DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jul 25 - 11:48 PM

Dorothy, it sounds like the computer crash is a going to present a big recovery effort - or saying goodbye to a lot of stuff. Do you have the same materials on older devices that you still have at the house or at Beaver?

I'm almost finished with the cat sitting gig; tomorrow morning may be the last (she'll text to let me know when she thinks she'll get back into town.) Then I have yard work to do before I clean up to go to a concert with a tie-in to the collection at the museum where I've been scanning.

Apropos of nothing, during a shopping trip this evening I had a couple of good conversations and I think they were initiated because the t-shirt I was wearing said

"If you're not Angry
You Are Not
Paying Attention"

Back at the homestead I've been focused outside a great deal this summer, but I've demarcated an indoors project: making the den presentable enough to entertain guests. That means clearing out the empty cardboard boxes, moving the eBay photo cube and materials into the front room, and shifting boxes listed on eBay to someplace else to await their eventual shipping. I decided to start in the far corner, and have over the last few weeks added various types of wine to the small wine rack on the shelf. I don't drink much wine these days, but when I have guests I now have a selection of white and red to offer. The wine glasses are on the shelf above, and I'll work outward from that point. Next: clear the dining table next (where the photo stuff is.) The biggest and most difficult move will be figuring out if I can relocate the dog kennel. They love it and use it all of the time. It's right there in front, something I'd like to make less conspicuous.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: pattyClink
Date: 08 Jul 25 - 10:52 AM

It's a conundrum, arranging a place so there is a place to entertain guests, and keeping the main rooms clean enough for pop-in visitors. It's nice to do, but you can wind up shoving all the things that make living interesting into a corner in the spare room, and never get to them.   Or leave them out where you can enjoy puttering around with them, and then get caught with a mess when people show up. I know it's not a black and white choice, but it seems like it this week, and   it can take a bit of clever arranging to keep the whole place sort-of functional yet presentable.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jul 25 - 11:39 AM

patty, you've hinted at another problem of "putting things away." It's partly the "out of sight, out of mind" aspect so you don't remember you own it and end up buying it again. In other all-too-often-instances, it's a matter of trying to remember where you put something next time you need it. But things that are out all of the time can become invisible in their own way, mixed in with lots of stuff in plain sight.

The front room is pretty full, moving stuff back in there would make it more full, but still workable. There's a table that can hold the photo cube, the biggest obstacle in the den.

I've come to realize that moving the glider to the front porch makes the side doorway better to enter, but the dog who always used to sleep on the thing has taken to sleeping on the rug at my feet under my office desk. I'm always banging into her. I'm going to have to relocate one of the dog beds over to that spot (it won't take up near the space the loveseat sized porch swing did.)

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jul 25 - 04:25 PM

It looks like Ptolemy has had the last word.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 08 Jul 25 - 04:42 PM

Because muddle disturbs my wa, I like a dedicated work space — the study or the basement, or (for big , time-limited tasks) the music room/library. That way, I always have somewhere to sit, and I can offer someone a cup of tea without apologizing. Task materials deployed in an official work space are not “put away”, so they’re not out of mind even if out of sight.

Cats take up less space than most dogs, but they interfere with work even more effectively. Watson and Isobel both insist on climbing into my lap when I’m at my desk, and Watson is so big that he slides off if I don’t hold him with at least one arm. I hate to think how many choir newsletters were typed one-handed while Watson rammed his head into my chin.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jul 25 - 12:11 AM

I created the sewing studio for a space for tasks where stuff is always out. And if I were a better housekeeper and more prompt at listing things, I would have already have compressed all of the eBay stuff into the front room. I don't combine eBay with sewing or beading stuff or other craft materials.

The concert I went to this evening was wonderful, in the hall where the Cliburn competition takes place every four years. The acoustics are second to none (even when a thunderstorm rolls in and starts stomping around on the roof.) I got an incredible amount of context about the museum collection slides I have been scanning for the last five years, and I met the brother and sister of the twins who made that art. The twins were kind of your neighborhood polymaths, and one brother in particular loved classical music and did a lot of composing in addition to his trompe l'oeil paintings. I was wearing both my archives and docent hats this evening; I had a few photos in my phone that I pulled from the archives to use when I give tours in a small exhibit (that was the reason this concert happened). The siblings hadn't seen these photos, so it was an opportunity to let them be charmed by seeing new photos and let me be educated by getting more answers.

Meanwhile, on the front porch, it was nearly Godzilla meets Megalon this evening. I had a housefly I'd swatted on a window that I took to toss on the Argiope spider web, and realized a cicada killer, the B-52 of the wasp kingdom, was bouncing around near my porchlight. Moths, flies, small grasshoppers, little beetles, are one thing. A wasp that is double the size of the spider is another and would have torn up the web if it made contact. There are wasps that specialize in parasitizing spiders, but this particular wasp specializes in cicadas. They're very large and slow moving, but clunky in many contexts. Still, too much for this spider (I'm pretty sure - check in tomorrow morning to see if I report signs of a struggle and who won.)

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: pattyClink
Date: 09 Jul 25 - 10:23 AM

Clearly I shall have to add on a study, music room, basement, and library to my 2BR.   

SRS, that event sounds wonderful and must have been a great evening away from garden and house 'stuff'!

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jul 25 - 11:59 AM

Patty, it was! I expected just to sit and listen, but during the reception before the concert the head archivist introduced a couple of us to the artists' family. I really need to bone up on this more by Sunday because it's the last day of that small exhibit and there may be a few audience members deciding to attend. In the case of visitors knowing more about a subject than I do, I turn it to my advantage and ask them to share what they know and everyone in the group hears stories that might not be well-known.

This has been a strangely wet July. With tomatoes on the vines, extra moisture can cause the fruits to split if they're almost mature; for now I've turned off my sprinkler timer (set to run every third day). I did more work on the French drain yesterday, and will finish today. Added to the yard to-do list is tree trimming. There was what amounts to the annual Code Enforcement tag on my door yesterday, noting the street trees need limbs trimmed to be higher than 13' above the pavement. I have 10 days to resolve the situation so I always wait a while, never work on these when they might be driving by to see I'm working on it. I often leave it to the last possible minute, playing chicken with city officials.

patty, having zones in one room that serve the purpose of those various rooms you mention could create the most inviting room in your house, that you will never want to leave.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 09 Jul 25 - 12:08 PM

> It looks like Ptolemy has had the last word.

I'm just waiting for Petronius the Arbiter (our first tenant) to wander into Heaven, for a bit of R&R after a particularly boisterous bit of hellraising in Valhalla.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jul 25 - 07:30 PM

With three bags purchased last fall, today I picked up six more bags of pebbles to finish the French drain. I made two trips, three bags at a time, because I didn't want to end up with extra. It was close with the first three today, but since the ditch was kind of "V" shaped, the volume needed to fill in across the top was going to take more than what filled up the bottom half. At any rate, the project used nine bags of rocks plus a bag of decomposed granite at the bottom end where the water can drain out and soak in if need be (it's over the baldcypress roots at that point, a tree that loves standing water.) In planning the drain I dug the experimental little trench last fall, and that alone was enough to let the slightly uphill Mexican plum come back to complete health this year. The rocks are placeholders so it isn't as likely to fill in from surrounding soil.

The messy part was when I made the executive decision to cut out a chunk of the inch diameter PVC pipe that runs the length of the yard, put in by the previous owners. It ran along about 3' of the length of the trench, and was going to cause a backup in drainage. I had thought about using it for a pump, but never did, and now I won't. The reciprocating saw made quick work of it, but since I'd perk-tested the ditch with water there was mud to be flung by the blade and the pipe.

In a follow-up on last night's clash of the behemoth-sized critters, the cicada killer wasp seems to have avoided the Argiope spider's web. She has extended her web orb into a true 3D capture device out there, but it still accommodates the opening security door. Smart spider. I think, however, todays backyard soil shifting messed up another kind of wasp and spider dynamic. I filled in some low spots along the garage foundation next to the step into the garage, and this afternoon noticed a tarantula hawk wasp with a smallish spider that it stunned in the garage and had dragged to that side step. It seemed to be looking around and I realize I probably filled soil over the hole it had excavated to stuff the spider into before it lays its eggs on said paralyzed spider. It may have to start over. Since the spider is a goner if the wasp doesn't use it one of the lizards will get it. Can you see why gardening is so much more interesting than clearing out my den? You can take the Interpretive Naturalist/park ranger out of the park, but you can't take away the interest in all of those goings on in the natural world.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: pattyClink
Date: 10 Jul 25 - 10:25 AM

Yes, the earthwork around here seems to have stirred up some critters. One snake (the good kind), the first tarantula wasp of the season. Last evening I walked back towards the front door and saw what I guess was a tarantula on the porch, I decided to go in the back door.
It was black, so high off the ground it looked like a transformer toy, the size of a large orange, and that's all the detail I cared to collect.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jul 25 - 12:34 PM

The optimal method for escorting such large creatures out of the house is to use a plastic bowl or container and drop over the top of them, then carefully slide a stiff piece of cardboard (or if none is handy, a magazine or sturdy piece of junk mail) under it, and carry it outside (having already opened the door first so you don't lose it when shifting to open a door.) Technique refined by me and I get calls from neighbors on occasion to come catch snakes or spiders in the house. (For snakes use long kitchen tongs and a straight-sided waste basket.)

After mowing the front I'm indoors cooling down before part two, the string trimmer around the edges and near the soaker hose (that I need to not hit again with the mower). Then part three will be the sharp-shooter shovel and digging up weed trees from flower beds and other places they don't belong. You have to get the roots or the keep coming back. I also need to transplant a few cannas and irises back into the beds they've sprawled out of (past the edging). They make it difficult to mow and edge in those spots.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 10 Jul 25 - 05:24 PM

I love Ontario. I will never find a tarantula on my porch, and venomous snakes don’t come to visit.

A bat will drop in occasionally and skunks do frequent the garden, but generally Perth County is a peaceable kingdom.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Jul 25 - 05:54 PM

here in inner Sydney, close to the Harbour my problem is cockroaches & I keep a bottle of surface spray in each room! Tho as it's winter there are not so many now, they were a plague in the warmer weather!! And THEY will be back as the weather warms as they do like older buildings.

I live in an old (WW1) 4 storey block of apartments, surrounded by bigger & smaller buildings which block any view of the harbour. My predecessors who lived here from 1788 would have had seen more wildlife

quote - Yes, there are snakes in Sydney (ie. wider Metropolitan area). Any suburb with natural bush areas, or overgrown areas, will have snakes, particularly North Shore, Lower North Shore, North-West suburbs. Inner-city suburbs with no natural bush areas will not have snakes (that's us)

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jul 25 - 10:29 PM

I'm cooling down again, for the third time, and my clothes all smell strongly of rosemary. The last big chore for today was 45 minutes digging out two trees each several years old that started from squirrel planting in the front bed (a mix of iris, rosemary, salvia, and a large Silverado sage). The pecan came first, then the oak. They were each about 1" diameter at the base (in forestry you would describe a tree by its dbh - diameter breast high - but these weren't tall enough to have that measurement.) Those were the most established of the weed trees. Tomorrow I'll work my way around the yard digging the tree sprouts from last year and this.

A lot of garden stuff is back in the greenhouse after rounding up various sized pots and a few tools that had been in the garage and by the potting bench outside it.

There's a lizard that hangs out on the security door on the driveway side of the house, big enough that even the bigger spiders need to avoid it. There's a yellow-crowned night heron that has started hanging out around the yards on our end of the block (it flounced off to the roof across the street this evening because I was apparently disturbing it) that could be a predator for the lizards and toads. Coyotes, foxes, opossum, raccoons, skunks, and bobcats in the woods across the road. I haven't seen any hares for quite a while; I suspect the coyotes cleared them out. If a squirrel gets hit by a car in the street vultures usually do the cleanup work. Good sized bass and perch in the creek, along with turtles. For an urban dweller, I have a lot of wildlife because of the creek and the woods. Oh, and there was one more wasp confrontation yesterday. They were on the frame for the sliding glass door into the back yard.

Cooking tomorrow. Babaghanouj and a batch of crispy pecans.

How's the new apartment coming along, Keb? Are there any musical members of the community, or access to a piano or a music room? And the furniture you moved in there, is it working out? The new bed comfortable?

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 07:05 AM

There are some musical people in the community. Some I have met, others I have been told about. There is a woman who plays organ and piano; I am told she has a piano in her apartment and people downstairs can hear her practicing when she plays it. I've met a 94 year old singer and conductor, nice man but physically very frail. The auditorium has a grand piano in it.

The mattress is much more firm than I am accustomed to. At first it was a real problem, I could barely sleep at all. Now I am getting used to the firm mattress and I am getting some sleep at night.

At some point I need to get a comfortable chair to sit in. I got rid of the large table, but kept the two side chairs; they do not make comfortable sitting. With the other furniture I have there is not really room for a couch.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 08:11 AM

I am now waiting for the report from my buyers’ building inspector, and coming to terms with the fact that I may not get moved before Thanksgiving. The buyers still don’t have their house on the market. They say they will “soon”.

By some measures, Christmas is “soon”.

Meanwhile, I continue to live as low-contact as possible in my own home, rather as I did in barracks as a newbie in the service, perpetually in anticipation of an NCO’s critical scrutiny.

The weather is delightful: hot but not stinking hot. Stratford is at its leafy loveliest, bursting with bloom, theatre-goers and tourists. Downtown parking is frustratingly rare, and gaggles of people with large tote bags block the sidewalk on the main drags. The bank is across the street from our very picturesque town hall and within a block of two of the Stratford Festival’s four theatres, so I go there only on foot. I’m very grateful I don’t have a downtown job.

My Fitbit watch stopped cooperating with the other gadgets a few days ago and yesterday refused to charge its battery, so I declared it dead and replaced it with an Apple watch. The Apple Store takes trade-ins, so my old iPhone, a 13 with a dicky battery, lowered the price to about par with a new Fitbit. The Apple watch has useful functions the Fitbit lacks, such as a thing that calls 911 if I fall and get hurt badly enough that I can’t cancel. As one who suffers at least one fall on ice each winter, I like that feature.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 08:14 AM

Yes, Keb, you need a comfy chair. No home is complete without a comfy chair.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 09:14 AM

> No home is complete without a comfy chair.

As long as it's not *too* comfy. The armchair I park myself in (to veg out in in front of the telly) suffered a broken spring, and it's now treacherously deep; visitors have to be warned that it's difficult to escape its embrace.

People always seem to get it wrong about soft chairs and beds; possibly it's a race memory from when His Lordship was the only one who could afford deeply-stuffed matresses.* Research shows that a soft chair increases reported comfort levels, but also increases observed rates of fidgeting. Nowadays we pay extra for deep-stuffed matresses, then pay extra again for orthopedic ones.† *The* most comfortable beds I've ever slept in have been simple standard Uni-issue ones: a four-inch Dunlopillo matress over plywood slats.

* eg for the Pea Test.

† No, I don't just mean gravel, or the earth of one's homeland.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 12:11 PM

I kept a number of interesting antique armchairs from my great aunt's house in Connecticut, but when I realized just how much it was going to cost to reupholster them I donated a couple of them to Goodwill. A project for someone teaching themselves the skill. I kept the comfortable Mission oak rocker, and one in the guest room, and in the den I have a modern rocker with rocking footstool from my Dad's house. And Dad's old lounger. Set those up with a lamp and they are perfect reading chairs.

Sorting through stuff to test and donate or toss in the e-waste bag today. And starting an experiment with old seed packets. Everyone around here who comes across of cache of seeds thinks of me and in the last year I've received three separate bundles of old old packets. They're almost museum pieces at this point, but I'm first testing a packet of catnip from 1980. Some of them were sprinkled into a pot of moist soil in the sunroom and we'll see. It will probably add up to a blog post, and is not scientific, simply based upon curiosity.

More sorting through the excess paper (cards, stationary, envelopes) in a small faux-Chippendale desk is going to add up to more materials for the art teachers project here in town. This is a warm weather sorting project for days when indoor work is best (I'm surprised we aren't well into the 100s yet this time of month, it has been rainy and in the 90s, with nighttime lows in the mid-70s.)

Charmion, I thought you were hoping to find buyers further along in listing their own house? What made these folks seem the best candidates to do this prolonged dance with?

Keb, will a loveseat fit in the apartment?

Dorothy, how is it going with the phone, the hearing aids, the computer, and the houses? Have you started plates for your son?

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 02:30 PM

The comfyness of a chair depends very little on softness, in my opinion. It really needs to be only as soft as will not insult one’s bum bones. More important are: the height of the seat from the floor; the depth and degree of tilt of the seat from front to back; the height and angle of the back rest; and the height of the arm rests.

A wooden rocking chair with those attributes correct for you will be more comfy than the most expensive down-filled designer thingy that strains your lower back. As in so many aspects of life, it’s all about the engineering.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 06:05 PM

I'm still doing the low-carb high-protein and fat diet, but when I went into Costco to pick up a rotisserie chicken for the weekend I walked past the produce endcap with yellow peaches. It was a mistake to give them a sniff - that ripe peach aroma shot me straight back to my childhood of sitting on the back porch steps, leaning forward to avoid drips while eating ripe fruit off our tree. I brought home a case and have already eaten one.

Worked in the greenhouse again today, lubricating a few rusty tools and winding new string on the spools for the trimmer. I also found a few things to throw away. I need to find more wire forms that my cucumbers can climb on. They're growing fast right now and I already have several small cukes in view.

Now that I'm on prednisone again and trying to avoid the stress hormones, the best way is to avoid reading the news first thing in the morning. I glanced at some today but set it aside quickly because it's there waiting to gang up on you. That said, in news of a less-political sort, for a somber look at how quickly houses and their people and contents can be emptied out, this account of a family on the Guadalupe is firsthand from a writer at the Texas Monthly.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 11 Jul 25 - 07:18 PM

Insider knowledge: Charmion had a butternut rocker reconditioned that had had a sprung seat and fabric back inflicted on it some time in the late 19th or early 20th century. It is restored to close to its orignal state and it is so much more comfortable.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 25 - 11:40 AM

I arose and dressed to mow this morning, and as I looked out the sliding glass doors a gentle rain had soaked the yard overnight. I'm going to wait a couple of hours and mow anyway, my plans today were set and while it will be a little sloppy the grass and weeds aren't so tall or thick it will be too difficult.

There are a couple of new pots beside the house with starts for Mexican plum (they were growing off of horizontal roots from the big tree where I put in the French drain), and my daughter wants those. I also have some plants I want to put in here, but finding the right place has been the question. One is a great butterfly attractor that likes full sun, and when I first moved into the house the front was nothing but ugly Bermuda grass and full sun. After 20+ years of trees growing that is no longer the case, but I think I have a spot. I'll have to struggle to keep the weedy vines out of it, though.

In general decluttering, I've been throwing out more stuff in the greenhouse and garage. I moved some shelving in the kitchen and am debating about moving appliances around on the existing shelves to the new taller wire rack (it used to be in the pantry). And I have more things to add to the Goodwill bin in my laundry room, to be donated soon. #DeckChairsOnTheTitanic

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 12 Jul 25 - 11:50 AM

Why did I accept that offer, Stilly? Two reasons. First, they offered $25K more than the asking price. Second, I did not know that the Ottawa real estate market was so markedly different from what’s going on here in Stratford — specifically, that Ottawa sellers do not even considered offers with a house sale condition. Also, it never occurred to me that they would take so long to list their damnable house! But here we are.

The building inspector found an iffy bit of plywood subfloor in the basement under the sill of the furnace room door. The buyers offered to waive the inspection condition for $5K off their offered price. After the construction misery I’ve just endured, I said Yes and thought Getting Off Lightly. But the closing date is non-negotiable (for unstated reasons), so I must be outta here on or before 28 August.

So I must engage movers and schedule packing knowing when I’m going but precisely where. (In the army, they say “Move now, destination later.”) This morning, I did the first task: booking the cats into my favourite feline holiday spa, Cats’ Paradise in Almonte, a little mill town about half an hour west of Ottawa. Next is booking movers, which I can’t even start until Monday morning.

On the fitness front, my weight is down to a point I haven’t seen since about Grade 11 and my voice is slowly returning to normal. I’m still eating very low-carb-ly, as it were — my digestion is much happier this way — but I refuse to forego peach season again this year. That’s too much to ask.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 12 Jul 25 - 04:05 PM

Sorry — knowing when I’m going but NOT precisely where.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 25 - 05:06 PM

The ex is coming over for dinner tonight, and since I picked two good-sized eggplant, my recipe of eggplant and pork (from Cypress) is underway. On the side will be a Caprese salad since I have ripe tomatoes, basil, and some wonderful artisan mozzarella balls. The peaches will be for dessert, with granola sprinkled on top.

The backyard mowing was finished after a halfway point cooldown. I haven't trimmed yet, that can come tomorrow. And I have a lot more sapling trees to dig out in one front iris bed and around the backyard fence line. There is a shrub I will plant tomorrow, and a couple of others I'm going to offer in the buy nothing page.

One thing about having the garden is the entertainment value. We've reached the point in the summer when the tomato plants become a large hedge, and some fruits end up buried deep inside; the ex is fond of poking around and finding ripe fruit I've missed. Gleaning happens in my garden all season long, and the rule of thumb is whoever finds what I missed gets to take it home.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 25 - 07:50 PM

I just finished giving the last museum tour in a sequence related to a particular small exhibit that closes after today. I learned more in the last week about the artists than I had in the last five years, but I can build from there in my work in the archives.

I am giving myself this week to finish work in the den. As I drove home from the tour I visualized locations for the tall wire shelf unit that was temporarily parked in the kitchen and think it will work in the front hall to hold the packaged eBay items in the doorway where a chair now keeps the dogs from going into the front room. That will clear up the sideboard and a couple of horizontal surfaces.

The exercise app I used via my phone is being dropped from the university health plan at the end of August, so I deleted it now. No point if fussing with it when I'm getting so much exercise in the yard. I'll go back to using the program I've paid for (and felt guilty about ignoring). Charmion is probably going to get a lot of exercise in the next six weeks as she packs and plans the move. No plan needed.

Another zone in the front yard has been cleared of weed tree seedlings, all stuffed into the trash can at the curb. They probably would die in the compost, but I don't need to take the chance that a few would take hold and need to be weeded out of there later.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jul 25 - 12:06 PM

This is officially the strangest July I remember in a long time. It rained again overnight, enough that there is standing water in the bird baths and plant saucers. By now we're usually scorching under 100+^o days and nights in the 80s. I can't help but feel like we're going to pay a price for this down the road.

Since it did rain I'll go out in a bit and weed more of the front and put down some mulch. And put in the plants I've intended to for ages.

That won't deter me from the work in the den and the front room (the eBay stuff being relocated). And I've been wanting to play the piano, so need to clear the bench. It's in the front room out of sight most of the time. I've never moved it to the den because it is a sunken room and I'll never be able to move it out again by myself if I did it, but that would be great for acoustics.

Charmion, how long will the cats have to be boarded, and when do you think you'll take them in?

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Jul 25 - 02:56 PM

I booked two weeks of boarding for the cats, hoping hard that will be enough. I think they can put up with the fuss and furore of unpacking, but I can’t expect them to endure packing and load-out.

I have found a mover with availability in the last week of August, and access to an appropriate storage facility should the Ottawa end of the plan go sideways. The estimator will come next week, on Wednesday after lunch.

If all goes well, 28 August will be my last day in Stratford.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 25 - 02:41 PM

Two small shrubs planted in the front yard; one several feet in front of the guest room window so it doesn't grow right against the house is a Caryopteris called "Blue Mist" that is showy and butterflies love it, and it doesn't take much attention once established. The other is at the edge of the driveway and is a Pavonia in the Mallow family called Rock Rose, also ok with benign neglect once established. Mulched and ready to go.

I've started giving small amounts (as it becomes available) of produce to neighbors. A few okra and a tomato yesterday, just a tomato today. But a bright red homegrown tomato is the food of the gods, and always welcome. I have a few cucumbers to start making refrigerator pickles, one jar at a time so they don't sit around too long before I have enough for a regular size batch.

Clearing out the den is slow, but it is moving. I found a couple of boxes packed in the eBay stuff that I hadn't listed, and I've changed my mind about how to pack them so I'm working on that, then listing, and storing on the rolling rack in the hall. It isn't scorching out, but it's still too hot to spend prolonged time out there, so I'm going back and forth between garden and eBay listings today.

At our end of the street we have all noticed skunks out in the daytime, an unusual and not healthy sign in general since this time of year there is so much insect and plant activity that none of them should be short on food foraged overnight. They don't seem to be drooling or aggressive, just trotting out across the street, it's too soon to call anyone about them. There are pellets with rabies vaccine that can be strewn in an area that coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and skunks are all liable to eat, and we might be wise to see if someone from the state will come do that.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 25 - 11:24 PM

Three good-sized boxes for eBay moved into the hall shelf this evening, and a few other things on the den dining table moved out to the garage (they're part of the donations to the art teacher project). And another rain storm; I've turned off the yard sprinkler that was programmed to run in the morning.

More of this tomorrow, plus, making pickles.

I have to call my friend's cousin who is a roof guy and see what he says about the condition. I don't want to do a copay on a new roof, but I should know if there is trouble advancing.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 17 Jul 25 - 08:41 AM

This week I start the transition phase of leaving Stratford. Today's challenge: introduce Ann, the new choir librarian, to the library database. To that end, I'm writing user procedures. The last time I did that, I was quitting my gummint job and it was 2013. Fortunately, the required skill set is apparently forget-proof.

Another house showing today, so the breakfast dishes are stashed in the dishwasher to be extracted later and washed by hand. Sounds silly, but I have only one coffee filter and I run the dishwasher only about once a week. Before leaving the house, I must do a fast inspection to ensure that neither of the cats has left a hairball for the punters' viewing pleasure, as happened on Tuesday.

The people whose conditional offer I accepted finally have their house up for sale. Took them long enough. The listing photos show half-furnished rooms painted horrible shades of gun-metal grey and dark violet. If that's what they really, really like, I'm amazed they wanted this place badly enough to offer $20K over asking. Maybe they think interior painting is recreational.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Jul 25 - 10:01 AM

Maybe they think interior painting is recreational - beautifully said!

Decades ago my friend & neighbour took 12 months to sell her flat - it might have been the days before designers tarted rooms up, but even I could see aspects that were not "must-have".

Good luck in your hand over, & moving.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jul 25 - 10:39 AM

It seems I have enough hail and wind damage on the roof to qualify for a new roof, but I have to do some work around here before I call the insurance company adjustor. I'm told that they will examine the entire outside (hoping just outside) and then the roof, and there are a couple of spots I need to touch up; add mortar to a crevice that has formed between stones on the front, and replace a board on the lower part of the bay window looking out over the garden and driveway.

The paint job at the house your buyers have offered up sounds pretty dreadful; how is it you have to be out of your house by a set date if theirs may not have sold? Held hostage by their ugly house?

A sign will be made today for the evening event downtown. No march, just a gathering in the park. I have some folding comfortable camp chairs I used during COVID so we could set up beside the SUV and eat and talk, but they're bulky to be carrying a half-mile to the park from my preferred parking area. Yesterday I picked up some lightweight folding stools. I don't fancy sitting on a blanket in the park.

Boxes flattened and headed to the city recycle bins today and the den looks much better, but there is more work. I spent time in the garage looking for the saw that fits on the end of a long pole because I have to trim a couple of branches, but it isn't revealing itself in any of the logical places. That said, it is probably hiding in plain sight. Or maybe in the box under the potting table in the sunroom . . .

Two jars of refrigerator pickles made last night. The experiment of growing cucumbers in the unwoven cloth smart pot is revealing that they dry out too often and the cukes themselves end up with air cavities in the middle of the fruits. I don't know at this point if I can repot that whole thing, the smart pot is rather large. The rest of the cucumbers in the ground were fine.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jul 25 - 11:51 PM

I found the saw on a long pole and went out this evening (after returning home from dinner and a protest with a friend) to cut down a few limbs over the street. I probably shouldn't have waited till the very last minute, but I think I got most of the problem limbs the city thinks were too low.

More flattening boxes ahead, taking to the recycling bins. I can use boxes for eBay but I don't need this many.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jul 25 - 07:50 PM

Weeding things out of the corner in the kitchen and from in the Kitchen Queen. Trays I never use any more, large cutting board, a few glass pieces, a couple of baskets. First dibs to the kids, then the stuff is donated. I also dropped a couple of ancient flameless candles & bases in the e-waste bin, they don't hold a charge any more. And a bunch of cardboard is stashed in the SUV, I'll head over to the recycle bins this evening.

This afternoon I quartered and fried a couple of large eggplants to freeze; the slices will go on a favorite pork, tomato, and eggplant casserole next winter. Now to assemble another jar of refrigerator pickles.

I'll go out in the morning and start cutting up those branches I trimmed. I could run them through the electric chipper, but I don't use it often since I can get large bags of wood chips free from the city any time of the year (and the chipper is loud and slow and won't handle much more than 1" thick sticks). Should probably sell the chipper.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 07:44 AM

I now have competing offers on the house, one with a lot more money and the other with two more weeks to the closing date. I hope the one with more money backs out because money can’t buy time and I still have to land a house in Ottawa. It’s not my decision; the rule is that the first prospective buyer has 48 hours to top a better offer, in this case by dropping the condition that they don’t have to go through with their purchase if their own house doesn’t sell. The deadline is 0900 hr tomorrow.

Either way, my house is sold firm.

I have four appointments next week. I could put off the dentist and the two sopranos from the church choir who want to take me out for lunch, but Thursday’s work party at the choir library is important and Wednesday’s date with the estimator from the moving company is crucial. So I had better take a deep, calming breath and go house-hunting the week after. The Ottawa agent wants me to come between Monday and Friday because his weekends are just nuts — at this time of the year, real estate people work 24 / 7.

A friend from the Y pool offered to put me up in the last few days before the move, when the cats are gone and the packers are at work. That was so sweet! I accepted at once.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 10:47 AM

Charmion, you're scattered into bits all over the place now, aren't you? Mentally living in several dimensions of housing options.

This weekend I have two house repairs I can make then on Monday call the insurance company. I'm not in a rush to have the roof fixed; doing so now would compromise several aspects of the garden and I prefer tomatoes and cucumbers to beefy guys dropping shingles off the edge onto them. (Yes, they use tarps and bins, but it is never a perfect operation).

Trimming around the driveway and garden this morning before it gets too hot, then staying indoors. We are up to the 100s now, according to my patio thermometer. Time to put out the cooler on the porch with cold bottles of water for the mail carrier and delivery folks, and to put up the little pool with the floating solar fountain.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 11:20 AM

Temperatures over 100F? Too hot for roofers anyway, Stilly. You don't want those beefy guys dropping themselves off the edge onto your tomatoes and cucumbers.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 11:21 PM

They work in that heat.

Several donation items offered online today, kitchen items and, separately, an old kitchen sink. Yup. The one they took out of this house in 2002 has been in the garage or sitting beside the fence for all of this time. Cast iron, weighs a ton. It needs refinishing, but I looked at the Facebook Marketplace and in the region are probably two dozen similar old sinks offered for sale that have been up for a while. Everything from several hundred dollars to $20. So I suggested in my Freecycle offer that it might bring a nice price as scrap. (I don't want to try to do that myself, though I have in the past, when I owned a pickup truck.)

One of the big eggplants became baba ghanouj today, and I made a pot of lentil soup to accompany several future meals. As I took a couple of tomatoes and cucumbers to the next door neighbor I realized I need to add Feta cheese to my shopping list. There's a salad I make with diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta, with Italian dressing that is a great summer meal in itself. I took some okra to the neighbors on the other side. They're always glad to see you coming when you're carrying a handful of fresh garden produce. Hell, no, I don't want roofers falling off the roof onto my cukes and tomatoes.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 02:06 PM

The house sale went firm this morning at 0900 hr and I got the money, not the time.

House-hunting in person begins on Monday, 28 July. I’m sure I’ll find something suitable, but not perfect. In the week between now and then, I get a lot of prep work done.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 07:59 PM

YAH!!!!!!

to both the sale & work needing doing

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 10:28 PM

Congratulations on reaching that milestone! Now are you going to look at houses online?

Progress here on a smaller scale, with some interest in items offered for free. A trip to the recycle bins saw a whole bunch of flat boxes slid in over the top of everything else already there, and lobbing individual bottles and cans into the upper crevices. Everyone must have had the same idea today. Box removal created more space in both the sunroom and the garage doorways.

I strung up some old clothesline amongst some new metal fence stakes around the cucumber bed to give more climbing stuff. I should have built it up bigger earlier. I pulled up the two plants in the fabric smart pot - so far it hasn't proven to be the best container; probably better in cooler climates.

A few of the branches I lopped off have been trimmed and are in the trash for tomorrow, I'll do the rest on Thursday. I've rearranged some of the large water containers in the yard; since I don't have dogs who like to take a dip in the tub no point in having the big one that fits a Labrador retriever set up. And I've put a better sized container beside the back door and I'm willing to bet I'll see signs soon that it has again become the toad spa.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Charmion
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 07:53 AM

Stilly, I’ve been studying houses on line for months. I have a long list and a short list.

SIL No. 1 is prepared to put me up (and put up with me) for a week, including a parking spot at their condo. I have enough cash in the bank for both the deposit and the building inspector. The Ottawa realtor is locked and loaded to start showing me houses at 0845 hr on Monday, 28 July. I mean business and I’ll git ‘er done, as the tiresome people say.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 11:08 AM

Good luck with the search. Back when I bought this houses there weren't many photos through the house showing up online, and the front of it was absolutely ugly. I passed by it many times then finally decided I should look to rule it off the list that kept turning up.

We're now entering the really hot stage of summer (that we amazingly didn't enter two or three weeks ago) when strategic watering to keep the house foundation from huge shifts (and cracking walls) is hand-in-hand with with enough water on the garden without mortgaging the house to pay the water bill. I bought three new soaker hoses recently and put out only one so far, but this week at least one more will be put in place along the west side of the house to water that foundation. And time for the ice chest on the porch with water for delivery folks.

It is at least two years since the last garden that had much production so I'm struggling to remember what the meals are that use more of the produce so it gets used fast enough. Plus I've shifted to gluten free, that removes a few recipes. Along with sharing with others, I'm eating and soon freezing or canning. The tomatoes are looking like they're going to produce a few pints soon, so the gear will be at the ready.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: pattyClink
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 11:56 AM

SRS, good luck with the garden produce. I am reminded of the old cookbook "Too Many Tomatoes" designed specifically for deluges of zucchini etc. Not sure if that was the source of the one that used shredded zuch with egg binder for a pizza crust. It was really yummy as I recall but did not survive reheating as well as real pizza.

Our monsoon season is underway, and it's weird to see rampant weed growth where there was very barren ground. I am now armed with the correct implements and techniques, but have forgotten which leaves represent goatheads and other bad things. Will have to get busy hoeing and whacking, but the afternoons are mighty hot for that sort of thing. Add it to the list of many things which need to be done very early or late in the day.

Looked up my 'pretty' weeds that I like to leave alone, apparently one is silverleaf nightshade, poisonous to critters. Would that the tarantula would munch on it.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 12:48 PM

Patty, it feels good to be ready for the season, doesn't it? That was the case here with this year's garden. Your tarantulas will keep a lot of pesky insects away from the house if you leave them be. And while it would seem like goathead comes from a grass (the burr grass here is really sharp) it looks like your nuisance painfully sharp object is Tribulus terrestris and comes from the Zygophyllaceae or Caltrop family. Relative of the lovely smelling and benign creosote plant. (Naturalist Gary Paul Nabhan wrote the book The Desert Smells Like Rain and most people who live out there know that moisture makes the creosote smell wonderful.)

Yesterday I picked up a couple of the bulk ingredients that go into my homemade granola, and I'll make a small batch, minus the powdered milk, for a friend who is interested in the gut-health effect that this recipe has for me. I'll enter the ingredients in My Fitness Pal so if they like it her son (who is a chef) can reproduce it in different amounts. She'll also know how much fiber and such it has.

I also picked up some dry garden organic fertilizer to sprinkle today then I'll water it in tonight. Three more cucumbers this morning, retrieved from the maze of vines that overlap and spread in a tangle next to the side door. The bees are working it heavily, and I have a photo of a baby lizard with its face shoved deep into a yellow cucumber flower.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 11:39 PM

The guy who said he wanted the sink never came by, so I've toted it (using an old dolly) down to the curb and propped it against the pine tree. Scrap folks will know what to do with it, and there are usually a few who head through the village. I may shift it tomorrow, it can get hot in the sun and I don't want it damaging the tree bark where it is leaning against it. Killing grass is less of a problem.

More colorful drinking glasses were listed on eBay, and more to go tomorrow. The boxes from the friend who buys frozen cat food are well insulated and perfect for these listings.

Having resumed working jigsaws several evenings a week I'm finally getting close to completing one that has been on the sunroom table for far too long.

Subject: RE: DECLUTTER: *Sorting *Health *Progress - 2025
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 06:11 AM

I've been up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night trying to solve the mystery of the skunked den, front hall, office, and office closet. The dogs didn't get skunked but clearly someone slobbered and sneezed skunk in here, much like happened in 2024 on Mother's Day. The smell isn't nearly as strong as last year, but it is unmistakable. Thing is, the dogs haven't been skunked. It was strong in the kennel in the den and on the floor mat under my desk, where Cookie likes to sleep when I'm working. Cookie was already outside and I sent Pepper out and closed the dog door, then sprayed Skunk Odor Remover. I could see a path of slobber. When I took the spray bottle out to spritz on the dogs, I realized neither of them had a hint of skunk.

I took a flashlight through the house looking for a skunk they might have dragged in, but nothing, and they'd alert me big time if there was an animal in here now.

Since I'm awake I decided to write down the event, as the start of the trail of breadcrumbs to follow when I get up again in a few hours.