A Rather Blustery Day

Egads, it's really coming down out there!

We're in the midst of quite a storm at the moment, wind battering us from all sides with pelting rain moving sideways in sheets and sprays. This fishbowl living room gives us a front-row view to this eerie, howling storm.

I think it's time for some hot chocolate and sweat pants... don't you?

Maybe if I'm lucky, the kids will share some of their valentine party candy, too, since their supermom (me!) spent hours last night putting together some cutesy gift bags for their classmates. We'll dig out a good flick and make a movie night out of it. I have Time Traveler's Wife, which I'm DYING to see (LOVED the book so much), but I'll have to wait until the kids go to bed for that one, I guess.

Yikes... just saw lightning. Husband better get inside from seeing the ranch hands' brand new puppies, born this morning. Their place is only across the yard, but I hope he doesn't blow away out there, yeesh!

Hope you all are safe and cozy and warm out there... wherever you are!

Six Months and Still Getting Settled

After several visits from Mr. Fix-It and his buddy down at the electrical supply place, it seems that we have power and water restored for the moment (yahoo!), so I figured I'd attempt a post while everything was up and running, and then I'll be off to tidy up for the big Super Bowl party and Simultaneous Craft-O-Rama we'll be hosting here tomorrow.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I have a passion for obsession with decorating. When we lived in our townhouse, Husband would come home from a business trip and, along with the usual hug-and-kiss-hello routine would ask, “What room did you paint this time?” He became so accustomed to my regular decorate-redecorate-re-redecorate cycle that it didn’t even phase him to leave for a weekend and come home to a radically different bedroom or kitchen he didn’t recognize. My specialty is in use-what-you-have decorating, or transforming low-budget finds, something I haven’t had the time to engage in as much as I used to. While HGTV runs constantly anytime I can wrestle the remote from Husband’s hands, I always scoff at the “affordable” decorating ideas found on TV and the notion that you, too, can transform a room for a mere $20,000. My kind of transformation is a radical one for under $500, or overhauling a space with only what you already own (and maybe a gallon of paint or two).

Anyway, when we found out we were moving to The Ranch, my excitement for decorating kicked in full blast, and I somehow got the idea that with two months and some elbow grease, I could revive this once top-of-the-line and now-decades-outdated house décor into a Country Living feature home. I scoured the pages of Country Sampler for rustic-looking finds, and picked through age-old junk piles for treasures that would be at home here.

Sadly, two months passed with the majority of our belongings still in boxes… then four months… and now we’re coming upon month six (wow, I can’t believe it’s been that long). I’m finally completely unpacked and I’ve made significant progress in rearranging rooms for greater functionality, like the long abandoned game room that now houses sleeping quarters for seven and the hallway-style “egg room” at the back of the house that’s been repurposed as a cowboy-themed nursery, I am finding that the interruptions of more emergent needs (you know, like water, pest control, power, and heat) are sucking up all the time I have to devote to this place. I grossly underestimated the amount of time that would be required in the upkeep of those basic services, and of course, the regular requirements of three kids, a husband, a career, an emerging business, and a full-time college course load. I guess that’s all a long way of saying… I’m behind.

The approaching spring months (and the arrival of new issues of some of my favorite decorating magazines) have my inspiration renewed, though, and with Husband being out of work now, I’m hoping to put a lot of effort into getting “done” with our settling in around here…as if I’m ever “done”, when it comes to settling in. A huge challenge has been that, for the first time, I don’t have much of a blank slate to work with. Our tenancy here is limited and temporary – just how temporary, though, we really aren’t sure right now. We’ll stay as long as we’re able, but there are circumstances of our being here that are beyond our control and we knew when moving here that it was only transitional. My ability to jump right in and get this house to look like a million bucks is slowed considerably by the challenge of working with what’s already here. While this place is easily three times as big, square footage wise, as our last place, it’s 1) already full of furniture and a hundred years’ worth of personal belongings to work around, and 2) the electricity problems and other issues make sleeping space and other room-use tricky. My two older kids (male and female) are sharing the open-air loft space above the living room for their bedroom, and despite the adorable cowboy bedroom setup, the baby is rooming in with us, because right now, the nursery, guest, and bunk rooms can’t be heated. These are all things that will be worked out in time, but it’s all been a complex puzzle of arranging things for easy(ish) family living along with being able to take advantage of all the charm and character of every spider-filled nook in this sprawling rural estate.

My favorite room, so far, is the cottage-look master bedroom – the first to get any real attention and that which needed the least amount of work to create a workable vision for. The existing pink walls and gold-hued details made it easy to flourish this space with a girly touch without too much of a fight from Husband… I mean, what else do you do with pink walls? Besides, this was a great place for the ornate (and mostly too heavy to move) furniture to stay put, and I just adore the way it’s arranged now. The fireplace in there is my favorite detail (though it's unfortunately counterproductive to try and use for heat), and there’s a secretary in the corner where I can sit and write while overlooking the horse pastures and… well… I’ll just have to take pictures and show you.

Working around what’s already here is harder than it seems. With the temporary nature of things, and until piles of money emerge from somewhere, we’ve got to make due with what’s existing… existing aged paint, existing outdated fixtures, existing cracked and warped linoleum, existing avocado green carpet and harvest gold sinks, etc. This has been as fun as it is frustrating though, and in the next few weeks, I promise to assault you all with photos of how things look around here now and plans for updates in the future. (Note to the family: No major changes have been done and no permanent changes will be made without prior permission, in case there were any worries in that regard. Also, we wouldn’t dream of drastically changing the look of the lodge, just some furniture rearranging and such, but we’re pretty much leaving this room alone in all its log-form glory. We will be looking to put some of our own funds into things like flooring and paint pretty soon, with permission, of course, and according to the family’s biggest needs and preferences).

Stay tuned for photos of what’s already been done and what’s to come in the near future: A cute update to the dark and musty basement laundry room, a re-purpose of the dining room/office/front porch turned to a bright and functional office-studio-creative space, and an overhaul of the back bathroom, which I’m extremely excited about getting to when the weather is warm enough to even walk in there without contracting hypothermia. The bones of that little bathroom are great, and with some paint, bleach, and elbow grease, I think we can make great strides in honoring the authentic vintage fixtures and charm in there.

As always, onward and upward. Photos to come… eventually. Hope everyone has a great weekend and...

Go Saints!

The Circle of Death

Death is a funny thing.

Well, okay… bad choice of words. What I mean is, one’s perspective about death, I’ve learned, is somewhat relative to the kind of life they lead. Being on The Ranch, I’ve had the opportunity to view the real nature of the circle of life, birth and death and everything that comes in between, as a rhythmic, cyclical perpetuation that makes up the flow and balance of nature.

As a child, I can remember stumbling across an injured bird, flittering and flopping about from the trauma of a broken wing. I ran inside, crying to my mother, who helped me collect the fragile thing in a shoebox which we padded with grass and leaves. I watched over that bird maternally, hour after hour, watering it with a medicine dropper, clinging to the value of its individual life, never questioning its purpose or meaning. Frankly, I don’t remember what became of the little bird – whether it lived or died in that shoebox – but I know how precious those moments were in the development of my own compassion, caring for this suffering creature without regard to the cosmic course of life and death.

I wonder what is different about that bird – about my long ago self and who I am now – that I don’t see things in the same light, anymore. Birds die on my front deck at least once a week here, smacking into the window-glass too quickly to survive the impact. More than once now, I’ve had to assist a dying animal with its suffering by hastening its death, most notably of which was a blunt-force blow with a shovel to a broken-necked swallow. Sorry about the gory details, but the truth is, that’s a frequent reality out here. If I attempted to rehabilitate every fragile creature on The Ranch, I’d be running a full-scale rescue operation. Part of my learning, here, has been in figuring out how to let things be… how to sit quietly and let the world go on without my interference.

I’m unclear, still, about the value of life and the timing and function of death. If Husband shoots a coyote predatorily stalking our pastures and threatening the barn cats and other creatures making their home here, is the kill justified? I cried when discovering the lifeless body of the drowned kitten in the horse trough, but winced and gagged at the skunk corpse curled up outside our bedroom, mouth frothy with evidence of its traumatic demise. Materially speaking, a cat and a skunk aren’t that different – both have a central nervous system capable of experiencing pain, both are furry and full of curious antics. Yet the death of one is tragic and another, honestly, somewhat of a relief. One down… several more stinkers under the bedroom left to go. Whether that’s a heartless or reasonable perspective, I’m just not sure.

I’m not a vegetarian, and to be candid, that doesn’t bother my conscience much. As I write this, though, Husband is out in the pen, feeding mineral oil and medicine to a cow by the dropper, petting and loving on and talking to the animal in a selfless effort to ease its obvious pain and nurse its troubled gut, all while our family dog gnaws away on the bony remnants of last night’s beef roast. That whole picture, to me, is mildly disturbing, somewhat fascinating, and (sorry, but) oddly humorous.

My point, if I have one at all, is that it’s curious to me how we process the notion of death – how we horrify and also justify it. Our perspective on the subject, even in the course of an hour or a day, can see death as a gnashing sort of grievous torture and/or just the way things are – part of the “circle of life”. Foregoing any (more) philosophical waning on the whole notion, I'm just thinking out loud here - wondering, observing - the curious ways we go about coping with life's unpleasantries.

Humble Beginnings

Hi there. Welcome. Come on in and pull up a chair. Coffee? Tea? Cupcake?

I’ve dilly-dallied on this project for far too long, waiting for the “right time” to begin – waiting for a cosmic collision of free time, perfect photographs, nice weather, and emergency-free days to happen so that I could paint a lovely picture of all the beauty and joy to be found here, on The Ranch, once the moving-in disasters and winter casualties had subsided.

It occurred to me, though, that this is the real story – bats and wasps and frozen pipes and all – and so, here it is, in all its truth and often unceremonious glory. I’ve been here long enough to know, now, that for all the amazing wonders of this slice of earth, there are as many frustrations and inconveniences, but the experience is the sum total of everything we’re doing here, everything we’re learning and juggling and dealing with… the good, the bad, the stunningly beautiful, and yes, even the ugly.

I’ve found a rare peaceful moment, amongst the kids and critters, to start all this. The fog is settling atop the trees, barely visible in the early morning sunless sky, snow-kissed air circling in cloudy whispers. I notice, momentarily free of the usual clatter of my daily life, a musical reverberation. Zoe, our beasty-bulldog, snores raucously, and Charlie Tuna, the feisty cat-who-thinks-he’s-a-dog, purrs and stretches at my feet. A faint ticking sound emerges from the kitchen, the small clock reminding me that it’s really time to start my day – do school work, clean house, be productive.

The truth is, though, that I need some down time. It’s been a helluva week, marked by its delayed beginning, stuck for hours in a stuffy airplane on a tarmac in Los Angeles, where I fidgeted and sighed, eager to get home. Eight days away from my family (far too long, might I add) had me ready for whatever The Ranch had in store for me next.

Or so I thought.

On (eventual) arrival, Husband informed me that the hydroelectric plant was down. Again. For a relatively self-sustaining piece of land in honest-to-goodness-middle-of-nowhere, a downed hydro plant is never good news. There’s a backup generator, affectionately referred to as Plan B around here, but our experience with it has taught us that Plan B is moody and glitchy and functions well only when she wants to and when she does kick in, she siphons our propane supply, sucking up our fuel source hastily, which only amounts to mounting dollar signs in our ever-constant plight to conserve, conserve, conserve (for reasons far more selfish than saving the planet, I’m afraid).

We’re lucky to have someone at our beck-and-call that is far wiser than we are in matters of hydroelectricity (which, as far as I’m concerned, might as well be brain chemistry). Unfortunately, Mr. Fix-It’s visit to repair the plant a few days ago seems to have left something amiss. I really wish we’d have discovered it a tad sooner, to be honest. Awakening to an unpleasant smell has become somewhat of a game around here, and I figured we were simply in for the next round of Who Can Figure Out Where That Smell is Coming From? I woke my kids for school, and my son announced that he was kept awake all night by what sounded like cracking and sparking noises. (Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!)

It turns out that slipping belts on the hydro plant resulted in severe power surges to the house, taking down quite a few of our belongings. The list of casualties includes the family computer, Husband’s Xbox, the coffee maker, toaster, and bedroom heater. Bummer. If not for the back-up coffee maker and personal laptop, I may never have survived. ;)

According to Mr. Fix-It, the good news is that it’s fixable and should only take about 4 days. The bearable news is that we won’t have hydro power during that time, leaving us at the mercy of Plan B, the temperamental generator. The bad news is that, since the function of the hydro plant is to turn water into power, we will also have NO WATER for as many days. Eek. I can wing it for a few days without power, but being waterless is a trickier predicament for a family with three kids and two furballs, especially since our household has recently increased by two more youngins – the neighbor/ranch hands’ kids, whose parents are in Montana (or was it Wyoming?) on some sort of mission involving a hundred head of cattle, the details of which are still unclear to me.

If that last statement hasn’t clued you in, I’m somewhat of a city girl… well, a suburbanite, at least, thrust by serendipity into this ranch-living experience with little preparation and even less notice. In eight days’ time, we went from cluelessly paying a gardener to mow our 3’ x 3’ patch of patio grass (does it count as mowing if he used a weed-wacker on the “lawn”?) to our current digs on The Ranch, 300 or so acres of towering firs and fenced pastures, current home to our family of five and another foursome in a smaller house on the property, the friendly residents that work and live here our partners in surviving the sometimes-maddening and often-hilarious rural happenings. With the adults of their household gone, our normal snafus are doubled, especially in light of the livestock they’re responsible for and that we’re managing in their absence.

A few days ago, I was sipping Chardonnay with well-dressed and well-mannered adults in an upscale Montecito eatery, and today, I’m managing the aftermath of constipated cows (yes, really) and a cranky toddler with an ear infection and a gnarly cough. The Ranch Hands’ dog is due to have puppies any second now, and I’m praying the canine birth can wait until its master’s return, since 1) my experience with animal husbandry is nonexistent and I’d like it to stay that way, thankyouverymuch, and 2) it sounds like a relatively messy ordeal (as most ranch living is), and having no water with which to rinse away the experience is not going down too well with my morning coffee.

Another thing not going down well is the lingering smell of skunk spray, a perfectly-timed gift bestowed upon us by the other family taking up residence here, a rowdy bunch of skunks living beneath our bedroom. They are none-too-thrilled about our presence here, evidenced by the weekly attack on our olfactory sense. If you’ve never smelled a skunk spray close up before, let me enlighten you. It’s nothing like the unpleasant recent roadkill odor or far-off skunk stench you’ll encounter while driving. Close-up skunk stink is an assault of pungent, stank air that chokes and gags you, makes your eyes water, and has you running from the source like saving yourself from a burning building. What’s worse is its tendency to linger, causing the carpet, the walls, the bedding, and the skin of anyone nearby to reek terribly for days... another reason why the no-water-with-which-to-wash dilemma is particularly bad timing.

The duplicity of this current life experience is revealing. Most of our days are like this… bizarrely unlike anything we could have imagined, full of constant interruptions and unexpected disasters, and yet also, simultaneously wrapped in peace and exquisite beauty that somehow makes it all worth it. The Ranch is heaven and hell to me, all at once, an adventure to be sure, and every day here is… for whatever its worth… another day in Paradise.