First Day of Fall

I love fall. Cool nights, warm days and fog melted by sun. Hopefully it will start raining here, soon. Really soon.

El Nino's supposed to be blasting through California this winter. According to the weather gurus, it will affect Southern California the most, but we'll be affected, too. In preparation, we're having the five cypress trees behind our house taken out.

They've started looking sickly the past couple of years. Not having lived with cypress trees before, we didn't know better, but the tree guy did. One look and, 'they're infested with beetles'. He even showed hubby where the beetles get in and out.

That's not a good thing. High wind, weak trees and... I really don't want to "buy" our backdoor neighbor's house, so the trees have got to go. And they will, tomorrow, and that's sad.

I like trees. I like the way they look, their shade, their smell. Not wild keen on their pollen, of course. That makes my eyes water, so that's a downside. But their good things offset the few weeks of misery they cause, so I'll think of them next summer when the sun is beating against the back of the house without respite.

Upside: my laundry will dry faster and I can put it out for more weeks in the year since the sun will be able to linger on it longer.

Downside: the sun will burn us up on hot days next summer - no shade to mitigate the heat.

Our neighbors aren't thrilled, that's for sure. Even though it's their house that's in the line of fire if one or more of those trees blow over.

When they heard about the trees coming down, they started complaining because they won't have "privacy". Well, here's a newsflash: they don't have much privacy, now, and neither do we.

It's not as if we're peeping Toms. I'm not. Ew. Particularly with the very average overweight, middle-aged guy who's got the annoying habit of whistling (badly) every minute of every day. Not the guy of my dreams and definitely not stalk-worthy. Middle aged spread and balding. Ew. I get that at home, thanks. Except the whistling. My hubby doesn't whistle.

His wife is, in my opinion, attractive, but hubby complains about her "always being there, in the kitchen". Not the declaration of a man in lust with his neighbor's wife. Otherwise he'd keep his mouth shut and linger by the windows upstairs to catch a glimpse. There are other signs, too. Things said and so on. But we'll just let it lie there because otherwise I'll cut too close to the privacy barrier I'm trying to maintain here.

So. If we're in our downstairs we can't see anything. There's a fence and humongous rose bush in the way. All we can see is the back of their house and their upper windows on which they have shades and blinds and drapes.

If we're in our upstairs we could, if we wanted to, watch them through their downstairs windows, so long as they stand at their kitchen sink or stand right next to their back door into the yard. That's it. Their lack of privacy is two windows and they have to stand right by them to be exposed.

Now maybe they're taller than I am, and maybe they can see over the fence, but now they want to put a trellis across the top of the fence. Which would be, considering the age and condition of the fence, a complete waste of money.

The builder of this subdivision cut corners every which way to Sunday on these houses. Our six-foot 'good neighbor' fence wasn't constructed out of redwood or Douglas fir. I'm not sure the species of wood, but in fifteen years it's already rotting away. Not a little rotting away, a whole lot. As in the wood, in places, is held together by the layer of paint.

The bottom section is a 12-inch plank laid across the bottom of a panel with five foot boards above it. That saved a lot of money because I suspect those bottom sections are plywood. Each of those sections saved about ten linear feet of fence board material across each panel. I can't say for sure that they're plywood, because they're painted and I never really paid attention and looked for the tells along the edge (the layering), but even if they're not, they're some kind of cheap soft wood. The 3x3 posts are rotting and the whole thing is sagging like a drunken sailor.

Hubby doesn't want to pay to get it fixed or replaced, so I'm wondering what's going to happen when the trees come out. I think I know. It'll fall over. The rotten posts and pieces will disintegrate. So the lady of the house behind us might get her wish - a new fence with a trellis. I don't know. I just know that I hate to see those trees come down.

The great news that came out of that decision is that over the weekend, preparing for the tree service guys, hubby got the bug to clear the deck and patio of the furniture. (I hate that furniture - it's covered in mold and green growth and it's dirty and...) Seeing the cleared up backyard he said, 'that looks pretty good. Maybe we should get a dumpster and get rid of that stuff.'

I hope he didn't see me fall to my knees, praying that he would call the trash company for a dumpster.

The only problem with that will be that my "clothesline" will go away, too.

Ours has been very much of a Beverly Hillbillies / trailer trash existence. He doesn't want to spend a penny on anything, so we make due. It's galling to me because I don't see the problem with fixing or replacing what's broke, but he doesn't want to spend money on it. A bone of contention and one that has caused me to develop scars inside my mouth from biting my lips. Complaining doesn't accomplish anything. The wall would be more responsive, and less argumentative.

The upside, and yes, there is an upside, is that we don't spend the money we have. It's saved. So when we do need / want it, it will be there, but living day-to-day is... Low class. Best description, most honest and not what I want, but... Waddaya do?

The furniture is one thing I've wanted to get rid of. It looked great for the first five years, but age took its toll and it was past it's prime about three summers back.

The vinyl chairs could be resurrected with a good scrubbing. If we ever used them. But they were bought for 'show' and were rarely, if ever, used. So I'd be happy to see them go.

What's going to be a problem is the bench swing. The foam seat rotted after about ten years, so we took that out and pitched it. Then we were left with the frame. Which we repurposed by stringing it with clothesline. That became my "dryer" during the summer. For the towels and sheets and big stuff, we strung clothesline from the frame of the swing over to the posts along the edge of the deck. A seriously Trailer Trash look, but it worked so I tolerated it.

Now, with the clearing, that's been moved onto the deck, out of the way, and the trailer trash look is gone! What a relief!! And hubby may break down and rent a bin. I think I'm going to push that now, while the backyard still looks clear. Otherwise he'll probably swing back down into same-old-same-old and the opportunity will be missed.

Then - once that's cleared up and my clothesline is gone, too, I'll go to Home Depot or Lowes or find something online and buy an inexpensive replacement - a real clothesline thingie.

So - that's how my fall is starting off. I hope yours is just as exciting!

Best~
Philippa

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September in Sonoma County - The Earth Mother Strikes!

Frankly, it stinks. I mean, it stinks, literally.

I was driving home after work last night and as I came over the last hill I got a whiff of something. At first, I thought it was something in the car - it smelled horrible, but I couldn't place it. Kept driving, smell got stronger and was highly reminiscent (<== see that? scent - clever, huh?) Anyway. It smelled like old, sweaty gym socks. I rolled down the window so I wouldn't suffocate, and the smell got worse - sweaty gym socks overlain with the stench of a week-old diaper left under the porch so it would mildew and rot.

Oh, yeah. Fall in Sonoma County. Liquid manure spread hither and yon across the fields to prepare for the winter hay growing season. A memory I put out of mind as soon as the first rain comes and washes it down. In the meantime, it's not pleasant. It's fecund - like a giant cesspit.

Lovely, right? Makes you wanna hop right on that plane and head on over, doesn't it?

So why am I going on about this, spoiling your lunch or breakfast or whatever you might be doing? I don't know. Because I can, maybe? Because it's front and center in my awareness? Whatever. It is.

Other than that, things are quiet on this Western Front. Lots of little things going on, but nothing Earth shattering.

Fall is coming. All of the trees are starting to prepare themselves. The oaks are turning yellow, the poison oak - even though it nearly hospitalized me, once upon a time - is lovely to see. It's all different shades of red from pale to almost scarlet, really pretty in the sunshine. Warm days, cool nights and I have to say, I am looking forward to cooler nights, still.

There was wetness on the pavement in the backyard this morning. Not standing water - but the concrete patio was definitely dampish, so that's another encouraging sign.

I'm on the fence about the threats / promise of the El Nino. We desperately need the rain but we don't need so much we'll have floods and landslides. Just enough would be just enough, but what is that? Our aquifers are dry, or as close to as makes no difference. Lakes and reservoirs are showing bottoms that shouldn't be shown.

Personally, and I'm sure I am not alone in this, I am tired of watching every drop of water and capturing it as if I'm in Frank Herbert's book 'Dune'. I don't want to be profligate and waste it. I hate waste at the best of times but, oh! To be able to take a real shower! To wet and soap and rinse without rushing like a madwoman.

The ten minute showers that were routine before rationing are now down to about seven minutes or less and that three minutes makes a big difference in my feeling of well-being and satisfaction.

As for the relief El Nino might bring, there's no sign of it, yet, in the forecasts I've seen. Maybe the hay farmers know something I don't, though. They usually stink the place up a week or ten days before the rains start - it gives Nature a chance to do its thing before the miasma gets washed into the soil.

Well, I'm going to go out into the clean, fresh air of Napa County, take my walk and breathe deeply before going home this evening and holding my nose.

Have a lovely fresh air kind of day!

Best~
Philippa

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