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Never a Dull Moment

June 23, 2021 — Pat Bertram

There’s never a dull moment when one owns a house. Actually, that’s not true. There are a lot of dull moments, but the not-so-dull moments quickly remove any complacency that might arise during the dull times when nothing goes wrong.

Today was one of complacency-breaking times. I went down to the basement to change the air filter on my furnace/air conditioner. I’ve done this many times in the past couple of years, so I didn’t expect a problem, but problems are what I got.

When I pulled the handle to remove the old filter, the handle came away and left the filter in place. This has happened before, and all I did was use my fingers to get it out. This time, however, instead of pulling it out, I somehow managed to push it to the side. The more I worked on it to try to get it out, the more recessed it became. Which is silly. Why wasn’t there some sort of framework to hold the filter in place and keep that from happening?

I finally gave up and send a frantic message to my contractor asking him if there was anything he could do. He responded saying that he was sending a man right out. The worker was there almost immediately. He couldn’t dig out the filter, either, so he removed the entire connecting piece between the vertical air duct and the furnace. (The thin black rectangular space between the connecting piece and the furnace on the picture is where the filter goes.)

A little later the worker came to find me and said the furnace had shocked him. He’d taken the panels off the front of the furnace looking for a tool (they had the impression I’d dropped a tool into the space when I tried to get the filter out) and when he put the panels back, the middle panel shocked him and shorted out the furnace. Apparently this had happened to previous owners because there were several black spots on the panel where it had previously made contact with the prongs of some sort of switch. He fixed panel to make sure it couldn’t short out again, but when he reinserted the panel, the air conditioner wouldn’t go on. He checked one of my circuit breaker panels and I checked the other (weird, huh? I have two, one inside and one outside), but none of the circuits had been tripped.

He took the switch to a furnace guy he knew to see if he could get a new one, but the furnace person said the switch was good, that he must have burned out the fuse. The fuse? Apparently, there is a separate fuse, the pre-circuit box kind, inside the furnace.

He replaced the fuse, so now I have a working air conditioner, an extra fuse (they came in a package of two) and a new filter.

Whew!

People often wonder why I stick with this contractor, and this filter situation is a good example of why I do. He might be slow getting things done around here because he always has way too many jobs to juggle, but in an emergency, he (or one of his guys) is always right here. And if they make a mistake or cause any damage, they go out of their way to fix it.

That, to me, is priceless, and helps me greet any of these not-so-dull moments with an equanimity I might not otherwise be able to summon.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in house, life. Tags: changing a furnace filter, owning a home, separate fuse in furnace, short in the furnace, unable to remove an air filter. 6 Comments »

Meeting With My Contractor

June 10, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I spent most of last evening working on a list of projects for my contractor that included projects that have been started and paid for but not finished, projects that have not been finished but were included in a bulk payment (two installments of which I still owe), and projects that have been contracted for but not started and not paid for.

Whew! What a task! But to the best of my knowledge, the list includes everything we’ve talked about and planned over the past couple of years since I bought this place.

This morning, I met with the contractor to go over the list. A lot of the items could be knocked out in a day if he brought his whole crew here, other items will take longer, especially if he’s only able to send a couple of men here to work. One of those men is new and I haven’t yet met, but the other has been here working on occasion. Still, when they work their way down the list to the projects inside the house, I want the contractor here, not just his minions. Although I like and trust the one who has been here before, I still prefer for the person I hired to do the work. That way there are never any questions about who is working in my house and who might be responsible for any mishaps.

As for the rest of it, though, I’m not sure I care who does the work as long as someone does it.

One of the problems of running a business such as my contractor’s is hiring help. The truly trustworthy workers who can get the job done without supervision seem to be hard to find, so when it comes to a “shopping list” of jobs, such as I have, rather than one big project, he needs to delegate others to do the work.

Another problem with a plethora of jobs, especially those that call for dump truck loads of material such as rocks, gravel, and dirt, is actually getting the stuff here for the delegates to work with.

Hopefully the delegates will be here tomorrow as planned to get started on some of the jobs. The huge amount of rain we had this spring (300% of normal, more than 600% of what we had been getting the past couple of years) spooked me. Water poured off the roof rather than into the gutters because the fascia had been wrongly installed by some previous owner, so I ended up with a gully wash. Also, the workers had dug dirt away from the house to fix the foundation and never got back here to fill the ditch. The combination of the faulty gutters and the ditch created a moat around the house. Although it was a big enough problem to make me worry about the basement flooding, it wasn’t big enough to attract dragons or other moat dwellers. (The mosquitos, however, are ravenous this year and I am their smorgasbord.)

One of the first things they will be doing is building my raised garden in the middle of my rear pathways. I have a hunch it might be too late to get plants to fill the garden by the time it’s done, but perhaps not. I suppose it’s a matter of whatever I can get, wherever I can. Since the brakes on my car still aren’t fixed (I haven’t been calling to nag the mechanic but maybe I should), I only have the sparse selection at the local hardware store to choose from.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. One meeting with a contractor in no way equates to jobs finished. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, home, house, life. Tags: delegating workers, faulty gutters, house projects, landscaping a yard, list of projects for contractor, meeting with contractor. Leave a Comment »

A Small House and a Large Garden

June 8, 2021 — Pat Bertram

A friend sent me a verse written in the seventeenth century by poet Abraham Cowley:

May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends,
And many books, both true.

No wonder she thought of me when she saw that snippet — it seems to describe my life perfectly. A small house, a large garden (not quite yet, but in the making!), a few true friends, and many books, though too few of those books, perhaps, are true. Actually, I don’t own many books except those I wrote, a few reference tomes, some tarot books, and quite a few alchemical texts that I have yet to study. Most of my “many books” are in the library that is a mere four blocks from my small house. As long as I can manage to get there, all those books belong to me. In fact, when I was there earlier today, the only person in the building besides me was the librarian. So, not just a private library all my own, but a personal librarian to take care of all my books!

On the way back from the library, I picked up another two plants for my ever-expanding garden. I was going to say ever-growing, but too many plants haven’t started to flower or even spread. My hanging lobelia is doing fine, though.

And so, of course, are the weeds.

When I returned from my errands, I took the time to mow the weedy lawn. Workers are supposed to come later this week, and I thought it might be a good idea if they could actually see where they needed to work. Of course, my having done the job pretty much guarantees that they won’t come, so I suppose it would have been smarter to leave everything the way it was. But then, if I waited too long, the mower wouldn’t have been able to cut the weeds. As it is, there are a couple of very tall, very tough patches of grass that defeated the mover. It seems as if next on my shopping list will be grass clippers.

I paused here to look up battery operated grass clippers and found one that might be a fun and useful tool to have to help me create my “large garden.” Now I know how I will spend my next paycheck!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Posted in books, gardening, house, life. Tags: a house and garden, Abraham Cowley, books and friends, grass clippers, lawn mower, lobelia. 5 Comments »

At War With Weeds

June 7, 2021 — Pat Bertram

The weeds are definitely winning the war in my yard. For every one that I manage to eradicate, another three take its place. I don’t want to go the poison route — with more weeds than anything else here on this property, the amount of weedkiller necessary to do the job would probably be strong enough to kill me, too.

So, it’s one weed at a time, though I have been mowing some of them just to clear a space for me to walk.

Oddly, some of those that seemed the most innocuous have turned out the be the most frightening. Since I can’t dig up all of them, I’ve started with those that have seed pods similar to dandelions, because once those take hold, you never get rid of them. I’ve pretty much been ignoring a weed that seemed to have a shallow root system, with skinny “arms” and sparse leaves, that lays flat on the ground. I thought that with all the wind around here, it might not be a bad idea to leave those weeds be so that they could hold the soil in place.

Bad idea! Today when I was out weeding one of my garden patches, I went ahead and pulled up some of those weeds, which turned out to be a monumental task. Each one of those “arm” had grown to about two feet, and at each intersection where a leaf grew, the plant grew a root. Even worse, in some cases, it tied down plants that were in its way. I’d never seen anything like that. I thought bindweed was bad. Bindweed looks like miniature white morning glories, and if they are in a field, they lie flat and look pretty. If they are in a garden, they grow monstrously long and strangle any plant they can climb. Unless I want to resort to poison, the bindweed will always win, but I can sort of keep on top of it. Goat’s head is another plant that is prevalent around here, but I know what it is, and can — mostly — keep on top of that one, too. But this long, skinny plant that ties itself to the ground and to anything in its path is something else again.

I have no idea what the plant is called — I spent the past hour searching online for information about it without any luck — but I do know I have to be more vigilant about pulling it up. If not, I’ll wake up one day and find my whole house wrapped up in the tendrils of that weed.

*Shivering*

The thought is enough to give me nightmares.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, house, life. Tags: bindweed, goat's head weed, strangler weeds, weeds in Colorado, weeds that tie themselves to the ground. 6 Comments »

Showing My Life

May 22, 2021 — Pat Bertram

People often express concern about my posting photos of my house and my yard. They think I am setting myself up for theft or home invasion or some such, and perhaps that’s true. However, most people who read this blog don’t know exactly where I live — in fact, most live in distant parts of the United States or in other countries — and those who do know where I live, know because they have actually been to the house. Despite that, I realize anyone can find anyone nowadays, probably with just a few keystrokes, so it behooves all of us to be careful.

In a way, posting photos works in my favor because although my rooms look inviting, it’s quite obvious there’s nothing of value in the house. The furniture is old, handed down from relatives; the kitchenware was inexpensive when I bought it decades ago; and whatever tools I have are both handed down and inexpensive. Still, when it comes to a more expensive tool (expensive compared to old rakes and shovels, but still relatively cheap), such as the lawn mower I use, I make sure not to post any photos, though truly, that’s not the sort of thing that goes missing around here. The tools people like to steal are the sort they can pocket and perhaps pawn — or maybe even pawn off on an unsuspecting buyer.

I am careful, though, at least as careful as I know how to be. If I were to go on a trip, I wouldn’t talk about it until I returned home again. It really is nuts the way people post their vacation photos while they are away, as if to tell the world, “No one’s home. Feel free to break into my house.”

I did post photos when I took my cross-country trip, but even then, I waited until I’d moved to my next stop before I posted the previous stop’s photos on the off chance (the off, off, off chance) that someone would be stalking me. At the time, I had no home, so it didn’t matter if people knew I was away, but I had enough people telling me how dangerous it was for a woman to travel alone that I took a few precautions. I’m glad nothing dire happened, and even more than that, I’m glad I took the trip. Although I thought that trip would be the first of many, it turned out to be the first of merely a few. I tend to think my traveling days are now over, especially since I spent my travel money on a garage. But truly, if I do ever take off, I won’t be announcing to the world that my house is empty.

Still, whether I heed people’s warnings or continue showing my life, I do appreciate the concern. It’s nice to know people care.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in blogging, home, house, internet, life. Tags: crosscountry road trip, don't post vacation photos until you're home, don't tell people you're not home, heeding warnings while traveling, posting photos of my house, posting photos of my yard. 6 Comments »

The Nature of Nature

May 6, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I was frustrated yesterday at how slowly everything moves when it depends on nature, whether human nature or . . . nature. Trees and bushes grow slowly, humans work slowly, at least sometimes. That’s their nature. About the only things that move fast when it comes to a garden or landscaping are weeds.

Generally I don’t mind that the contractor has me at the bottom of his list of priorities. So much of his work is seasonal or comes from county contracts, so I understand those things have to come first. I also understand that workers come and go. When he has a lot of workers, he takes on extra jobs to keep them all busy, and then when his guys take off in the middle of a job, he’s left playing catch-up. I’m also mostly okay with their sporadic work because that way I can keep up with my part of the landscaping, working small areas at a time.

Besides, my yard was never supposed to be a quick project. I’ve always known it would be a life-long endeavor to find plants that will grow under my care and to wait for flowers to spread and bushes, shrubs, and trees to fill out and grow to a pleasing height.

Despite knowing all that, sometimes I find it hard to accept the human nature part of this endeavor. I suppose, of course, I could find someone else to do the work, or rather a lot of “someone else”s. These people do it all, whether home repair, concrete work, building, plumbing, landscaping, whatever. And if I have an emergency, they come immediately, which is important since I’m a first-time homeowner with not a clue how to do anything or even how to find someone to get things done. Still, I get frustrated.

But that was yesterday.

Today I’m back to being patient and waiting for things to work out in their own time, though I do reserve the right to nag when necessary.

I think it also helps that the people I bought the greengage plum trees from were helpful. As it turns out, one tree is doing great. One is mostly dead except for a bit of growth just above the graft site. One is alive but barely. They gave me credit for the dead tree and told me how to deal with the still dormant tree. Mostly it reminded me of the importance of patience when it comes to the nature of nature, because the truth is, when something does finally work out, like the lilac bush pictured below, it’s worth it.

***

Posted in gardening, home, house, life. Tags: a garden is a lifelong venture, growing a garden, growing greengage plum trees, human nature, lilac bush. 5 Comments »

A Morning in the Sunshine

April 30, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I pulled more weeds today and I discovered that the problem with weeds is not so much that they grow back, but that it’s a never-ending job. All I was going to do was pull the most unsightly. I figured that once I did that, the others wouldn’t look so bad. Well, that’s not the case. I cleared away a large patch of weeds, then stretched and looked around, thinking to congratulate myself for a job well done, but the place looked just as bad as before I started to work. Apparently, once the highest weeds are gone, the second highest, which seemed rather benign, now stand out, so the yard looks like I never touched it.

Isn’t that always the way? You think the house is clean, so you decide just to pick up the worst of the clutter. Then, with the clutter gone, you notice dust, so you have to dust the furniture and fixtures. Then, with the dust gone, you notice that the floors look a bit dingy in comparison. So then you have to clean the floors. Next thing you know, a job you thought would take a few minutes has taken all day. Even worse, you now notice every speck of dust, so you spend all your time from then on, spot cleaning because although you know your house is clean, you are so focused on the dust motes that you can’t see the truth.

That seems like a parable more suited to some mystical or psychological or sociological problem rather than weeds, but I’m so exhausted from all the time outside that I don’t feel up to finding the wisdom in this blog post. It’s enough for today that I spent time in my yard.

And I saw a parade. Today was supposed to be the annual town festival with booths, entertainment, and a parade, but it had to be canceled because from what I understand, a lot of kids in the high school tested positive for The Bob. Someone decided enough was enough and so privately sponsored the parade, which I think is cool, sort of a celebration and a protest all in one. There weren’t many entries, and most of those were police cars, pickup trucks, and farm vehicles. Not many people watched either, but it’s the effort that counts.

So, some weeds gone, a parade, and a morning in the sunshine. Sounds like a good day to me!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in house, life. Tags: a morning in the sunshine, cleaning house, the problem with weeds, weeding. 4 Comments »

My Poor Trees

April 29, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Last fall I planted three six-foot greengage plum trees that were advertised as orchard-size so they could potentially have blossoms the first year, but only one of them seems to be doing okay. The other two are still alive, though most of the branches are dry and brittle. The growth is coming from the bottom of the trees. It’s surprising to me that the tree that got the most moisture during the winter is the one that seems to be having the most trouble. It’s next to the sidewalk that extends from the house to the garage, so when I shoveled the snow, I dumped it around the base of the tree. That tree actually doesn’t matter so much — it was an extra tree I bought for a gift and then the giftee decided he didn’t want it because he was going to move, so I planted the extra tree in my yard. The only place to put it wasn’t a good location from my standpoint because if the tree ever grew fruit, the fruit would make a mess of my sidewalk. Still, it does show signs of life, so that’s something.

The other tree that’s not doing well is where I really wanted a tree, toward the back of the property. It too is showing signs of life, though also only toward the base. I’d purposely bought the biggest trees I thought I could handle because I didn’t want to go through those first six or seven years of growing a tree from the ground up, though it looks like that’s going to happen after all. Oh, well. I did everything I could, followed all the directions (which isn’t something I normally do — I have a terrible habit of just winging it), so there’s no use worrying about it.

I’ll just wait and see what happens. If necessary, I’ll try getting another tree, maybe a smaller one. Or not. I just checked the website, and they are sold out of all sizes.

Now, if the trees had been crossed with dandelions, I could have kept them alive. One of the few things I seem to be able to grow is dandelions.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, house, life. Tags: greengage plums, growing dandelions, growing greengage plum trees, growing trees, winging it. 5 Comments »

So Much Excitement

April 28, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I found, taped to my front door, a bright yellow paper with “Special Notice” blaring across the top. It turns out it was from the public works department stating they would be smoke testing its sewers. They went on to say that it was done periodically to locate sources of sewer odors, leaks, and breaks in sewer lines, but no one who has lived their whole life around here had ever experienced such a thing. If the sewers had been tested previously, apparently it wasn’t something they told people about.

The smoke is supposed to be harmless, but I was still worried about it coming out of my plumbing, as they warned it might. Since there was a three-day window for this “smoking” to be done, I wasn’t sure how to know the test was being done. Obviously, if I had a problem with my plumbing, I’d be able to smell the smoke, but if everything was fine, would I know when it was finished?

As it turns out, there wasn’t a problem. I was outside weeding when I noticed smoke coming out of a neighbor’s ventilation pipes and a couple of heavy pickup trucks with hard-hatted men driving up slowly up and down the alley. I went inside and to see if there were any signs of smoke and to hunt for strange odors. There seemed to be a bit of a smoke smell in the bathroom, but it was so faint, it was hard to tell if it was really there. And there was no smoke that I could see. I opened the windows to air out the place anyway, because “harmless” doesn’t always mean harmless. Still, it’s nice to know that my plumbing is in good shape.

As if that weren’t enough excitement, I went back outside after opening the windows to pull more weeds. (It seems that for every flower there are a hundred weeds, but it’s worth it to see those few colorful blooms.) Beneath a spreading bush, I found a few double tulips. They must have been planted when the bush was young to be hidden so. I’d noticed the tulip leaves the past couple of springs, but this is the first time they bloomed. What a lovely legacy!

I also hoed an area where I plan to plant some flower seeds. The seeds are old, so they might not do anything except feed the birds, but it’s worth a try. I was going to go ahead and plant the seeds today because the weather forecast calls for above freezing temperatures for the next ten days, but I decided to be safe and wait for the average “last frost” date, which isn’t for another week.

Besides, after all the concern with the sewer smoke and the effort at pulling weeds, I’d had enough excitement for one day.

***

Posted in gardening, house, life. Tags: double tulip, last frost date, plumbing in good shape, pulling weeds, smoke testing sewer lines, weed pulling. Leave a Comment »

Winter Redux

April 11, 2021 — Pat Bertram

In the light of a warm spring day, it’s hard to remember the harshness of winter. It’s even harder to believe that winter weather will be returning in just a few days.

Winds will be bringing in a new storm, and snow is forecast. The lowest temperature on those supposed snow days will only be about 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so I wouldn’t believe snow was coming (and not just because of the bright day) except for the fact that I put away my snow shovel today. It’s been residing in my enclosed back porch for the winter to make it easy to grab when it snowed. Previously when I left it in the garage, I couldn’t get to it. Not only did snow pack in around my back door, but I needed the shovel to shovel my way to the garage to get the shovel.

But now it’s back in the garage, hanging up on my newly installed tool bar. I didn’t know if I should take a photo of the bar since it would show my oh, so valuable, discount store tools, but decided it would be okay since I doubt anyone would want them. What people steal are small power tools that are easy to sell, and the only thing powering my tools is me. And to be honest, that power source is not worth much of anything.

No one will be here working for the next few days. They have a lot of tree work that needs to be done before the winds hit, but maybe they will come on the windy days.

Meantime, I am enjoying the work that has been done.

It’s amazing to me how nice the place is shaping up to be. I never imagined owning a house, never imagined a garage for my aged car, and I certainly never imagined a landscaped yard (though there will be some wild and weedy spots) and yet it seems that I will eventually have all three — not just the house and garage, but a nice yard.

In my pre-grief years, I’d never been one to talk about the good things in my life thinking it was akin to bragging, but now I know it’s about acknowledging my blessings and being grateful for the way my post-grief life is going.

And I am definitely grateful.

Who knows, I might even be grateful for the coming winter redux.

***