I See The Moon

Now that most of the leaves are off the trees courtesy of last night's thunderstorm I can see the moon tonight.  It was overcast all day until about 4 o'clock when the sky cleared and the sun came out.  No clouds means that it's going to get to about twenty-seven degrees tonight.  Brr.  It's too danged early for this.  At least we got rain instead of the six inches of snow that Minneapolis got yesterday.

 

The Downy Woodpecker remembered the suet pellet feeder and came back today.  The squirrel visited the suet cake feeder a bunch of times today but hasn't found the pellets... yet.

I finished the ribbing on the Warm Harvest Beanie tonight and started the body of the hat.  Sixteen more rounds and I'll start the crown decreases.

23 October--Barbara Malcolm, The Seaview. 

By the end of the day Silas and I had worked our way through the kitchen and the owner’s sitting room and bedroom.  The dumpster was filled with moldy wall board and any wood that was spongy.

I spent a lot of the afternoon sitting in the shade on a low stool with a claw hammer and a scrap of wood on my lap carefully levering the nails out of any pieces of wood that Silas thought were worth saving.  I was surprised at how insistent he was that we salvage as much as we could.

I told him that I had two by fours and sheets of plywood in the container that was on the way but he said, “No use wasting perfectly good wood, missus.  You just set here and pull out the nails.  I will find you a can to put the nails in, and do not bend them.  Bending the nails so that they can’t be reused will not excuse you from the work.”

I was surprised at the vehement tone of his voice and I could see by his expression that he was too.  “Did you suddenly sound like your father?” I asked with a smile.

He nodded.  “Yes.”

“Scary, isn’t it?  I remember the first time I heard my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth.  I wanted to yank my tongue off its roller and tear it right out.”  I sat down in the shade to start my appointed task.  “After a while you’ll get used to hearing your mother or father in your words.”

All afternoon I sat working my way through the pile of wood that Silas and I had made in the morning which was just as well, I was pretty sore from my afternoon with the machete the day before.  As he worked his way through the bathroom in what would eventually be my apartment and started on the lobby, the pile to be de-nailed grew faster than I could shift it and the dumpster’s contents grew more varied.  On one of Silas’ trips past me I asked him how soon I could expect to move into the apartment.  He laughed.

“You need to come and look at what you call your apartment, Mrs. Rose, and then maybe you can tell me how soon.”

He held out his dark-brown hand to help me up.  My pretzeled legs protested and felt a bit weak as I stood to follow him into the hotel.  He led me though the kitchen and down the short hall to what would eventually become my sitting room.

It looked as if an earthquake had struck.  I knew my jaw was hanging open.  “What happened in here?  It… it didn’t look that bad when I came through with the seller’s agent.”

Silas folded his arms over his chest and shook his head.  “Rot happened.  This place has been neglected for years.  Even when that French businessman owned it, he did the bare minimum so his family could spend a few weekends here every year.  Old Reynaldo puttered around, patching things, stringing wire and wrapping pipes, so that no one got electrocuted or fell through the floor but no one cared if rain came in seeping down the support beams.  I could not let you live in this place the way it was.”

“How long will it take to make it livable?”  I was stunned at what looked like the bare skeleton of a room.

“Oh, not long.  I called my cousin Edward and two of his friends who are waiting to start work at Shearwater Resort over on St. Martin; they will come tomorrow and help me test each of the rafters and joists in every room.  We will know by the weekend what we are facing.  Tell Auntie Anne that you will need your room for a least a month.”  He turned on his megawatt smile.  “It is low season, she will be glad to have you stay there that long.  She might even make you a deal.”  He followed me back out to the backyard and showed me the spongy wood that could be shredded with bare hands.  It looked like something from a child’s science project.  The wallboard had been so wet that it was foamy and its paper sides were black with mold where the paint had peeled off.  Suddenly I was glad that Anne had put me in touch with her responsible nephew.

Today's toss was a bag of socks and a couple sweaters that don't fit anymore.  I swapped the rest of the summer socks for the rest of the winter socks and weeded out the ones I didn't wear last winter and won't wear this winter.

I also found the last few hand-knitted socks that were missing.  I thought I'd looked carefully in the storage tote but when I pulled out the thick socks there they were.  Whew.

--Barbara