We have running water at the Pope house! and I got to be the first to use the toilet in my new bathroom! Now THAT is progress, my friends.
Ooh, aah. It works.
Note that the toilet was re-used, and was at the house when we got it. It was pretty new, so Ms Erma must have replaced it recently before she moved out.
One, um, interesting detail is that since the window we installed had to be low, due to the stairs, you get to enjoy the entire neighborhood and traffic (such as it is) on College Avenue as you sit on the throne. That makes me glad we got blinds to install.
You actually see more of the road out the window. And obviously it couldn’t be any higher!
Other plumbing also got done. The other bathroom is now fully functional.
That mirror is tiny. It’s hung now, but useless to tall people.
As I mentioned yesterday, Chris has requested we never get a faucet like this very cute one again. It took many hours to finish it today.
El chingaso
We also lost the pedestal sink we’d wanted to re-use. It broke as Chris tried to work on it. That means I get to pick a new one. It has to be small!
Tubby is looking forward to this new faucet. It didn’t come in black.
Lee’s Office Improvements
Lee spent most of yesterday on his most important office feature, the sound system. He re-did his mother’s old stereo cabinet to have modern insides (removing a rat nest from inside, mmm).
Nest was at left. Nice.
He put in a new tuner and speakers and will add a modern turntable.
He was proud of the finished product, which also needs new cloth in front of the speakers.
A man and his stereo.
As far as he’s concerned, with the added chair, he’s done. It sounds great, by the way.
The listening station.
Next up is the water heater. Our dream of hot water will finally come true. It will have to wait until Monday, though. There’s ranch and Ross stuff to do today.
It was a busy day. Much of Kathleen’s day consisted of planting and hoeing again. I did a great job picking things out. I am not a very energetic Louise to her Thelma.
Some of our haul.
This morning we went back to My Flea, in Milano, where I’d gotten these cute guys with Chris last week. Kathleen and I got Mexican pottery for each of our new plants, and I got some for plants I’m going to root or divide.
What I got last week, and the plant that goes in the chicken.
They are so festive, and the prices are really good. I broke down and bought the plant-holding donkey to go with the other one. And I had to get a little claw-foot tub, of course, for my bathroom.
What a cheerful guy!
Kathleen got a stand for our fern and a cute little cart that actually rolls. The plan is to put seasonal decorations in the cart. Fun!
We came back and used up all our potting soil to plant our three big plants. They look so pretty, especially the fern.
Fern and stand.
We will get more soil next week. In the meantime I’ll be rooting some pothos plants.
Corn plant. Isn’t the pot pretty?
The rest of the day, Kathleen was a bundle of energy in the yard. She’s going to get rid of the burr clover and sand burs. She’s going to encourage actual grass! And she’s going to plant lantana around the trees.
Clearing around the oak tree.
And what I find most ambitious is that she is going to plant things to disguise the giant gas line and old flagpole. She prepped for those today. Next comes weed killer and whatever else. I’ll watch.
Because my employer gave us the day off in honor of Juneteenth (good for them), Kathleen and I decided to do something fun. We went to the little local nursery in Cameron to get some plants for the new office, since it’s pretty smelly in there from floor finishing (another post).
New plants!
It was hard to decide what to get, because they had so many lovely things. I got myself a spider plant for my office, because the ones in Austin got aphids or something. Boo. She got a pothos for hers, but I’m going to make one out of the plant in my bedroom (and Mandi May have made me one, too).
We found our company on a poster! Kathleen is wearing her Thelma hat. I happen to have Louise.
I also got a peace plant, and because I messed up Mandi’s, I’ve made it the Mandi’s Mom Memorial Peace Plant. That pleased her. That’s it for indoors.
The peace plant, before watering. Before planting.
Kathleen got three roses for in front of her office and a hibiscus for the patio on the other side. She also got a fern and a corn plant. For now, they are on the front porch, but one is really for the reception office.
The hibiscus. It will be red.
She picked three pretty plants for the area around the mailbox. One the young man at the shop said was a Mexican honeysuckle. The others are purple. I had to look it up. PlantSnap said it was a golden dewdrop. Okay. Duranta erecta is its name and it will be big and thorny. Oh my. But it’s native to Mexico, so it may not make it through the winter.
Golden dewdrop, purple type.
Well, the nursery mostly has Mexican plants, so that makes sense! The people who run the place are very nice and take such good care of the plants. I’m very glad they’re here in our little town.
The Mexican plant collection.
After I went to the farrier visit, we planted the ones that go in the ground. I admit Kathleen did the hard work. I weeded. Then Chris also helped. It was fun, and the weather wasn’t too bad in the shade.
Thelma plants a foundation plant.
It all looks quite cheerful. Tomorrow Kathleen is going to work on the grass, and we are going to get some cheerful Mexican pottery for the indoor plants. Fun times. It’s feeling like a real, cared-for, old house!
Today is the first day of the next phase of our Hearts Homes and Hands project. We closed on a pretty big piece of property in Cameron, the Ross house we’ve showed you a couple of times.
It’s ours! Let’s get that tree out of the entry.
Now Hermits’ Rest Enterprises owns the cute house, the land around it, and a lot across the street.
Look! It’s a lot!
After the closing, which was nice and smooth, we met the heirs of the previous owner. Then Lee, Kathleen, and I ran to the house and gleefully pulled up ALL the many For Sale signs around the property.
Happy Not for Sale Day!
It felt good. If Kathleen wasn’t recovering from some medical stuff, she’d have turned cartwheels. Her dream house is ready for her to have a wonderful future in it…well, as soon as it has a functioning kitchen and bathroom. Details, details.
Kathleen is trying not to run in the house and start moving stuff around.
We’re all enjoying dreaming of Victorian decor, that is when we aren’t working on the current project! the end is near!
Some people say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and I am definitely an old[er]…person. I’ve always thought of myself as a realist, in that I see the beauty and good in the world, but I don’t deny the sadness, sorrow, injustice and pain that’s around me, either. Life is suffering, after all, says the Buddha.
Top that off with a healthy dose of empathy and sensitivity to the moods of others around me, and I end up not being the biggest little ray of sunshine in Central Texas. I have even railed about “toxic positivity” and “non-toxic positivity” right here in this blog, not that long ago.
For me, there’s room for each.
However, in the last few months, life has been conspiring to teach me new ways of walking through life, thanks to some people who just sorta showed up, or I just started paying closer attention to them. And it’s not just reading all those Buddhist articles that help you see that living in the moment is key.
You see, I used to avoid the relentlessly optimistic if at all possible. Always seeing the bright side of things, ugh. “Oh, no, I have the flu.” “That’s great! You can catch up on your reading!” I also got tired of the relentlessly negative, too. I know people who can suck the life out of any conversation by pointing out the negative consequences of anything: “It’s such a pretty day!” “Yeah, but you’ll get skin cancer if you stand in the sun.”
Depending on how you look at life, this may well be true.
I probably have mentioned before that I loathe being told to smile when I am, at the moment, not actually happy. Sure, I’ve read that forcing yourself to smile can make you happier, but sometimes there’s good reason to be unhappy, at least temporarily. Okay, fine.
Look at that happy face!
I’ve been watching the positive people in my life more closely, though. Here’s one you can watch yourself: go follow Emma G on Facebook. That is one positive woman. I happen to know that she’s faced some challenges in the year I’ve been reading her posts, but she never fails to find something good, some way a challenge has helped her grow, or a way something she’s learned can help others. I look forward to that smiling face every day, as she shares how she’s working on her musical career while minimizing danger from COVID-19.
Here, wine is helping us stay positive.
Living with Kathleen the past few months has also been a lesson at looking on the positive side of things. I have never seen anyone post so many cheerful memes in my entire life. Sometimes I’m like, geez, you have insomnia and are sick to your stomach, but you’re still posting “everything’s GREAT” all over Facebook. I see, though, that she’s trying to draw in the good stuff by sharing it (guessing it’s the power of attraction or something). Whatever it is, even when it irritates me a little, I can’t HELP but be reminded to look at what’s good in my own life, which is leading me toward a more positive outlook. She’s another person who’s had some real challenges to deal with in the past year but is finding ways to see the good. She’s never afraid to go talk to someone about our business and get some sort of positive outcome, too. Also, she’s one amazing idea generator. Now she wants me to have a donkey ranch.
This was taken just after Pam gave me a positive pep talk.
Another beacon of positivity is my friend Pam B. from the Breakfast Club here in Cameron. She’s another person who just radiates happiness and works hard to cultivate good in the world. Every time I talk to her, she says something about wanting to “elevate the good” or find joy or something to that effect. She is amazing at bringing people together for the betterment of this small but quite vital community (and is really fun to watch in community theater). Seeing how she works so hard to bring happiness to her friends, neighbors, and families is a real inspiration.
Here’s Eva with the sun behind her, making her even sunnier.
A final source of positive vibes is my coworker, Eva. I’ve known her since I started working at Planview, so I’ve had plenty of time to soak in her attitude. Especially in the past few years, she has provided a great example of how to take feedback that might upset someone or get them down, and turn it into an opportunity to learn more, find a new way to present information, or create a better product. She’s confident in the skills she has, and doesn’t take it personally when I mess with her grammar, because she knows perfectly well that the actual ideas are great. But it’s not just about work, but all aspects of her life that she brings along a sunny attitude and a lot of gratitude. It’s rubbing off, slowly but surely.
Here’s one of Kathleen’s memes.
People like this have been in my life before, some for many years, but I must be in a position to be more open to their input and to learning from them (thanks to those Enneagram books, I guess). I’ve been told that people come into your life for a reason, which is hard for someone like me, who has mostly been convinced that life is random. But, maybe there’s something to it, and something to the idea that if you surround yourself with positive people, you’ll be more positive, even if there’s a pandemic going on.
Another thoughtful meme that I have taken to heart. Some people may wish I hadn’t.
Do you know a relentlessly positive person? If you do, THANK them, and see if you can let a bit of that attitude rub off on you. Things in the world won’t change, but you may be better able to cope with it. I am, thanks to Emma, Kathleen, Pam, and Eva (and all you others I didn’t mention).
Okay, let’s all be SUPER HAPPY! Be a ray of sunshine like Emma, Kathleen, Pam, and Eva!
Next week, the refinishing of the floor in my new office will start. That means I’ll need a desk. Chris really wanted to make one, as I e mentioned before. We both wanted to re-use old materials for it. We found doors we wanted to use as the desk top and sides among ones we had to remove in the renovation.
The future desk doors
But, we didn’t find suitable framing stuff, even when we looked at various antique shops. Then, one day, Chris was at our friend Mike’s woodworking shop, borrowing a saw. He noticed some old pipe, and asked Mike what it was. It turns out it was the old gas lines that got removed when we were working on the Hermit Haus.
Parts of the pipe he didn’t use.
Mike hadn’t wanted them to go to waste, so he took them home. He was happy to give them to Chris for the desk project!
So, today was welding day. I’ve never watched anyone build with metal before, so I hung around and watched Chris as he worked. Numerous dogs helped until sparks started flying.
Everyone was happy while he was just selecting pipe to use.
We did the work under the shady roof over our shipping container (future tack room and stalls for horses). Alfred dug himself a nice hole to sit in.
Happy Alfred
First, Chris cut all the pieces from the old pipe. It was really exact. He marked the cuts with a soapstone marker. Interesting!
Firing up the welder
Heating up pipe
That’s hot
Fire!
Welding time!
I kept watching the little fires that came up, ready to throw my cup of water on them. But it was fine.
After that, Chris put on his helmet and put everything together. It didn’t take long at all! It was like magic! I enjoyed seeing how he leveled the legs and attached all the parts securely.
Finishing the main frame
It’s a rectangle!
Support bar in
Adding more bars
Building the legs
Getting things square
Complete desk frame.
Building the desk
The highlight was when he put the old door on the rustic frame. Wow. So cool. It will look amazing with the big piece of glass on top.
The door fits!
I even got to practice sitting at my desk. What a fun thing to do on a Sunday!
It seems to work!
Thanks to Chris for his willingness to make this one-of-a-kind example of using what you have!
It’s a rooster, of course. Since we are down 3 hens (we lost our injured Jewel last week) I wanted more. Bird and Bee Farm keeps running out of chickens, so I despaired of getting more any time soon. But yesterday we got a call from Cindy Rek, who said our turn had come, because they finally have baby guinea fowl (called keats), which Kathleen has been wanting.
Precious guinea Keats
We hadn’t expected them so soon, so we’ve been scrambling to get stuff set up for them ever since. With a plan in our minds, Chris and I set out for the farm so we could arrive by 8 am. That is dedication. But that way we were the first to get there.
Bird and Bee Farm Wildscape
The Wildscape my Master Naturalist friend, Catherine Johnson, works so hard on is really coming into its own. So many flowers and creative touches. She’s started a southwestern garden and a moon garden with all white flowers.
More Wildscape with cosmos in back
After petting the Rek’s new collie puppy, Dixie, we went in for chickens and guineas. Very quickly, Chris came over with a box of ten little darlings. Five are lavender and five some other fancy color. They’re just a few weeks old and like to Peep. So I want to name them all Peep, so we can later chill with our Peeps.
There are ten keats in here, actually in half the box.
I had more trouble, since I wanted older pullets. Well, they are selling them so fast that the oldest they had were 3.5 months old. I realized we’d have to separate the current hens from the new ones. Time for Plan B!
Hedy, Hedley, and Spring or Steen
I ended up with two very black Jersey Giants (supposed to be very nice) that I had to name Spring and Steen. Jersey girls. We also got a gorgeous Silver Wyandotte. Her feathers are gorgeous, black with white tips. Her name is Patti. Mrs Springsteen.
Pretty Patti
They begged me to take a rooster, so I picked a flashy Easter Egger, in the hopes that maybe Fancy Pants can raise us some babies with olive eggs. Guess what I named him? Bruce. He has some hilarious whiskers around his face. We are probably getting another rooster from a friend. I guess he will be either Clarence or Little Steven.
Bruce. He should be quite flashy as he matures.
There is another pair. They are Ancona, a pretty breed that apparently has red eyes. They are mostly black but have random white tips. Ours have a few white feathers, too. I read that they get more white with each moult. I ran out of E Street Band enthusiasm and named them Hedy and Hedley.
All six blackish chickens in a confused clump.
Now that we had chickens, we had to get another dog pen to put the teen chickens in, and a place for the guinea fowl to grow in. And feeders and waterers. Each group eats different food, of course. It only took two different Tractor Supply stores, thanks to the nice clerk in Rockdale who found us one in College Station. That was a nice store. It did get tiresome wearing my mask, but I looked like a cowgirl.
The gay pride frame helps.
Our other errand was to pick up some stuff from the John Deere store. Only it wasn’t outside the store like they said it would be. It’s okay, we enjoyed driving around looking at farms.
Back at the Hermits’ Rest we went into bird housing overdrive. Chris got the guinea chicks in the big dog pen we got for them, only to watch them squeezing out. Oops. Luckily we’d bought chicken wire in case we needed it. While Lee and I chased the last escapee, the wire went up. Whew.
Before the chicken wire. They could escape!
They loved their water and food dishes and soon were falling all over each other eating and drinking. After that, the babies napped a lot.
No escape now. They are napping anyway.
Meanwhile, much to the annoyance of Ginger, Bertie Lee, and Fancy Pants, Chris temporarily confined them the a small part of their coop. Then he let the black chickens out. Everyone had food and water, but the Springsteen family hid in their box for a long time.
Even Fancy Pants made an appearance to voice her dislike of the cramped quarters.
Lee and Chris quickly built the new addition, which is bigger than the original because of how he arranged the dog pen panels.
Excuse us, interlopers, but you are in our space! Bertie Lee and Ginger are not amused.
Next, we took some of the tin left over from the Pope house project and made some shade panels for the original section, in the west, and a bit of rain cover for the new addition. They needed more shade.
Penney inspects the pointy end of the new chicken run area.
After putting in some roosting branches/boards the new group was released there and the old ones got their house back. No doubt they are jealous of the grass the new chickens have. Don’t worry, I gave them some.
Tin roof (needs work) in the new section, and more tin in the old part, making it lots shadier.
The black chickens had never seen grass or treats before, but they figured it out fast. By the time I went inside, they were happily eating, drinking and pecking.
This is the life!
We found some wood to make a couple more nest boxes and a second little coop for when the new guys start laying. They will be okay with their cardboard box temporarily.
Their beloved transport box and a roosting perch are at right. They also have a branch to roost on, outside the photo.
I can’t believe Chris got as much done today as he did! Instant chicken quarters! I’m very grateful for his creativity and willingness to do this, since it was NOT on the original weekend plan.
No, we aren’t going anywhere fun or doing anything exciting together. Darn. But, it’s almost that good, at least to our ranch community: we have a closing date for the Ross house in Cameron! Next week can’t come too soon!
Our favorite tree at the Ross house.
When I got the message from the title company that it was a go, I wanted to reach out through the internet and hug Kim, but that’s not appropriate right now. We are being asked to do an in-person closing, which makes me a bit uncomfortable, but we can wear masks and hope they have a big table!
Now that we have the date, we can make our nebulous plans for the house more concrete. While Felix was here yesterday, he figured out a way to have multiple systems, so parts of the house that aren’t in use can be closed off and only heated or cooled enough to prevent mold or frost. That will help a lot.
Hmm. The address sure changes.
Now I am going to get moving and learn as much about the house and it’s previous owners as possible (the Lesters, the Mondricks, others). I’ll be talking to a lot of people I know in Cameron and looking up information on the history of the place. All those documents in the attic will be very helpful, and perhaps the historical museum will want some of them, too. I’d hesitated to mess around with them until I was sure we’d be getting the house. And I hope we are able to save and restore some of the beautiful photographs to use in the main parlor area.
Pretty sure this is Lillian.
So far, I’ve figured out that Ross Avenue is named after former governor, Sul Ross, who was born in the first house in Cameron, where the pavilion is now. I better get started talking to people.
While it’s true that the Mighty Chris is doing most of the work on the Pope Residence renovation, I’m helping when I can. Today I volunteered to work on the big fireplace in the main office.
But wait, I got a picture of the garlic teapot I bought yesterday. I think it’s so precious.
Where was I? We wanted to see what color the tiles on it really are, because there’s one missing, and we want to find a compatible replacement. It became clear that there was a lot of work to do when we tried to get one tile clean.
Before. You can really tell which tile has been cleaned as a test. And you can see the spilled stuff near the paper towel. Also, there is a lot of ancient ash in the fireplace.
Also, some of the sealant for the brick had gotten dripped on the hearth tiles, and we wanted to try to get that taken off, if possible. I showed up prepared to sweat, and that I did!
Close-up of the tile before. Lots of streaks and drips, and ick, what’s in the fireplace?
I used a whole LOT of degreasing and grime remover products, combined with steel wool and a scraper to get what appeared to be many decades of smoke, nicotine, and whatever else…who knows?
In progress The drips are from the degreaser. Yuck.
The hardest part was the sealant. Some of it wanted to STAY, darn it! But I persevered, because once I start cleaning something, I have to see it done!
Close up of cleaned tiles and cleaned-out fireplace.
The results pleased me very much, even though it’s still obviously a very old fireplace that got a lot of use. I think maybe the tiles were handmade, like all the brick, because they vary in color in a really pleasant way. I’m glad I didn’t ruin them with all my chemicals!
Nothing is going to get that black stuff up, but I did get all the drips, and discovered some tiles that had been replaced.
Meanwhile…
The other work on the house is going along just great, though there have been some hiccups with installing the sliding barn doors. Chris had a lot of adventures with epoxy yesterday, but I like the way he just takes these things as a learning experience, thinks about it, and comes up with another plan. He really has a lot of fun figuring stuff out, and it’s contagious.
Barn door that will not fall down.
Chris has all the doors hung, and is now staining them two at a time. The door hardware will look so good.
And oh yes, I’m helping more. My other big contribution was putting some birds on my little bathroom birdhouse. That’s sweet!
Two little birdies in their duplex, hiding a water pipe.
What Are the Other Two Up To?
This woodpecker mocked us as we tried to get in the Ross house today to make renovation estimates.
Our spouses are busy planning and scheming on our next projects, which may or may not involve moving a house to a vacant lot we will own as soon as the title company wakes up and lets us close on it and the Ross house. And they are growing the Hearts Homes and Hands business, even in these hard times. I’m proud of what good business people Lee and Kathleen are!
There’s lots more to come, so stay tuned. I hope you’re having a reasonable weekend and finding some projects to keep you busy! And if you’re putting sweat equity into a project, I hope you get a nice relaxing bath or shower later. That’s my plan. With roses.
This could have been a MUCH worse post, but it’s scary to me, nonetheless.
Last night we were sitting on the porch with the dogs, when Lee’s brother walked up and asked if we’d seen Vlassic. We hadn’t in an hour or so. We looked and looked and couldn’t find him.
Not much room for common sense in that brain. (Old picture, still true)
I got worried he had wandered over to the Laywells across the street, which he had done once or twice before, so Kathleen and I jumped into Hilda, our utility vehicle, and went searching. We saw the Dorners. Hi Dorners. We turned around. We ran into Mr. Laywell on his utility vehicle (they go up and down the road all the time), who did indeed have a small black dog in his lap!
But, it turned out to be a black terrier, the exact same size as Vlassic but way barkier. Nice to have a face to go along with the barking fits across the road (I’m sure they love knowing what the barking fits on OUR side of the road are caused by, too, so no judgment implied). Anyway, we made him talk to us again.
You can tell by the mud on his face that Vlassic likes to put his nose into things! He’s also been swimming a LOT lately.
We went by Mandi’s and yelled, we went over to Sara and Ralph’s…checked places he’d hidden before.
Finally we went back home, to find a small black dog in the grass. I hugged him a lot, then asked what had happened. Eek.
Vlassic had jumped into the pickup while Chris was getting some stuff out of it, and no one had seen him. He’d been locked inside the black truck for who knows how long.
If it weren’t for the pandemic, Vlassic wouldn’t have met his new buddy, Jim, with the RV that’s safe from mean ole Penney.
We are so grateful he is okay. I’d been thinking it was time to give up on dogs, since I seem to be pretty hard on them. Of course, we have once again reminded ourselves to check cars after we’ve been loading and unloading, because Vlassic or Harvey might have gotten in, ready for a ride. That’s so scary as summer approaches.
I love this dog SO MUCH. Here he is in a car. We made sure he got out.
So, if you have a dog that likes to go on rides, check your vehicles!
The Hermits' Rest 