precariously over the pit.  Water is trickling from the mouth of the ravine, all the way down the hill to the bottom.  It’s a tiny stream, but steady, and it’s seems just a matter of time until that entire back portion of yard sinks or goes cascading down the hill as well.  One neighbor has suggested we call our insurance company, informing them we’ve lost part of our property in a natural disaster.  Another neighbor is urging us to call the EPA, to have the silt cleaned up before it enters the water supply.  My husband wants to fill the whole damn thing in with boulders, cover it with soil and pack it firmly down.  Which we’d do, if we had the money – which we don’t.  Me?  I’m too tired to care what happens.  I just pray I don’t get sucked down the hill when it falls.

The reason I haven’t posted in a month and why I am so very tired isn’t all this water.  It’s our kitchen.  My husband & I spent the better part of March remodeling it.  By ourselves, on a very tight budget, while my husband worked his regular 9-5 job and I woefully suffered through the worst bout of Meniere’s I’ve had in years.  As of today, the project is done.  Save for a couple pieces of trim, bringing my cookbooks back in, one wonky tile that won’t stay down.  Finished.  We cooked part of Easter dinner in our brand new oven, the rest on the grill, and finally – after 4 weeks – began to enjoy the fruits of our labor.  Unfortunately, the project triggered a Meniere’s episode from which I’m still reeling.  I’ve spent 3 weeks now dealing w/ my ear, and it’s been horrible.  Deafness, fullness, tinnitus to rival Niagara Falls, dizziness that comes & goes w/out warning, leaving me seriously disoriented and nauseous.  That’s life w/ Meniere’s.  I keep reminding myself this too shall pass, but this is the longest it’s gone on since before I was diagnosed.  I simply can’t say how depressing it is, waking up day after day, in the same sorry state.  Thank God for my family, who keep me going.  And this house, for all its endless work, does its part to save me from myself too.  I can’t languish in self pity when we still need to finish the office.  And build a chicken coop.  And plant the garden.  And..

Stay tuned for my next post, all about the NEW KITCHEN.  And many thanks to everyone who has left me a comment the past month.  Although I didn’t have time (or often patience) to respond, please know I appreciate them.

Turkey Floats

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In yesterday’s post about the dead turkey, I mentioned the males are beginning to display.  So I thought I would elaborate with some photos.

If you are from Philly, then you know who the Mummers are.  If you are not, then you are missing out!  The Mummers are a Philly tradition.  They are a collective of local neighborhood clubs composed historically of men; nowadays there are lots of women too.  These guys & gals get together over the course of each year to put together elaborate costumes and routines for an annual New Year’s Day parade.  Some of the Mummers play instruments, others are strictly theatrical.  But all of the costumes are over the top.  Think MORE is MORE.

Here is an elaborately costumed Mummer.

And here is one of the male turkeys in full display.

Being from Philly, I can’t help but think of the Mummers.  The male turkeys glide across the yard like mini parade floats.  They strut, they cluck, it’s crazy.  They want these lady turkeys SO BAD!  But the girls, quite honestly, don’t seem to want anything to do with them.  I saw one female (she must be one of the hottie turkeys b/c the males were surrounding her, strutting & bobbing like mad) she practically flew across the yard to get away from them.  And seriously, can you blame her?  Just look at those big red sacs – can you imagine some dude following you round Target w/ a dangly scrotum stuck to his face?!  YIKES!

Turkey Surprise

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment.  When I left the house I noticed a bunch of turkeys in the backyard.  Most of them were eating at the feeders, a few were standing around preening and/or dozing in the rain.  A weird black mass lay several feet away from them, on the grass.  It looked sort of like an empty trash bag.  The day was gray and windy; perhaps something had blown out of the recycling bin?  I was pressed for time, and the turkeys weren’t paying it any mind..  so I left.  When I returned an hour later the turkeys were gone, but the *whatever it was* was still there.  I squelched across the muddy yard to find..

A large male turkey sprawled stiff on the grass, surrounded by scattered feathers.  He hadn’t been dead long.  I wanted to touch him to see if he was still warm, but thought better of it.  Frankly he looked a little scary.  And I was in shock.  I know these turkeys are wild creatures, but feeding them day after day, tossing them stale bread, addressing them as my “turkey friends” – well, they feel a lot more like family.  I am so glad I hadn’t gotten round to naming any of the turkeys other than “Gimpy” (a small female w/ a bum leg).  Makes it so much easier to say goodbye.

And so I did the only thing I could think of.  I went and got a trash bag.  NOT to dispose of the dead turkey – oh, no – but rather to move him to the ice drift by the back door of our house.  As I said, he was a little scary (read, Bloody) and I was reluctant to simply pick him up and you know – touch him with my hands.  I wrapped the bag around him like a blanket and cradled him in my arms.  He was heavy and still.  I felt the need to protect him.  I don’t know why either – he was after all a dead turkey.  But having him nearer to the house (without actually bringing him inside) felt right.  It seemed like I was honoring his loss.  He was some turkey’s son and I wanted to be respectful.  I also wanted to ensure no other creatures would have their way with him before my husband got home and could check him out.  The ice would help preserve him, and his proximity to the house would fend off intruders.

When my kids got home (along w/ one of my daughter’s best friends) I felt compelled to tell them what had happened and show them the body.  They were grossed out and fascinated all at once.  My husband, when he got home, was too.  But all our dog wanted was to eat the poor beast, so we thought it best to dispose of him properly.  So we did what anyone would do.  We tossed him into the compost ravine.  Well, more like “gently placed” him near the top of the compost ravine but slightly more in the yard so our neighborhood scavengers can use his body as food but we won’t have to watch it unless we want to.  We are talking about a turkey here.  Deliciousness itself.  And since you’re surely wondering, Why Yes, my husband did at first suggest we eat him.  Which struck me as equal parts savage and sensible, but altogether too messy for words.  Having to pluck and clean this turkey out?  No thanks.  I myself considered dissection.  I mentioned it to my older daughter, purely for scientific study.  But we decided against that as well, more b/c of the mess than anything.

So, of course, the dead turkey reigned high on the list of last night’s topics of conversation.  My husband suggested he was killed by a hawk.  We do have several of them living in the woods behind us.  But no savvy predator would kill and leave such a banquet behind.  Besides, if it had been a hawk, the other turkeys would have been traumatized.  Surely they would have FLED! not been stuffing their faces and napping.  No, I knew this turkey had been killed by his comrade/s.  Who had unleashed their fury, then turned to feast on the freebie buffet provided by yours truly..

Over the past few weeks, the males have begun warming up for spring.  And by warming up I mean PUFFING UP.  As in displaying.  Like most testoterone ladden males of all species, the turkeys want the fairer sex to notice them.  So they have been making themselves known by fluffing up their bodies, fanning their tail feathers (much like peacocks) and – well, to be honest, putting their manhood OUT THERE.  Not their private parts, more like their public parts.  Those sac things on their faces, those dangling gobblies, yep.  Red as fire engines on some, swollen like (ahem) scrotums.  This has been going on since the beginning of February.  I actually noticed around the holidays the males faces looking redder & redder.  Now it is even more pronounced.  And like hormonal human males, some of them have taken this displaying even further.  This weekend, John saw them fighting.  Really going at it.  But I’d never imagined they’d actually kill each other.  SURPRISE!