Going, Going...

A couple of weeks ago, Larry and I went to an auction at the defunct Bark Eater B&B in Keene.  Auctions at places that have gone out of business are a bittersweet experience.  It’s a bit like pawing through someone’s dresser drawers.  You feel like you’re being nosy and seeing personal things that are really none of your business, yet it’s exciting.   I love checking out all the furniture, dishes, brick a brack, barn stuff, tools, jewelry, an amazing array of things that were once important to somebody.  The sadness of an estate auction hits you, though, when you realize that this is happening because a) somebody died, b) somebody went out of business, or c) a and b.  You’re essentially picking over the carrion.   


Augie testing the new rug

But to put a positive spin on it, not only is it often fascinating and a great chance to get something you need on the cheap, I think it’s good karma to recycle and reuse this way.  In the case of the auction at the Bark Eater, while it was sad to see yet another Adirondack business bite the dust (a long-established, family business at that), I hope there is some good mojo in two of their beautiful space rugs filling a long-desired need in our own house. 

Larry isn’t a big auction lover like I am.  He gets bored sitting in one spot watching things go up one at a time.  But the Bark Eater’s action was a roving event over the grounds and barns of the B&B, which had one of the most spectacular views in the Adirondacks, especially on Columbus Day weekend.  The auctioneer walked around the grounds chattering into his headset at the speed of sound, selling this lot and that grouping, as the crowd followed him around like some sort of pied piper.   

The nostalgia of an auction can be fun but can drag you into melancholy if you let it.  The best example of this was the Frontier Town auction some years back.  I went to the first day of the two-day event, which was all of the movable stuff (the second day was on the actual park grounds, which I kicked myself for not attending).  I got there early for the preview, and five minutes into it I was bawling my head off.  It was like looking at my childhood, dusty and waterstained and loaded into boxes.  But it was also great fun at the triggering of memories.  While I would have really liked to score a stagecoach or marquis sign, I was ridiculously happy with my arrow-shaped sign directing patrons to the stagecoach rides, in both English and French.  Nothing at that auction went cheap; it was a packed house, with many people like myself, wanting a piece of their own childhood memory. 

The Frontier Town auction tied with the Gaslight Village auction for bittersweet.  I wanted something – anything – to serve as a tangible reminder of those great days at a park I had adored.  The auction was a very long, tiring day, where I hoped fiercely for something to stay in my price range, but nothing even came close.  It was fun sitting in the square again, seeing the shadows of those days past and hearing echoes of the Keystone Cops and the Opera House.  Again, there were a lot of kindred spirits in attendance.  As the sun started to go down and I obviously wasn’t going to be able to get anything, I took one last quick walk around the grounds, knowing it would soon all be gone.  I went past the empty pavilion that had housed the bumper cars, and spied a small yellow, hand painted Exit sign, in that distinctive handwriting that was a signature of Gaslight Village and Storytown.  I looked around; not a soul to be seen, everyone was in the Cavalcade of Cars.  I gave the sign a quick twist and the ancient screw that held it on the post snapped.  I tucked it under my coat and walked through the rusted turnstiles with my prize.  A few years later, before the buildings were razed, I squeezed through the iron fence and grabbed another, bigger Exit sign (is there some meaning there?) from the main entranceway.  That sign, along with my Frontier Town sign, grace the inside of our barn.

Okay, so maybe I hang onto some childhood memories a little too fiercely.  Everyone should be so lucky to have such great times to look back on.  And I do like my tangible reminders of those days.  I have my touchstones throughout the house that remind me off my girls growing up.  I also know that I am making memories with Larry now, on our little farmstead, that I’ll be reminiscing about in a couple of decades. 

And if it sounds like I steal a lot of signage, well, I do.  It runs in the family.

6 Take-Aways of Summer

We recently returned from our big vacation on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and one thing always strikes us.  When we leave, usually Labor Day weekend, summer is still in full swing, green and hot.  When we come home, a mere 7 days later, it’s suddenly chilly and leaves are falling off the trees.  Just what happens in that one week we’re away?

As another growing season winds down, it’s time to take note of the most prominent lessons learned:

 

Some of our butternuts

1)   You only need to plant about a fifth of the amount of squash plants that you think you’ll need.  This also applies to zucchini, pumpkins, anything that grows on a vine.  We have zucchini the size of Louisville Sluggers and plenty of them.  Along with the pumpkins, they filled in their fenced-in yard and then proceeded to go over, under and through the mesh to prove their point that they could.  Likewise, the butternut squash in the front garden also took over real estate much like something in a B horror flick, intertwining with cabbage plants and smothering the lettuce.  The way they spread and sprout, a lot of world hunger could be relieved by the planting of a mere three zucchini plants per continent. 


This year's new perennial bed

2)  Newspaper mulching is a winner.  We tried it on the raspberries and basil, with delightfully weedfree success.  It all but eliminated the need for future weeding and is well worth the initial time investment.  I did learn to not attempt to do it on a day with the most remote of breezes, as you will spend equal time chasing newspaper across the yard as putting it around the plants.  The depth of the mulch is important, too, or else the weeds will poke their way to the sunshine and eventually the newspaper will begin to show through, waiting for the first stiff breeze to go for a ride somewhere.  But with a good layer of mulch, it looks great and does the job.  And, in the late fall, it can just be rototilled under.  It sure beats weeding every week.  (Thanks to Annie Gregson for the idea!)

 

3)  Don’t be afraid to improvise.  After lots of searching online for ways to braid onions, and not really understanding any of them, I sat on the porch with some twine and just tied a bunch together, trying to keep them tight so they look neat.  Hey, it works.

 

4)  Trial and error is a good thing and, with a good bottle of wine or two, can actually be fun.  We continue to learn the finer points of canning.  Larry did a quasi-successful and then a successful batch of canning beets.  Personally, I’ve become a fan of blanching veggies and we did about 25 pounds of tomatoes.  You boil them for two minutes, put them in freezer bags and into the chest freezer they go.  Quick, easy, done.

 

Bring on winter!

5)  Never underestimate the power of the right tools for the job.  With our dandy new (to us) tractor and woodsplitter, we were done with all our firewood by our target date of Memorial Day weekend.  There’s nothing like looking at those killer stacks of wood all summer, seasoning beautifully, knowing that you’re  done with the job and you’ll have fantastic heat all winter.

 

Gotta love that man!

6)  Never give up the ghost.  My thoughtful husband just spent two weekends on the outhouse renovation project, accomplishing what I could not – securing the little building in a reasonable modicum of squareness and replacing the roof.  I know there were other projects he would have much rather been working on, as a falling down outhouse is not a high priority (unless you need to utilize it as an outhouse, which we do not).  I pulled it out of the ash tree it had been leaning against several years ago and braced it somewhat, but it was a poor band-aid at best.  Larry knew I’d been wanting to fix it up for years, bracing it and hoping the next winter wasn’t the one that would bring it down, and bless his heart he jumped on it and did a wonderful job.  We’ll put cedar shakes on the roof and somehow finish off the base of it with stones.  Our neighbors, who keep insisting “Ye Olde Crescent Moon” is a historical structure, will be very happy.  And no, we will not be using it as an outhouse.

I’m sure I’ll think of more things but I think I’ve rambled on enough for one post.  Thank you to everyone who has commented on how much they like my blog and ask when I’ll be posting something again.  I promise to be better about keeping all of you in the loop.  Until next time, happy homesteading!

Nothing Says "Love" Like a Dead Chipmunk in Your Shoe

If you’re going to live in the country, you can’t be wimpy about animals – alive or dead.  Especially when the live ones bring you dead ones.

It’s a matter of perspective.  While most people don’t appreciate something dead brought into their house by a cat, I do realize it’s a sign of affection.  I would be alright if they didn’t love me quite so much, though.

The other day was a new level of love.  I found a dead chipmunk in my shoe next to the table.  Later that day, Larry found a dead mole in his.  We are assuming it was Bella, as Augie tends more towards birds while Bella favors smaller mammals.  Thanks guys, but come on already.

The sound that makes our ears pick up is the cat door swinging open.  The cat door is in the door leading to the basement, where the litter boxes are.  The basement leads to the outside world for the cats during the day, as we leave the hurricane door open a crack so they can come and go during the day and close it in the evenings so the cats stay in.  They may be mighty hunters during the day, but once the sun goes down, they move down the food chain significantly.

The sound of the cat door swinging means, about a third of the time, a cat is coming in with something.  I was doing dishes when I heard the door swing, and a few seconds later something went thud on the floor.  I looked to see a very large, very dead squirrel lying in the doorway, Bella sprawled under the table looking at me like “Tah-dah!!”

Not all gifts are deceased, however.  I was on the telephone with stepdaughter Bonnie the other night when I heard the cat door and a minute later heard “Bwaahaaap,” which is not the sound a tortured mouse normally makes.  ”Bwaahaaap” it went again, and I turned to see a frog come hopping out from under the table, Augie keeping a slight distance which said “That really didn’t taste too good.”  “Bonnie, I gotta go get a frog away from the cat,” I said as I hung up the phone and raced to get the frog before he went under something and became unretrievable.

Bella is the snake catcher in the family, and I have taken numerous small snakes away from her and tossed them back outside.  (For all of you who ask, no, I never did find the faucet snake.)  I’ve also come home to a dead fieldmouse, on its back, all four legs comically in the air, right smack dab in the middle of the couch cushion.  The only thing missing from the picture were little x’s in its eyes.  And let’s not forget the drowned chipmunk I found floating in the toilet.  I grabbed Augie and showed it to her; she peered into the bowl with a look of “What’s it doing in there?” 

The wildlife in the house does get old.  I came in last Saturday to see Larry lying on his stomach on the floor on one side of the woodstove, Augie on the other.  “Um, whatcha doing?” I asked.  “What do you think?” Larry said, and at that moment I saw a chipmunk run out from behind the woodstove towards the open door.  Augie made a halfhearted move towards it which sent it running over the back of Larry’s legs (he gave new meaning to the word “flail”) and under the chair. 

Augie had a chipmunk behind the woodstove, which started to run up the bricks behind it, then jumped in the window to the right of the woodstove.  I opened the front door, which is next to the window, figuring I could shoo him out the door.  Instead, the chipmunk ran past the open door and dove into the shoes, while Augie ran outside on the porch and looked around for it.  I am dealing with idiots.

For as good the cats are at catching things, once they turn them loose in the house they absolutely suck at catching them again.  Then it’s me who has to catch them.  My success rate is better than theirs, but not perfect.  Sometimes I have to wait until the prey has been worn down before I can help them.



Indoor sports - waiting for the mouse
to come out from under the chair

One night the cats were in mild pursuit of a chipmunk they had brought in earlier, but I could not catch.  I left them to their own devices and went to bed.  In the morning I went into the kitchen and saw it in the cat’s food dish.  I stopped – had they killed it and put it in their dish?  I looked closer and it looked up at me, its cheeks full of cat food, exhausted, with a look on its face of “You would NOT believe the night I’ve had!”

One of the good things about winter is that most of this nonsense ends with the cold weather.  But for now, when I come home, I take a quick look around before I step too far in the house.  Right by the front door where we keep the shoes seems to be the dismembering area, and I have found heads, innards, wings, legs and other innumerable body parts on a regular basis.  Our late cat Rocky used to leave us chipmunk tails on the porch.  Larry pinned them to the doorway. 

We have a feral cat who comes a visitin’ now and then, whom we have named BoyToy.  A beautiful black and white male, he is friends with Augie (who’s our social butterfly) while Bella keeps her distance and glares and growls at him.  He keeps a very healthy distance from us; there is no getting up close and friendly with this guy.  Larry keeps hinting to put food out for him, which I have managed to discourage him thus far.  There’s plenty of wildlife for him to sustain himself without help from us.

Meanwhile, like the toddler who picks a dandelion and presents it proudly to a parent, we’ll keep thanking our cats for their own displays of affection.  It is love, after all.  Gag reflex aside.