A Few Band-Aid Fixes

I've been awfully unmotivated lately. No real excuse. But a couple of outstanding issues have been resolved, with minimal effort on my part.

When we last visited our main bathroom's exhaust fan, it was dead. I was intending to go to Lowe's to look for a replacement motor, but I got busy with other stuff. After a couple of days with a sauna-like bathroom, I found that breathing nearly 100% water vapor isn't nice, and I had a flash of inspiration...

Now, how dumb am I!!!?? All this time, the second bathroom (not currently used for bathing) has THE IDENTICAL FAN UNIT. I just took the fan motor out of that one and plugged it into the dead one's place. Works like crazy. Argghh. Why did it take me so long to think of this? Of course, I do intend to replace the motor or whole unit eventually, and give the other bath it's fan back.

In other news, I've had 3 giant tree trunk sections laying in my front yard for maybe two years. They were the upper main stems of a locust tree. They fell one at a time, over two years. They've hit the chain link fence each time, and blocked the road in front twice, and creamed the mailbox post once. We cut them up as much as our puny electric chain saws would allow. So all the small branchlets and leaves have been gone, and the main logs have been piled in the grass in the corner of the yard where they fell. I haven't been able to cut the grass there for two years!!

Fast forward to this week... A service guy who had hooked my house up for FiOS service had asked if he could have the logs, and I said "YES!!" Long story short, he had to buy a new chain saw, but finally came out on Sunday and my giant-loggish-yard art-sculpture is finally GONE! Yay for chain saws!

I don't care if he sold it for money - I didn't have to pay a tree service to take it away! Maybe this will give me the jump start to clean the yard up for winter. My gutters would certainly appreciate it.

Ignore the pix - just uploading images to Blogger...

A House To Break Your Heart

The headline in our local paper was titled "Historic property to be demolished", "Vandals destroying 18th century home". This farmhouse once owned most of the property that turned into our community. More of it's farm fields were bought by the county school board, for an elementary school, built in 1968. Finally the county took the last of the land and the house for a middle school, that ended up being built somewhere else. Now it's just dying slowly. Here's what it looked like in 1975:

And here's what it looks like now:

I went to that elementary school. I have pictures of me feeding the ponies that lived there. I love this place. I've never been inside, though I have actually had dreams about it.

It was built in 1789, with additions throughout the 1800's. It's a simple place, not very fancy. It had a large dairy barn that the vandals burned down in the late 1980's, on Halloween. It sits on 20 acres now. 20 very valuable acres. There is no more farmland left in this part of the county (it's been turned into housing developments, and the new age restricted condos and townhouses, since the schools are full up). An assessment this spring found that "the best use of the property is to sell it to a developer for $3.1 million, for 100 age-restricted townhouses". Oh boy.

More photos, before and after. Be sad for it.


The formerly open fields around the house are now filled in with a 30 year old jungle. The "kids" love it - it's very private, and wasn't secured at all, until after the first of the newspaper articles was published. Then the board of education sent out someone with plywood to "secure" the place (but not the basement door, or second floor busted windows).

The good-ish news is that, at the hearing on the matter, our community reps were all set to voice their opposition, but the motion had already been dropped. End of discussion - no plans to demolish.

Fine. Now, true to their past actions with similar properties that they've acquired, they will just let it sit and rot, and be broken into, and roof continue to leak. And if they're lucky, the kids will burn it down, and then they can sell it and make the millions that the property is unfortunately worth to a developer. I am sure that is what they'd like to happen. Money!

This house is on the state's historic register. My community has formed a group that's filed for non-profit status, who want to save it. They want the county to either give it to them, or let them restore it and run it as a "historical education center." Do they know how much work this is to run and staff, and how much it would cost to restore, and build a barn?? I don't think they do. And there is NO money in this community to fund it. I'm sad to admit it, but I don't think they stand much of a chance.

Hey, I'll take it! Let me fix it and live in it for-ever-and-ever.... I wish the board of ed. would sell it to someone to rehab and protect and preserve, and not sell off the "yard" for the millions that it's worth.

If they develop the land into townhouses, (which seems inevitable) I guess I'll never walk the dog through the elementary school fields again. Too sad.

Completely Un-House Related

It's been many days since I intended to replace the exhaust fan in the bathroom. I'd planned a trip to Lowe's, but it was not to be. "Work" intruded. I use quotes because most people won't find what I do to be work-like. I admit that the stuff I produce is usually trivial, and looks like fun. It usually isn't. This was pretty enjoyable, just for the goofiness of it all.

So with great dramatic flourish, I reveal my latest creations:


I am referring to him as "The Gobbler". Needed for a production of "A Christmas Carol". Tiny Tim describes him as "the one near as big as me" or something like that. It's hard to tell from the photo how flippin' large this thing is. Looks like it would weigh 30 pounds, easily. I snuck a 15 pound weight inside, so the actors will not throw it around as if it weighs nothing.

For anyone interested, he's sewn from skin colored terrycloth, 1 and 1/3 yards that I already had on hand. I needed 2 yards though, so turkey's inside-wing pieces are muslin, and other bits were pieced together from scraps. I was left with no scrap larger than a quarter! He's got velour wattles, and corduroy feet, and is painted with acrylics on his head (red) and shading on his carcass (though it doesn't show in the photos). He looks like he's feeling rather poorly! No, I didn't have a pattern, I made one up. I'm good that way.

I got a coincidental commission from a friend (due on the same date, of course!). She performs with puppets, acting out Japenese Folk Tales for school kids. I made her the main character puppets a couple of years ago, and now she asked for a sparrow puppet. Here she is:

I don't usually have a need to make puppets, so this was fun. It's a Eurasian Tree Sparrow, with a bit of artistic license. (Birdie needed eye makeup for the face to "read" to a crowd). About 16" long, including tail. Made mostly of fur I had on hand, with the stripey wing fur being a fabric store inspiration. My own pattern again. The tale she's in is called "The Tongue-Cut Sparrow". Teaches kids to be kind, and not to be greedy. Sounds good to me.

You know, I don't sew stuff for a living. I do theatrical scenic design and painting, and carpentry (of course). It's not as creative as it sounds. Really. A bit of puppet making was a nice break from the usual.

So now... it's back to fixing the bathroom fan, and maybe I'll even clean the gutters! Woo hoo.