Answering Questions

I get many more questions on Mark's Mews, but sometimes I get some here.  And Megan asked a bunch!  She was on a roll...  And since they were posted on the blog (sometimes they are email), I'll answer them on the blog.

Comment:  "You'll laugh when I say it - your experience is exactly what Australia has all over the country! Our polls are always conducted on Saturdays and many of the polling stations are school assembly halls or church halls etc. Drive, park right outside, walk in, get your name checked off, vote, put the paper in the box and leave. Done in 10 minutes. And ... voting is compulsory, which I know is always of some amusement to Americans."

Answer:  I was pleased to read that Australia has my positive experience with voting.  It should be like that everywhere.  I do note that voting is compulsory.  That probably wouldn't work here, but I like the idea of getting more people to vote.  In invests them in the results.

Saturday is a good choice of days to vote.  As I understand it, Tuesday was chosen in the US for religious reasons (though practical ones).  The US was so rural once that it took a day to get to a place to vote.  So, since so many were church-goers, they needed Monday to travel in order to vote, so Tuesday it was!

Comment:  "I'm voting for no daylight savings where I am - it means that in summer, it can still be quite hot at 9pm or 10pm." 

Answer:  Many people want a single time system (and most seem to like Standard over Daylight Saving).  But there are good arguments for both or just one.  Most in favor of Standard mention schoolchildren or farmers.  Most in favor of Daylight Saving mention commuting conditions or being retired (and appreciating the later daylight).  For myself, early morning daylight is wasted daylight.  I haven't gotten up at 7 am in 16 years!  And around here schoolbus pickups would be in daylight even if Daylight Saving was year-round.

Comment:  "Could you not poison the invasive stuff?"

Answer:  The invasive vines are intermixed with my flowers in many places, so I can't just spray them (and I try to stay organic).  But also, this particular invasive wine is resistant to herbicides (waxy leaves) and have very deep roots which survive and regrow.  Among the flowers, I would have to cut them out or dig individually.  Among the solid areas of it, smothering them with black plastic for a year is really the only solution and I should do that!

Comment:  "I lurve the way you just slip into the conversation that you've been holding onto leftover timber for 30 bloody years, Mark! What a hoot!!!

Answer:  While I am not exactly a "hoarder" (the living areas are fine), I do keep stuff that seems potentially useful.  I have a weakness for identical glass jars (for refrigerator stuff), large plastic shelled nut containers (to keep cat kibble, distilled/rainwater water for the Venus Fly Traps, and goldfinch thistle seed in).  The black oil sunflower seeds for the rest of the birds are kept in a metal trash barrel.

So, when I built the 6' high fence

 

around the backyard (to keep large straying dogs away from The Mews and deer out) with 8' boards, I ended up with a lot of 18"-24" pieces.  My yard slopes.  It was a step-down fence, which meant every board had to be cut to exact height.  Which means the leftovers are all slightly different in length.

But since I had LOTS of those pieces, it seemed useful to keep them.  I have used some over the years for various projects.  All The Mews Memorials were built from some of the pieces, I have used some short ones vertically to anchor framed landscaping bed boards horizontally, and some have been part of 1"-4" platforms for my Spring seed-starting.

The small bits on top are double left-overs.  But I have plans for them.

But you have a point.  The first board I brought to the new house in 1986 was a 2"x12"x12' board I brought from the previous (rented) house.  It is still where I put it in the garage on Moving Day, LOL!  But every wood-worker has "stuff" they keep around.  It sometimes is useful.

Hope you all enjoyed all that.

But is it just me, or are you seeing reverse black/white text scatterred all over?  I have no idea why that happens sometimes...

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New Neighbors

My new neighbors appear to be new to home-owning.  I've mowed my lawn 3 times.  Theirs is 12-18" high!  I was looking for an opportunity to ask them if they wanted me to use my riding mower on their yard (without seeming like a pest) while they shopped for a mower of their own.  I mean, for all I know, they are saving up to buy a mower.  When I bought this first house, I was down to "dollars and dimes".

So I was surprised to see the front lawn was mowed while I was out grocery-shopping 2 days ago.  They even mowed the few square feet in the corner of my lawn I can't get to with the riding mower and often just use a string trimmer on (My own regular push mower won't start and the battery string trimmer needed recharging).

Today they took a whack at the back yard and I was amazed.  They would push the mower forward 5 feet, then pull it back, then push it in a different direction, and pull it back again.  I'm not sure what their idea was, but really tall grass is hard to mow.

They stay inside almost all the time.  First, that makes it hard to figure out what the family structure is.  For the first several months, it appeared to be a husband and wife and a child about 5.  But the husband was almost never there.  I figured out that the husband is there when the car is in the driveway (the garage must be full) and may not actually live there. 

And a new surprise.  A 16 or so female showed up along with the usual crowd of high-schoolers walking down the street from the bus stop further up the neighborhood.  I haven't seen her before.  And she was the one who started mowing the back yard in the weird pattern. 

This has become a diverse neighborhood over the 32 years I've lived here.  And I rather like that.  There are sometimes very interesting smells coming from outdoor cooking.  And I see interesting decorations around holidays.  All that makes MY differences stand out less.

These neighbors are hispanic, I think.  At least, I assume so from when I noticed from the mother taking the child inside when the hispanic guys started cursing at some tree limbs they were fighting with (I guessed by the tone of voice).  I took Spanish in high school, and trust me, they did NOT teach us curse words.  But you can generally make a good guess in almost any language, LOL!

I'm outside a lot, so I tend to be aware of my neighbors...

So the teenager was mowing the lawn in a strange way, and all of a sudden, I heard her cry out and saw through the fence she was lying on the ground holding a leg.  The child yelled "Mama, Mama".  I was just reaching for the 4' stepladder sitting next to the shed to get up over the fence to see if she was injured when the older woman (30?) of the house ran out.  But she didn't seem distressed.  So I guess the mower hit a rock and it hit the teenager's leg.  She was up and mowing again in a couple minutes.

Have you ever just wished you could knock on a neighbor's door and say "Can I help you learn how to do yard-things"?  But knowing you didn't speak the same language?

I guess I have to just watch and wait.  *SIGH*

To Move Or Not To Move

Every couple of years, I get an urge to move.  I've lived here since 1986.  I go through the same procedure.  Contact some random real estate agent in possible areas in Maryland, ask about available houses that might meet my desires, then give up and stay here.

I'm not doing it for the fun of it.  I analyze things reasonably well.  The equation is that the problems I want to leave behind are just about equal the the time, cost, and trouble of moving.  Staying in place just seems easier.

I keep coming up with lists and evaluating the lists is all subjective.  If they were numbers, the additions and subtractions would come out about "zero".  For example:

1.  I'm getting older so I'd like not to have stairs.  But spread-out 1 floor houses are more expensive.
2.  I'd like a open style house with 3' walls.  But that means everything has to stay clean.
3.  An open style house give more appearance of space.  But then there are few walls to put tall things up against.
4.  My gardening here is shaded too much by neighbors' trees, but a larger open yard costs more.
5.  My D-I-Y home improvement work over the years has not exactly been terrible, but not admirable either.  I can live with it a lot better than I could sell it to someone else.
6.  The things I dislike about the yard would be nice to escape.  But most of them also fixable.
7.  I know this house so intimately.  I can walk around here in the dark.  In a new house, it would take a year of turning on all the lights at night just to find the bathroom.
8.  Speaking of knowing the house, I knew last year that there was a problem with the A/C just by a slight change in the pitch of the sound.
9.  After 27 years, I have found about the best place for EVERYTHING! I can't imagine how long that would take in a new house.
10.  The cats know how not to get lost here.  That stands by itself as seriously important.  On the other hand, I kept Tinkerbelle inside for a month before I let her out on a harness/leash every day for a few weeks and she didn't get lost.
11.  I'm used to this place and the structures.  Like the 2 sheds.  They fit everything perfectly.  But there isn't anything here I can't replicate on a new property.  And a new larger one would be nicer than 2 old ones.
12.  My garage is so tight that I have only 6" on each side as I pull in.  That seems like a lot more than it is.  Naturally, I don't do that fast.  And I've managed to get some white garage paint on every car I've ever owned.  I could live with a larger garage.
13.  Living here 27 years also means I have long-standing relationships with a Dr, a Dentist, a Barber, etc.  I know where every store is.  The butchers and wineshops know me.  One special orders my favorite wine jusy for me.  Giving that up is hard.

But almost all of those statements could be reversed.  A new house means new possibilities for better arrangements.  No stairs would be easier in the coming years.  An open lot would let me apply the things I've learned about gardening to a new space.  I might find that a new house arrangement is much easier to move around in.   There is some excitement in designing new flowerbeds.  The cats might love the extra yard space and new places to explore.  Unlike when moving here, dead broke with my bank account flat-lined, I have money now (not much D-I-Y work needed).  And unlike when I moved here in my first house and didn't recognize the cheap, cheating ways of my builder, I have some experience in evaluating an existing house or especially one being built new. 

There are other issues.  I could have a solar energy roof and a geothermal heating/cooling system.  I could start with extreme energy-efficient appliances.  In short, I could go from 27 years ago to up-to-date all at once, and probably good enough for the rest of my independent life.  At some cost and a lot of effort...

So it's "familiarity" versus "excitement",  "no effort to stay here" versus "much work in moving".

So I'm asking of those of you who have moved and liked the decision, and those of you who have chosen not to moved and liked the decision, what do you think?  What did you like about your decision to move or not move.  Both decisions are valid, and I'm stuck between them.

I don't often ask for help in making my decisions, but I'm really on the bubble and could use some thoughts.