Month: June 2019

My house is empty, mostly, unused boxes, dust bunnies. You remember the rabbit that attacked Jimmy Carter any of you? That’s my kinda’ dust bunny.
The movers finished a couple of hours ago and after I found M’Weec, who had shadowed into the darkest corner of the bathroom closet and refused to answer me until I found him. He’s been freaked out for a month with all the disruption and just now, strange people and radical changes in the landscape. I haven’t told him much about what’s to come, I don’t intend to give him a say in the matter so why make him fret any earlier than necessary?

It’s pouring here, but we got my things under cover before it started. Better luck than one past move that took place during a hurricane. I have boxes to break down, trash to sweep up and my Shaker Johnnies to dig up and package. I’ll be finishing up here for the next two days.
The house is infested with mosquitoes since the doors were open most of the past 2 days and I’m delighted to say M’Weec finds them tempting prey.
I seem to have dodged the ticks when I dove into the weeds to gleen my skulls. And suffered several more small lacerations in doing so. My arms look like I’ve been beaten.

We will take off late morning on Sun and turn in the rental and catch a train to Boston, taxi to Logan and book into a hotel, let M’Weec out to refresh himself and use the litter box that will get left behind in the trash. Then we go to the airport early afternoon and hop a ride out to OR.
I like that. I’m sure I’m not the first to use the abbreviation for the word it makes, not after living in ME for the past 20 years.
We land at 8 PM, missing the family barbecue by the pond by scant hours, drat. And home to OR city, OR I feel the need for an ellipsis here.

My car should arrive soon, probably Wed. My furniture, not so much, they said it will arrive on “the 5th or 6th” when I asked they not wait until July 8th, my first day on the job at fair. But of course, will they?

Well, if you’ve read all this way, I’ve saved the best, fingers crossed, news for last. The couple who want to buy my house have obtained a preapproved mortgage contingent on selling their house. They even lowered the price after a couple of weeks. Yesterday they accepted an offer for a closing on July 16th. Now the only hurdle is to get past the inspection of my buyer’s house. They want to close on my house the same day. What joy to own only 2 residences again! Even Ah-er, to own one, but that will come.

That was the headline in the local section of the paper. The statement is generally true, but a bit late, it’s been in full swing since April. I’m grateful the mosquitoes aren’t very numerous yet, I had my first bite, but they’ll be in full swing themselves in a week. I’m also grateful there are no deer flies out there, I’m hoping to be outa town before they arrive. I am grateful that the black flies plaguing my every outdoor moment will be gone in another week or two although all it means for me is that they won’t tend to fly into my eyes, nose and mouth. How can I possibly leave this outdoor paradise?

I’m making recordings of the birds in the back yard. I picked Sunday because there is less shooting. Not none, just less. On the other hand as spring progresses, the rooster next door is in full voice. A thundershower came through and then the birds came back, it should be a nice one. The trees, as they fill out ,allow the birdsong to bounce around a bit, sounding like we are in a gigantic concert hall. Still no evening veeries. I do hope to record some before I move, they don’t frequent the pacific northwest.

June 17 or T minus 7
So the latest is that my neighbors have been mowing my yard and then my high school age lawn mower and house sitter neglects to mention she’s only done it once because someone else (my neighbors) is doing it.  She stopped responding when I suggested that I’d apparently been paying the wrong person.Anyway now I have a guy named Dave Parker who will do it until my own mower gets there. I have to mow here once more than Guy comes over and siphons out the liquids so it’s road worthy.  I can’t really imagine what my place looks like.  Dave stopped by last night.  He asked if he should mow at the shed and all the high grass, and I told him just mow whatever has already been mowed.  But then he asked where my garden was, he couldn’t find it.  He was clearly skeptical that I really had one but giving me the vbenifit of the doubt.  Even after I mentioned the large wisteria vine growing, hanging over, the garden gate, he still seemed bewildered.  I understand the man doesn’t know wisteria, probably far fewer than 50% of folks do, but he missed the “huge vine covering the fence with a gate under it” so my imagination is running wild about how overgrown everything else is, that someone should miss that wisteria.  
It will be so interesting learning how the seasons treat my place over the next year, and decade.  I want to get the fence fixed by the creek and I’m still thinking goats but I found an ecologist who has focused his study for several years on the Abernathy Creek watershed area that my Tour Creek flows into.  My heart palpitates (non-symptomatically) at the idea.  The things he can tell me!!!Apparently the Oregon City watershed folk say the blockage in my creek is on or near my property.  It’s either a beaver dam or a slide.  I’m not sure how it can be so close and still indistinguishable but they put me in touch with an ecologist who is going to come and look at the situation.  Also he’ll give me some advice on how to deal with the canyon sides.  As you know there are areas that are practically vertical.  I’m so excited to find someone who is an expert in my particular backyard ecosystem before I make any bad decisions about the property.  Wouldn’t it be cool if there were river otters in the creek?????