Loose Crud

Yesterday evening I noticed some debris on the living room floor and swept it up. It looked sort of like coarsely ground black pepper. I was astounded to see quite a bit more of the same in the same spot this morning. My sister said it seems to her that she has often seen something or other in that spot. Due above is a crack in the wall, and above that, a crack in the ceiling, neither very large. My sister said maybe the roof work or the A/C installation shook loose crud that is in the attic, or maybe the operation of the new heat pump is doing that. She said it would not be a bad idea to rule out some kind of destructive pest, so I scheduled an appointment for this Friday, and then I felt a little disheartened: Yet another thing that needs fixing that will cost X amount of money?

My sister went on to say she thought we should take a look at it from the attic so we would have a better idea if what the pest person says makes sense. That was even more disheartening; a wave of vertigo set in, or vestibular migraine, or whatever it is: A foggy, disoriented feeling in the brain.

This was going to require either climbing up into the attic via the wobbly fold-down stairs in the garage and crawling all the way across two rooms in the exceedingly foul air and hoping to be able to locate the crack, or using a ladder to get up onto a ledge near the living room ceiling. Neither sounded that great (ladders and vertigo maybe not being things that go well together), but I indicated that I was on board. (I mean, what was I going to do? Sit on the couch while my sister crawled around in the attic?)

The day picked up greatly after that. I had a nice breakfast and after debating whether it’s allowed (by whom?) to skip taking a walk if it’s a gardening day, went out to do yard work. Being a perfectionist, I would prefer to both take a walk and do yard work, but besides the time factor, it is mainly a question of energy and allocation thereof. I skipped the walk.

The main goal today was to dig up burdock, which has giant not-very-winsome leaves and gets huge extremely fast. It has very substantial roots (which I guess can be cut up and used to brew health-giving tea). Getting it out of the ground required the use of an actual shovel. I often had to jump up and down on both sides of the shovel, and I had to temporarily relocate several heavy rocks. It was extremely satisfying each time I heard the POP! of the roots giving way. One time it was such a loud crack, I thought for a moment that I had snapped the wooden handle of the shovel.

There used to three arbor vitae in the back yard which I had not seen for some time. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to them. Along with tackling the burdock, I did other bits of pruning and weeding and pulling vines off things. My next door neighbor does not believe in harming the merest blade of grass, so I was chucking to myself picturing him sitting on his couch with a worried look on his face hearing the chop-chop-chopping and my demented shrieks of pleasure when about 20 feet of vine pulled free. “OH YEAH!!!”

And guess what was behind all of those vines? Three nearly dead arbor vitae, separated from the edge of the grass by several feet of various kinds of greenery, whereas they used to be right at the edge of the grass.

It occurred to me that gardening is a perfect pursuit for someone who loves getting rid of things, as I do. There will always be something else that can be cut off or pulled up or dug out or dragged away.

My sister stopped by in the late afternoon, but we ended up neither climbing a tall ladder in the living room nor, thank god, crawling through the attic. The house will be painted soon and the painter can fix the little cracks from the room side. The cracks may or may not get fixed from the attic side. We set up a shorter ladder and my sister held the vacuum cleaner off the floor so that I could vacuum off the spider webs and crud near the cracks. I was able to reach all the way to the ceiling with her help. I’ll see how things are tomorrow. 

I was talking to my sister about something needing to be fixed every five minutes, part of the reason I actively never wanted to own a house, not to mention not wanting to clean a house. She said that that is kind of how it is, yes, but one thing I have going for me is that I am likely to be proactive about problems. A lot of things did not get addressed year after year when my father owned this house, and this is because he could do and / or fix everything. He could do electrical work, he could do plumbing, he could do any kind of mechanical thing, he could fix broken things, he could fabricate needed items out of metal or wood. Therefore, when a thing needed attention, he put it on his list of things to do. 

I, however, cannot fix or do anything, and so am forced to call someone, and this I do right away because I cannot stand to have tasks hanging over my head, so my sister is probably quite right.

It was very satisfying to look out the kitchen sink window this evening and not see burdock.