Back to daily journal entries! I hope. But here I’ll cover what happened in the week since I last wrote.
Came home on Friday, uneventful trip. I was up early, still dark enough to get a good look at the stars (but not a great look, since the campground was so wooded). I strapped on the headlamp, made coffee and drank it, then packed up camp, took a little more than an hour — sleeping bag, cot, tent, Nemo chair … everything else had been packed in the car the night before. Left early enough that even without rushing I was home before 1pm. Verdict: glad I went, enjoyable, relaxing, got me back in the mood.
Saturday I went to the library, checked out a stack of books on low-maintenance landscaping and bonsai trees. Looked at the bonsai books first, that was enough to convince me I didn’t really want to to bonsai. Aside from the maintenance issue (I plan to be gone for weeks at a time, but bonsai need constant tending) I decided it was just too fussy for me, at least at this point. I’m looking for something to do that is productive rather than aesthetically pleasing or technically engrossing. Those things are important, but should be subsidiary, I want the enjoyment to arise from doing a useful thing, not be the point of doing the thing. Landscaping is a better bet, something useful to do, and if done properly could end up adding value to the house. But on the other hand, is it too much work? Is this an example of “sure, I can build a picket fence”? So I’m looking for a path forward that, if I’m doomed to fail, will reveal that quickly. First I thought of a test project just behind the house, but even that is ambitious and could end up costing a fair amount of time and effort only to toss in the towel and plow it under. But just yesterday I thought: what about starting by dealing with some of the current landscaping issues? Specifically, that jungle patch in the far back. It needs to be cut down anyway, preferably in such a way that it doesn’t come back, make it mowable or something. And there are minor but still real things to deal with otherwise, the jungle on the perimeter, climbing vines, dead tree(s) … maybe I should just get the yard as it is into proper shape, see how that much work engages me or doesn’t.
The roofers came Tuesday. They were here by 6:45am, done before 1pm. Seem to have done a good job, but how can I tell? At least they were meticulous about cleaning up before they left. I need to contact State Farm to let them know the work was done. And I need to find someone to do the small repair to the siding that SF specified.
Before going camping I had gone to see Sara Reno for my well-check. She looked in my ears, saw wax buildup, suggested I use Debrox to clean them out. I started that but decided to wait until I got back. When I started up again, my ears immediately got plugged up, left one mostly, right one completely. Drops + syringe weren’t doing the job, I was thinking about going to the Little Clinic and having them clean them out but that would cost $100, so I poked around YouTube and discovered the BeBird, an ear cleaning tool with a camera built in. A little scary, but only $25 so I ordered one — I could at least look to see what was going on, maybe do some careful work to loosen things up. It came last night, and it basically worked. I could see in my right ear that there was a solid plug, and gently poking and scraping at it I pulled out some and loosened the rest enough that I could hear again, in particular hear that the ear drops were now getting inside the wax. Did the left ear this morning, wasn’t as bad to start with but is somewhat better now, I can hear OK through both. Plan is to continue using drops + syringe to loosen up and clean out what is left, maybe look from time to time using the tool to monitor things. And I’ll try to do regular maintenance from now on so I don’t have to go through this again.
Frederick Law Olmstead’s presence in North Carolina (Biltmore, NC Arboretum) inspired me to go back to his travel journals, order the Library of America collection of his writings, and get a couple of bios. Currently reading one bio, writing is OK but I’m spoiled, still good to get some life background on him. Was glad to get some background on the southern travel trips. I’d like to do some travel centered around his projects … Buffalo, Boston, Washington DC. NYC is an obvious choice, but I don’t know if I could stand the difficulties of lodging and traveling in/out of the city.