Scrumblies and Glidgets

Gerta, my house, has dandruff.

That's the only conclusion I can come to after wiping down the kitchen countertops and finding the usual assortment of crumblies, microscopic dustballs, idgies, and yes- 'floating' Pepper dog hairs. (I think Pepper is in cahoots with Gerta.)

As I washed off the uck-ies once again (as in every time I wash dishes), I sighed to myself as I hit all the high spots and didn't look too closely in the corners. I have slid down the cleaning ladder when it comes to my old days of personal sparkling and pristine. 

But I have to say..... I simply don't remember past homes being this much of a pain in the behind. Hence back to my new theory of Gerta having some type of household dandruff.  When I think of it this way, all the dust, fuzzies, fine woodburner ash, and countertop yuckies start to make sense. It just keeps drifting down and floating around. And around, and around.

While in some ways thinking of living in a dandruff environment is a bit hideous, it's also a bit comforting that it's out of my control.

I think Gerta is wearing me down.

Gerta and I Come to Blows

Today, I decided to battle Gerta- and mostly won.

We've been here two years now, and one of the niggling irritations I've lived with has been our bathroom tub.

After years of being an outfitter's house with lunking, hulking hunters and then a ranch house, our tub has had a permanent haze of dirty-ish ickyness that has stubbornly refused to disappear.

I've tried everything- bleach, ZaBoom, borax, Mr. Clean magic erasers, CLR, blah, blah, blah; you name it, I've tried it.  No dice.

I'm sure Gerta, who loves being a dirty beige ranch, has been delighted with my frustration.

Today, I got down and dirty myself.  After hours ruminating on possible ideas, I took Bar Keeper's Friend (yes, I'd tried this in the past as well), made a paste with water, got Dan's electric sander with a softer sanding pad, and let loose on the walls and tub.

I spent a good hour sanding away, spraying white, gooey paste all over me, the walls, the tub, and the floor.  Dan said I sounded quite industrial.  I imagined a good stiff upper cut to Gerta, and dreamed of it being a knock-out punch.

Ha!  It worked.  The built-in grime slowly erased (as well as likely parts of the finish).  While not perfect, the damn tub finally resembled what a good tub should look like.  Victory was mine!

Then, in retaliation, Gerta punched me back.  The do-hickey that keeps the water coming in shower form versus tub flowing form broke.  That meant we didn't have a functional shower, which is all we ever use.  Panic was in my eyes......

Gerta can be a bitch at times, and thought she had me down.

But not all was lost; I called the Ranch Manager.  He came down and saved my day- after much clumping and thumping, he got the shower option working again.  Take that, Gerta!

My next project?  I just bought vinyl floor stripper for the kitchen.  Half the marks and 'dirt' are permanent... I'm hoping I can strip them away.

We'll see what Gerta has to say about that...

Compare THIS to Life in the Suburbs...

Consider this my weekly whine.... (actually, I don't whine that much, but I'm due)

Wake up this morning to coyotes yipping in the distance.  (In the east, it's ki-yo-tees; out west, it's ki-yotes.  Still getting used to that.)

Get my shower ready and hear a steady 'clunk-clunk' on the back deck.  Look out the window and see Chilli and Pepper chewing on an entire leg bone of some critter.

Get dressed, then freak out when Chilli comes in the living room with a gooey hoof- seems that the leg bone belonged to a deer.  Throw the hoof away in disgust.

Go on a killing spree and knock off about 14 flies buzzing around the house (apparently this happens every year about this time).

Attend the morning work meeting; seems the guys are going to 'blow out' the water lines for irrigation.  I'm not needed, so I go back home.

Feeling unmotivated, look around the house and ponder things to do.  Stare at the end table that is covered in dust, which I dusted 1 1/2 days ago.  I know I mentioned before that dust was not my enemy, but it sure isn't my friend, either....

Decide to do the many mundane things I so love to do, like laundry, sweeping (even though I swept last night before the dogs came prancing in with hundreds of burs stuck to them and everything they then touched), cleaning the kitchen, blah, blah...

Look out the kitchen window and see my 2 dogs prancing across the front yard, each holding an end of a nasty, smelly deer hide (that apparently was in the same vicinity as the earlier deer leg).

Freak out again and run after them to get the disease-ridden thing away from them and put it in a trash bag.

Then drive up to the work barn to put the trash and the putrid deer skin indoors in the garbage where other wild animals can't reach it.  (Sighted 2 wolves on our side of the basin on Monday, and the neighbor on the other side of the valley shoo'ed away a grizzly and 2 cubs trying to get into his garage).  Idly consider the fact that whatever eats a deer would probably see both of my dogs as appetizers.

Get back home and look at the clock- it's only 10:30.

Sigh.....

Gerta Gets A Makeover

Gerta is our house, with whom I have an uneasy alliance.  She's a little bit ranch dirty, and I guess I'm a bit of a clean diva.  The problem, I realized in an earlier post, is she was and is a tomboy and loves it, and she does her best to remind me that when it comes to dust, grime and rough edges, she thinks she is the boss.

Gerta reminds me of Calamity Jane in the HBO series called "Deadwood".  (Rachel sent us the first season on DVD to occupy Dan as he recovered, and we have both been enjoying it.)  Calamity Jane is portrayed as a tough, grimy, drinking, profane woman who has a soft heart, deep underneath her facade.

If Gerta were a person, I could see her cussing someone out while spitting chewing tobacco on the ground and loving it.  But... she'd keep you warm and comfortable when you needed it.

In spite of her foibles, Gerta has a new look.  All the buildings on the ranch were painted this last summer, and Gerta went from her yellow house/green roof to a new beige house with gray roof:

Gerta's spiffy new look

What she looked like a year ago

She also got a new garage door installed; previously, there was a picture window in its place.

We are close to finishing what started out as our first project on the house- the front door.  The original door could have been a finalist in the 'Ugliest Door Contest':

We came up with an abstract mountainous scene, which Dan cut out of wood and carved and I painted:

We also painted the door off white.  All that's left is putting a finishing frame around the piece.

Next on our list is an update of the bathroom.  Since this 'first project' took a year, we'll see how quick that gets done..... :)  Pictures to one day come!

Mud-Puppy Party

Ring around the couchie
Paw prints leave an ouchie
Bad dog! Bad dog!
We all had fun......

One day last week while I was at the main lodge working, Dan was home in the living room resting.  The dogs had taken a run outside and disappeared in the fields behind our home.

Suddenly, both dogs came roaring through the back door chasing each other and did a mad dash around the couch, circling several times.  Unfortunately, they must have run through the stream beside the home that offers pitch black mud, and left a few souvenirs.....

It's actually MUCH worse in real life

This gives you an idea of the final result.

Who puts off-white carpeting in a ranch home, after all??  You can see the carpet steamer in the first photo, waiting to be put to use.  Although discouraging, I had to laugh.  Aggravating but funny.

Since then, the carpet has been cleaned and looks as good as it will ever be.  Chilli and Pepper are continuing their best-buddy adventures...

Ranch Dirty

Right now my world is a place of mud and ice.  The snows are s-l-o-w-l-y melting, and although they look snowy, they have transformed into icy, gritty, hard-packed mounds that are fighting their last battle with the warmer temps.

(‘Warmer’ mostly means temperatures in the middle thirties to low forties.  And over the weekend we got eight inches of snow, so it’s an ongoing battle.)

Where the snow has given way, there is slushy dirt and gravel.  The ground squishes and oozes mud on boots when stepped on.  The trucks and ranch vehicles are covering in a thick frosting of dried dirt, and the layers continue to grow.

To make it more interesting, our back yard is a sea of torn-up dirt clods with muddy rivulets of water leaking past into the pasture below.  (Last winter our septic system decided to die, and the new leach beds were put in after clearing out the drifts of snow.)  Our dog Pepper loves the outdoors, and regularly comes to the back door with paws packed with mucky dirt.

The roads are a disaster- one has a choice between snowy slush to skate on, or gooey mud trenches that spray mess everywhere.

The pastures and fields are covered with animal poo that, until now, have been frozen poopsicles.  Since the elk, deer, coyotes, dogs, and other critters wander freely, fragrant reminders of their visit are also on the roads, yards and walkways.  Not stepping in some kind of poo is an impossibility.

One bit of hope for Spring are the birds- both robins and bluebirds have returned.  This morning, while walking up to the work barn for our morning meeting, I realized the bird chatter was a new sound.  “This too shall pass,” I thought.  The snows will melt, plants will grow, the mud will turn to dirt, and we’ll have elk babies to watch as they scamper around.

All griping aside, once I resigned myself to muddy boots, coats and clothes, there is an ever-changing panorama of wildlife, weather and mountains to feast my eyes on each day.  Poopsicles aside, it’s a beautiful place to live.