Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me

After spending the last four years completely consumed with the house, the rest our life has been demanding some attention. Apparently, it was tired of being ignored. So I've had a lot on my mind lately, but not much of it has involved the house. Unless you count gardening, I haven't done anything besides the laundry and dishes. While tending the garden offers a Zen like satisfaction and the home grown tomatoes and peppers are wonderful, they don't make much of a post.

The search for new car is officially over because I can't afford anything that runs. Hell, I've even seen wrecked, non-running cars that I can't afford. The price of gasoline isn't the only thing going up these days. My solution to the car problem is having our old Saturn's engine and transmission replaced. While this is not cheap, it is cheaper than buying something used. If things go well, the rebuilt car ought to give me roughly two years of service before any major maintenance or repairs are required. This is based on putting roughly 40,000 a year on the car.

My father-in-law, the used car dealer, thinks this is a horrible idea since the car "is worn smooth fucking out." To my mind, if the engine and transmission have been replaced, that should pretty well take care of that, no? He suggested that I buy a 2001 Honda Civic with "some front-end and hail damage." Since the money we have from selling the VW wouldn't cover the purchase price for this fine automobile, he suggested that we charge the difference on our credit card. My only response to that is no fucking way.

No one else has expressed much enthusiasm for this solution besides Scarlet. The last time opinions aligned this way, we moved a house. That didn't turn out so great, but in spite of all the portents otherwise, I'm hoping for a better out come. Really, our finances don't offer any other options.

My little sister is putting our home improvement efforts to shame. She is on the verge of finishing all the remodeling and renovation work on her house in under a year. Of course a house is never really finished, but the only major work left is painting the living room, installing some baseboards and trim, painting and installing new cabinet doors in the kitchen, and the bathroom (needs sheetrock, paint, and to have the toilet and sink reinstalled since it was completely retiled). I did have the opportunity to shine as a Home Improvement Superhero, but that tale will have to wait to be told. Maybe next week?

Despite everything we've had going on lately, I've managed to fit in a lot of extracurricular reading. At least once a year, I go on a manic reading spree. Apparently, that time has come. I've knocked out Beauvoirs' The Mandarins and She Came to Stay, Camus' The Stranger, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, and O'Brian's The Fortune of War. I started A Clockwork Orange this week, and I am thinking about rereading Conrad's The Heart of Darkness if I can find my copy of it. Some other possible future reads are more O'Brian, Andrew Green's The Story of A Marriage, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Beauvoir's The Second Sex, The Lucifer Effect (forgot the author's name), and Pullman's His Dark Materials series. More possible re-reads are Orwell's Animal Farm and Selected Essays, and Machiavelli's The Prince. I don't know if I'll make it all of the way through that list, but if I do, does anyone any suggestions?

No major house related activates are planned for the weekend. I'm hoping we might go and pick some white peaches this weekend and gorge ourselves. Since last year's crop was destroyed by a freak freeze, it's been two years since we've had some fresh-picked goodness. I can't wait.

Evil Shrub: Official Plant of the Devil Queen

I stumbled across this the other night. Who knew the Devil Queen had a plant species named after it?

Here is the plant's basic information from the USDA:

"Phaulothamnus spinescens A. Gray
Common names: Devilqueen, Snake-eyes
Phytolaccaceae (Pokeweed Family)
USDA Symbol: PHSP2
USDA Native Status: Native to U.S.

Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial
Habit: Shrub Size Class: 6-12 ft. Breeding System: Dioecious Fruit Type: Drupe Fruit Color: White

Bloom Information
Bloom Time: Aug , Sep
Distribution
USA: TX Native Habitat: Thickets
Growing Conditions
Water Use: Medium Light Requirement: Part Shade Soil Moisture: Moist Soil Description: Sandy Sandy Loam Medium Loam Clay Loam Clay

Bibliography
Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife (1999) Damude, N. & K.C. BenderSearch More Titles in Bibliography

Additional resources
USDA: Find Phaulothamnus spinescens in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Phaulothamnus spinescens in the Flora of North America (if available) Google: Search Google for Phaulothamnus spinescens
Metadata
Record Modified: 2007-01-01Research By: TWC Staff"

And, here are some pictures of it.


Look at the freaking thorns on that thing. They're huge! And, since it is from the poke weed family, you can bet that it is poisonous. As a thorny, poisonous weed that thrives in a hot, god-forsaken climate, I hereby name Phaulothamnus spinescens A. Gray (aka devilqueen) the official plant of the Devil Queen.

Now all we need is an official song and flag and we'll be well on our way to being a semi-autonomous kingdom of misery and woe. I wonder if we could transplant some of it here at the Devil Queen's homestead? The yard looks so bad that I'm sure one more thorny, invasive weed wouldn’t be noticed.

It Runs Downhill

These pictures are already a week out of date, but here is some of the drainage and landscaping work I've been doing. Prior to all my work, this area of our yard was a muddy mess every time it rained.

In the last couple of weeks, I've added the brick walk to the left, the French drain, and add a gravel walk to connect the path to the gravel driveway & parking area. This Tuesday I finished filling in the gravel. The next step is complete the rock lined flower beds and start filling them in with plants, mulch, and other goodies. We're also considering a pond.

We've had six months worth of rain in the last six weeks, so the new drainage has been given a good workout - it's worked great! Now, all I have to do is finish it.

I'll try to get more photos, diagrams, et cetera up by early next week.



If anyone wants the Saturn for parts, it's yours. Make me an offer. Seriously. If you jump it, you could probably get it to run well enough to get it on a trailer. I wouldn't drive it more than a few miles on the open road. It might make it. Or, it might not.

Fiddle While Rome Burns

As part of our on-going Fiddle While Rome Burns divertimentos, Scarlet and I abandoned the Devil Queen to its fate (which is saying something since most of the state has been experiencing 100 year floods with six months of rain in six weeks) and took a decadent three day excursion which included a seven course tasting menu with wine pairings at Ashley's at the Capitol Hotel, horse races, a spa, ducks, raw oysters, Guinness, scotch, a college reunion, shopping, and more.

And, if that weren't enough, we sandwiched all of this in between plant hauling, ditch digging, landscaping, gravel hauling, and house cleaning.

Work hard and play hard because life is short.

Incremental Progress

While the end product may be less than overwhelming, some things are getting finished around the Devil Queen. My big projects for the week have mostly been landscaping.

Sorry, no pictures. Even with a flash, there isn't much to see at night in a thunderstorm. And, incase you've been lying in bed late into the night wondering about it, shoveling gravel is a lot more work than you might imagine. It's definitely worse than your average ditch digging or rock rolling.

I'm working on installing a small drain pipe under the walkway from the Devil Queen to the parking area. I've trenched and installed the drain, so now all I have to do is fill it in and complete the grave gravel path. I dumped six or seven wheelbarrows worth of gravel last night, but I figure I'm only 1/3 to 1/2 way finished. And, between other commitments and the weather, it may be Saturday or Sunday before I finish.

Weekend Update

Unless charging an obscene amount of money for plants and landscaping materials to your wife's credit card counts as working on the house, we didn't do anything on the Devil Queen this weekend.

Instead, we bought Gideon his first real bicycle and spent the afternoon at the park on Saturday. Sunday, we went sailing with his grandparents. And, I'm not even sorry.

Don't worry, the misery will continue this week.

Digging For Fire

In an attempt to make my projects at the Devil Queen a little more interesting, I've decided to make them into competitive sports. Due to the peculiarities of my situation, most of what I do is solitary by nature. As such, I've found competing against extreme natural phenomenon quite invigoration. I highly recommend severe thunderstorms, they are very motivational.

This week's game was re-trenching the front patio drainage system. Actually, it's not a patio yet, but it will be soon. Hopefully.

When we had the site cleared with a bulldozer, they graded the ground in such a way that water drained away from the Devil Queen towards the retaining wall (or where the retaining wall will go). Then, the water would flow along the wall's base and into the woods away from the house. After last weekend's torrential rain, our rudimentary drainage system had silted up. Since they are forecasting another 2-3 inches of rain for the rest of the week, I thought it would be a good idea to clear out the silt.

The equipment for this game was pretty basic: shovel, work gloves, and a large, plastic trash-bag with holes poked in it for your arms and head. A hat is nice too. I know, quite the stylish ensemble, and cheap too! Now anyone can look crazy and homeless in their front yard for just dollars!

Anyhow, once you are fully equipped, start digging. And, since the dark, low clouds are already rolling in and the thunder is rumbling it the west, dig fast. Remember, you get bonus points for not being struck by lightning.

The ground was still sodden after last weeks deluge. This was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it was much easier to get all the rocks out. On the other, the clay tended to stick to the shovel like a peanut butter sandwich does to the top of your mouth.

By the time the wind was picking up and the rain was streaming down over an hour later, I'd basically finished. At the shallow end, the trench was only a couple of inches deep, but, at the far end, it was at least a foot deep and nearly as wide. And, since it was roughly 80 feet long, I felt pretty good about my progress.

I finished just in time. The rain started coming in sideways and the sky glowed with a hint of tornadic green to the north. For some reason, I wondered what sailing an ocean-going sailboat through a storm like this would be like as I watched it from the front porch. This probably is a sure sign of a serious, degenerative mental illness. It's thoughts like these that make people cut a house in half and move them sixteen miles away to a mountain top.

Yard Work, A Regularly Scheduled Breakdown, Et Cetera

I am so far behind.

Last week, it was time for the VW's 12,000 mile/four month breakdown, so it's in the shop. Again.

The weather has been good this week, so I've been hauling and burning brush, building brick walkways, rolling rocks, and pruning trees. Doing this has clearly illustrated several things for me: we are trashy people; the people we hire to work on the Devil Queen (minus Kenny and Burt) are even trashier; I am in horrible shape; and I'd never make it as a bonafide brick farmer because after two day my left elbow is killing me.

Spring Forward?

I don't know if I can actually count this as progress on the house, but I finally ordered some spring-bronze from Kilian Hardware (recommended by Stucco House). What I find myself wondering is why I didn't order some of this in November instead of getting vigorously violated by the electric company for the entire winter? Contrary to everything I've believed up to this point in my life, I guess I just like it in the ass.



Now, if no one gets violently ill in the next 48 hours, we might get to take advantage of the beautiful weather they've forecasted for the weekend and work on some house projects. A wild idea, I know.

Irresistible Urge

I must be loosing my mind. What does it mean when you have a nearly irresistible urge to hurry home after work and build a dry-stacked rock retaining wall? That is a sign of mental illness, right? Maybe I've been spend too much time inside lately? Whatever it is, I may have to indulge it.

If you'd believe it, I've actually done a few things on the Devil Queen lately but haven't had enough time to post them. That is an entire post in itself.

If I have any surplus energy after digging in the earth, I'll try to get you a proper update. No rest for the wicked and all that.

The Road To Hell

The road to hell is usually paved with good intentions. In our case, it's paved with around 250 Coffeyville bricks.

Of course our path isn't finished yet, so it will probably take at least that many more to connect the parking area to the front steps.

Somewhere in the Ur-days of this blog, I had a rather extensive post about these bricks. I'm too lazy to find the post so I can link to it, so let me make a brief recap and leave it at that. These bricks are very hard, solid, and heavy because they are made from fired slate. This is far superior to fired clay bricks. They were made in Coffeyville, Kansas, some time in the first couple decades of the 20th Century. They were used to enclose the Devil Queen's crawlspace and replaced a skirt of older, locally-made, clay bricks. And, when we were preparing to move the Devil Queen, every asshole in Russellville with a pickup truck tried to steal them.

Monday, My Mental Health Day

Not only does all work and no play make Johnny a dull boy, it makes him an evil monomaniacal bastard. And that is just not fun for anyone. So aside from a little tinkering around the house and a good mental exorcism, I sat quietly, drank tea, ate a light dinner, took a nap and went to bed. How do I feel now? I feel great! Who knew seven hours of deep sleep could make such a difference?

With that rude little deadline encroaching upon us, how can a justify this therapeutic slackerdom? Easy, we worked on the Devil Queen all weekend. Things were caulked, primed and occasionally painted. And, more notably, Ms. Scarlet put two coats of poly down on the laundry room floor.

Of course, she had to contribute to the scraped vs. sanded wood floor debate after spending several hours crawling around on it. She prefers the drum-sanded look to the scraped look. And, she said the rougher surface of the scraped floor made it more difficult to apply the poly. Not an earth-shattering difference, but enough to annoy her. And no one wants an annoyed Scarlet.

In an attempt to burn your retinas with my sub-par photography skills, here is a close-up of the scraped flooring.

What I'm trying show is the variation in the surface. The photo flattens everything out, so you can't really see it here. In particular, more of the soft wood (light blonde) was scraped away than the dark grain which is slightly raised. To the best of my knowledge, this wood hasn't been wet, so I don't think that accounts for the raised grain.

As part of our family outing on Saturday, we stopped at a cool little junk/antique store in Dardanelle, just over the river from Russellville. They have some pretty incredible stuff there. But, what was I so annoyingly thrilled to find for $6.00?

See, exciting isn't it. In case you have no idea what these rusty, painted smeared bits of metal are, they are latch catches for 3 1/4 inch rim locks. They are a perfect fit too, so I won't have to cut any of the door trim to make these fit. All I need are a few good screws.

For Exhibit #2 in my effort to prove that I should not seek a career as a professional photographer, here is what I used as my excuse for enjoying the good weather and playing with Gideon outside.

These are terrible photographs. Really, it looks much better in person. In case you can't tell from the photo (My eyes! My eyes! I'm blind!), this is a dry-stack (i.e. no mortar) rock retaining wall. In theory this wall is supposed to continue on for another 60-70 feet in front and to the side of the Devil Queen. For the time being, we would settle for getting the section directly in front of the house finished before the appraisal. If the current issue of This Old House can be trusted, having a nice front entry not only makes a good first impression but can add 10%-25% to a home's value, and we need every penny we can get.

In addition to the wall, we're planning to lay a brick patio in the for ground, a slightly raised flower bed in front of the porch, and a lot a flower beds at the top of the wall too. By the time we've finished planting, a lot of the rock should be covered in creeping or climbing vegetation.