Today, the dog barfed up cat poop.

the pictures, finally.

Here's the coop. This was a couple days ago. Now it has rafters, a bald spot where you currently see some patchy tar paper, and studs along the back where the wall will soon be. It's also less tilty, if you notice the gap in the lower right back corner. What an f-ing beast, eh?

Now, here is what leads us to believe that we should not build a deck now. It would be a woodfest, and not the sexy kind. The deck would have run 1/2 to 2/3 of the way to the original shed. Cluttery and flammable. Now, we're thinking a patio. Brick. Stone. Whatever. Who cares. Just a nice even place to plant some pairs of drunk feet.

two weeks early, not a moment too soon

I got my letter from Seattle Fire today. They said not to expect them until the beginning of June. But, when I was getting the mail I knew it was in there. But, I know that every time I open the mailbox lately. I seriously was talking to myself like a crazy person while I was opening it. Trying to expect the worse but really not wanting it. And, I passed. One written test and two oral interviews. I made it to the top 25% of eligible candidates. According to the website, that at least gets me one more written test (a psyche exam). So, still chipping away at the steps. Each move forward feels like such victory. Funny how I feel like I've come a long ways but there's still almost 700 people in the pool. If you ever wonder why firefighters seem to have egos, this is why. After over one year spent plugging away at one test, you'd probably feel damn good about yourself when you finally put on your blues. So, there's that. My dad was in the backyard working on the coop when I checked the mail. I dropped my bag (like a girl) and ran back to tell him. He was super thrilled. I can tell when he's pleased and he was. I got home after work to a cheesecake on the table saying "Fired Up" and a card. He's such a good dad. I have to call my mom tomorrow to let her know. She'll be happy but I think she's less thrilled with the idea of me being a firefighter. My dad really wants it. I know he does. He was so proud of me when I was a resident at North Kitsap. When I get the real deal he'll probably pop. Mom is less stoked. She wants me to be a firefighter somewhere rural. She's worried about a terrorist attack on Seattle and that I'll get killed. But, that's there no matter who/where/what you are. Getting killed, not a terrorist attack. Anyways, I'm super excited. I feel great. I feel like I need to get in shape and work on my interview skills.

too perfect too soon.

This 5 acres is for sale 3 1/2 miles from my dad's house in Port Townsend. Five acres of open farmland with views of the Olympics and surrounded by small farms. Also $279k. A bit much I think. But, in a perfect world I'd have that chunk of change kicking around my bank account so I could snap this puppy up. Port Townsend would be pretty cool since it's a neat community, closer to where I'm from, where my dad lives, a ferry ride from my mom's, and less than an hour to the hub of my family. Plus, they get less rain than Seattle. Next time.

How to spend an entire day cleaning a bathroom:

1. Sleep exactly eight hours, you'll probably roll out of bed at 8am.

2. Spend approximately one hour filling out a PDF application for the Tacoma Fire Dept. (due on Friday) and then save it, erasing the entire sheet and presenting you with a virgin copy of the application, for you to complete (again) at your leisure.

3. Make breakfast, preferably something that involves washing a dirty bunch of spinach. Leave all utensils and dishes out on the counter to clean up later.

4. Make more coffee. Because one cup is never enough.

5. Read your girlfriend's book A Slice of Organic Life. Be secretly envious and outwardly mocking.

6. Awkwardly guide a co-worker (via phone) through the steps to get into your e-mail at work and forward back a Storm ticket to a customer who had given you an awesome extra ticket (row 2!) that you can't use because you're going with friends.

7. E-mail your mom to tell her how great she is but that you won't be seeing her today since you already pissed away the greater half of the morning.

8. Decide to clean up the mess from breakfast. Clean the dish rack while you're at it. Dry the comforter that the cat peed on last night.

9. Think: man, the bathroom sure is scummy. I should clean it while since it's such a nasty day. Notice how the rain stops and the clouds begin to part. Grab a bottle of cleaner.

10. Read that it's a good idea to wash the walls and think to yourself that sounds excessive. Wipe a cloth down the bathroom wall and realize it's actually sea green, not dessert grey. Think, "shit." Start scrubbing.

11. Throw away the colony of mold that's claimed the inside of the shower curtain. Google "biodegradable shower liner" because you feel bad throwing away plastic every few months. Feel it's ridiculous that anyone would spend $85 on a hemp shower curtain.

12. Discover that there are geological layers of products in the medicine cupboard. Begin sorting through it. Decide sorting is less appropriate and pull it all out onto the floor. Put a third of it back. Put the rest on the kitchen table.

13. Find yourself on your hands and knees with a soapy bucket and rag and wonder when the sun finally decided to come out. Feel embarrassed that both Kaisa and Alec and Alec's friend have seen you, still in pajamas, hunkering amidst a bathroom that quite possibly is the dirtiest it's ever been.

14. Realize it's definitely time to go. Think that it was a ridiculous waste of time to write down a blog that describes how you've wasted the day.

15. Shower in the cleanest bathroom of your life.

16. Bike swiftly to Tara's house. Key Arena. And sweet sweet beer.

reason #1 I am glad to live in Lake City

Molly and I were just at Alec and Sarah and Nikki's house for a fire. It was 11:30pm and six of us were sitting around a fire bowl in the back yard, talking. There was no rowdiness but the dogs had barked, explosively, a couple times. And the cops showed up. There was a "party noise" complaint from the neighbors. Last Saturday we had people parked all up and down the street here, probably 20-30 people came by over the course of the night. We had a rockin' fire in the chiminea and there was plenty of noise. No noise complaints. Our neighbors came over and hung out and were the best guests of the party. The cop also said the fire wasn't legal unless we were cooking in it. Good thing we ran out of propane last weekend and put the burgers and hot dogs in the the chiminea.

the thrill of being small.

So, we tried to have a barn raising tonight but failed to rally the muscle. The sweet thing about Lake City though is that plenty of muscle lives across the street. Molly went over to ask the neighbor if he had any guys who could help us. Thirty minutes later, I'm hunched over a skill saw in my Urkle glasses, trying to shear off some plywood I've nailed onto the platform and four brawny guys conversing in quick Spanish are pretty much running across the backyard carrying this damn monolith that took Molly and I half a day to pivot. It was all I could do to throw the tools off the platform in time for them to slap that sucker into place. And I moved a glass of water out of the way. That was my contribution. That and scurrying around trying to be helpful but staying back far enough not to get in the way. And, now it's up. That crazy bitch is lording over our whole backyard now. It's like a kid that's been held back a couple years lumbering around during recess. Without the windows or roof it's almost evil looking. Bet it would make a fantastic bonfire should someone put a match to it. We decided we should go for a patio instead of a deck since it would simply be too much wood and height if we added a deck to that whole mess back there.

The problem that we solved today was moving that creature from it's state of hibernation on the side of the house to its throne near the shed. Solved, without a drop of sweat (except maybe my gross little hands.) Our problem gained was the awkwardness of this beast, since the back posts seem to be 1-2 inches longer than those in the front. So, there's an overall slant to this creation that makes it seem even more like it's trying to look down your shirt. That will hopefully be solved when my poor dad makes his third debut on Thursday. There's no such thing as finishing a project. You just trade in one problem for another one. Unless you're blessed to be someone who can take satisfaction in a job done well, even if it's not done.

Pictures coming soon...

forcing it?

I live in the city because I'm a young person. My predilections tilt me towards a community that is used to ignoring people who scream at sign posts and donkey punch the air. So, anything I do is bound to go unnoticed. And, there was rugby. When I was playing I couldn't imagine having to commute an hour and a half to play (again) so I moved, and stayed, in the city. Really, I'm here for my current job and I'm here for my friends. But, I only enjoy my work so much and I know, with heart and soul and muscle memory, that there's something else I need to be doing instead. And, I know I'm less of a friend than I could be. Just like I never went to the K&K when I lived up the block, I worry that I shirk my duties to my friends while they're right here, miles and minutes away. So, why is it that, knowing this, I still chose to spend my free time digging in the yard, alone unless you count the dogs? I could throw in the towel with this whole house thing and do what most people do: tend to the basics (food when hungry, laundry when necessary) and hit the bars. I like bars. I like beer. I like people. The problem, I think, is that I feel like I know myself the best when I'm working. I like crouching over some tiny seedling and gently packing it into its new place in the garden. I like shoveling dirt, if only to move it from one location to another. I like hammering wood to wood. And, I love burning anything. I love the smell of smoke, the ferocity of white heat, the more demure red heat. I love the way my clothes smell the next day. And, I love putting on dirty jeans, worn soft with sweat and one hundred crouches and squats. Working means continuity. Going out is just the opposite. If you fall off the wagon, it'll take a running jump to get back on because that sucker is cruising. I wish there were another way to tend to friendships the same way I look after this damn yard. I wish it weren't one or the other because, when I'm outside, I don't regret where I'm at. I can't always say the same for nights spent drinking.

I don't want to waste my time spent in the city because I know I won't grow old here. I'll grow old fast and fat if I stay in this place. But, I love so much about it while I'm here. Most of all, I love the people. But, when I've been in smaller places I've hung on to a few strategic friendships like a pit bull on a rope. Maybe because time felt slower or maybe because the space shrank as the horizon stretched on. In a place teeming with schools of people, I can't get any strong bites. Probably because I'm fishing without bait. But, we'll see. Summer is coming. That's when everybody wants to be outside. Maybe the two things I care about most can meet in the middle, if not just for a few months.

The day of the chicken coop.

My dad is on his way over, should be here any minute. This is the day the coop gets the smack down. We shuttled wheelbarrow loads of dirt into the hole where the coop is going. Then we realized, obviously, that this dirt will settle with rain and time and our coop will become uneven. So, now our foundation will be more intense, with sunk posts, rather than just a frame that sets on the ground. Good times. When Dad shows up we'll make our lumber list, go to the lumber yard and hardware store, and then get our rain on and go outside.

On the menu today:

• Leveling out the ground where the coop is being moved.
• Spending a lot of money on our "free" coop for wood and nails.
• Constructing a base for the coop.
• Putting a floor in that supports both human and chicken beings.
• Putting rafters up on top for both ventilation and a sound roof.
• Dealing with the metal for the roof that I, stupidly, had cut the wrong way.
• Building a back for the coop of beautiful beautiful plywood.
• Making nesting boxes from the scrap wood, probably driving to Crown Hill to borrow Alec's chop saw. Dammit, forgot to get it yesterday.
• Tacking a few branches inside for perches.
• Installing the windows.
• Putting a latch on the door.
  
• Getting a pane of glass for the glass-less window frame.

That's about it.

http://www.nextnature.net/?p=668

Where love is at work, work is mostly play.

My mind has been churning with ideas of farms again. I try to quell these thoughts because they do me no good when I am bound to another place for the time being. But, I love daydreaming about how my farm is going to look at twilight and how I'll be in charge of my own lumber pile so I can take whatever I damn please instead of having to ask permission. And, how I'll feed my horses again, something I haven't done for years. It's very possible to exhaust my body on this 6,000 square foot lot in city limits. I've done it. I've even battered myself enough to warrant a small break from physical labor (due more to my flab than the actual nature of the work). But, on a larger landscape, there's that possibility of sweat and dirt and blood and sweat and dirt every day. There's enough space, animals, wood, dirt, weeds, fences, manure piles, ponds, and trees to use every muscle in the body, until it's run ragged and ready for flopping in the grass. That's what I miss. Getting up and looking out on a spread of possibilities of how to make the body ache so good that day. I still remember when I was a camper in Camp Blaze at the end of one of our long, hard days. I think we were burning because I remember being soaked with sweat, in my grubby camp shorts and shirt, and, at the end of it all, laying back on the hot pavement and feeling the sun heat seep into my sweaty cotton shirt and my sore, tired back, and thinking that I didn't want to be anywhere else. How else could you ever feel that way unless you spent hours pushing and pulling and heaving and swearing? That's the only way. Granted, kids get injuries less than adults, period. But, I was never "injured" as a kid. You use your body and it gets used to the way you use it. Now, it's all I can do to muster up the energy and physical endurance to get big jobs done. I spend my day hunched at a desk, or perched on a stool, or shuttling boxes and shoes around. It does little for my body, less for my mind. And, I have a good job, by general standards. But, I'd trade it for hard work any day. When I'm working hard my mind is quiet.

This calling, by which physical work can be rendered enjoyable and interested (surely more so than jogging) requires certain characteristics that may be learned, but I believe are mostly inborn. The first is a love of home. People with a true vocation to contrary farming find so much fascination in the near-at-hand that they feel no need to wander the world in search of truth, or beauty, or amusement.... They see the grand canyons and tropical rain forests, the city lights fantastic, the now much-trodden wildernesses, the history of civilization ebbing and flowing, all repeated in their own neighborhoods and villages. If they wish to heighten their awareness of how the outer world is reflected in their lives, they can 'travel' the world by book, or by radio, television, telephone, and computer. They learn that people are the same everywhere and that the way to enjoy humanity (or at least learn to endure its absurdities) is to cultivate the people and places of their own community.... With this sensibility, a farmer avoids the attitude that most often makes farming work burdenson: he knows he is not missing something grand and great down the road someplace.

productivity.

Today was productive in the type of way where I feel like I should still be moving and doing something and thinking ahead to the next thing. I went to work at 8:15, worked. I left at 3:45 or 4:00, after calling a bunch of dog groomers to see if they could get Charlie in tomorrow so he'd be clean and shorn and have some bows for Molly's birthday. Apparently, dog groomers book out further than hair dressers in this city. Someone offered to pencil me in for the last Friday of the month. I ended up getting a gift certificate to a groomer, Molly'll have to sort this one out on her own. (She's sleeping right next to me and was spying out of the corner of her eye earlier so this is kind of scary.)

Wow, I just read stuff I wrote on livejournal six years ago, when I was 18. Very weird. And distracting.

So, anyway, the day went from work to a false-lead dog groomer to a gym membership to the actual dog groomer gift certificate to costume and display to home to let the dogs out, mow and weed whack to REI to an undisclosed location to Trader Joe's to Madison Market to Blue C sushi to QFC to home. By the time I slithered into QFC I only wanted cough syrup and relish for the damn potato salad and a case of beer for tomorrow. When I laid it down on the checkout stand the lady paused and said, "that's an interesting selection". She asked if it was a cure for a cold.

When I was weed whacking I had no protective glasses. So, I wore the pair of nerd glasses from the costume box. With that big pile of dirt in our driveway, the Jode-esque nature of our porch, and me out there like Urkle's Landscaping, we're probably well-loved in this neighborhood. It's probably best Molly couldn't afford some place like Ballard or Maple Leaf. Somehow I don't think we'd of fit in.

two posts in one day. the epitome of no life.

Still waiting on dirt man. I have that sticky, no bra/no shower feel. It's not glorious. In the meantime, I've moved the wood pile to one spot, since I stole the tarp off one of the wood piles. I want to mow but I'm worried about the start cord with my f-ed elbow. So, I'll likely wait for Molly on that one and whip out the weed whacker since even a wimp can start that one.

Just weed whacked the crap out of the property. My arms are still vibrating. Probably get a little of the carp tonight because of that. But, after I rake and mow it'll look very nice.

Now to edge the garden...

Garden edged. Dirt dropped off. Now I can be a person and get on with my day and stop writing about my life on the internet. Until the next time I'm bored/inspired.

the dirt is coming!

Just got a call from the man in Greenlake and he's sending up a dump truck load of fill dirt. Secretly, and openly, I was hoping this stuff would arrive on Monday so I could not feel the pressure to move it in time for the party. But, free dirt delivered is free dirt delivered. Cannot complain about that. I think I'm going to put some cookies in the oven for those guys...

Alright, tarps are out (10 yards is a LOT of dirt for a city house), cookies are in the oven, maybe I should brush my teeth or something. Or just keep drinking coffee and rock the morning breath.

So, this is good. The dirt means we get to fill in the low spot where we want to move the chicken coop. That means we'll have a good flat place for it by Tuesday, when my dad said he'd come out and help us build the foundation. Foundation = floor = wall = roof = secure place to lock up our chickens. Then, I just need to build them a run, get them back from my dad and loose them in the backyard. And then get another one. That's the plan. And the end of the first big outdoor project. Soon, the dirt will be piled in the driveway, I picked up the roofing pieces yesterday, and the rest of the wood is laying under the eaves on the backside of the house. Perfect.

That will end one small saga of summer fun. Other sagas include:

- attacking the grass that is now up to my shins. I think we finally have a working weed whacker. And mowing the lawn is guaranteed good times if you're at all into off-roading.

- building raised beds for the $50 of plant starts we bought last weekend. This is typical, as soon as we can see the end of one stressful project we get more young things that need space and put them in the mudroom, until we can build them their outdoor home.

- re-seeding the lawn after filling in the low spots. And then, putting a stone pathway in place of the dirt track that Suzy has created around the house.

- possibly having that middle poplar taken out. No small task, but someone is coming to check it out tomorrow.

- digging the railroad ties into the front parking area and graveling the space between them and the road to avoid that giant winter mud pit.

And, that's just for starters. Good thing I eat this shit up. I don't know if Molly does. Sometimes, I think. Other times, I am less convinced. Like when she's staring angrily at a point in the distance as my dad and I debate the benefits of moving the 500# chicken coop and possibly removing the 100 year-old tree that it's currently under. But, I haven't been this excited about something since I was in the fire department or playing rugby. Hazzah for time-consuming, body-beating hobbies.