The Puzzle

Well I've been off deck for a week, away at Lakes, but I've been working away at the puzzle that is Life on Earth. My last few posts, miserable attempts at short poetry, were the result of coin in the slot internet cafe which keyed in neatly with Maria's request to capture the moment each day in a few lines for a week. Nobody can say I'm not prepared to have a go, something which is improving as age advances, or dare I say as I mature like good wine.

We did some good work on the house. I crawled around the roof, hanging over the edge to sand, treat and patch the fascia board which was flaking its paint badly, exposing bare timber and minor rot, then going round again twice with two coats of fresh paint. Lib and Gord painted the bathroom and put up new towel rack and shower curtain rod to replace the rusty 40 year old ones.

I then uncovered some of the steel plates at the base of the poles that support much of the house, where they are bolted into concrete, and cleaned the others. Years of  corrosion from the salt air has done its damage. I sprayed these with Kill Rust Fishoilene. This may arrest or slow the process, especially if repeated annually. I felt better for having done something anyway.

Just when I was feeling good about the house I wandered over to the steel pylons that hold the treated pine logs of the retaining wall at the back, to find them rusted to paper thinness in places. This wall is about 12 to 15 feet high, (the house being on a steep hill which led to large excavation when it was built) and will no doubt begin to fall down in the not too distant future. I think it would be an engineer's job and an expensive one at that. It was too much for me to contemplate that day. I walked away trying to pretend I hadn't seen it. Lib and her sisters own the house, I'll nag them about having it looked at by a landscaper or engineer.

Life on Earth. There's always maintenance. We left the Lakes house better than we found it. Next time it'll be something else. We have to keep having a go. Perhaps that might be part of the answer to the puzzle. To try and leave everything better than when you found it, while you can. Then it's over to the next bloke.

* This I wrote Sunday and saved as a draft, as I had to rush off to be on roster at the museum. A bus load of visitors was booked and I had to give them a talk. It's been full on since we came home. Nice to be back on the walking route though. I picked a big bag of pine mushies this morning, cooked em up and had a big feed, and fridged the rest. Maybe they freeze alright cooked. We played golf at Lakes one day and Lib collected a hat full of field mushies which we had for lunch. Jod picked mushies at the farm and he and Marion ate them on Saturday night and became violently ill and rushed to hospital. Elvie had some too but didn't like the taste and threw much of them out but she was sick for several hours also. They were more domed than usual, but smelt like normal edibles and were nice and pink underneath with no yellowing when bruised. All part of the puzzle. Apparently there are thousands of unidentified species of fungi which may hold all manner of medical and pollution clean up miracles.