When soap becomes a guilty pleasure
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I understand the concept of blogs... that they are tributes to a topic, catering to particular interests like a little world unto themselves.
With the Rock Crest endeavor, however, it's impossible to isolate it from the life that goes on around it, namely our 47 other lives -- as parents, professionals, shelter volunteers, and home owners of a totally other home (that's often neglected because of what we're doing at Rock Crest). So, today, as I was driving from my workout, to the "other house" to attempt some contract work before heading over to the Crest, I found myself thinking about the insanity of the way all these lives collide.
Today was a tense, anxious day for me. I awoke tired, confronted (valiantly, I thought!) an hour of hard exercise, driven by my trainer, and contemplated every wasted minute thereafter that ate into the precious 2 hours I would otherwise have to do some real work. Once implanted in my work chair, however, I couldn't help but swallow hard at the thought of the meeting ahead. Today was the day I was to meet with our area forester to review our honeysuckle removal progress of the past nearly 3 years to see if we were judged to be in compliance with our EQIP program requirements.
We applied for EQIP - an invasive species remediation program run by the USDA's NRCS - with hopes of receiving some financial support for the work we already intended to do to return the forest at Rock Crest to the healthy environment it had been before the honeysuckle took over. After several years of application attempts, we were finally admitted into the program, with the stipulation that we had to clear 4 acres of honeysuckle overgrowth in 2 years' time. We would be evaluated at the half-way point to see if we still qualified for reimbursement for the expenses we'd incurred in getting rid of the honeysuckle.
After what we've expended, monetarily and physically, to clear what we've cleared, the compensation from EQIP is almost negligible. However, any financial help is a boost. Beyond that, though -- and probably most important to me -- I wanted us to be recognized for the incredible work we'd done. I wanted that work to be validated to the tune of recognizing that, if we hadn't cleared 2 acres, we'd certainly come close and demonstrated an incredible effort.
It's sometimes difficult living this Rock Crest life because the things we have to do just to progress on a single project often exceed the labor, expense and effort we'd have put forth at the other house for all our projects combined. In RC land, we've ceased to be a part of the "normal" society of our peers and ventured more into the realm of frontiersmen, farmers, or buccaneers. It's kind of impossible to tell people what we've been up to without it sounding like the cries of martyrdom or the pompous assertions that everything we do is harder than anything anyone else does. So, much of the time, I don't get into the details, and then I feel very unsung. It's a strange experience, for sure.
So, the forester arrived, and I proceeded to expound to him about everything we've done since he was last here in 2009. I detailed our methods for clearing the honeysuckle, how we attack it by size, what strategies we use for maneuvering it, hauling it, disposing of it, chipping it, or letting it lie. I told him about the ailanthus we killed and carefully brought down when it was dead enough not to send out runners to spread itself. I told him about our attempts and evaluations of hack-and-squirt, foliar spraying, root popping, copper nailing, and even the encouragement of webworm moths for attacking ailanthus. I knew I was sounding like the "City Mouse," but I could not seem to get control of myself, so I just let it fly. I walked him around, explaining tree by liberated tree what we'd done and how things had changed for the wildlife and air quality since we'd "decluttered" and reshaped the hillside.
For his part, the man was an utter tree savant! Not only did he remember specific trees he'd seen at our place the last time he was there, including where they'd stood and how many there were, but he was able to look into the sea of grass on the hillside and identify seedlings of various trees by the merest sight of a leaf or branch structure. What an eye! He had terrific suggestions for our ongoing invasives battles and identified trees that needed to be taken down because of poor health.
I couldn't resist taking him inside to show him the house -- more or less so he could get the full picture of why our time has not been as devoted to honeysuckle removal as we'd have liked.
He was very complimentary, overall, and he told me several times that he could see that we had made a lot of progress. I was SO happy to hear that, and I told him it meant a lot because we HAD worked incredibly hard. I think he was pretty impressed with our gigantic wood chip piles, the only remnants of our once ridiculously huge honeysuckle brush piles.
Buoyed by the happy news that the forester seemed to feel we'd met our clearing quota, I turned my attention to the other aspect of my usual Rock Crest life -- cat and squirrel care. The past week had seen a number of strange and inexplicable food shortages in the runs, which we could only image were somehow attributable to raccoon raids. Brien finally found what he thought might be a small entry point above the run closest to the house, by way of a gap between the house and the top of the kennel. He'd addressed that last night, and I was glad to see that it seemed that run was in decent shape today. However, the center run was out of food and water, and both food and water were spilled in the far run, as well -- as if they'd been tipped over but not accessed directly, since their food was still there, all over the floor.
I climbed up onto a chair in the external part of the central run and investigated the kennel roof. Sure enough, there was a gap between the kennel wall -- which had a small window in it -- and the kennel run roof that looked vaguely big enough for a small (maybe juvenile?) raccoon to sneak in and back out again. I also noticed a copious amount of poop on the top of the run wall which backed up my assumption that that's where they were getting in. I spent about half an hour sweating in the sticky humidity, trying different kinds of boards and blocks until I finally found one to do the trick... at least, I HOPE so. Tomorrow will tell.
I spent the next hour completely cleaning and fixing the runs, refilling food, cleaning water bowls, scooping litter, and returning things to order. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind, but having already done this about 5 times in the past couple of weeks, I was eager to finish. With so little time to spare already, spending an extra 5 hours repeating a job necessitated by raccoons is a sure way to make me aggravated.
As I was finishing up, sweaty, dirty, covered in who knows what kind of rained-down excrement and other nameless substances, I found my mind wandering... contemplating the collection of locally-made soaps I'd just purchased for us at a healthfood store between the Crest and the Shelter. As I thought about that luxurious soap, I started feeling rich and spoiled. This wasn't just Dove or Zest. It was goats' milk, lavender, honey and almond... and, before long, I was actually going to be clean.
When you start fantasizing about soap and cleanliness becomes a guilty pleasure, that's when it's abundantly clear you've entered the Rock Crest zone. And life will never be the same!
Today was a tense, anxious day for me. I awoke tired, confronted (valiantly, I thought!) an hour of hard exercise, driven by my trainer, and contemplated every wasted minute thereafter that ate into the precious 2 hours I would otherwise have to do some real work. Once implanted in my work chair, however, I couldn't help but swallow hard at the thought of the meeting ahead. Today was the day I was to meet with our area forester to review our honeysuckle removal progress of the past nearly 3 years to see if we were judged to be in compliance with our EQIP program requirements.
We applied for EQIP - an invasive species remediation program run by the USDA's NRCS - with hopes of receiving some financial support for the work we already intended to do to return the forest at Rock Crest to the healthy environment it had been before the honeysuckle took over. After several years of application attempts, we were finally admitted into the program, with the stipulation that we had to clear 4 acres of honeysuckle overgrowth in 2 years' time. We would be evaluated at the half-way point to see if we still qualified for reimbursement for the expenses we'd incurred in getting rid of the honeysuckle.
After what we've expended, monetarily and physically, to clear what we've cleared, the compensation from EQIP is almost negligible. However, any financial help is a boost. Beyond that, though -- and probably most important to me -- I wanted us to be recognized for the incredible work we'd done. I wanted that work to be validated to the tune of recognizing that, if we hadn't cleared 2 acres, we'd certainly come close and demonstrated an incredible effort.
It's sometimes difficult living this Rock Crest life because the things we have to do just to progress on a single project often exceed the labor, expense and effort we'd have put forth at the other house for all our projects combined. In RC land, we've ceased to be a part of the "normal" society of our peers and ventured more into the realm of frontiersmen, farmers, or buccaneers. It's kind of impossible to tell people what we've been up to without it sounding like the cries of martyrdom or the pompous assertions that everything we do is harder than anything anyone else does. So, much of the time, I don't get into the details, and then I feel very unsung. It's a strange experience, for sure.
So, the forester arrived, and I proceeded to expound to him about everything we've done since he was last here in 2009. I detailed our methods for clearing the honeysuckle, how we attack it by size, what strategies we use for maneuvering it, hauling it, disposing of it, chipping it, or letting it lie. I told him about the ailanthus we killed and carefully brought down when it was dead enough not to send out runners to spread itself. I told him about our attempts and evaluations of hack-and-squirt, foliar spraying, root popping, copper nailing, and even the encouragement of webworm moths for attacking ailanthus. I knew I was sounding like the "City Mouse," but I could not seem to get control of myself, so I just let it fly. I walked him around, explaining tree by liberated tree what we'd done and how things had changed for the wildlife and air quality since we'd "decluttered" and reshaped the hillside.
For his part, the man was an utter tree savant! Not only did he remember specific trees he'd seen at our place the last time he was there, including where they'd stood and how many there were, but he was able to look into the sea of grass on the hillside and identify seedlings of various trees by the merest sight of a leaf or branch structure. What an eye! He had terrific suggestions for our ongoing invasives battles and identified trees that needed to be taken down because of poor health.
I couldn't resist taking him inside to show him the house -- more or less so he could get the full picture of why our time has not been as devoted to honeysuckle removal as we'd have liked.
He was very complimentary, overall, and he told me several times that he could see that we had made a lot of progress. I was SO happy to hear that, and I told him it meant a lot because we HAD worked incredibly hard. I think he was pretty impressed with our gigantic wood chip piles, the only remnants of our once ridiculously huge honeysuckle brush piles.
Buoyed by the happy news that the forester seemed to feel we'd met our clearing quota, I turned my attention to the other aspect of my usual Rock Crest life -- cat and squirrel care. The past week had seen a number of strange and inexplicable food shortages in the runs, which we could only image were somehow attributable to raccoon raids. Brien finally found what he thought might be a small entry point above the run closest to the house, by way of a gap between the house and the top of the kennel. He'd addressed that last night, and I was glad to see that it seemed that run was in decent shape today. However, the center run was out of food and water, and both food and water were spilled in the far run, as well -- as if they'd been tipped over but not accessed directly, since their food was still there, all over the floor.
I climbed up onto a chair in the external part of the central run and investigated the kennel roof. Sure enough, there was a gap between the kennel wall -- which had a small window in it -- and the kennel run roof that looked vaguely big enough for a small (maybe juvenile?) raccoon to sneak in and back out again. I also noticed a copious amount of poop on the top of the run wall which backed up my assumption that that's where they were getting in. I spent about half an hour sweating in the sticky humidity, trying different kinds of boards and blocks until I finally found one to do the trick... at least, I HOPE so. Tomorrow will tell.
I spent the next hour completely cleaning and fixing the runs, refilling food, cleaning water bowls, scooping litter, and returning things to order. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind, but having already done this about 5 times in the past couple of weeks, I was eager to finish. With so little time to spare already, spending an extra 5 hours repeating a job necessitated by raccoons is a sure way to make me aggravated.
As I was finishing up, sweaty, dirty, covered in who knows what kind of rained-down excrement and other nameless substances, I found my mind wandering... contemplating the collection of locally-made soaps I'd just purchased for us at a healthfood store between the Crest and the Shelter. As I thought about that luxurious soap, I started feeling rich and spoiled. This wasn't just Dove or Zest. It was goats' milk, lavender, honey and almond... and, before long, I was actually going to be clean.
When you start fantasizing about soap and cleanliness becomes a guilty pleasure, that's when it's abundantly clear you've entered the Rock Crest zone. And life will never be the same!
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