Easy Living in the Country

I'll never forget the real estate listing I first saw for my house: "Easy living in the country," it promised. And of course, fool that I was, never having owned a house before, I believed them. Well, at least a little bit.

This weekend was Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., with Monday as a holiday. Eleven years ago, on the Friday before Memorial Day, I (a single gal at the time) took possession of the house. Several years later, I got married and my husband moved in.

We spent that first weekend after I took possession cleaning like maniacs. And the cleaning and moving in continued for months. I finally cleared all of my stuff out of the little rental house in State College in mid-August and gave up the key. So August is the final official "total move-in" date. But Memorial Day weekend, for me, will always be the anniversary of the house. (Any who are interested may read more of the story about purchasing the house here; warning, there are some sad bits.)
 
What does a house require? It requires indoor tasks and outdoor tasks of all kinds. It requires yard work, and house maintenance, and tasks like painting decks and sealing drive ways. There is grass to be mowed in three seasons; snow to be shoveled in one or two (or sometimes even three). As seasons change, you pull out (or put away) heaters and fans and humidifiers and dehumidifiers and air conditioners.

It is the time of year when spring has been springing for a while now, and there is lots of stuff that has fallen out of the trees. You can sweep the deck till you're blue in the face and a few hours later, it is covered again. And guess what happens when it rains (as it is expected to do off and on most days this week) . . . the rain brings the tree stuff from the roof down into the gutters and jams it all up so the spoutings don't work properly, which is not a good thing. And in fact, the experts suggest that if your roof starts leaking, you might be wise to check for clogged gutters, first.

So my husband decided that on this day, it was time to sweep the roof and clear the gutters. He is only allowed to go up on the roof when I am home to hold the ladder and play spotter and official "gopher" and keep an eye on things. So for an hour and a half, I did those support type tasks while my husband was on the roof performing the main roof sweeper duties.

We had just come home from the woods the day before. We'd been backpacking in Sproul State Forest on Friday and Saturday, and it was quiet and peaceful there. Not so, alas, in any neighborhood in suburbia on a holiday weekend. 

The neighbor across the street was mowing and mowing. He is the creative sort of yard worker who finds reasons to mow with his big riding mower several days each week. And then guests began to arrive for one of their frequent yard parties. The sound of screaming children filled the air.

The property behind ours has been sitting empty (or seemingly so) for several years now. But on this day, a man showed up to mow there, too. And a woman with an amazing set of lungs, and a shrill and shrieky voice, spent the entire time shouting and screaming instructions over the mower. ("Screamboat Annie," I suggested to my husband, and shrugged. And we laughed, but even I will admit it was a bit of a hollow laugh. Suddenly, I missed the woods.)

One of the things that I think needs to be invented is some kind of force field or sound barrier/fence type deal that you can install around your property. It would reflect your neighbors' sounds right back to them, like a boomerang, instead of propagating them throughout the neighborhood. Alas, such a thing has not been invented yet; but maybe someday . . .

I asked my husband to pose for this shot as he completed his work. He hoisted both brooms he had been using, like a chimney sweep, and waved them in the air. There is a perfectly blue sky behind him with puffy, white clouds. In spite of the arduous task he has just completed, he appears joyous and ready to dance about the roof at any moment.

Welcome, indeed, to "easy living in the country"!

The tune to accompany this picture of domestic bliss (or whatever comes closest to it) in rural suburbia is Uriah Heep, with Easy Livin'.

P.S. We had backpacked in the days before this one, and I brought some little gifts for the Crittergators and crew home from the woods with me. Our campsite, which we refer to as Pine Glen, was replete with pine pollen and those little crispy-crunchy things that guard the new green pine needles and fall off once they've arrived. The crew decided they made lovely hats.

And so the bonus photo (see "extra photos" in the lower right of this page) is of two of the members of the Pine Glen "Say-Something Hat" Society . . . . 

Critter on right: "Hey! How do you like my new hat!? Don't I look fabulous!?"
Critter on left: "WHAT?! I can't hear you or see you! But what do you think of my new hat???? Isn't it awesome!?!???"