Look Through My Window

The cabin's original windows with original silica glass (single-pane, and it's wavy) look like this, a little scarred, but it's been 80 years and only two are left and there's no greater fun than yanking them open in good weather, yanking hard and maybe even prying with a butter knife, and letting the breeze in to sweeten the room, and thought I'd show you the view in summer:

And just so you don't get too romantic about living in a 1930s log cabin in autumn during a rainstorm:

The leaking problem is largely solved by a piece of thick translucent plastic Demetrius stretched into a wooden frame he custom-built to fit this window from the outside, a homemade storm window, but in the summer I remove it. In autumn when the window leaks--as the weather and precip is increasingly driven in from the north--I set the shield back over the window. Then I must seal every crack in the inside with those rubbery strips of foam or else cold wind whistles through the warpings. Yet it's all worth it. These have to be the coolest, strangest windows on earth.

Yes, these windows should all be repaired and maintained, but the owners don't think the house is worth maintaining. That used to annoy me until I realized what I treasure isn't the INSIDE of the house but the hundred acres it sits on and all comes with it. In the Manhattan penthouse I will someday inhabit, I will never look back on my life and be sorry.

CabinHenge

Builders of the Divine Cabin, c. 1930, faced the kitchen door exactly east, so at the Equinoxes I get this phenomenon soon after sunrise: a beam that travels from the kitchen door through the dining room (not shown) through the living room, all the way through to the bedroom (beyond the door). They probably weren't pagans--what they were was careful. I don't know if builders today care as much or have this much liberty, but I do know the builders were thoughtful. Thank you, builders, for your gift to the future, a gift that keeps on giving.

The Perception of Doors

Before hardware removal

3 brands of stripper, all caustic as heck

Paint layers were visible

Strip-Eeze at work

On March 17 the handyman took my bathroom door off its hinges, as I had asked, and I hung a curtain made of a basted yellow bedsheet to replace it, and outside in the garage I removed the door's hardware and began stripping its many thick layers of paint, planning to refinish. Four chemical strips on one side and nine (!) on the other, plus scraping and sanding -- but even so, layers of paint, probably oil-based, perhaps containing lead, remained: peach, pink, blue, green, white. Although the door is solid core, the wood is soft pine, not hard like oak, and my putty knife gouged it in places. Manfully I scraped and sanded, all masked with gloves and respirator and eye protection, until soaked with sweat, trying not to breathe chemicals and dust. "Ain't nobody gonna do this for me," I thought. The door is 80 x 30 inches and heavy, so friends helped me flip it over. One day in mid-April I sighed and phoned the handyman saying I gave up, I'd pay for a new bathroom door, as I'd wrecked the original and really needed a bathroom door--until there's a bathroom door, nobody much can visit me. Despairingly I looked up what a door costs. A slab isn't obscenely priced, but it costs to have holes custom cut for the hardware. In any case the handyman never called back.

Painting by lantern light

I figured he thought: Let the dumb bunny stew in her own juice. Too bad I never got the door perfectly clean of paint and varnished as I hoped. People asked why I didn't use an electric sander. Well, the garage has no electricity and is too far from the house for an extension cord. I never like to give up. But--a bright idea!--I could repaint the door myself. Discovered wood filler for the gouges. Sanded and cleaned the whole thing this afternoon and began painting about dusk so it would dry overnight. Worked by lantern light until I was finished with the one side. Tomorrow a guest will help me flip it over. Then I'll finish painting, replace the hardware and phone the handyman. At least the door will look spring-clean now instead of chipped, gray and pawed over. Moral of the story: Sometimes giving up clears room in your mind to come up with something simpler and better. (Just now a tick was crawling on my neck! Took it to the bathroom and exploded it with a match.)

People's Dream Houses

The local paper printed a recent survey from Yahoo Real Estate about what U.S. home buyers want, even in these days "when one in three Americans knows someone who has experienced a foreclosure" (the way one in three Americans "knows someone who had crabs"). The least wanted features today are: gated communities, urban locations, and castle-style homes (!). The most wanted home features are:

• Green/energy-efficient 50 percent
• Building custom home 38 percent
• Water views 38 percent
• Mountain views 32 percent
• Suburban home 31 percent
• Near the beach 27 percent
• Cottage in the woods 20 percent

I was pleased to see "cottage in the woods" made the list and that one-fifth of all folks wish they could live like me.

Grill or Privy?

This rectangle of stones in my yard, old foundation of something, has always been here and always had dirt in it, so I put native plants in it. After a few years I noticed flagstones, almost sunk into the yard, that formed a path from the kitchen door to this rectangle. The original cabin, built around 1930, had no bathroom or a kitchen; we know this because they are obviously add-ons. So I thought this might be the foundation of an old privy. Its measurements, 3.5 x 5 feet, are standard for a double-seated privy. (Double seating was not a luxury, or a his-and-her thing. There was a small hole for children to sit on, and a larger one for adults.)

While raking a few days ago my tines struck stone in front of the "privy" and, curious, I dug there and uncovered a flagstone apron nicely fitted to the foundation with concrete. No privies at Scout camp had stone foundations or flagstone aprons -- privies are not permanent structures, because they fill up and have to be moved -- so I thought this might instead be the foundation of a stone barbecue pit, the kind everyone's dad wanted in the '50s. The other house on this property, built in the 1950s, had a flagstone patio with a stone grill that was crumbling when I first saw it and has since been demolished. Maybe both houses had barbecue pits built simultaneously to keep each tenant happy.

Thanking the Jesuits for my training in logic, I figured it's a barbecue pit. The flagstone path leads from the kitchen door and there was no kitchen door when the cabin was built. The rectangle is situated on three inches of soil atop twelve solid inches of hard yellow clay sloping toward a cliff edge, so it is unlikely a 10- or 12-foot privy pit could have been dug here. Although it is without traces of firebricks or lining and must have been a flimsy one, it's a barbecue. And I thought, darn, wish it had been a privy!

Ma and Pa

Both these people started out in difficult circumstances, on farms without amenities, and because of The War, got shaken up like dice and scattered far and wide, far from home, through the Midwest, and now in retirement. But -- give them lounge chairs, and they are at home just about anywhere, and enjoy watching Jeopardy and Dancing with the Stars. Ages 75 and 91.

Joining the 21st Century

The Divine Cabin has joined the 21st century; thought you'd like to know. Last night I got to watch Kill Bill and then a 1986 Mike Tyson fight. Wow. And that after a 30-mile cruise on the freeway seeing all the fireworks from the all the towns from the city to out-here. And that was after dinner at my favorite Italian place, with good comp'ny.

Snake in the Bathroom

I moved here to live with the strange and pure forces of nature. Last night turned on the bathroom light and there's a blacksnake, about 7" long, sidewinding across the linoleum. Golly. Unexpected. I chose not to pick it up and take it outside. Who knows, it is young and may have been exploring all its options. This morning it's gone.

Worms & things like millipedes, caterpillars, crickets, and ants crawl in beneath my kitchen door because it's old and off kilter, and the bathroom's right near there, but outdoors is so wonderful now I can't imagine what the snake wanted in the house. (During drought periods, lizards & things will come inside looking for water.)

Soaks Up 47 Times Its Weight in Excess Reality

When God closes one door, He closes another, too, just to show us who is boss. Life events were such that I took a day off from work and hung out with Hawkeye, also recently and repeatedly traumatized. We had lunch at Captain D's and I was able to eat a meal for the first time in days. Too nippy to hike so we did the Dollar Store. Bought myself a Dodge Ram cap plus a bag of marshmallows.

At my place Hawkeye, using my tools, all by herself restrung her daughter's favorite bracelet, sadly broken more than a year ago -- and now daughter'll get cheered up when she receives it in the mail. We talked about what the Universe wants, and how it ain't what we want, and how, in this vale of tears, we got to have faith. Then we had soup and bagels and chocolate-covered almonds and blew up some fireworks. We succeeded in cheering up to a good extent. I recommend this Rx to anyone suffering from too much winter.

On Having No Bathtub

Among the few liabilities the Divine cabin has is no bathtub. A shower stall only. Been renting here since ‘01 and wouldn’t never bathe unless I called people up and say, “Can I take a bath in your bathtub?” or, once a year in winter, I reserve a motel off I-44, take a bath and watch their cable TV and use their high-speed Internet all night. It don’t get more decadent than that.

Haven’t yet found a old-fashioned zinc bathtub like in the picture, nor a modern galvanized washtub big enough to hold me. I’d heat the water on the stove. I'll do a lot for a bath, it does so much for me. It's a time-out. Softens the skin and hair. Softens up the spirit, too. And in winter it's one of two or three things that can get the chill out of your bones.

It’s only a very very close friend you can ask, “Uh – can I take a bath in your bathtub?” Two people I call for their bathtubs every couple of months are Demetrius and Hawkeye. They say they don't mind. I bring my own towels and stuff, and if I clean up my bathtub ring I am more than welcome.

A Lesson in Warmth

The Divine cabin is well-built; it’s just that it’s 70 years old, with two tacked-on rooms built in 1969 and 1991 – and the doors are a bit warped, and the windows old, loose or off, or single-pane (no storm window). Spring, summer, and fall here are glorious, but I’ve always dreaded winter.

Until David came last week to winterize the place. Oh, I’d always done the plastic-over-windows stuff, but I still spent last winter straddling the electric heater just to keep warm – wearing hat, legwarmers and fingerless gloves. I’d stand there like that to do my reading, telling myself, You wanna live out here – you have to be tough.

Well, this prince among men caulked up the window frame that let winter winds whistle over my bed. And he did bunch of other stuff, like help me plastic the windows, and fixed my old furnace’s thermostat. There's a level inside filled with mercury called the heat anticipator. The level wasn’t level. Just a tap fixed it and corrected the whole system. Won’t be using so much propane.

I’d been shutting off rooms to keep warmth in some and cold in others, and David pointed out that because there’s only one air-return – located in the living room –I should open the interior doors to keep warmth circulating.

Then he weatherstripped the doors, some warped to the tune of half-inches and inches – “hellacious,” in David’s assessment. I could feel the difference right away.

He had to go shopping with his sister, so he left me the caulking gun to do some other, smaller jobs. Thank you, David, for your knowledge, advice, common sense, and skill – you should see how flawlessly he caulked! Thank you for the warm house!

The Flying Propane Tank

The Divine cabin failed seven state and fed'ral requirements for propane safety. The #1 change ordered by the inspector is that the 200-gallon tank, looks like a baby elephant, has to be moved to the other side of the house. They'll use a crane. I'll stay home that day to ask real nice if I can ride on it while they move it.

Tanksful of LP (liquid propane) have been delivered here for 50 years and in all that time if anyone saw violations in the tank and pipe setup they looked the other way and kept mum. Propane, that burns such a dreamy blue -- fairy-godmother blue -- inspires all sorts of magical, magic-carpet thinking. I pretended that the less I looked at the gauge, the less often I'd need to call for a refill.

The gas people will drain the tank before they move it, and probably won't credit me for that, so this March weekend I'm using LP promiscuously, baking pies and keeping the whole house cozy warm after bein' crazy frugal all winter. Lesson: Don't be frugal. Spend what you have.

On Cleaning a Country House

Every Saturday we kids worked with Mom until her place was hospital-clean. In fact I didn't see a truly dirty house until I was in my teens. But no way I can keep clean this half-log-cabin half-concrete-garage. It was built in 1930. The door and window sashes aren't true anymore. Nothing can be sealed. Fuss and scrambling occur in a certain closet, so I open it only to throw in a turquoise-colored cube that poisons mice. Mud, leaves, gravel, all get tracked in. Creatures get in: wasps, crickets, ants, wormy things with a thousand legs, sleek little skinks -- one who settled in the house finally needed a name, so I called him Harrison, and grew fond of him. I have a great stone fireplace but spiders live in the cracks and declivities, build webs from ceiling to lamps, have spider babies, and cast little papery silver capsules onto the mantel and floor. And dust/pollen, from the trees, that sifts in and covers every flat surface with its gauze.

Did I mention tar? Scuffmarks from boots? Motor oil? Faucets caked with hardened lime?

They say the way to clean is to prioritize. So, first, I try to evacuate the place. I warn my unwelcome guests with, "You have fifteen seconds to get out of my sight," and hope they listen. I sweep daily, vacuum up their webs and lairs about every fortnight, and mop the floors and clean the bathroom each month (unless company is coming), and in truly ambitious moments I will dust (although it's like the myth of Sisyphus), and pour baking soda and vinegar down the drains, and dribble corrosive on the calcifications around the faucets and then scrape them clean. But I have accepted there will never be even half a moment when this house will be Martha Stewart spotless and under control. There's too much of life here; no matter how I try I can't stamp it out. And I like it. That's why I live in a country house.