Vegetable Lasagna

Well, it's not quite what you think... no yummy recipes here. It's a new-to-me way of developing our garden plot. As it turns out, a new acquaintance of ours is a Master Gardener with the Lane County Extension Office, and she stopped by to help us identify an unknown weed in our pastures. She had lots of other ideas to share, and among them was a simple way of readying our designated garden area. It's a sort of layered mix of cardboard, manure, leaves, newspaper, clippings and mulch. Our soil rocky with six inches of heavy clay on top of it. So to lighten it up, I'm going to use the "lasagna" method, also called sheet mulching.

Since we have plenty of cardboard boxes leftover from moving in, I started with them, opening them wide and removing the tape. I just layed them down on top of the grass and weeds, to kill them by blocking the sunlight, adding to the mulch. No mowing or digging necessary.

Then I topped the cardboard with a layer of alpaca beans from yesterday's clean-up. Alpaca manure is often called "alpaca gold" because it is nutrient-rich and can be applied directly to plants without burning them, and it composts well.

Next, a layer of dead grasses, long and seedless, that I grabbed from an old fence line. I need to import some leaves that I've raked in another area, and get discarded newspaper from a neighbor to complete the layers. But the rain comes and goes several times a day, so I've let it begin the decomposition for now. It was a quick start, and has me motivated to continue.

But then I thought that I should have begun the layering with a "carpet"of chicken wire on the bottom, to keep out the gophers and moles. So we bought that today and will put it under what I've started so far, and continue with that when I start the other sections. All of this is intended as raised bed, so we will border them with wood or timber.

Often we find earthworms whenever we dig, or we see them inching away from a boggy area so they don't drown. Now I will begin to collect them and relocate them to the garden zone.

I've already browsed the Territorial Seed Company catalog, selecting vegetable types I'd like to plant. And since they are in nearby Cottage Grove, we can go and talk to them directly and get their recommendations.

Last year at this time, a blackberry thicket was much of hiding our fence line. We had them cut down, and now that sunlight can reach the ground, there has sprouted several plants that roughly resemble zucchini bushes: large, serrated leaves growing out from a center, and less than knee-high.

I took photos and sent them to Melissa-the-Pasture-Lady (Small Farms Advisor for Oregon State Univeristy extension). I also posted the photo on EVAA's (our local alpaca association's) email list: Does anyone know what this plant is, or if it is harmful to alpacas? One of the other farm owners at first suspected it to be the dangerous and toxic Giant Hogweed, and located an online brochure (PDF) for me to compare it with. From the photo, Melissa said she was 99% sure that it is Cow Parsnip, Heracleum lanatum. We continued the search to be certain.

As mentioned, Master Gardener Joy offered to come and look at the mystery plant in its natural habitat, and to bring along some of her taxonomy books, to identify it. This invader is definitely Cow Parsnip, which is often mistaken for Giant Hogweed, its nasty cousin. In fact, I recall seeing CP in flowering form across the road last year. Its large white flowers resemble Queen Anne's Lace, and I had picked them for a flower arrangement.

The cream-colored tap root looks rather like a parsnip, hence the common name. I have been methodically digging it out of our pasture and the boys' pen, and will continue to check that area to make certain it is eradicated.

Because the Boys are coming! Our herdsire Galileo has been picked up at his "other home, " Eclipse Alpacas in Michigan. After a respite in Iowa to wait out a snowstorm, they will journey to So CA to pick up Orion, along with other alpacas needing a ride along the route, and will arrive here early next week.

It has been so very nice to get to know our small group of girls for these first weeks, and now we look forward to adding another dimension -- two areas to tend to, to clean and feed and maintain and enjoy.

And in a few weeks, the yearling boys Dakota and Sorrento will arrive, after making an appearance at The California Classic.

Hurray, the Boys are coming!

Easter blessings

Easter is the one holiday in the Christian calendar that has no defined date. Instead, it 'floats' in late March or early April, falling on the Sunday closest to the full moon. Sometimes Easter is celebrated during the Hebrew Passover, other years it is not since they are based on different calendar configurations.

All this to say that our Easter weekend was tenderly touched by layers of events beyond us. On Friday -- aka, Good Friday, the prelude to Easter -- we learned that one of our first friends in the alpaca business, Ed Warynick, had died peacefully that morning. Ed was a retired engineer and test pilot who, along with his wife Elizabeth, embraced the gentle alpaca. They sold their home, bought a farm in the village of Los Olivos, just north of Santa Barbara, and learned to care for their herd of alpacas, several llamas, sheep from the Santa Ynez Mission, and a collection of rescued dogs with health issues. The figure of St Francis near the barn area reflects their love for animals and their Creator.

Alpacas de los Olivos was one of the ranches I was privileged to visit and offer assistance, on herd health days or at shearing time. Ed taught me about designing pens so one person could easily move the animals from one area to another. He was a gracious gentleman and host to many visitors on Open Ranch days, charming them with his stories of his animals.

Even though I had not seen Ed in awhile, already I miss his kind voice and the twinkle in his eye as he offered his advice. So I thought about him as I tended our animals through the weekend...

A friend joined us for a mid-day Easter dinner. I'd forgotten to turn my cell phone on, so missed a message from her. And another one, too, apparently: earlier a neighbor had called to say that when she went out to feed her sheep and donkeys, there were two new lambs in the stall! First-time mom, Rasta Girl, had birthed a male and female with no problems.

So we popped the apple pie in the oven and dashed over to see them. New life is so sweet to behold! The boy is coal black with tight, lustrous curls, and his sister looks like someone smeared white on her face. Rasta instinctively knew how to care for them, and she has plenty of milk.


These lambs are a blend of breeds: Cotswold-Wensleydale (Rasta, ewe) and Gotland-Shetland (Pappy, ram). The donkeys (Mediterranean minis, often depicted in the Christmas story as Mary's mode of transportation) were curious about the new additions to their world, and came to meet the lambs. Meanwhile, another ewe showed up bedecked with blackberry vines that she'd obviously gotten stuck in. We laughed at the dangling roots and sprigs of leaves that were her Easter bonnet. The other sheep helped to nibble them off.

Returning in time to check on the apple pie, we nodded to our five dams and reassured them how simple birth would be for them in the coming weeks and months.

So the holiday was poignant with unexpected blessings: the peaceful death of a man of strong faith on Good Friday, and the birth of black twin lambs to a Jewish friend on Easter morning.

Mike and I concluded this ecumenically diverse weekend by watching Cry of the Snow Lion, a chronicle of Tibet's recent past told through interviews and personal stories. Since we have no TV here (by choice), our news input is quite selective, and watching this documentary gave valuable perspective on current events.

Peace... whatever that means for you
at this moment, and the next.

and then there were Five

Delphi's Disa has joined our herd, from Peaceful Valley Alpacas. She is due in early May with her 2nd cria, so we wanted to integrate her in her new home asap. And since the farm is new to all five of them, they can sort things out.

I go out in the mornings, with cup of hot tea in hand, to check on the girls and let them out in to the pasture. They are all cushed by the nearest corner, and they fairly romp past the gate. I greet them each by name and observe them for a few moments.

Lace is a bit of a clown. She usually has some grass of hay stuck to her in a funny way. She approaches me shyly, and I bend my head toward her in a lama bow. Both she and Nutmeg are brave enough to take an offered carrot bite from my hand. Yet amongst themselves, these two are the least assertive of the herd.

For the first few days, Disa hummed a lot, letting us know that she was nervous. Other than visual checks, we have left them alone so they can work out the hierarchy.

As Barbara, her former owner, puts it, "Disa is a gray girl in a brown dress." She has lots of gray genetics, and indeed, her last year's daughter, Terra, is a lovely rose gray by Aussie Rockford. Disa was rebred to Rockford, so we're hoping for a repeat performance. Of course, having a healthy cria and mom is of foremost importance, but after 10 boys born in a row, a girl would be most welcome! And Disa's will be the first birthing for Aragon Alpacas on our own ranch.

Yesterday the veterinarian came for a preliminary visit, to meet us and see the layout BEFORE there is an emergency. He was very reassuring about our pastures and feeding program, filling in some gaps by recommending minerals, reviewing his protocol for shots, discussing whether or not to get guardian/sentinel animals, mousers for the barn, etc.

We are privileged to be in the area that Dr Pat Long services, and just in time to take his neo-natal class at Oregon State University at end of April. I have attended one of Dr Jana Smith's birthing classes in So CA, but that was well before the responsibility for our alpacas was in my lap. So this will be a heightened refresher for me, and I will listen with new ears. Disa and Sheba and all of the others will certainly benefit.

Mike has been installing new latches on some of our gates. The alpacas are comfortable us being in and out of their pens, and are quite inquisitive as to what is going on. I guess he can always use the assistance!

As if in allegiance to St Patrick's Day, we have had 'soft' Irish weather this week, and lots of rainbows, even double ones. And cheery daffodils are popping up all over. We watched a squall (at least that's what it's called on the ocean) march across the valley, with dry skies behind it. The girls are all two-toned now, wet above and dry below. Often they are out grazing in the rain, but their fleece remains dry next to their skin.

The wild turkeys strolled through our yard again, heading up the hill this time. If this is the same bunch we saw a few weeks ago, they have grown a lot! One tom, and seven hens. At one point he struck a pose, stretching out that fan of tail feathers and fluffing out his wings. Magnificent.

Our neighbor, Joe, said he's counted up to 500 geese at his pond this year. They must be moving northward again, their visits and numbers are fewer this week.

The wildlife is always a nice surprise to this countryfied city girl. But I'm even more enthralled by seeing alpacas in our pastures!

We snapped this one of Nutmeg at a particularly goofy moment...

Alpacas have arrived!

On the loveliest of Sunday afternoons, the first four of our dams stepped out of the trailer and onto our farm. As did Tom Goehring, from Ranch of the Oaks/Fiber Mill in Lompoc, CA, their shepherd/chauffeur for 14 hours on the road. All were glad to be out in the fresh air, moving their legs, strolling along.

We escorted the girls to the pens set up with hay and water. What a celebration for the old red barn to once again have livestock within its walls! And what a thrill for us to see our own animals on our own land!! I immediately called Mette to let her know that Tom had arrived safely, and Bonnie, from whose ranch they had come, to let her know the girls had made the trip just fine. Actually, eight alpacas arrived, since each of the dams are pregnant.

Over the past few months, I have visited other alpaca ranches to help to quell my missing these critters. But that was nothing compared to seeing the alpaca faces that I know so well!

Since purchasing two dams in 2005 and agisting (boarding) our growing herd these three years, the girls' arrival marks the realization of our dreams and plans. Tom was marvelous, and so reassuring for us nervous "first-time parents."

Indeed, it is much like having your first baby, with all of the excitement and anticipation of the impending arrival. We had the Layette to prepare: readying the barn, building feeders, buying water buckets, getting hay, stocking the medical supplies, reading the articles and manuals.

Then with their Arrival, the shift in focus and responsibility. No longer does Kelly-dog get our sole attention, and she has learned that there are new rules for her to obey, like waiting for "mom" on the other side of the gate. And husband Mike has less of my attention, too, for all of my going out to check on the alpacas, or to just watch and be with them.

And so many Photos of alpacas at every angle, just like with a new baby! Then there's the Showing Off to family and friends (like this blog!), and people stopping by to see the new arrivals. Best Wishes from so many, and a Celebratory Toast.

It's such a delight to watch the girls explore their new home, full of sounds and smells and sights and tastes they've never experienced before.

Sheba is the oldest one in this group, and she is the designated Watcher. The others keep close to her when the dog is out with us, taking cues from her attentiveness. But this morning, Summer was the first one to romp into a new pasture, and Lace and Nutmeg danced among the low branches of one of the trees, relishing the back-scratching.

Soon two more females will join this group, and then the boys will begin to arrive. Galileo is at home at Eclipse Alpacas in Michigan part of the year, and on his way westward, the transporter will collect Orion to join him. And the rest of our girls and growing crias from Canzelle in Carpinteria, CA. They're finally all coming Home.

And then the new cria will start to arrive, and I'll be a nervous mama all over again.

tiptoeing through the...

Until our alpacas arrive next week, we're relishing the wildlife we see here "in the rurals." This week Mike spied a flock of wild turkeys perusing our yard and was able to get a few photos through the window.

And of course there's the huge flock of Canada geese (hundreds!!) that over-winters at our neighbor's pond. Sometimes they fly en masse to forage in our sprouting hay field. Onyx, our cat, is petrified of them, scurrying for cover the few times she's outside and hears their squawking. For all she knows, they're birds of prey.

When Mike and I trekked down to the hay field to look at the new gate, I saw not only goose footprints (1), but also deer tracks (2), and paw prints from [someone else's] cat (3). A new creature to us is the vole, a meadow mouse that makes running trails in the grass, from hole to hole (4). I've never actually seen one, but there sure are lots of holes! Kelly sticks her nose down them to investigate, but has not yet come up with one.

I've planted primroses by the new mailbox, mounted on an old plow that one of our workmen gave me. Deer munched the white ones, flowers only. The buds that were left have now bloomed, and they seem safe enough. So we bought more primroses and pansies yesterday, to line the walkway to the studio (red building in the background, attached to the garage).

We've layed in basic vet supplies to tend to the alpacas, and next week, hay arrives. Maybe we should put a banner and balloons out to welcome them! At least their arrival will be a real celebration for us two-leggeds, the culmination of dreaming and planning and transitioning for the past few years.

Now for the next adventure: shepherding our herd!

Winging It, or The One-Man Buffet

[Mike has journeyed back to our 'other' house, to gather up the last of our stuff, load up the trailerable sailboat, and arrange for renters. Following is a monologue he had via computer while dining on Chinese take-out on Day 5.]

OK, Wings Chinese won out. Then upon arriving back home, discovered the only white wine we have is .... CHAMPAGNE (and lots of it). So having a personal Chinese meal with personal bottle of champagne. dammit, I'm GONNA sleep tonite.

Pork fried rice. Another neighbor dropped by while walking her dogs, to inquire if "the house would be Open tomorrow." I told her we'd taken it off the market, but she recanted this whole tale of how she almost bought it when "a single lady" had it for sale about 12 years ago, but then her boyfriend moved in and screwed it all up... So I sheepishly raised my hand, and we had a good laugh. She said she bought a place over on Torino instead.

As they were leaving, Bill and Katrina said "maybe we'll connect over the weekend and go out for dinner - we know what it's like to be left behind." (thinking you were here, but went ahead before I did). That was nice. I probably wouldn't, but who knows. He wears a tattoo of the Army Rangers (like Green Berets, only Army vs Special Forces). Said he was Enlisted for about 5 years, got out and got a bachelors on the GI Bill, then decided he didn't like civilians all that much (woulda been about 1963 - wonder why?) and went back in as an officer. I didn't tell him I turned down an appointment to Annapolis.... he'd have thought I was one of those Hippies or something.

Beef with Broccoli. I think this'll work out well - they're waiting for the same thing we are, the market turning around, to sell his place in Flagstaff, then will have plenty of cash to live wherever they want to. I quizzed Ann S this evening, she thinks it could turn around by a year from now. If enough people say that, it will. Generally, action by the Fed takes about 6 months to permeate the markets.

While Bill was still here, Larry popped in to look at the staghorn, so I introduced them. That was fortuitous. I told Larry he had a Harley-Davidson, Larry said "well, a Motorcycle is SUPPOSED to live here, isn't it?" So I guess it'll be OK as long as there aren't major Poker Runs and Oktoberfest meets.

Fooled with the Van window a little, it's apparently not an electrical problem - I was hoping it was just a blown fuse. However, the seal at the top has had the window leak/drip right down onto the switches, so maybe when I take the door panel off I can fix the door handle AND the window. If I can just get it up, I can prop a board under it or something. It's really gonna suck to have to drive it home with the window open, I'll need a jacket and earplugs.

Sauteed mixed vegetables. Sitting on the stepstool, but I guess it has to go out before BFI comes. Then there really WILL be no where to sit in the house except on a floor. Weirder things have happened, I guess.

The closets are all empty, the bathrooms just have chachka's in them (shells, soaps, kleenex boxes), the laundry stuff is packed. There's a MESS of wire hangers. I'm close enough I could pack the house out in about an hour, I think, except for the garage. That's a statistical nightmare: I have to have enough room in the van for the plants AND everything else, but until I get the plants in there I won't know how much is left for everything else, so won't know how much to take to storage before I put the plants in.

Sweet & Sour Pork. I couldn't get the garbage out of the garage rafters (except the stuff I took to storage), so when we come down to clean the place for selling it in a year (or two, or three, ... the longer we hold it the more it appreciates and the better our eventual retirement is gonna be) we'll have to call for another BFI "Spring Clean" pickup and pull it down then. With all the shingles and garbage up there, it's gonna make a real mess. I got trashed by falling junk just pulling down 4 pieces of wood (the "upper" rails to the waterbed frame).

Pork fried rice again: Ann said you and she had been "chatting very slowly" - a few lines then answer the phone, etc. Do I recall she got a Mac too? If so, are you using iChat?

Apple charges too much for their stuff - that's the old IBM model "we make it, you want it, you have to pay for it because you can't get it anywhere else". With PC's, EVERYBODY makes them - you can even assemble them yourself from parts - so there's no "monopoly influence" any one player can leverage. That's what I see the "Cloud" doing. Some ding-dong a long time ago said "The Network IS the Computer" (talking about the WWW then), and it's taking this long to realize it. That's what The Cloud is about. The computer is irrelevant, it could be in the dash of your car, it's the services it can bring you by being hooked to the Cloud that matter. Even "Tron" and The Terminator movies saw that coming a long time ago - although they turned it dark.

Incidentally, there's a video out there somewhere called "Pirates of Silicon Valley". We should have that - it was like a PBS special once about how Atari, Microsoft, and Apple got started.

Stuffed. Why do you suppose they always give you regular steamed rice if you order Pork Fried Rice as an entree? Nobody can eat THAT much rice without dying.

Oh crap. That much introspection and still a half-bottle to go? Oh well. You can't put the cork back in champagne!

Fortune Cookie. "Happiness can be achieved by using your patience." What the hell does that mean? Who writes this stuff, anyway? SpinMasters from the Democratic party? How to say what's most probable anyway and make it sound like prognostication.

Larry and I had a conversation about Unions today. I generally excuse myself from those because I realize I'm so far off the charts, but he's belonged to "Right to Work" organizations for a long time, so that was permission enough. He made one real good point: the anti-union activists missed the window when they had a Republican senate and White House - they could have gone for the jugular and got away with it. But no,... now we'll keep going up against Hillary and Teddie and cronies.

Be home soon, with boat.

P.S. Second Fortune Cookie (because I didn't believe the first one): "A trip by air is in your future." What a crock. Whatever happened to "you will meet a tall handsome stranger" - at least that had an aire of mystery for you ladies - or "remember your lady tomorrow when it's Valentine's day" - helpful to say the least.

P.P.S. The background music was "Unchained Melody" at Wings tonite while I was in there.

Mike's symphony, in three movements

I was born about 30 miles from our Eugene farm, up in the mountains in a little one-horse logging community (honest, they only had one horse!), but I've been gone so long I had forgotten about the snow, mud, rain, cold, et al. My sun-baked Southern California epidermis took a short while to thicken and tolerate the less temperate winter conditions at this higher latitude. But now the cold isn't particularly bothersome. Flannel sheets helped. And a thermal sweatshirt. Oh yeah, and insulated boots. Um, and those fuzzy gloves... two pairs of socks...

The mud, however, is a different story. From late November on, workmen were sticking their vehicles in so deep they had to be pulled out, so they started parking on the lawn. Which accordingly now sports ruts that'll twist a camel's ankles. I spooned some pea gravel onto the less stable parts of the driveway so at least it could be walked across to the trash cans, garage, and Alpaca Store without sinking in, but after watching the rain wash down the drive, I've come to the conclusion that our driveway is and always has been crossed by the prevailing stream off the hills behind us. That could by why the cistern is where it is.

But thankfully, it froze and the mud became hard enough to walk on again. That was better. Even the pea gravel froze into a solid mass. We reveled in the fact we could walk to the barn without sinking in up to our ankles. Mind you, we're not talking legendary freezes here, just into the high teens and twenties, but with a daytime high of about 33F, it didn't thaw for a week or two.

And then it snowed. The first snow was on Christmas night, then it took a month's respite before returning with a vengeance in late January. Old Timers said it was the most snow they can remember. We were "snowed in" (well, okay, I bet I could have shoveled enough snow to get out if I'd really needed to) for several days, but we didn't really have anyplace to go anyway. So we just stayed aboard and had a great time looking at it, playing in it, romping the dog in it, etc. We even made a snowman and a companion Snow Alpaca on the lawn. I think maybe the workmen skidded into them though, because they didn't last long.

We planted our four foot living Christmas tree as the first of what we intend to be a row of evergreens along the street side of the upper yard. When I pulled out an old fencepost to plant it, subsequently landing on my keister in the mud, there was an actual running river at the bottom of the hole. I suspect there's a drain culvert down there that the fencepost pierced so many years back, the water was really running. Either that or I discovered the "headwaters" of the spring that runs... you got it... across the driveway when it rains.

But the craziest upshot of all this "weather related" diatribe is: I'm currently down in Southern California readying our sailboat-slant-woodworking-project for trailering up to live with us (where it can bug me until I finally get around to finishing it), and all the friends and neighbors are commenting how much I must really enjoy the wonderful spell of weather we're having. For some reason, it's too hot for me. I guess it always was, I was never really completely comfortable in this climate, but I always attributed that to being a tad on the "husky" side.

Who knows, might just have never been enough mud for me here.

--------------------------

Lunacy

It never occurred to me, until just now, to name a sailboat "Luna Sea" but one could easily say Lunacy is involved somewhere in there.

I was surfing the 'Net one night and chanced to see if I could find out anything about the One-Design class of sailboats I learned to sail in, the "Geary 18" (or as it's lovingly known, the "Flattie"). Sure enough, I made a connection with some of the people that still have them. The boat was designed around 1927 by famous naval architect Ted Geary, who went on to design many large luxury yachts and eventually merchantmen for the war effort. They are numbered up to about 1500, but there aren't many of the older ones left - maybe 50 or so - scattered all over the West Coast. I spent many a Saturday "racing", a moniker offered to wondering parents - more like just fooling around, in one of the real old ones: sail number 228. I had the idea of rebuilding an old one as a joint project with my darling daughter, as a way of teaching Perseverance by example.

So my loving wife and best friend said "Why don't you just buy one?" Yeah. Thanks a bunch.

Unsuspecting, I bought a damaged one for $400 in unmarked bills (hull number 272, originally built beneath an under-construction freeway overpass in LA around 1930), never received a stitch of paperwork with it, and have since come to some realizations:

1. no amount of money can get you two pieces of 21' long by 2' wide clear Port Orford cedar, as called for in Geary's plans for the sides. Substitute $1500 worth of mahogany. Now I have eight 80' tall Port Orford cedars in my front yard. Go figure.
2. finding a piece of 3/4" plywood 21' long by 6' wide is technically feasible, but how are you going to get it home? Substitute a few thousand more bucks worth of woodworking tools (darn), lots of wood joinery, and more expensive replacement wood.
3. when you take one rotted piece of a boat out, almost everything it ever came in contact with, will also be rotten. Substitute another paycheck worth of mahogany, longleaf pine, etc.
4. owning a boat when you have anything else to do with your life, is just plain Lunacy.

I'll finish the thing someday and sail it on Fern Ridge reservoir or Dexter Lake, but next week I'm starting the second chapter of the adventure by boldly trailering it (on those little 8" mini wheels) straight up Interstate 5 for about 800 miles. My job tomorrow is to wire it for lights, since some of that drive will be in rain and at night. Nobody alert the Highway Patrol, please. Oh, and by the way, I'd stay away from I-5 the beginning of next week if I were you.

--------------------

Multiplication.

We prepped our house in Southern California for sale last year and put it on the market. Detecting this miniscule flutter of butterfly wings, the real estate market across the United States promptly imploded. So we are left with a large and pristine home, richly upgraded at extreme expense, that we now find we must rent out and wait for the market to recover.

So to finish emptying it, I find myself back in the land of SoCal, in the town in which I lived for nearly 50 years. My family is still in the area, beloved members are interred here, and I still have a few surviving high-school friends as well as many other friends of more recent acquaint. However, this trip has invoked a great deal of solo-ness and I find myself sleeping on the floor in a house that's now been completely emptied of familiar accoutrements. Even the Internet connection has long since been turned off and I find myself stealing tincan-and-string level connectivity from some neighbors down the street who neglected to set a password on their wireless router. The echo in this empty house, once so warm and vibrant with friends, is the clarion call that it's time to move on, physically and metaphysically.

And right on cue, the 20-year-old Oldsmobile minivan I'm driving started giving me trouble. Nothing monumental, it still goes down the road, but the driver's side window locked in the wide-open position, for instance. Admittedly not a show-stopper. I could still get back to Eugene, but it'd be pretty darn uncomfortable driving through February weather with an Oh-Dark-Thirty departure and arrival and 18 hours of window-thunder between. With no "fat" in the schedule to allow me to find a cost-effective solution, a trip to the GM dealership put the window mechanism back in showroom condition. They even washed and waxed the beast for me! All for only.... about half the market value of the van itself. But like I said, there was no time to shop around and hope someone else could get the right parts the first time.

But what I really can't figure out is where all this STUFF comes from. When we emptied the house to sell it, we thought we had emptied it down to where one more van-full would take care of the last of the stuff. Now it seems, in the darkened privacy of the closed closets, the coat hangers have multiplied and we now have a van-full of coat hangers, a van-full of potted plants, a van-full of empty pots for plants, a van-full.... well, you get it. I'm being as ruthless as I can about throwing the "that's only barely used" piece of soap away, but the Stuff-o-Meter on our storage place keeps going up regardless. I'm worried they might surcharge us - out of the corner of my eye I noticed the clerk at the storage place hanging watchfully around as I put the last bunch of Stuff in. I think the door was bowed out just a little when I closed it.

And I don't think I'm getting any less Stuff in the van for the trip home, either. Every cabinet I open, even those I think I cleaned out the other day, seems to have Stuff in it. Someplace in a different universe, some guys are having a beer, pushing a button labelled "Multiply Mike's Stuff", and laughing at me on the monitor. "Quick, he's not looking, put some more Stuff in there!"

All right you guys, knock it off! I got my hands full here!

Tomorrow, I think I'll do a "test load" and see how much Stuff I can get in the van, then take it all back out and put it in the middle of the floor where I can keep an eye on it. Applied quantum physics - if I continually observe and am only open to the possibility that I have 1X amount of stuff, it can't multiply on me.

But sadly, I'm feeling like an interloper in a town in which I know every rock on every street by first name. Neighbors have remarked "isn't this weather wonderful?" and I find myself biting my tongue to avoid saying: "Naw, too hot." But maybe that's normal - I've only moved to a different town once in my life, and that was from the Eugene area TO Southern California, about the time the speed limit on the freeway went from 50 to the breakneck 55. This trip back north, with a van-full of (multiplied) stuff and towing an antique sailboat, will be at 55 miles per hour as well. That's some sort of circular experience, I guess.