Aftermath of the fire

Date: 2010.06.23 | Category: News | Tags:

Still cleaning.  We take a section of the house and do it each day. Basement kitchen is now tidy again.  I will need to do a dump run and get rid of the melted/shattered television, scorched stand, dead refrigerator, etc.  Probably the old couch, too.  It is probably over 20 years old anyway!  Favorite furniture tends to linger in this house.  But it’s time to let that one go.  I dread the thought of getting it up the stairs!

But the books are fine.  As Duane pointed out to me today, a television is a lot easier to replace than cherished older books!  And Ruth’s harp was not damaged, either.  That would have been a heart break.

I have discovered that I get really dirty very fast cleaning up soot.  It doesn’t rinse out of the rags well, and by the time I am finished with an hours cleaning, I am filthy to the elbows!  But the good part is that the house really needed a thorough cleaning anyway, and I have realized that I need to eliminate a lot of clutter.  And, whether they improve the decor or not, the fire extinguishers have to be where they are obvious and easy to get to.  And I have to make sure that even the younger children know how they are supposed to work.  They won’t be encouraged to fight a fire alone, of course, but in the event that they had to try, at least they’d know how.

Yesterday, we went down to see progress on the new/old house.  The driveway work is proceeding slowly. Three different county representatives have dropped by to give us three different and contradictory sets of directions on what we must do.  Yesterday, we were able to finally get one decisive opinion, so now we can move forward on that.   Ruth and I did mowing with the power mower and the tractor. She did pretty well with the tractor, though she had one terrifying moment when she ran over a coiled hose that someone had left out. The grass had grown up all around it, and it made a horrible noise when the blades hit it.    But she manuvers the tractor and cutter pretty well and didn’t hit any of my little trees.  So we’ll continue to work on that.  Our next challenge? Tune up the Troy-built and try to till up the garden plot.  We will put in a very late garden, of green beans, squash, pumpkins and zuchinni.  Maybe some cucumbers, too, if the farmers market has some good starts.  Tomatoes?  Hm.

But, for now, it’s time for me to write!

The fire clean up has messed up my writing schedule. Today, I am going to try to fix that.  I’m going for a ten page day! 

Robin