Perhaps I should have advertised it as an estate sale.  It wasn’t properly a yard sale, as the condo has no yard or driveway; nor was it a garage sale, as the parking garage is underground and not a place to hold a sale accessible to pedestrians.  It was Bear’s idea, a couple of months ago, to sell the leftover items of value right there inside the condo, instead of hauling them back to the house and laying them out on the driveway for a yard sale.  I wasn’t sure if I was really up for pulling a sale together, but I finally decided to go ahead with it and picked this weekend’s Saturday as the date.  Wondering how to list it, I called it a rummage sale, not realizing that term is normally used for junk sales organized by churches or other non-profits.  

We advertised in the local paper and on Craigslist and other online yardsale boards.  A goodly number of people stopped by, to my surprise.  Quite a lot of stuff headed out the front door at the fire-sale prices I posted, too.  We met a number of locals and neighbors, out walking on a Saturday morning who stopped by to see our sale, which was a nice bonus – I’m a huge believer in getting to know your neighbors.  The dear little old lady across the street came back three times for more goodies.  And told me I should have called it an estate sale, since so much of what was laid out for display was much nicer than rummage sale stuff.

None of the barware or stemware or dishes sold, nor did any of the furniture.  Probably because rummage sale goers aren’t looking for that sort of thing.  We may keep some of the old crystal, if I can find the storage space.   It’s an old set of fine, thin pieces of all shapes and sizes, originally twelve of each, etched with a delicate bamboo leaf design.  Very asian or oriental; I wish I could find the right buyer who would appreciate its fragile beauty.  I’d rather keep it for posterity than donate it, if a buyer can’t be found.  And Bear will have room for the art deco curio cabinet, as well as the oak sofa table, once I pack up all my stuff for the Kentucky move.  We just needed to whittle the pile of stuff down, and we did.

Washing everything up for display took two days, but the place looked very nice, like a little antique store, when I opened the door for business at 9 am Saturday morning.  I woke at 4 and arrived at 6 to put price tags on everything, and though it was a scramble to get it all done in time, it worked out fine.  I had customers waiting to come in at 8:45.  Bear showed up with coffee and extra newspaper for wrapping things at 9:30 and was a big help plugging things in for folks and taking the dog for a walk every couple of hours.  Plenty of customers went away with bargains, I made enough money to paint the downstairs, and have a lot less stuff to box up to donate or store.  I’d say it was a successful endeavor. 

A lot of work, and I’m glad it’s done.

Although installing new bathroom sink and tub fixtures does not exactly qualify me as a bonafide plumber, it has certainly made me appreciate the skill and patience required to do even this mundane plumbing task.  That beautiful sparkling sink faucet and drain took me the better part of a day with my shoulders wedged into the cupboard below and my head and arms contorted for what seemed like hours, undoing old corroded connections and assembling new ones.

I’ve never installed a sink faucet before; this was my first.  Always left “that stuff” to Bear, the handyman extraordinaire.  But he’s not available for this condo renovation project so I figured I could learn how to do it myself.  And I’m pleased to say it turned out very well.

The tub fixtures, however, are another story.  (Notice the use of the present tense and lack of a photo of the finished product.)  I knew they would be, but I entered the den of snakes anyway, and have some bites to prove it.  I bravely bought the set to match the sink faucet, and discovered upon trying to install it that they aren’t all universal mounts.  That is, the new faucet handle wouldn’t just fit right onto the existing valve.  It was pretty obvious when I got all the parts laid out and took the backing plate off.  What really had me scratching my head though, was the valve body included in the box – I thought, surely I don’t have to replace this whole thing, do I? 

So I called a plumber.  The ad in the Yellow Pages said “Free Estimates” so I thought, what the heck, let’s find out how much it will take to get it done right.  Plus, I wanted to know how much it would cost to have the tub drain replaced, as I had heard that is a difficult job and well worth hiring a plumber for.

A mountain of a man with “Joey” embroidered on his extra-large blue shirt arrived in about 45 minutes and I briefed him on my dilemma.  Really nice guy.  He complimented me on the sink faucet installation, and then gave me a huge education on “real” plumbing.  Basically, Joey said, we can do anything you want.  But replacing that Moen faucet with a Delta faucet would mean tearing out some stuff, which could be done, but it’d be pricey.  Pricey like, $900+.  He suggested I go to a local supplier (great tip) and purchase a Moen “trim kit,” taking the cartridge with me to make sure it fit.  He even told me how to take the cartridge out.  Then he quoted me $225 per tub for him to install the trim kit, which includes shower head, tub spigot, and faucet assembly.  $375 if I didn’t buy it myself.

I’m pretty sure he knew he was giving me all the information I needed to finish the job myself.  It was a friendly 15-minute conversation and yes, I asked a bunch of questions but he offered up a lot of detail I didn’t pump him for.  I thanked him for his time and said we would think about it and give a call back on Monday if we decided to have him do it.  On the way home I stopped by Ferguson Supply as he’d suggested and picked up the trim kit to install the next day.

Well, the removal and replacement of the cartridge wasn’t as straightforward as Joey had made it sound.  Long story short, the new one didn’t go in right and the danged faucet wouldn’t completely shut off after I got everything assembled.  Then when I went to pull the cartridge back out, it wouldn’t budge.  Crap, I thought.  That’s not right, it should slide right out.  But it only came out halfway, and I didn’t know if I just needed to use a little more muscle or if tugging harder would really mess things up.  I was beginning to think I might have to pay the guy that $225 just to get me out of my fix.

But first I called Bear.  He eventually came over and, as I hoped, tugged a little harder (with 200 pounds behind it,) and the cartridge popped right out.  Sure enough, it was damaged – the rubber seal at the back was torn and half missing.  We decided I should have greased it before inserting it; a minor detail Joey didn’t share.  I was just relieved it came out without destroying anything internal and I hadn’t messed things up too much.  I picked up a replacement cartridge last night and today I’m ready to try it again.

I will admit, it would have been much easier to just pay the quoted price and have it done without the headache.  I thought I really screwed things up there for a while, which was not a good feeling.  Of course I wouldn’t have learned anything about replacing shower fixtures, but I would have skipped a lot of anxiety and hassle.  Would it have been worth two-and-a-quarter?  I thought that sounded a little pricey, but the shower faucet doesn’t work yet and I won’t rest easy until it does.  We’ll see if I pass the test today.

I will miss this.  Chard, beets, broccoli, carrots, peas, lettuce, turnips.  In January.  I love my little SoCal garden.

In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, the obstacle that looms largest in my Path to Farm Freedom is the cleaning out and renovation of a two-bedroom, three-story condominium that now belongs to Bear.  Its owner, a long-time friend of his, died of a stroke this past Spring and left it to him in her will.  You would think that would be a very positive thing, to inherit a property that can be rented out to generate cash flow, and generally speaking that is true.  All you have to do is clean it out, fix it up, and find good tenants.  Simple, right?

Alas, these things never are.

First of all, the place was stuffed to the rafters with too much furniture, junk and trash, and was incredibly filthy.  A small dog and a large cat kept indoors ruined every inch of carpeting upstairs and did serious damage to the walls.  Windows left open to the elements for years (you can do that in San Diego) resulted in damaged windowsills and left mold and mildew everywhere.  Cigarette smoke stained the ceilings.  No serious cleaning had been done in more than a decade.  Boxes and bags of miscellaneous stuff were stacked everywhere, and kitchen cabinets were ruined by spilled contents.  Junk everywhere, intermixed with items of value, had to be sorted through and disposed of. 

Secondly, without disparaging anyone or going into too much detail, this is a solo effort; a workforce of one.  As my grandmother would have said, “Being handy never gets you anything but a lot of hard work.”  I have experienced the truth of her wry little observation many times in my life, and this instance is no different.  Because I am She Who Makes Order out of Chaos, and Bear is inept at the most basic household duties and is, I am speaking kindly here, motivationally challenged.  But this condo needs to be rented out (not a good time to sell anything, do I even need to mention that) and I won’t leave him hanging with a stone like this tied to his neck.  He could never afford to hire someone to do what I am doing.

So I am working like a dog – a renovation dog, since I really want to get the hell out of suburbia and get to my farm, and I can’t go until this is done.  I started the clean-out process in October, as soon as it was legally available, working four hours at a time on weekends – the longest I could stand to be in that hell-hole.  Bag after bag of trash carried down two flights of stairs and across the parking garage to the dumpster didn’t even seem to make a dent.  The place stunk, the work was depressing, and I could barely see my progress.  But November allowed me more time, and I doggedly persisted with my four-hour work stints, until the upstairs bedrooms were stripped to just their furniture.  Fifty-seven large bags of crap drug to the dumpster.  God forgive me for all the glass not recycled, the stuff just needed to go.

It took more than a little elbow grease to clean up and restore a maple bedroom set and the large oak entertainment center before I could post them for sale on Craigslist, but it paid off and they both sold.  Several other items are still advertised, waiting for buyers.  Lots of stuff donated to GoodWill and Father Joe’s Villages, but lots of stuff still remains.  Pulling everything out of the upstairs bedrooms was a huge step, as it allowed me to start the painting and repairing process.  I had hoped to have the upstairs done by the end of December and ready for carpet installation, but I missed that mark.  Still painting bathrooms and replacing fixtures, and the stairwell hallway walls will need painted after that, then I can move downstairs. 

I don’t think I work as fast as I used to.  But two rooms and a hallway painted from top to bottom, including closets and door jambs, various wall repairs and a rebuilt windowsill, is a good start.  I’m working 8 hours a day now at it (it’s a 30-minute drive to the condo) and I hope to pick up speed as I get more efficient.  And I will need to; the winter is getting short and I want to be in Kentucky in time to put in a garden. 

This damned condo renovation project is the figurative grenade rolled under my door that threatens to blow up all my plans for finishing up here in San Diego and getting myself out to the Farm.  I should be out back in my own little suburban yard finishing terrace walls and stairs, resetting flagstone paths out front, and renovating the landscaping so it can be maintained by a gardening service in my absence.  I need to clean out the garage, pack 7 tons of household goods, and get it moved to storage.  There is a lot that will need to be done this winter, to earn my liberty, my ticket to freedom.

Wish me luck, cheer me on, pray for strength and patience for me.  I will need a lot of all those things to get this done.

Every time I talk to Malcolm, my neighbor up the hill from the farm in Kentucky, he reminds me I’m going to need a good dog when I move out there.  “To let you know where the snakes are,” he says very seriously.  I always smile and agree, knowing my eyes are not calibrated to recognize Eastern Copperheads like they were once tuned to the distinctive markings of the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, whose territory I lived in many years ago in Colorado.  Malcolm thinks a little terrier dog would be good, but my dogs will also need to be herding dogs, to help me handle my little flock of sheep and herd of cows.  It would be good if they could also point out snakes and various other dangers in the Kentucky bush, but the livestock skills are paramount.  I’m particularly intrigued by the English Shepherd breed, for its verstility, but in all actuality any herding breed will do.

Back in late November while I was on terminal leave from the Navy, I started a daily routine of walking, determined to shed a few ”desk pilot” pounds and get my strength back up for farm work.  A brisk walk is just what most doctors order for those of us over 50 with aching joints, and I reason it will get me ready for walking my pastures each day.

One morning as I passed yet another neighbor walking their dog, I realized this is the perfect time to find my herding dogs and start working myself and them into a useful little pack, now that I am free of the 9-to-5 and have time to train and socialize a dog or two in the couple of months remaining in suburbia.  I had done some online searching in Kentucky for herding breeds at local shelters and rescue organizations, with very little luck:  the vast majority of adoptable dogs back there are hounds, beagles, labs and pit bulls.  But here in southern California with its scrub ranches and western cowboy presence, I found my herding dogs.

The mugshot above is Skeet, a 7-yr-old smooth-coat Border Collie rescue.  She was rescued twice, in fact; I am her third “owner” (as if anyone really owns a dog) and, hopefully, her last.  Skeet’s registered name is Voort’s Sleet, according to her American Border Collie Association papers, which show strong working stock lineage on both dam and sire sides.  She is a McCallum granddaughter on her dam’s side, one of the best-known working lines of BC’s in this country.  She supposedly worked cattle for her first owner, and she may have great potential to be a good worker for me with that background, but until I find her a trio of sheep to fetch she’s just another wackadoodle border collie, with fear issues and no way to communicate them to me.

I call her Skeet because I just couldn’t get the word “sleet” to roll off my tongue and a working dog’s name gets used a lot.  It sounds so similar, she doesn’t know the difference now.  Two weeks ago I took her in for major dental work to fix four broken teeth that almost certainly were causing her constant pain, and so she eats much better now and actually chews on toys and picks up tennis balls with her mouth, which she could not do before, but her fearfulness has not abated.  I was hoping it would, but there is other baggage in that beautiful skull.  Mostly she is randomly terrified of strange surroundings and noises – walking on the street through a normal neighborhood with cars driving by is sometimes okay but kids scraping past on skateboards makes her flop like a fish on the end of her lead.  So we walk the chapparal canyon mostly, and she is fine out there, trotting right along beside me on a loose lead.  I believe once I get her to the Farm and it becomes familiar to her, that fearful part of her personality will fade.  But for now, she is a delicate butterfly with wings that shred at the slightest puff of wind, and I love her.

Herding dog #2 is Bandit, a yearling Australian Cattle Dog rescue from the same organization up in Riverside, California.  Bandit is the calm but playful counterbalance to Skeet’s wiggityness.  He showed excellent herding instinct for his age when tested on sheep, and I took a chance and agreed to take them both on the spot.  I won’t ever regret adopting Bandit, while there are moments already when I wonder what I was thinking when I adopted a Border Collie.  This little guy is a sweetheart, the loop to my velcro pile, sleeping on the floor right behind me in the office as I work, following me from room to room whatever the task.  He trots along on my right side, unperturbed by pretty much everything, attentive and happy to be alive.

Unfortunately, as yet the two of them are not buddies; Skeet snaps and growls when he comes too close to her with his bouncy sloppy playful puppy personality.  They’ve tangled once already and the old One-tooth Lady wears a scar on her muzzle from his sharp young teeth.  But they’re better together today than they were when he arrived two weeks ago, and I am hopeful that at the very least they will eventuallly hammer out a truce with me in the balanced center. 

My days are now measured by the waking of dogs, the walking of dogs, the feeding of dogs, the playing with dogs, and the vacumning up of endless drifts of dog hair.  After thirty years, I am once again a dog person, a dog parent.  They inspire me to complete my tasks so we can all three get the hell out of suburbia and to the Farm, where we belong.

I don’t know if it is traditional to take a photo of one’s first sunrise of retirement, but my dear friend Liz reminded me to do just that about a week before my big day.  She probabably caught the idea from a recent TV ad for retirement planning but hey, it’s a good idea, don’t you think? 

Capturing the dawning moment of the rest of my life – what a splendid tradition to participate in.  Thank you Liz, for motivating me to pack my camera and tripod down into the chapparal canyon behind our house on that morning walk with Skeet.  It’s not the most perfectly-composed photo, but the best I could do with the delayed-shutter function and a befuddled dog tangling her leash around my legs.  I shall be able to remember that morning forever now.

To refresh the story (which I have let languish far too long):  I have finally reached my 24 year mark with the Navy, and chose to retire at my current paygrade of Lieutenant instead of accepting the promotion to Lieutenant Commander, which would have obligated me for another two years of service.  Why turn that promotion down and retire now?  Because I am no spring chicken, son; and it is high time for me to start the farming enterprise I have been planning for so many years, out in Kentucky on the little farm we bought five years ago. 

Farming is hard work, yes it is.  And I’m not getting any younger; ergo, there’s no time to waste. 

This will be a solo (ad)venture for me for the first few years, as Bear is still gainfully employed in his civil-service position and wants to run with it to his second 20-year retirement.  (He finished up with the Navy in 2000.)  So he’ll stay here at Bear and Thistle West for a time, babysit the underwater mortgage until the housing market starts recovering, and keep the lights on at 637 Redlands.  It’s a non-traditional plan but we hatched it together many years ago and it still works for both of us, so I will soon be Kentucky bound to start my herds and flocks and raise a few chickens too.

Soon.  Not tomorrow, though I would have liked to have been there by now.  However, as my official title is She Who Builds, Landscapes, and Paints Walls, I can’t leave until all the building, landscaping, and wall painting projects are complete.  Mind you, I’ve been working on most of these projects for the past couple of years, and I would have liked to have had them all done by now.  But they’re not, and so I must stay to finish them, and set the Bachelor Bear up for many years of low-maintenance, stress-free home life.

My labors of Hercules, as it were.  There aren’t twelve of them, and they’re not treacherous, but I can’t have my reward (move to the Farm) until they’re done.  And how long, you ask, will these suburban labors take me to finish?  I’m hoping only a couple of months.   So please bear with me as I blog about retaining walls and condo renovation and re-setting flagstone walkways and other non-farm tasks; bit by bit I swear I’ll get this pile-o-work done and get myself and my dogs out to Kentucky where my beautiful farm and the work of a lifetime awaits.

Hoping to travel out in March, before the pastures really start growing, and in time to till up a garden spot.

I’ve been gone so long from here, I can’t even navigate my WordPress dashboard anymore, there’ve been so many changes.

Yikes.  Time to get the old canoe back in the water and start paddling again.

I am tempted to proffer a phrase by way of explanation for my absence, naming it “writer’s autism” that has kept me from conversing here.  Seems I have suffered from nearly a year of it now, a confounding affliction best described by the common definition of the word autism which is:  self-absorption…characterized by lack of response to people and actions and limited ability to communicate. 

That definition really sums up the last year of my life.

And what a strange, ugly, chaotic, whirlwind of a year it has been.  I am not surprised it left me blog-speechless.  In fact, I feel quite lucky to have survived at all, and grateful just to be done with it.  Never mind all the unwritten emails and blog posts; Real Life proceeds without all of that and the communication hiatus may have, in the end, done me some good.  Maybe a lot of good, who knows.  Sure, I would like to have chronicled the portage just to have made some notes on how hard it was, but most of the time I was just staring down at my own two feet plodding, endlessly plodding, through the riverside brambles, my neck and back aching from the weight of the canoe on my shoulders, my legs bitten to a pulp by the hordes of mosquitoes.  The last thing I wanted to do, really, was to focus my attention on my discomfort.

So I’m done.  After 24 years, I’m done with jumping into a uniform every day and doing a job I had long ago lost my passion for.  There is a saying among career military folks, a salty bit of advice about how long to stay in; essentially we tell ourselves we’ll keep doing it until it isn’t fun anymore.   When it stops being fun, the saying goes, it’s time to leave. 

I had to pay back 10 years for my Officer’s commision, so I really couldn’t leave as soon as I would have liked to, but it was soon enough.  I’d say I made it out by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.  Scraped out the door without getting hit by it, and the last scramble wasn’t all that graceful, but the Good Lord be praised, I AM DONE.

It is beautiful, and amazing, and completely over the top.  I didn’t take a single picture worth posting so you’ll have to google it if you want a glimpse of the opulence and fabulous gardens and waterfalls.  Just imagine acres and acres of gardens and man-made rivers and waterfalls, under 9-story high greenhouse domes, every nook and cranny filled with palm trees, orchids, and other exotic plants.  I can’t even imagine the amount of energy required to maintain the tropical environment inside.  We’ve walked around with our jaws dragging on the floor all week, and though I have enjoyed all the beautiful indoor scenery the meals have been wickedly expensive and I’m quite ready to go.

My two travel companions are flying back to San Diego today; I am taking a detour over the weekend, driving up to the Farm for a quick look-see and a day or so of project time.  Wish me luck on ducking winter storms, they’re to the south and to the north this morning, but the hundred-thirty miles or so of highway I’ll be on are presently clear.

Well the big project is done.

It is a fine 6-foot side yard privacy fence atop a well-built concrete knee wall that keeps the wooden fence above the grade of the neighbors’ yard, which varies from 7″ higher than our property at the front to 16″ at the back.  The wall is 53-feet long, supported by an 8″ x10″ footer reinforced with rebar.  That baby ain’t going anywhere.  I built it for eternity.

It replaced the most rotten, crumbling, too-short falling down fence you ever saw, which was a completely inadequate division between my private backyard homestead and a really obnoxious neighbor.  The lady and her kids are quite nice, but this guy is loud, dumb, and intrusive.  I’ve had ample opportunity to develop a deep-seated dislike of his personality just listening to him blaring his weirdness from 20 feet away.  He yells at the kids and the dog.  He’s mean to my favorite neighbor lady friend on the other side.  Then he pokes his head over the falling-down fence and tries to start a conversation with me at 7 am when I’m in my pajamas with pillow face.  I had to build this fence, people.  It was a matter of survival.

Tearing down the old fence didn’t take all that much muscle, as the termite-eaten boards were light as a feather; it just had to be wrangled apart, posts wiggled out, and the whole load driven to the landfill.  But living without a fence between the two yards, no matter how lame a fence it was, is not acceptable in suburbia.  So I bought what seemed like a vast length of shadecloth fabric, affixed grommets to the top and bottom edge, and strung a construction screen from conduit poles to work behind.  It worked pretty well although it didn’t completely block line of sight, and blew over a couple of times during heavy rain and winds, but served the purpose of separating the yards and keeping the neighbor kids from just wandering through.

Then the digging commenced.  I planned to form a 10″ x 8″ footer centered on the property line, and once the fence was down it became clear just how much excavation that would require.  Plus, the ancient bougainvillea bushes on the neighbor’s side had been planted right next to the old fence line and were terrifically overgrown, so they had to be radically trimmed (ouch!) and as the footer trench was excavated, roots sawn through and removed.  Lotsa roots. 

It probably took me the better part of two weeks to get the fenceline cleaned up and ready to form for pouring the footer.  The fabric screen went up and down several times, needing moved back as the dimensions took shape and the need for more space to work became apparent.

As we have no frost level to speak of here in San Diego, I started my footer right at ground level and only made it 8″ deep.  Which is still overbuilt for this light-duty application, but that’s how I like to do things.

  The top of the form is nothing more than oiled 2 x 4′s fastened together and plumbed to stakes.  A  jig built from two 10″ crosspieces and a short board made setting the level and width of the far side relatively easy.  Once the form boards were in and level, I finished digging out the remaining 4 – 5 inches, ran rebar down the length, and fixed 2×3′s along the center to form a key slot for the wall to bond to.

One of the biggest challenges I encountered was working around the edge of the 16-foot slab that the previous neighbors had poured right up to the old fence.  We called a friend over to cut it even with the property line and I poured the footer underneath it, thinking I could somehow form the wall around the dang thing and incorporate the edge within the new concrete.  As I got closer to wall construction I decided the slab needed cut back again, and the new cut edge became one side of the form for the first, low wall section.  Of course, I had to buy a honkin’ saw to get the job done.  Every girl needs a worm-drive Milwaukee saw with diamond blade, don’t you think?

First wall section (about 23-feet long, 7-inches high) formed and ready for concrete:

Front wall section poured, Thanksgiving weekend.  I needed to get the front part of the fence and gate built and the backyard closed back up before we left on our December trip, so I worked at it very steadily and took advantage of the holiday weekend.

The project got a huge boost toward completion when my sister arrived for a week over Christmas and offered to help finish the rest of the wall.  What a great Christmas present!  The weather cooperated, amazingly, and we targeted New Year’s Day for the big pour. 

January 2nd, we poured the last section, the 16-inch high portion.   I lost count of the number of bags, sorry to say.  It was a LOT of concrete though.

I was very pleased with how it turned out, and it was a great learning experience.   Although I’ve done a few concrete projects before I’d never built a concrete wall, and figured this out bit by bit, reading books and adapting instructions to fit my particular situation.  The forms held well, the posts are aligned and plumb, there is rebar running through for strength, and it looks great.

In addition to forming and pouring concrete, the fence boards got two coats of stain, both sides, prior to putting them up.  It is much easier to paint a fence before it’s built.  But it was a patience game, since there were too many to lay out all at once and painting one side at a time meant flipping twice, allowing for drying in between.  Several nights of drizzle set the paint job back until I learned to cover the freshly painted boards with plastic overnight.  The job seemed endless, but I persisted with it, working by worklight in the evenings during the week, and was able to finish building the fence atop the wall by January 6. 

(I never know what vertical reference point to anchor these perspective photos to.  The fence is straight and plumb, as is the house, really.)

I am glad it’s done, and glad it turned out well.