When It Rains

(Foreword: this report is in response to Barrett Bonden's post about DIY jobs. I mentioned I should show him the pictures I took when I tried to repair my furnace last spring. He suggested I post about my plumbing-repair misadventures. So, here you go, BB.)
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Last spring, I heard a noise in my house, on all floors, that sounded a little like water running. A check of the indoor plumbing showed all faucets were operating well, no leaks. Checked the outside faucet, near the front of the house, with the same result - no drip, no running leak. Satisfied everything was okay, I let the noise slip my mind. Other matters moved to the front of my attention, and I didn't think anymore about the noise until I went to the basement a couple of days later to do a load of laundry. I noticed water on the floor. A lot of water. Then I noticed a hissing sound, much like a gas pipe leak, only I don't have gas lines in my house.
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I followed the trail of water across the room to near the furnace/boiler. Water was dripping heavily from one of the horizontal copper pipes leading to the boiler, or so I thought. I was working in the dark on that side of the house, so I backtracked to my downstairs tool box, fumbled around for the flashlight and retraced my steps back to the furnace/boiler. That's when I discovered there was a huge crack in the flow regulator (first picture) on one of the pipes leading into/out of the boiler, from which water was spraying all over everything in that corner.







Okay...so this repair was going to involve replacing the flow regulator, which meant shutting off the main from the street, opening a faucet on each floor to drain out the water already in the pipes; then gathering my various wrenches and pliers, some gloves, nylon pipe tape and that stuff you wrap around the threads inside a valve stem; gloves, the flashlight affectionately called Skull-crusher, maybe some solder and a propane torch, my reading glasses and a 10-gallon bucket on which to set my tools (and my butt when I got tired).
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The ex-Beloved had always handled the plumbing and electrical repairs in the house, but he had moved out a couple of months before the fountain in the basement, so I was on my own.
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Suddenly, I heard Mary Martin and Ethel Merman in my head, singing “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” (from Annie Get Your Gun). I hiked up my imaginary tool-belt, cocked my imaginary cowboy hat at the same angle John Wayne used to do his in all those Western movies, and told my imaginary Number One to “Make it so!” (We all have our little gimmicks to get ourselves psyched-up for those DIY jobs that intimidate us; this is mine, okay?)
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I needed to remove the cracked regulator so I could take it to the big-box hardware store to show the plumbing expert (HA!) there exactly what I wanted. (Learned to do that during a previous plumbing repair experience. Don’t ask.)
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I thought I was making remarkable progress loosening that coupler and was congratulating myself, with Mary and Ethel providing musical encouragement on the sidelines.
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That’s when things started going downhill.
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I noticed that the coupler wasn’t coming loose, just turning, and that the top part of it was bending. Surely, that wasn’t right. Mary and Ethel stopped singing. (See the second picture.)



Did you know copper pipe would twist like that in the jaws of a monkey-wrench? Yeah, well I didn’t, see? I also forgot to use two wrenches, turning in opposite directions, so I wouldn’t create additional problems. ..
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Five trips back to the big-box hardware, three different lengths of copper pipes, more brass fittings than I’ll ever need in my remaining lifetime, a small hand-held propane torch, nine hours and seven scraped knuckles later, I finished repairing the pipe (last picture).




Only one problem: I used galvanized iron pipes attached to copper, which I read somewhere is a no-no. But the plumbing expert (ha!) at the big-box hardware assured me the pipes won’t corrode for years to come, and I’ll “probably be worm-food long before it happens.” His words. Lovely man.
(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

Song Birds

Hard to imagine crows as songbirds, isn't it? I was surprised when I first heard they are, too.

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"You call that croak a song?!" Well, I can't sing very prettily, either, and I call my yowling "singing", so who am I to criticize my feathered brethren?...

Today I was awake before the sun broke the horizon, and was treated once again to the avian Sunrise Concert. I sat outside on the back steps, closed my eyes and listened to all the songs of the morn.

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When I was a child, someone read me a pourquoi story about some tribe's belief that birds sang the sun up each day. That was why(pourquoi) people began keeping birds as pets, to be certain there was at least one bird around to carry out the task.

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This morning, I could understand the thinking of those ancient ones, because, as I listened with eyes shut to the world, I felt the rising sun's heat on my cheeks and throat. When I opened my eyes - lo! and behold! - the sun was, indeed, rising over the rooftops at the end of the alley! The world was safe and warm for another day. Life was good, all because of the birds.

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The crow family that thinks it owns my yard and my trees (they do, of course; I just pay the taxes on the property) joined the other birds in the sun-bringing ritual. Bless their little corvid hearts! They try so hard to warble but it just doesn't come out that way....

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Eventually, the sun is far enough above the horizon that the concert winds down and most of the birds fly off, searching for whatever heads their individual to-do lists for Sunday morning. The crows are the last to leave and they do so quietly, in sharp contrast to how they arrived.

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My daughter's cats join me on the steps, looking for attention, bumping against my wrist and hand until I pet them. For a couple of minutes, we three creatures lean against each other, basking in the gentle warmth of the early sun's rays.

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"Mwawk!"

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The two cats sit upright, ears scanning the backyard to locate the sound.

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"Mwawk, mwawk." A crow has returned. I think it is one of last year's brood, judging by the gap in primary feathers on its left wing.

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The cats, who probably have had unpleasant encounters with crows, slink off to their outdoor hide-away, low to the ground, as inconspicuously as possible for big, fluffy cats. They are comical to watch.

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Mwawk is soon joined by another crow. They hop up to the topmost branch of the larch, which bends almost in half under their combined weight. They begin to 'sing' to one another.

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The second crow, whose call is more like "Kwawk" instead of "Mwawk," throws its head back and calls four times. Its call sounds like laughter: "Kwawk-kwawk-kwawk-kwawk!" (Mwawk must have said something funny. I didn't get the joke, but, then, I wasn't meant to, probably.)

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They entertain each other this way for half a minute or so, then grow quiet. They move closer to each other and rub their beaks together. I've never seen crows do this before and am astonished.

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Softly, they mwawk and kwawk to each other, rubbing beaks between sets of calls. Fascinating!

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Mwawk leans over Kwawk's neck and begins to coo. "Coo" isn't exactly the right word, but the sound reminds me of dove cooing. This sound is more like gargling, which I've heard crows do before, but never in conjunction with the behavior I observe this morning. Kwawk makes a softer cooing in response and leans in a little closer to Mwawk. They sit quiet, then, facing the sun.

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I am stunned! What does this behavior mean? Are they bonding? Is this the yearling, reassuring the younger crow under its care? Has the yearling found a mate?

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While I'm thinking through the few things I know about crow behavior, Mwawk and Kwawk begin bowing and gargle-cooing toward one another. For usually raucous, ungainly big birds, they are gentle and delicate in their movements and sounds. I suddenly feel awkward, which is silly of me, I guess, but I feel like an intruder or voyeur, peeping in on a moment where I do not belong.

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Kwawk stops bowing and cooing. Instead, she/he (I can't determine which) begins making a sound similar to that made by tapping two blocks of wood together - a soft "tock-tock." Mwawk does the same, only his/hers sounds like "bawk-bawk."

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I wanted a closer view and tried to ease my way back into the house for my binoculars. The first slight move I made to rise from the step caused the crows to turn in my direction: both let out a very loud "CAW!" and flew off toward the arboretum a couple of blocks away.

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Blast, and double-blast! God bless a milk-cow! I hate when that happens! Grump!

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On the other hand, how fortunate I was to have been given this glimpse of new-to-me crow behavior. If I am lucky, maybe I will get to watch the continuing story unfold next Sunday morning...and you can be darned sure I will have those binoculars with me before I step foot outside again!

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

Sunday Morning

Too early for church bells; just lots of birdsong. Sun peeps coyly through the leaves.

The old birdbath, pedestal long ago broken, captures a piece of the early morning sky in its rainwater. Shards of fossilized sea-floor keep it company.

(c) 2009 Photos and text Martha McLemore

Six

No, the title of this post is not a typo: the word is Six, not Sex...although one is the root of the other, is it not?
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Anyway, Michelle Frost has tagged me to "list six things that are unimportant but make me happy, then tag six others." Rather than tag six others, though, I'll leave this to the discretion of any who might read this post. If you care to list 6 unimportant things that make you happy, please do so.

Here are my six, in no particular order:

Christmas tree lights
sharp pencil leads

the smell of line-dried sheets

mist rising from the mountains

smooth river rocks

sparkling glassware

Thank you, Michelle, for making me think about some of the joys in life.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

Here, Kitty-kitty!

Kitty

Another Saturday morning and all is right in my little corner of the universe…or is it?

Is it, for one thing, my little corner of the universe? How is this corner defined? If this is the only thing I’ve ever known, wouldn’t my view of the universe be skewed? What if what I think of as my little corner of the universe (hereinafter called MLCOTU), is not the way things really are, and what if all around me, the universe is going to hell in a hand basket?

Is the universe, as I perceive it, the only universe there is? If it is, would that mean that my perception of MLCOTU is universal? Would an ant, crawling about on the ground of MLCOTU, see things the same way I would? Would it think that all was right with the universe, too?

All these universes, existing at the same time – assuming the ant and I each have a concept of time and that those concepts are exactly the same – begs the question, which one is real?

What is reality? Is it concrete, absolute, irrefutable? Is it situational, in the eye of the beholder, shifty, unimportant?

My mother grew up with the understanding that some things were set in stone: the sun rose in the east, set in the west; the earth orbited the sun; the atom was the smallest unit of measure in the universe.

Then, she worked on the Manhattan Project, briefly, and helped do some of the research that led to the first atomic weapon developed here on this planet.

Her reality changed when that first atom was split, even though she was unaware of the precise moment that occurred. For her, the paradigm shift took place when news of the bombing of Hiroshima reached her ears. Then, again, when she realized her part in that catastrophe, even though her part in the drama had been miniscule.

What happened to the universe she knew when it ceased to exist for her? Did it live on as a parallel reality for her metaphysical doppelganger?

Do parallel universes exist? Do we create our own realities?

Yesterday, I spent my book-budget on three small volumes I thought would add more to my life than if I bought my intended purchase, Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes. I bought them not because I would be getting three for the price I would have paid for hers (that was a plus – icing on the cupcake, so to speak), but because I was seduced by the titles: 50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know, and its counterparts, 50 Philosophy… and 50 Physics..., et cetera. I believe there are ideas worth learning about, and I have been on a quest to learn as many of them as possible before I die. (Some publisher saw the likes of me coming, and came up with titles that not only drew me to that shelf in the store, but made me plunk down my hard-earned, hard-saved money for these three books.)

I spent a couple of hours in my favorite coffee shop skimming through the books. Time slowed down and became wobbly, like gelatin. My reality was shifting before my very eyes, then back again because what I read was still being digested…or was that because of the pastry I was munching upon while reading?

At some point, long after I returned home, my brain cried out, “Enough, already!” I went to bed and dreamed of Alice’s Cheshire cat in a multi-dimensional box full of constantly shifting portals into other multi-dimensional, theoretical boxes -- and images from high school science classes of the atomic bomb blasts. The God Particle became an article God wrote for Playboy magazine. In the interview section of that issue, God sounded like Bill Cosby, talking to Noah about building a boat. I saw my mother – rather, multiples of my mother – through what must have been honeycomb glasses: rows and rows of tiny Evelyns in tiny hexagonal compartments, all the same, yet each one different from the other because each existed in a separate ‘reality.’

Maybe the dream wasn’t the result of reading the books. Maybe it was because of the anti-histamine I took so I could breathe easier and sleep more deeply.

I liked Saturday mornings better when it was just birdsong and breakfast odors wafting through the backdoor screen. After breakfast, I think I’ll tackle the chapter in the mathematics book on Latin squares. It’s supposed to provide me with the secret to solving Sudoku puzzles.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

Breakfast

This morning, I awoke twice: before the birds began chirping, around 4:30, then again at 6:45. Another gorgeous Saturday morning. Temperature in the mid-60s (Fahrenheit), gentle breeze rustling the leaves, happy little birds holding another Sunrise Concert. Actually, they might not have been all that happy - I read somewhere that most of that early morning chirping is about marking territory, and the more threatened the bird feels, the more it chirps. Whatever the reason, it sounded great.

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Then I let the cats out. Concert stopped. Three blue jays swept down from the red oak screeching their "CAT! CAT! CA-A-A-T!" alarm call, and all hell broke loose!

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Every bird in the back yard congregated in the three or four trees near the side gate, giving the terrified cats (who had stopped dead in their tracks and stayed that way) the fright of their lives. I suspect this has happened before because not a hair moved on them, that I could see. Their radar-like ears were pointed forward, not a twitch between them.

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Before the cats could make a graceful exit, or even sit down, the crows arrived, all seven of them squawking and croaking bloody murder. Smaller birds gave up their perches for the Enforcers, but joined in as best they could with their own scolding calls. What cacophony!

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I ran for my recorder, thinking this noise would make a wonderful background sound for the blog. Where had I put it? Shoot! Batteries are dead! Where is that new multi-pack I bought last month? Oh, no! There's corrosion on the one terminal...no wonder the thing doesn't work. Gotta clean that before I put new batteries in. Where are those darned cotton-swabs? I check both bathroom closets with no luck, so I dampen a paper towel with some white vinegar (which works like a charm, by the way) and wipe it clean.

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Can't find my glasses, so I can't see which way the batteries are supposed to go in...oh, wait...the flat end goes against the spring and the terminal (obviously--duh!) goes in the other end.

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As I'm rushing toward the back door, rejuvenated recorder in hand and recording perfectly, I trip over one of the cat toys and bang against the screen door. Recorder falls to the floor, case cracks open when it hits the floor. Batteries roll off in opposite directions.

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Outside, the cats leap up as if they'd been goosed, the small birds flap as fast as possible back to their territorial perches and the crows move higher into the sassafras. Scolding the cats is over, as is the Sunrise Concert.

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It is now 6:50 AM. How could so much chaos take place in less than five minutes?

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Upon examination, I see the recorder isn't damaged too much. I can fix the crack with duct tape. I'm out of the pink tape so I'll have to use the purple. (Listen, duct tape is a girl's best friend - that, and a .44!)

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After collecting cat toys and stray batteries - and my composure - my stomach Beast begins to rumble a little. Not quite the "Feed me" rumble, but I know it's coming, so I head to the 'fridge to see what we can have for breakfast.

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"Breakfast?" Beast asks, slowly rising from its bed at the bottom of my stomach. "Did you just think the word 'breakfast'?"

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Am I not standing in front of the Major Food Shrine, I respond, rather sarcastically. Can you not see its 15-watt glow, feel its 35F coolness?

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The Beast rumbles hard against my diaphragm. Urrrrrrp!

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Sliced ham, eggs, bread, butter and grape jelly. Oh, yes...grated Asiago cheese, left over from a previous meal. The coffee I started as soon as I came downstairs this morning has finished dripping, so we're in good shape. A feast for the Beast!

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The chives in my herb bed have flowered, which means they are long past cutting stage, heading for seed formation and withering, so I cut a few stems to put in the eggs. Ham gets diced, as do the chive stems and flowers. They are mixed in with the scrambled eggs and cheese, poured into hot butter in my favorite skillet; toast is dropped, coffee mug filled.

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Eggs cook and are plated with a few seconds to spare before the toast pops up. The feast is assembled and I take it to the back room, where that gentle breeze I mentioned before brings into the room the early morning aromas of other feasts being cooked in other homes down the block.

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Life is so damned good, I can hardly stand it!

(c) 2009 Photo and text. Martha McLemore

Molly's Quilt

Inspired by Lucy's post about an outing with her cocker spaniel, Molly, I played around with the colors Lucy mentioned and came up with this quilt for Molly. I first drew some lime green lines on a chocolate brown background, fiddled with different effects, changed hue and saturation settings, then pixelated the whole thing to come up with this. Every dog should have a quilt of its own. Molly lives with an artist, so her quilt is colorful, to the max!
(c)2009 Martha McLemore