around the house

Cooking over Fire

Saturday 24 October 2015 | 0 Comments

Except for organized, group events, I don't remember really having any kind of bonfire growing up. It just wasn't something we did. Part of it was likely where I grew up, for certainly kids who grew up in the country must have had bonfires. But for those of us who grew up in developments planned right down to the arrangement of identical-floor-plan houses, it probably never happened. At least it never happened in my universe.

For K, on the other hand, growing up in Poland, they were like baseball games or tailgating in the south: just something one did. Go for a walk in any of the woods that surround K's home village and you'll eventually find a spot where some group or other threw some rocks in a circle and lit a fire. And many houses have a fire pit somewhere on the property.

Since Nana and Papa gave us a fire ring that someone gave them -- it's Christmas all year round in our backyard -- we've been having bonfires fairly reguarly as the weather permits, which means generally spring and fall. Open fires in 90 degree heat and pea-soup humidity are not very pleasant, but now that things have cooled down and the humidity has dropped to normal level, we try to have a little fire every now and then. The kids adore it, and we find it's an almost magical family time. But there was always something missing: food. We roasted weenies on sticks sometimes and made s'mores every now and then, but that's nothing compared to the feasts Poles prepare on their bonfires. This week, though, we bought a cheap kit to suspend a grill over the flames, and tonight, it was like being back in Lipnica again.

Autumn Tomatoes

Monday 19 October 2015 | 0 Comments

Even though it’s nearly November, we still had tomatoes in the small raised beds we accuse of being a garden. For the last several weeks, though, the ripening process has all but stopped, and so ahead of tonight’s possible freeze, K sent the kids out to pick the remaining tomatoes.

They were to segregate them into red and green, with the plan being to eat some of the green later this week in the form of fried green tomatoes and putting the rest in paper bags to ripen slowly.

Given the color distinctions, everyone felt it was best if E just held the bowl.

Disaster Lurking

Saturday 17 October 2015 | 0 Comments

Saturday in the fall means a day in the yard more often than not. We have neglected our yard, however, and so we had quite a bit to get caught up. Rain for several Saturdays didn’t help much either, other than encourage growth of our lawn, which amounted to more work.

With a batch of pumpkins for fall decoration, the kids had a bit of work as well. They each got a small, personal pumpkin but had to share a large one. On his half, E elected for an all black pumpkin, then decided that he might like to have an entirely black pumpkin and began slowly taking over the whole pumpkin. Much to L’s frustration.

While they were painting, I was trimming all the hedges when I discovered the fourth nest of yellow jackets since we moved here. Or rather, they found me, with one giving me a welcome present just below my left eye.

Two catastrophes in one day. If only we could keep all catastrophes at this level.

Decorating

Thursday 15 October 2015 | 0 Comments

They run downstairs to find our few Halloween decorations and begin!

Back To Normal

Sunday 02 August 2015 | 0 Comments

“Well, now everything is back to normal,” I said just the other evening, when the kids were having an evening snack, and K and I were divvying up the evening responsibilities — who does the bathing and tooth-brushing, who does the reading/praying/tucking-in.

“Not quite, Daddy,” L corrected. “We’re still missing Bida.”

Our oldest cat had run off just before I’d left for Poland, and no one had seen her since. “She’ll come back” was K’s constant refrain, but I wasn’t so sure. How well could an arthritic, deaf, virtually-toothless old cat survive without human intervention?

Apparently, she could survive quite well, because this evening, she came trotting into the carport as if nothing had happened. Her long, gray hair was starting to mat after a month of neglect, and it was filled with little twigs, seeds, and dirt. She’d lost a fair amount of weight. But other than that, she was just like normal: the old grumpy lady who hisses at Elsa, our year-old-cat, for the slightest little thing, who trots up the stairs and hides under our bed whenever she’s offended (which doesn’t take much).

Elsa, for her part, was thrilled to see Bida, and eager to help. She gave up her food for Bida, backing away when the elder cat approached, and she stood watch as Bida ate slowly.

Elsa’s restraint has always impressed me: with her sharp teeth and sharper claws, she could tear Bida apart in a fight. Yet every time Bida hisses and swats ineffectually at Elsa, Elsa just backs down and submits.

So tonight, when we’re all divvying up responsibilities and snacks, I can try again: “Everything’s back to normal now.”

Basement

Thursday 25 June 2015 | 1 Comment

Step one: take almost everything from one side of the basement and put it on the other side. Cram everything in as much as possible — make it look like a complete wreck.

Step two: clean and paint the now-clean side of the basement with waterproofing paint to ~~reduce~~ eliminate the risk of future flooding. (This should be done in conjunction with a complete renovation of the gutters’ drainage system.)

Step three: move everything else out of the basement storage room into only other room in the basement. Pack it all as ridiculously tightly as possible.

Step five (the previous one counts as two steps): clean the other half of the basement storage room floor

Step six: dread reversing all the steps.

96 – 48

Tuesday 23 June 2015 | 0 Comments

There was an almost-fifty-degree temperature difference between Jabłonka and Greenville this third day of the 2015 summer. There, it was raining all day; here, the sun was merciless. That being said, we all had the same reaction: stay in as much as possible.

Aunty came by for a visit -- she lives just about a mile away, so it's convenient, and visiting is just what you do when it's forty-eight degrees and raining in June.

K told me that she "couldn't put enough layers on today." But being trapped indoors leads to discoveries: "We played a couple of games of battleship, and then we discovered the Qwirkle game upstairs in the wooden room. It is a great game, I think we will play it a lot when the rest of the kids join."

That will be next week, when Polish schools are done for the year and the cousins come to grandma's.

On this side of the ocean, I spent the day cleaning out one half of the basement in preparation for a thick, heavy coat of water-sealing paint. "Withstands up to 15 PSI" proclaims the label. Sounds like you could submerge your house in that case. Still, it was a job that required a lot of work that doesn't leave a lot to show for it. The before and after pictures look almost the same. A little less dirt on the floor, and some patches where I scraped up the old paint entirely.

In theory, this is unnecessary: I've discovered the source of our occasional flooding (poorly clogged drainage that leaves the downspouts to pour water along the house), and I've fixed the problem. In theory. But I'm not about to take a chance, so I have plans to paint both the basement walls and floor as well as the portion of the crawlspace where water was likely entering.

But it wasn't all inside work today. I worked in our small garden, finishing pulling up the old peas, straightening some of the tomato stakes, and dreaming of the not-too-distant future when I'm overwhelmed with tomatoes.

Drain, Rain, and a Snail

Saturday 20 June 2015 | 0 Comments

Our crawl space flooded at least five times in the last couple of years, and our half-basement itself flooded once or twice as well. It quickly became clear what was the cause: two downspouts of our gutters were gushing water straight into the foundation, which meant that our drainage system (already redone twice) was insufficient, clogged with roots, dirt, and who knows what. So earlier this year, I replaced the system with a temporary fix. An ugly fix. But it solved the problem. I knew I'd have to do it for a second time (the first time was done by a contractor before we moved in, part of our closing deal), but I as in no hurry.

"Your number one priority while we're in Poland," K clarified, though, "is to redo the drains in the front." So for the last few days, I've been digging, tugging, leveling, and getting everything ready for a final fix. I knew it'd be overkill, but I also figured I'd rather not do it another time, so the replacement system is with three-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe. But before I could get everything set, the sky began to gray, and I decided I might need to reattach the old temporary system, just in case.

What followed was a storm unlike anything I'd seen here. "It would have been the perfect test," I muttered to myself.

Yesterday and today, though, I was able to get back out, finish up the leveling, and finish up the project, by and large. I decided to include two clean-outs in the plan just in case: I do not want to do this yet again. I reattached the hose to the spigot, rammed it down it not the newly constructed system, and turned it on. Perfection.

"Now if I could only get a real test," I thought. Wish granted: another storm blew through this afternoon and everything worked like a charm. All that's left is packing a bit more gravel around it and replacing the mulch.

Job one, done. More or less.

But who cares about drains and rain when across the ocean there are snails and soccer games?

K took the kids and Babcia to visit A, K's sister-in-law, and their kids, who live just outside of Krakow. There was soccer and silliness until L discovered a snail -- "na prawda duzy slimak!" K assured me (though probably with better grammar) before I'd had a chance to see the pictures -- and that entertained them for a couple of hours.

L has fallen back into Polish with no problem, K tells me. In fact, she's eager to accompany her cousin S for a two-week camp up at the coast. The Boy, though, is a different story. Though K speaks almost exclusively in Polish, he's still not really speaking that much Polish. I would imagine he feels a little left out as a result. "I translate for him a lot," L explained today during our Skype time, but there's something about this picture, his hands held in front of him as he watches, that makes me just want to hug him and assure him that he'll be able to jabber away in no time as long as he makes a real effort. Or maybe there's something else entirely going on with that picture. Maybe he's just hungry, ready to head to the kitchen for some chicken and potatoes.

Or maybe not.

Break

Tuesday 09 June 2015 | 0 Comments

K informs me that I work probably fifty to sixty hours a week during the school year. Grading, planning, grading, planning in the evenings, on the weekends, in the evenings, on the weekends. It adds up, she tells me. I never keep track, but I'll go with her assessment. That's why, when summer break comes around, it's an absolute relief, at least for the first couple of weeks.

And it allows me to do things like cleaning up a trampoline we got for free from a family whose boys have long outgrown it and doing it in the early afternoon of a Tuesday.

Which is also good, because as L helps, she gets tired, which bodes well for a restful night's sleep.

So we all get breaks.

Back to Normal

Saturday 16 May 2015 | 0 Comments

What is normal in a house with kids? In the late spring, it's hard to determine what might be "normal." School, winding down, is in flux. The yard is in constant need of attention, with a thousand and one things calling out -- berry bushes need covering, hedges need trimming, tomatoes need staking, peas need something to climb on.

So what is "normal"?

Ironically, with a now-three-year-old, it's a first around every corner. A first time bouncing the ball repeatedly and catching it. Not a first time watching it roll down the hill. But a first time walking down alone, with Tata standing watch at the edge of the driveway.

And it's a day of not-firsts leading to firsts. The Girl cleaning her room, alone in the house, semi-fine with it, semi-fussing about it as everyone else works outside.

"You'll hear everyone outside from the window," I reassured. Well, not everyone. I was back working on the car -- another "normal" when you own a Volkswagen is that there's always something going wrong -- but everyone else was in theÂ front yard. Eventually the fussing subsided, the room got cleaned, quite well, and the Girl joined us. Them.

Afternoon: washing the cars. The Girl didn't want to "help" until she found out she could get wet. And so she came bounding out of the house in her old swimsuit and helped wash the car. Sort of. A bit more playing.