Cold Weather

Well I made it here. Short, sweet. Made it.

It’s cold as I am trying to shake off this odd feeling half awake, and it never goes away. It says, “Why didn’t you go live in Tahiti when you was 18.”

“

Me and my really good primer.

My “office”.

My “implement of debt”.

I’ve been creeping up on this little space, not knowing quite where to situate things. It’s rather spacious actually. A little bother of a regular, but high-pitched whine in the building’s compressors or something. I’ve no idea how the boilers work, though I’m beginning to think I may have it thrust upon me any day now. I put in ear plugs if it really gets to me. There’s sometimes sewer gas leakage in the back room where I get water, but it’s no big woop. Beggars can’t be chosers.
In event of a nuclear attack I am safe from fallout because it used to be a civil defense shelter. There’s even a large canister of “carbohydrate supplement” if I get hungry.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Too tired to blog tonight. Will try in the morning.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Caroline is a cool friend.

Back to Work, Work to Back

Haven’t written here in a while.

Basically I’m back to work in the old courtroom, Historic Federal Building, downtown Pueblo, Colorado. It’s a bit boring mentioning exactly what I’m doing, which is floating out bumps in the sections, or vaults of two arches with gypsum mud compound. The exciting work is coming up casting from the plaster cornice.

There was an art show opening down on first floor. Briefly went down to see what kind of crowd it drew, having seen the work beforehand during the day. It was okay, I guess. Everybody dressed up. I, in my coveralls and dust. I got a few glances, if not stares. All in all it seemed pretty pretentious concidering the style of work, reminiscent of Romare’ Bearden’s collage work with a preachy effect that I couldn’t help feeling was presented a bit out of contrivance. I don’t know where I’m coming from in this circle anymore. It’s like no one can tell if the be-bop one is hearing is as vital as in it’s origin, or a nostalgic trip back and re-created, an homage. I didn’t grab from the nice layout of snacks, large grapes and cheeses, biscuits and etc. NOt really that hungry for some reason. Feared they would have thought I was a raggedy homeless person coming in to grub on some free food.

Dad invites me over for dinner. I head on over down the interstate highway. It’s only fifteen minutes. It’s dark when I get there. Everybody’s gone. I warm up some leftover meatballs. You never see that at an art opening! I read some of the paper, catch a little of the news, which I don’t know why I even watch now. Something comes over me and I fall asleep on the couch. Mom covers me with a blanket somewhere in the space of time there after she’d come home and cooked some fish fillets and boiled potatoes.

I awoke and just wanted to get home. She’s put a plate on over the pot for a lid, and it’s spilling over onto the burner. I turn the heat down.
I’d like to stay but just want to go home. I have the woodstove all set to go with newspaper and wood stacked in it.

Dad tells me my brother Matt has helped uncle Carl with some of his concrete pour. He has Fridays off. Probably worked for free, his tithing arrangement through his church. Here I am a mile away from my uncle’s house, trying to make a living building and fixing houses, and what does he do? He calls my brother 30 miles away…who will work for free. Lovely.

No big deal. My back is too old for concrete much anymore. The snub still feels weird. I’m doing something else. I’m getting away from toil best reserved for men in their teens and twenties, or too stubborn or simplistic to advance into the organisational aspects of construction.

Wish he’d at least call so I can turn the work down. It’s as if I’m not even here.

At home I feed the cats, and all is well. A cup of wine and “bonk”. Some one is on top of the table. It is Lego, who’s since jumped down. Whinnie’s food put there for a moment. I fed him a full portion of dry mix with a whole pouch of moist mixed in. Still he’s after the extra. Anything left out. I tell him, “out”. Out he goes. Will he never know he can’t get on the table? I try to be neutral in urging him along. This has to be the third time on a week. He’s pretty healthy. The chart at the vet pretty much suggests he’s on his way to obesity! So, I give him the special stuff. He eats it all gone…and looks for more.

A nice farewell song on the Jazz show in “Willow Weep For Me”, by the late Lou Rawls. He died today. What a memorable singing voice, so strong and clear.

First Castings

In a test of casting with the moulds I’ve created I’ve found an odd distortion created by the heat that builds up from its setting. It deflects quite a bit…at least to the point of not being able to use it as the supporting ledge of the larger cornice. In trying to see if it will bend while drying it snaps in the center. I can use it for smaller sections…if indeed it matches up. The whole job seemes to have been done in running moulds in situ, that is the plaster for the bead seems done last not first, following the deflections of the cornice. I have a tough time imagining how they put it up in slurry and screeded it off with a metal profile.

Anyway, I will figure it out. I am considering some sort of truss rod, the way guitars are made to tweak the wood into correct action if and when moisture affects it. I will also cap off the top part and slurry the mix in from the back.

Still have to chop wood for tonight. Better get going. Nice enough day out if a little cold.

I had just done dishes. I took no pictures when I moved in, save the door I needed imediately done to my bedroom. With it being so dark in here I chose a French door with clear window panes, thinking I could do curtains later.

The pot-belly stove. This is the spot where my electric stove and oven used to be. The refrigerator was to the right of that, but it swung out wildly because of the slope of the floor. The could have shimmed it.

My dining room table/slash cupboards. I put a blue bedding sheet up for a curtain…for now. There is a nice view to the meadow. It seemed bucolic and enjoyable until all it did was conjure more work in my mind. I will remedy this before Spring because the crab apple puts off some terrific blooms.

Cookie hound, Zachary.
He’s getting quite conversational.

bonus picture: Crab Apple blooming
approximate view out dining room window documenting damage of a late April snowstorm. I did a lot of trimming to it after that.

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Wind Damage

Downed tree from the last windstorm.

another angle…

Lagavullin

Reading Electric Meters

Well, I had to go read the meters for the electric utility. They let us do that out here on our own, and then charge us an access fee, presumably to pay for the cable coming in off the transformer, like a rental or something. Actually, I’m not sure what an access fee is for. I know that even if I don’t use any electricity I’m still paying $9.00 a month for “access fee”. For that they ought to be reading the meters.

(View toward pumphouse with J. Bulle’s kitty wainscotting border cutout remnant on window ledge)

So I step out onto the back porch looking east.

(View of pumphouse a football field distant)

(Pumphouse. Built with wooden ammunition boxes, uninsulated, above ground. Note the drooping power line. I’ve already re-routed the new cable for it in plastic conduit below ground, but haven’t switched over. The leaning power pole complicates this.)

(Meter on pump. It will be spinning madly because of heat lamp pointed onto pump housing about now.)

Then I walk back up to read the meter for my house located on a pole next to the workshop.

(View from pumphouse towards my house.)

(Note neutral wire -white- stapled into the tree. I doubt this is kosher anywhere in the world.)

(I cannot wait until this is fixed right. It bothers me a lot.)

(December entry running late again.)

(view from workshop towards my hovel, er…house.)

(photo of my “field office”)

(combined assets from recent aquisitions.)

(chief axe-excutive officer)(Yours Truly)

Trying to change

I resigned moderator duties at Post Poems. Explained that I wasn’t doing much anyway in the Prose Department, and “unwatched” topics that were being sent to my Yahoo mail. It troubles me that one person who got to writing with me on a personal level has seemingly abandoned that completely, but having cut ropes loose on a couple other boats chock a block with bollocks it’s not new over a course of about a year.

I took my coffee bean grinder into town too and gave it to my brother and his wife. He said that he’d keep it until I wanted it back. I’d also taken him over to the building I’m working in and showed him the mould I’d made after having taken it down to the basement and resetting the scaffold a little lower for tomorrow’s session at the bottom pieces.

I bought a couple herb teas and some swedish orange thins to go with them. Something about the cookie aisle tonight transfixed me for the idea of wanting something sweet for a change.

I have pictures of some of the insides of my house, and even my nephew Zachary eating a cookie after dinner, but I’m too tired to upload them tonight. I want to try and make a fresh start tomorrow and see if I can make some changes to my life, my extended mood that seems like a boat with a slow leak.

Grandma’s birthday

The past couple days pass by with a whirring pace. Grandmother’s birthday Sunday. I give her a telephone call. She intends on playing cards with her friends and then a visit at Alf and Cristin’s. She feels the most at home in a family full of children. She tells me that my dad is always the first one to call and wish her a Happy Birthday, that none of the uncles or aunts have beaten him yet. My mother has already taken her to breakfast since he’s out of town, staying at my sister’s up north.

It was also Super Sunday, and the Super Bowl, which is less about football than anything these days. I’m not interested, and so I take the deserted roads in to work, I do take a lunch break about three and visit Alf’s. He’s feeling under the weather, and sits on the couch in his pajamas. I get up the idea to go outside, because Catherine wants to go out side. She’s doing something to get ready, and so I slip Zachary’s little shoes on and take him out there to the swing-set. I try to teach him how to push his feet and legs off of my hands. Cathering shows up. Five minutes go by and Jonah shows up. So, I’m now pushing three kids at a time, dodging Zach’s feet to his great amusement. Finally Max comes out. His swing (along with Zachary’s – he being the two-year-old) has latching straps that he insists gets to latch, and starts crying. I unlatch them and he quits. At this point I think I would throw caution to the wind, do away with the extra safety feature. Catherine (the oldest) is already swinging diagonally, coming close to hitting either Jonah or Zachary. By the time Max is up to speed it’s time to go in. I head back to work. My brother, I know, has probably had a fifteen minute nap.

Yesterday I spent most of the day setting up a chop-saw fence for repeatable accuracy. I try shooting one frame up with a nail gun and level. The nails fold back onto themselves on top. Too long! I switch to a shorter nail and everything goes better. The owner stops in for a talk. He’s still undecided about design. I think to myself something exclamational. Provided with visual aids. I’m even hold an unmounted frame up against the wall for him while he stans back. (Come on…decide!)

A visit to the folks house, watching a TV show called “24″, then home. The show is about one man’s capability in stopping terrorists. Yeah, reality TV at its best. And of course, over the space of 24 hours (hence the title of the series, it never shows him copping some Z’s, snoring, or even heavily-lidded about the eyes.)

Pictures later.