Making a Dint in the System

(Note: I swear to you everything in this post is true and unexagerated, unlike some posts of mine.)

While I was trying to get my old phone disconnected, (a company un-named but sounding like a Beery Arising) I found that the carrier’s oh-so-educated voice machine apparently doesn’t understand the word “no” -- something which I had long suspected. It must be easy to drop a word or two from a computer’s vocabulary, but it was still amusing -- in a nail-biting way -- to hear the pleasant female voice respond, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your last statement” after I’d answered, “No” to one of her questions. And of course, the five humans that they have left in place to handle the 756 calls-per-hour from the customer service line were all busy helping other customers -- and probably calling 911 for those customers, because if they had actually held on long enough to reach a real human being, they were either dead, unconscious or totally insane.

And that is not even as hairy as my encounters with my cell phone company -- again, unnamed but with a dint of a hint, you might catch a glint of the company I’m thinking of -- this one had been mailing my bills to an address two back, over a year old, and no amount of writing on the bill (when it eventually got to me) helped. In a Kafka-esque evening a month ago, I began to find out why. Several weeks before that I had, in fear that my credit might suffer because I wasn’t getting the bills in time to pay them, attempted to mail a check to the company with an old bill stub. I had called and asked the customer service rep for an address and she gave me one in Kansas City (after about 22 minutes wait-time… I sorted old bills, first alphabetically and then by amount, while I waited). So I was stunned when it came back in 10 days with a “Post Office Box Closed” note… so the company had moved without telling the service reps? Of course, mail to India is slow…

So then I decided to try to pay online, as they encourage us to do. I tried to create a new account, gave them all my information, created a user name and a password (stupid1, if you want to know) and then they wanted a PIN number, too, with its own password (If someone catches me wandering down the street, mumbling, “susie345, 9845, catbill89” you will know that I have reached the limit of internal memory and am chasing through alternate realities after my PIN numbers). I tried to create a PIN, but my address didn’t match the one they had for me (imagine that!) and so they asked me a series of questions to be sure I was me… the problem was, they were multiple choice questions: you could select only one of four, and their question was “which of these addresses didn’t you live at?” -- and of course, they had listed 3 of those and only one that I had lived at! So I couldn’t answer correctly, and therefore they said they’d have to do more research and get back to me.

But I could still sign on, using the new user name and password (we are now at another 30 minutes, if you’re timing it). There was one glitch -- because I didn’t do a PIN, they needed to text message the validation code to my phone. I was to type it in and proceed. Anyone want to guess the punchline? No text message -- not then, not anytime during the weekend when I tried again and again… But just at that point, I gave up and searched the bill for a phone number to call, to pay up… and when I dialed the 800 number, the message told me the paying procedure had changed and I had to call another (non-toll free) number or use the *3 function on my cell phone. I didn’t want to use up all my monthly minutes on hold for a bloody representative, so I gave up completely. I wanted nothing more than to pitch the phone through the window, but I know that anyone who stole it would also be so good at hacking that they’d get through where I failed, and that would be humiliating.

Then, out of the blue, a company salesman called me -- all unsuspecting -- to tell me that I wasn’t using enough of my cell phone minutes (and he called me during prime time, to make sure I wasted some on him) and that I qualified for a brand new phone -- he got no further, swept away in a tsunami of invective from my last nerve being stepped on. I really should have saved my breath; English was his second (possibly third) language and he likely understood only a quarter of what I was yelling. When I paused for breath, he jumped in and assured me that he could take care of changing my address for me. I huffily agreed, and spent the next ten minutes trying to get him to repeat a correct address back to me. When that was done, and he said he’d submit it and it would change “sometime in the next week”, he insisted on setting up my PIN number (remember that failed attempt?). At that point, I baulked, saying because he’d called me, I didn’t really know who he was… eventually, I gave in and gave him a number -- then he said he had to ask a challenge question: “What is your favorite hobby?” “Yelling at phone salesmen,” I answered before I could stop myself. It took him a moment, but then he chuckled weakly. Anyway, to shorten this (and it was a long phone call), he took the info, wisely did not try to give away that “free phone”, and hung up. Three minutes later, he called back -- to tell me that the address change was in, but I had to call *2 on my cell “before tomorrow, in order to verify it”… so who had I been talking to?? My last nerve was throbbing, so I waited until after the “unlimited night minutes” had kicked in before calling.

I finally got through to a person, a young thing called Jasmine who spoke so fast and mumbled so badly that I had to get her to repeat just about every sentence. I tried to explain why I was calling, but it sounded lame and a bit delusional even to me. She resorted to the time-honored rep response, “May I please have your account number?” Perhaps she was expecting to find a red flag and the cause of my insanity in the files. Eventually, we got to my address -- and sure enough, it was the same old, two-back address! So much for whoever I’d been speaking with! Grimly, I held on the phone, trying to wash dishes with one hand as Jasmine pecked and poked the keyboard -- it literally took her 11 minutes to type in my two-line address! And then another five minutes after it occurred to her that I might want a current bill… and then, just as she was about to hang up, I heard her gasp, “Oh no!” -- the address had reverted to the old address in front of her eyes!!

So I guess I had to take back all the curses I’d landed on the hapless clerks -- that was one sick computer system! She first wanted to put me on hold for tech support, but I pointed out that it was her computer, not mine, that was sick; then she put me on hold while she sat on hold for tech support -- and sometime after five minutes, the line went dead… oh, well…

This had finally gotten to the YouTube stage. Since I couldn’t videotape some idiot serviceperson, I wrote a letter to the CEO of this cell phone company, highlighting my recent experience. And since I’m experienced at CEO letters, I also send a copy to the head of technical research at Consumer Reports -- I thought he’d be amused. I was gratified to receive a phone call just five days after I’d mailed the letter -- from the CEO’s “assistant”, a polite young woman who assured me they wanted my business and asked me if my problem had been resolved. Of course not, I said, but I found it amusing to give her the excrutiating details of her sick computer system.

She found my record, verified that the old address was still firmly entrenched, and proceeded to change it -- she thought. Back it sprung, as I surmised from hearing her gasp. Try again -- at least she could type well -- it only took her seconds. Nope - she gasped again, and groaned. Then she said she would definitely report this to tech services - then a whoop! as she got it to take hold. She was so proud, and I shook my head -- it had only taken about a hour and a half so far to change my address -- no, make that three or four hours, if you count all the extra work I’d done when I wasn’t on the phone or online with them.

Then she just wouldn’t rest on her laurels -- she wanted to prove to me that the PIN number had also been set up… so I got online. No PIN number… it still wanted that d*mn validation code that it wasn’t text messaging to me. She gave me a number to enter. I did -- the screen rejected it. She gave me another number. The screen rejected it and insisted I exit my browser and start again from scratch! I did that, and she gave me a third number - the system bounced me back to the home page. She told me to enter my username and password a fourth time -- and finally the system recognized me!

Now… was that so hard?? Isn’t that an improvement over the old days, when we mailed a check or paid the phone bill at the counter of the local pharmacy?? No? I don’t think so either… but I’m glad at least that CEOs still know how to read… and delegate.

If we ever wonder why time is going so fast these days, we might want to add up the number of minutes (hours, weeks...) that we spend trying to get our high-speed connection devices to connect to anything useful! Oh, and by the way… I have now forgotten that online password, and still am paying my bills by mail.

Veggie Garden Update

I realize that the last post on my veggie garden was in the midst of a mid-April snowstorm, so I figured I'd quickly let you all know that it survived. Despite the snow and then, exactly a month later, four days of almost 100-deg. weather, then a precipitous drop to the low 60's where it's pretty much been since May - most of the plants grew, and I've been eating lettuce, broccoli, radishes and even my first peas! But of course the progess hasn't been easy. More on that later.

Ye Olde Almaniac

I picked up a copy of the 2008 Old Farmer’s Almanac -- proudly aware that now I could legitimately say I needed to consult it. “Consult” might not be the best word… dig into it, plow through the ads and promotions, looking for the actual almanac… as far as I could tell, the first almaniacal information (on the year’s weather) started on page 80, the masthead was on page 84, and “How to Use this Almanac“ was on page 110! Obviously, this is one publications that knows about “compost”! That’s a heap o’ turning to get to the good stuff… and then, to add to the fun, the tables themselves -- the part with the information -- is printed in 5 to 8 point type! Given the average farmer’s age, you’d think they’d package this with a magnifying glass…I suppose if they made a Large Type edition, it would be the size of an encyclopedia (you remember -- those were the big books that held up various piece of furniture because they were so uniform in size?) And then they compound the problem by playing with typeface -- I didn’t even know they had Olde English typeface in 5 point type! I have to enlarge the page on my copier/scanner just to read it.

And then there’s the instruction page, with its bold arrows and arithmetic equations for deciphering the numbers for your individual town and state. I paged back and forth several times, squinting at the examples and finding the key letter for my town… okay - my town is not listed, (of course not! it’s a small rural town! Where the farms are!) but I found the two closest cities and then all I had to do after I figured out the proper key was to position the number of minutes to add or subtract somewhere between the two numbers given. (Huh?) I was glad I wasn’t doing sunrise or sunset rituals or fasting for any daylight ceremonies, because I don’t have to be exact to the minute. In fact, I generally forget the time the moment I close the book. But it’s comforting to know that I can check the table if any day I think the sun has gotten lazy… And reading the monthly Table of Events is a trip - not too many books have lists of the saint’s days alongside the start of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame… but I’ll bet the old Almanacs didn’t have ads for Viagra (it wasn’t a veterinarian version, either).

But not all of the pages before page 80 are pure ads… there are some “entertaining articles” (which are created purely to tease readers into opening the pages full of ads). Page six has a list of predictions for the new smart houses of the future, which, they say, will be called ‘responsive houses”… these houses will be able to shrink in the winter to conserve heat, shake snow off the roof, and have windows and doors that change size and type, and open/close to regulate heat/temperatures… that sounds like living inside a dog! What, exactly, do they think will happen to the good china when this house shakes itself to get the fleas -- sorry, snow -- off? And will it heel like a loyal lab, or will it be a bumptious mongrel that flares the windows and doors for fun, while you stand there howling for it to behave? I can just imagine the fun of living in a place that changes size when it decides it’s needed. Some morning I wake up in a bedroom the size of a breadbox! But perhaps they’re expecting that by then the furniture will have “contraction sensors” and will downsize accordingly… and I’ll be like Alice in Wonderland, sitting in -- or wearing -- a room and wondering where the bottle marked “Drink Me” is! It makes me wonder what these farmers are growing…

Thoreau and I

In order to make myself feel even more inept, I decided to re-read Thoreau’s Walden, that story of a man who built his own cabin and lived in it two years, so far from his fellow man that a child wandering in the woods would have to walk an entire mile to find him… unless he was walking on the Walden Road, of course… but that’s as may be… I had read Thoreau in high school, and as I remember, my classmates and I made much of him. We were impressed by his statement, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation”. Now, thanks to the Internet, that is no longer the case -- now they are desperate loudly in your face! But Thoreau wrote many other sentences. A couple paragraphs down from that very famous one, he writes (and I quote): “Old people did not know enough, once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled around the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is.” Now, unless I am going senile at a very young age, Thoreau seems to have neglected his mycology before trying to eat off the land. I hadn’t realized they had those kind of mushrooms in Connecticut, but live and learn…

I, of course, am hoping to glean my own sapling wisdom from my land, though I am perhaps a bit more connected to “civilization” (which is quite obviously not the same thing as civilized nation) than he was. Still, in the past six months, I have racked up an impressive number of solitary hours, and even weeding out those hours spent contemplating the very practical questions of how to plug leaky shed roofs and how to clear out the ex-mouse nest behind the oven (it was a very ex-mouse), I have devoted quite a bit of time to contemplating the Universe, civilization and The Big Questions. Mostly I do this with an ice pack on my back, or while rubbing arnica on the new bruises, but -- and this is the important point -- I am doggedly pursuing those questions and writing down my results. I’m also deeply pondering what kind of bug is devouring my strawberries (unless it’s one of those tiny stray black holes that quantum science has been looking for).

And sometimes I think my friends aren’t quite as grateful that I have dedicated myself to this pursuit in their behalf (I’m guessing Thoreau’s little group had the same response - “gee, thanks, David - you’re sitting there contemplating the Universe while I’m just slaving at the bank; can’t tell you how grateful I am”, etc. ) When I do manage to get hold of friends by phone or email, they seem, well -- pre-occupied. “Yes, true, the fallacy of the linearity of Time could be important, but I’ve got to get back to these overdue taxes,” they say, or “Right, right - did I tell you I’ve got two sick dogs and we’re meeting at work tomorrow to see if they’re gonna lay us off?” Which leads me to believe, with David T., that it requires a period of de-coupling from civilization before we are properly able to stand outside of it. I say “outside”, but I acknowledge my freezer of beef, the baseboard heaters and internet connection, not to mention visits to the chiropractor… but then again David was much younger than I am, and his friends dropped over more often [hint].

Here are some of the deeper questions that have occurred to me in this rich silence (broken only by the sounds of the leaf blower neighbor, the metal recycler across the river and local hot rods):”Is this increasingly visual culture losing its ability to form linear thought?“ “Is this perhaps a move toward holistic thinking that might break through the illusion of linear Time?“ “Did I eat all the cookies?” and “Are those damn scientists gonna black-hole us to oblivion with that damn particle accelerator?” I’m not the only one worried about the last one - it’s all over the internet. So I was intrigued and -- what’s the opposite of reassured? -- to find out that there are at least five more REALLY BIG science projects that aren’t as “sexy” (the author’s words) as the particle accelerator, aiming to really get into the Big Questions - like “What’s inside this planet?” (the Big Drill - and right on a major oceanic fault line, mind you!), and “Have any nearby stars blown up?“ (the Big Nova Alarm Box for detecting supernovas in our galaxy - at least a half hour before we all “detect” it by being wiped out)… the others have been mercifully wiped from my memory. I can assure you I am doing much less harm as I work the Big Questions… but then, I didn’t get the billion dollar grants, either. But it’s peaceful today in my garden - no noticeable supernovas or stray black holes, but I’m keeping an eye on the strawberries, just in case.

On Country Time

One of the things everyone loves so much about country life is that you can move at the pace of the seasons, waking at dawn, moving slowly and mindfully to your garden and hand-weeding it, watering it gently, greeting the trees and the birds as the morning brightens, moving through your day with slow, gentle actions -- and get four days behind in six hours!!! I don’t know where this Slow Life is located (though many are looking -- there are even websites devoted to it), but it’s not in my county. I have tried to move at a sane pace; I have even cut out many events and tasks from my schedule so that my life is simpler (or at least, complex in different ways)… but time is definitely speeding up.

It’s not just the extended daylight savings time that makes the hours melt and shift in decidedly unchronological ways. There is a rubberband effect that is disconcerting: when I read news on the internet (since I’ve dropped the paper and most magazines, in an effort to be frugal and avoid tons of recycling), an hour can vanish in two sips of coffee, but when hauling away yard debris, or other heavy lifting, time stretches and slows so that I can see the barcodes on the seconds! (You didn’t know they are barcoding Time now? It’s a new DARPA project, in order to track who’s using what time; costs about $45 per nanosecond - apparently the cause of a large chunk of their billion-dollar budget, but since that’s all secret, we can’t know for sure).

As I learn to adjust to “country time” (loosely translated: you never stop working), I ponder the relationship between time and money. The old saying, “Time is Money” seemed a muddled comparison, since one is printed and the other -- as yet -- is not controlled by any government agency. Except that both vanish, melt, mutate the moment my back is turned. You’ve all had the experience of breaking a $20 and having it turn into three singles in your wallet, right? And as I get older, it is harder to hang on to either Time or Money. In fact, I’m suspicious that the terms “hour” and “minute” have been devalued as part of this recession -- an hour definitely isn’t going as far as it used to!!

So there seems to be a quantum connection between the two - one of those “non-local causalities” that tie time/money together over long distances. Is it a coincidence that as time shrinks like a mohair sweater in a dryer, there are now whole websites on frugality advising us how to live more simply? And is it evidence of this see-saw connection that the one thing they don’t grapple well with is Time? Most of their frugal steps need much more time and often result in generally re-shaping our lives to move to a different rhythm (which used to be called “hand to mouth“ but they have fancier names for it now). I discovered that is exactly the point for many people, and they seem to think you get more time - or at least a better quality -- like Haggen Das or Mercedes Time.

But to me it exemplifies that “conservation of energy” principle in physics -- if I save money, I spend time. Some kind of energy gets spent in either case. For example, after having purchased one gutterspout deflector drainboard of non-descript brown plastic and been staggered at the $9.00 price tag (yes -- almost $10 for basically a narrowed dish drainer), I employed Creative Frugality for the rest: meat trays from the large family packs (a year’s worth of pork, but what the hell); the toilet tank lid from the recently deceased toilet; two halves of a cracked bucket, sawn into shape. This gives me the illusion of saving money, even though it almost certainly ends up costing more when I factor in my time and trips to the emergency room. (Me + sharp objects = ouch)

Other “money-saving” examples: looking for $5 worth of ‘shrooms in the National Forest and needing a $40 chiropractic adjustment; going rock hunting for “free” garden walls and needing a $40 chiropractic adjustment; gathering and chopping wood that eats into my work time… and ends up with me needing a $40 chiropractic adjustment. Actually pretty much anything I’ve been doing for the house seems to end up with my dialing the new chiropractor. I wonder if new houses should come with a coupon book for a local chiropractic and massage services…

But I digress… and I only have about an “hour” to spend this morning on this blog (and I think at the going rate, that‘s about 20 minutes). Time, which had slowed to the pace of a passive aggressive teenager when I was waiting to close on this house, has now snapped back to its usual pace, slightly under the record speed set by Lance Bicycler in France… in fact, don’t you sometimes wonder if the increasing number of races they keep organizing are having a quantum effect on everyone‘s time? When the Olympics were the only annual race held in Greece, life was much, much slower -- coincidence? Perhaps not. I think we need to carefully consider the possible “pollution” of time by all these race fanatics, and maybe regulate their frequency and location - keep them away from busy workers, perhaps locate them near senior centers, which have lots of unused Time (although the logistics of keeping runners from plowing into senior shufflers might turn the whole race into an obstacle course). That way, people like me and Thoreau who are trying to live simply (ie: waste hours pondering the Universe and then annoying others with our “findings”) can get on with watching the minutes unfold like a new seedling, holding its cotyledons to the raw energy of the sun -- and finding a weed has outpaced it to the soil’s nutrients and it’s SOL for another season. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi and everyone else who pauses for a second to catch their breath.

Oh, Cold-Hearted Season

Nature is having a prolonged “April Fool” on us - the last weeks have seen snow, hail and frost, as well as bright sun that warms up into the 80’s before plummeting again. Temperatures are doing Robin William imitations, changing with quicksilver swiftness and me racing around like a new mother after an un-diapered toddler, trying to get hot caps on/off/on my veggies. I’m using every plastic and glass container in the house, all the tarps, a leftover For Sale lawn sign bent double over a new rose, all the bubble wrap from Xmas and Easter gifts, and even old tablecloths. And this is where my ambitious garden design comes back to bite me: the circular beds do not easily lend themselves to draping, so the garden looks even more like a war zone, with body-sized mounds of tarps everywhere.

This is no job for the unfocused -- as I discovered, all it takes is one forgetful moment, one instance of leaving the cold-frame open, the hose un-drained, the faucet uncapped -- and something new is on the casualty list. Small comfort that the frost made pretty patterns on everything -- rocks, windows, and my tender plants. I took photos that I sent to my friends, with the note, “Morgue photos - plants in cold storage now”… one of the saddest to me seemed to be the dandelion crushed beneath my bootprint.

After watching a hail-and-snow storm mid-April and knowing that nothing I’d done was gonna help the inch-high seedlings survive being packed in ice pellets like fish fillets, I understood a bit more the true miracle of being able to heedlessly run to the store and pick up a bit of fresh lettuce. At this rate, I will have paid about $20 for each head of lettuce I harvest, not counting the slave labor wages and overtime I’m (not) paying myself. I think the perfect cure for America’s obesity problem is that you can only eat what you grow. I’d love to watch the nation’s teens out back frantically trying to grow the components of a Snickers bar.

Amazingly, nothing actually looks dead, now that the snow has finally (knock wood) gone. And the seedlings are growing rapidly - unless I’m looking at the weeds. Unfortunately, Oregon has exceptionally hardy slugs; I saw them inching along the snow with their Columbia Sportswear parkas and tiny Lands End galoshes, determined to dig out the broccoli sprouts with their Kinsman shovels. Really resourceful, they are. And now that it’s green again, they have come to feast like third cousins at Thanksgiving. Every couple of days I put out new sunflower seedlings that are devoured whole by the following morning. This has gone on for so long because my middle-aged memory hadn’t caught up - I’d look at the bare ground and think, “I swear I planted something there; I guess not.” and plant more, while the slug chuckled from behind their rocks. I’ve finally caught on, and the sunflowers are under mayo jars until they get too big to be the appetizer. I don’t feel quite so angry, since the seedlings were given to me by the birds -- they had buried their stashes of sunflower seeds in the garden - sprouts everywhere, to be transplanted. So I guess I’m like the trucker who’s delivering the fresh greens to the slugs’ front doors.

Even the crushed dandelion has sprung up again; those golden-haired blossoms have developed an immunity to being stomped on that reminds me of Hilary Clinton. Would that I could spring back after such relentless abasement. Yes, everything seems to be recovering from the artic blast, their growth simply delayed a few weeks due to chill. The problem is, they are now going to be impinging on those tropical veggies and annuals that are due to show up in May; we’re gonna have a crowd like at the Pope’s Yankee stadium mass, everyone elbowing for more room to show off their special outfit. And the Master Gardner - me - still needing a vacation from the frantic snow-zercise, now looking at double-time response to all things greening.

Hold on. Just read the weather report - another Polar Express is heading our way. Better tell the slugs to get their galoshes out of storage.

The Cold Frame is Finished

This is the second part of the blog posted 2/29/08... how does Life sprint past soooo fast??

When I had recuperated from fetching the window out of the attic, I went looking for the other parts of the cold frame, which (according to the instructions) everyone surely has lying around the house. Luckily I had bought some boards for shelving, and since the shelving was still in the planning stage, I used good old ReAllocation Implementation Process - Owing From Future (RIPoFF) to steal the raw materials for the frame. Having read that a slanted frame does the best to catch the sunlight (and keep the rain from pooling on the window until it shatters the glass), I started to measure the various boards viz a viz the window. I think I’ve mentioned before how measurement-handicapped I am: not only am I a 1950’s victim of New Math (we didn’t learn arithmetic, we learned Venn Diagrams and Base 2 - computer language), but “relative size of things” is not a concept that I have mastered. I can’t pack a trunk. I can’t measure a cupful by eye. And I rarely leave enough room when parking to squeeze my body out of the truck!

Anyway, I had a 2x4, a 1x8, 1x12 and some assorted poles and planks… I measured the window, measured it again -- got a different number -- measured it a third time -- got a different different number… and gave up on numbers. I resorted to my old habit -- the visual measurement. I took the 1x8 plank and lined it up along the window and drew a line. I have no idea how long that was, but it came to the end of the window, which was the important point. I did the same for the wide board, and I also measured that board against the 1x8 to get the top of the angle that I needed to cut at a slant.

Now I know you’ll tell me, “It’s 8 inches, Cath!” but it never is -- that’s the point! Somehow the marks on the bloody ruler move around and it never does work out to the supposed measurement. My best guess is that my ruler is marked off with irrational numbers. The only thing that doesn’t seem to shift around for me is the physical object… so I drew a line on the 1x12 at the place where the 1x8 stopped and then measured the bottom angle against the 2x4. The only difficulty as I was doing this was trying to hold these various eight-foot boards against each other in a studio which is only 15 ft wide and is full of shelves holding ceramic artwork! So -- I’m trying to balance one board on my chair, while the other is leaning gingerly against the shelf of art supplies, and using my knee as the drawing surface, which tends to make the line a little wobbly… No matter, since there’s very little chance I can follow a straight line with the huge, double-handed circular saw (described in a previous entry) that I have to use. I figured if I cut it without also cutting through the cardboard box used as sawhorse, I’d be very grateful. (The 2x4 was actually scheduled to become a sawhorse, but RIPoFF got there first).

They always recommend that you measure all the pieces before cutting, in case something doesn’t add up. Since I wasn’t gonna do any adding, and because I was running out of places to put eight-foot boards, I shifted to cutting the primary planks. The sound of that circular saw always reminds me of an airplane engine, and the similarity doesn’t stop there… once I manage to chew through the board and release the power switch, I have to hold it at arm’s length (all 35 lbs of it) while the engine (ie: saw blade) comes to a complete stop. Since there were several small cuts, I ended up holding the snarling saw at arm’s length for at least a half hour total… while watching the sawdust swirling into every sculptural cranny and open box in the room. I made a vow to get enough boxes unpacked in the garage to be able to do this dirty work there next time… but meanwhile, I finally had the four pieces and it was ready to take outside. Oh, but no -- there had to be some kind of stake/support that the window sat on… I checked the picture again and saw the vertical pieces. I found a 2x2 and painstakingly measure them against the edges of the board, and cut two -- and somehow lost the marking of the other two. No matter - I decided the 2x4 was thick enough to serve. And I was getting tired of cutting -- I wanted to bang some boards! (I tend to approach construction projects with the attitude of a 5-year-old). So out I went, and lugged the boards, window, hammer and nails to the flat ground where I was gonna place the cold frame. This was the location of that ugly old shed with the truck-topper roof… I will document its demise in another entry.

While kneeling to hammer the boards into a box, I discovered the local cats had gotten there first and were very appreciative of a new litter box. I raked the place clear and started again. I know there are clever braces and traditional methods for getting boards to line up square to each other -- but this is a 5-year-old working, so I held one board between my knees and tried to nail the other one to it… my knees don‘t grab that good. Next, I used a left-over log as a brace, but it was being braced in turn by the grass, which although strong enough to resist any attempts to dig it up, was not actually good for leaning things on. Eventually I stood one board up, resting the other on it and hammering downward… it was close enough for Republican economics. In similar makeshift fashion, I got a rough rectangle that -- mostly -- fit the window, and proudly placed my tender seedlings in their new cold frame.

And two days later, the weather had plummeted like the stock market, leaving swirls of frost on the cold frame window… but that’s another story…