Mother and Daughter

Cindy’s mother Susan arrived seven weeks ago, it was nice to have family here as we were alone for a few months prior to that. From prepping rooms for painting, sewing beautiful fabrics into amazing gifts, to shopping at brocante’s together, they were inseparable. When Susan arrived with Gary I think it was a few days later that the Belgian draft horse gave birth to a daughter, fittingly enough. With the help of Susan and Gary, we were able to advance our completion of work considerably, even though the upstairs bath was never finished during their visit. They never faltered during the initial hell week that lasted three weeks, and then they were granted leave and escaped to Italy for two weeks before returning to finish off their last two weeks of sentence. Gary and I worked on everything from installing Kitchen cabinetry, and prepping with the ladies for paint, to fine tuning the method of bar-be-queing with the vines that had been pulled from the vineyard. They were also instrumental with the closing scene of the T.V. reality show we were in for restoring the farmhouse, as they were the completion scene at the end when we all looked back at the finished product, ( or not so finished project) We started with hors d'oeuvres in the completed kitchen and ended with the meal out on “Sunset Plaza”. That is the patio 30 meters from the house that overlooks the vines and pastures and the perfect sunsets, and where you have a very good chance of catching me at sunset time, on any given night. It was last night after Susan and Gary had left that I was sitting at the plaza with a glass of red wine and watching the barn swallows flying about that it struck me. The mothers were out with their daughters teaching them the art of flying, swooping and gliding and fine tuning their flight, not so many flaps of the wings, glide here and there, use the air currents, be graceful and above all fly.

around the clubhouse turn

Monday May 30, 2011;
We have a couple honeymooning in Petit Clos for a couple days; I didn’t get their bath finished due to septic and plumbing issues. They agreed to be test samples, and were really understanding and patient about it. We went to the market at Issigeac with them; it is the most beautiful market town within a 50 kilometer radius. Gary and Susan are on their final week here (Cindy’s mother and Step father) I was so happy they had a chance to go to Italy for a couple weeks as they had been keeping up with Cindy and I on our nonstop seven day work weeks. We had imposed a drop dead date for the second floor bedrooms and one bath room that unfortunately didn’t happen, the rooms were mostly complete, but the bathroom was not functional. Cindy and Susan had been working doing days and days of prep work on the rooms and then finished off the painting, the results are incredible, Gary has been running so many nonstop projects as well. I don’t think there would have been any chance of getting the results we’ve achieved without their eye for perfection. It will need another week and a half to complete it, and then we will finish the upstairs hallway and then start the downstairs hall. That should finish the business aspect of the house, and then we will remodel the first floor bath, and finish with Cindy’s and my room. (Same room)
Yesterday after the market we dropped off Caleigh and Theo at a lake nearby to be with friends, Cindy and I both loved it, so we drove home and picked up our swim costumes and headed back with a pick nick basket. It was the most refreshing afternoon we’ve had in four months, the water was clean and cool, we had rose’ on the beach and relaxed. Everywhere around us families were enjoying their day together, Caleigh and Theo joined us, pretty nice.
When we arrived home at seven Marissa and Eric (the honeymooners) were in the kitchen preparing a meal with fresh ingredients from their day at the market, he is a chef in a really nice restaurant in Napa Valley, and they prepared the most incredible meal. As an example, he prepared a side of mashed potatoes that had celery root, prosciutto, herbs and spices that would have been a main entrée in most places. The goose and chicken were also out of this world. It was cool to have the kitchen really broken in with a legitimate chef, Cindy’s cooking is phenomenal, but it was nice to get feedback from a professional.
The remainder of this week will be completing the rooms and bath, taking loads to the local dump, and finishing up the electrical for the house. So close but yet so far.

small assortment of unfinished entries-spring cleaning

A collection of uncompleted posts that I thought I would pass on, but probably should have passed on?
Thursday morning, all the kitchen needs at this point is:
Detail the ceiling with small patches of drywall skim coat to ready for priming, paint ceiling, finish cabinetry installation, install tile backsplash, install bookshelves at desk area, install desk, finish plaster on kitchen wall at dining room wall, clean floor and seal, seal walls, install chandelier, install kitchen faucet and drains, paint trim and doors. Back to work
Saturday p.m.
We have started using the near complete kitchen, after what seems like a month of nonstop work days. There are still a few items that remain, but like the present on Christmas Eve we opened the kitchen early. The only real items remaining are the installation on the exhaust vent above the stove, some touchup plaster, and decorating. Cindy has planned an Easter lunch with Gary and Susan (her mother and step father) and Colette, who is Cindy’s mentor in language and all things French. We had dinner in the kitchen last night with Gary and Susan, who have been here for the last ten days working side by side with Cindy and I. Fell asleep.
Sunday afternoon; taking a break while Cindy has a cooking lesson / Easter dinner prep.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 sitting down in the kitchen after an exasperating two weeks, I don’t even know where to start. Yesterday we started the day thinking we would concentrate on painting the living / dining room as Cindy’s mother and stepfather had spent a week detailing the preparation of it, but then discovered that we didn’t have any water. After a day of trouble shooting the system we got it running, with the help of our plumber / electrician, and with the help of the man who keeps his two draft horses at our property. (One of them gave birth to an incredible little filly-girl five days ago) The solution was to lower the water pump into the well, as the water table has been lowered lately due to lack of rain.
The kitchen is finished for all intents and purposes; minor details need to be finished. I have placed all my tools in the new atelier (workshop) and need to finish organizing them. The doors that were sticking half way when opened or closed have been dealt with, while I waited for answers yesterday regarding the well. I started the work on the upstairs bathrooms and hope to have one complete in two weeks, we’ll see how that dog hunts. It is difficult to get things done here, as when you start one thing in the morning, another jumps in during the afternoon. There is the never-ending maintenance and upkeep that is required of fifty acres and assorted livestock outbuildings. But luckily Caleigh’s foreign exchange student has arrived for the week, she is this tiny thing from Belgium, they speak Dutch not French it turns out. I was happy that by the time they returned from school the water had been fixed. It’s bad enough that she has to bathe in the dog bath looking shower, but at least there is water? And it’s hot. The things we normally take for granted have been elevated to luxuries when living on a few hundred years old farm. All the mod cons as the British say, Modern Conveniences.
Gary asked if I had and regrets, none really, there are some things that Caleigh went through at her school, but those seem to have passed? And he wisely replied they could have been worse in Los Angeles, for different reasons. One thing that has excited me is the fruit bearing trees on the property, there is one huge cherry tree in our front garden that is ripening this week and I can’t wait, then there are the pear, plum and apple trees as well, but I’ve always wanted a cherry tree.
I have become old, priorities and tolerances are a thing of the past. My daughter has out grown my wisdom, she is wise beyond her years, my wife more tolerant than required, and my dogs more patient than evolutionary possible, the cat however is silent and watching. We have been in southwest France now for over four months, things are progressing more then we scheduled, finances are tight; but manageable. Our family and friends are an ocean away; time zones that would dwarf the Himalayans. We are on a raft, an adventure that H.G.Wells would relish, and one that we approach day by day. The kitchen is for all purposes done, our living room is also done, we are finishing our second floor bedrooms and bathrooms, and we have a couple staying in a room and bath in two weeks, It has been a month since I last posted, there are not enough hours in the day. I am behind on my obligations, calls have not been made to family and friends, facebook is a thing of the past, as I check it on a weekly basis. The T.V. film crew wrapped a couple days ago, the jury is still out on that decision, live and learn. Susan and Gary returned from their two weeks in Italy, they were missed and appreciated, they are so helpful with all our nonstop projects. Caleigh is well, continuing at the French school and excelling with her grades and life. I am non stop actually took a day off last Sunday and slept most of the day, decadent. Well I’m off to finish the tile floor on the upstairs bathroom as now the guests will be here at the end of this week.

dine and dash

Well right about now it’s 11:30 and I’m getting ready to call it a day, we have electricity and plumbing in the kitchen. Our electrician / plumber left an hour ago after getting our temporary power to the kitchen, he fired it up and everything works flawlessly. The plaster is a backbreaking job, but the most rewarding, I have another two to three days of it left. The ceiling beams were sanded and washed, then after drying were sealed, they look better than planned. The next job is to skim coat the ceiling and primer it, then give it a couple coats of finish paint. I think the cabinets will be installed by the beginning of next week, then appliances. Then all that remains is to button up everything for moving in to a functioning kitchen.
Well alright that was a week ago, we have been going nonstop. The cabinets are in the kitchen, but not completely finished, the plaster is at about 95 percent, the ceiling needs one last touch up prior to painting, and otherwise we are extremely happy with the kitchen. Today we tractored and trailer-ed the brush pile to the far pasture and set off a huge bonfire, that I then watched and tended for about four hours. Invigorating and exhausting, but we gained our sunset plaza back for ourselves, the brush pile was residing there but we evicted it and cleaned it off for dinner. So much has been happening; I awoke about a week ago and had excruciating pain in my mouth, an abscess. After a night of dreadful pain and nightmares about having a tooth yanked in a rural dentist office Cindy made an appointment for the next day. Of course the whole day I was dreading the appointment, and after another night of nightmares morning arrived and at 10:00 a.m. we drove to the dentist office.
I had worked my imagination to the point of expecting to see the equivalent of a scene from Saw for the dentist office. I walk into the modern waiting room and fill out the required paperwork, simple, and then when I’m called I walk into a dentist office nicer than my last dentist in Beverly Hills. I kid you not; it was like walking onto the bridge of the newer starship enterprise from the Star Trek movies. The dentist was the French equivalent of Natalie Portman, and after digitally scanning my mouth, she leans to me and tells me, the tooth is fine here’s how you keep it clean for the next few days so it can heal itself. I almost started crying, then remembered the promises I made about never forgetting to floss again. Or as one of my favorite dentists used to say, just floss the teeth you want to keep. I am going to keep this brief as we have been going nonstop, and I don’t think I can stay awake, but one quick thank you to Teddy, Cindy’s Aunt. “Thank you so much for your package, the cushy athletic socks are unequalled over here in France, and I don’t even know how to thank you for the dozen or so large bags of Frito-lay sunflower seeds. So you know the four packages of the razors were doled out pretty quickly between the gals and I, here they have the slow razors, unless one wants to resemble Van Gogh. Nite all

Hear Ye!, hear ye.

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;
We have had quite a farming week, and also a tough personal week and I managed to help a neighbor which was fun and rewarding. Cindy learned how to drive a large farm tractor, as luckily she had a really great teacher.
O.K., so where are we? I’ve been finishing the electrical in the kitchen, throwing plaster on the walls, building the kitchen cabinets, and also keeping up with the grounds keeping. Cindy has as always kept the books, taught us French, refinished furniture and tackled the garden. Caleigh has had the least enviable job of being a fourteen year old girl, not that she has been diabolical, but she is surrounded by girls who are, and what do you have? Cat fights on Crack.
Where to start? The kitchen is schedule wise our priority, Caleigh is our priority in terms of life but we’ll go in ascending order. The kitchen is progressing, we bought our cabinets from this custom fabricator the guys name is IKEA, Swedish dude, high end stuff. I will install all the cabinets and then Cindy and I will apply a glaze or something that will soften the one off nature of the cabinetry. The electrical has had the most difficult prep work finished, our electrician will return this Thursday to start wiring the main panel, and start setting up the circuit breakers in the kitchen. The plaster finish on the walls have been kind of a female dog, there was a coat of oil-lead (hybrid decoration?) paint that would not allow the plaster to adhere, so after popping off the plaster bubbles from a week before I took the time to remove the existing paint off the walls. This then allowed me to reapply my custom tinted colored plaster for the second time, so rewarding. Our second mason crew will arrive tomorrow to install the stone arch carved by the first mason. That will leave me with the task of installing the wooden arched window, and filling the remaining empty space with stone. That would be the space without the glass thingy covering it.
Cindy has been refinishing a piece of furniture that I had been pretty vocal about leaving it in Topanga for the termites. When I saw it a couple days later, I laughed, it looked incredible and I realized that I would be the one rebuilding the furniture, but I wouldn’t be the one refinishing it. She also decided to risk it and try driving the tractor, as I was going to cut down a tree beside the house it would be more prudent to have someone in the tractor supplying some tension to the tree for direction, and when I think of tension I think of….anyway Cindy climbed in and after a three minute tutorial off she went. I had earlier climbed up the tree as far as I could, two feet, then went into the house and got an eight foot step ladder and managed another ten feet from that. With the rope tied around the highest part of the trunk, and around my neck in case I fell, I started back down, you always have to think safety after a six pack of wine. Cindy had the tractor running and I got the chainsaw running, so I started with a V cut on the face of the tree in the direction of the fall, and the chainsaw died….I shit you not, so I’m pulling on the starting rope twenty times really quickly with visions of the tree hitting the aforementioned kitchen a tree branch throw away. Crap it’s out of gas, so I run to the gas can a convenient thirty meters away and fill the two cycle chainsaw with straight gas. (It requires a 3 percent blend of oil) I run back and manage to get it restarted and finish the V cut, now the only thing I need is for Cindy to start inching the tractor forward while I cut the back of the tree to release the stored energy of the V cut in front, which she does flawlessly. The tree falls in the perfect location and this exercise in stupidity comes to a favorable end.
Caleigh has made the teenage mistake of having one of her girlfriends ex boyfriends be hers. I won’t even go into the myriad of events that happened, Caleigh made a couple mistakes, all of which were jumped on like a Salem Witch trial on Meth. I guess the part that depressed me was how a girl that was her friend could jump on the bandwagon and betray her so deeply, tell half lies that would shame Cindy and I just in order for, this kid to escape detection. Caleigh handled it with aplomb, and I think she sees the end result in a constructive manner; she at least has a friend that Cindy and I both like he’s a goofy kind of kid. He taught Caleigh how to ride a quad and a dirt bike, I would have preferred to be the one teaching her, but at least it was by someone that seems to get her and cares for her deeply. (Parental guidance required)
The good deed was this morning, I walked outside and peered around the corner of the barn and spied a van stuck on the rural side road that borders our land and some vines, it was an acquaintance of ours who had purchased 3 acres of vines and was often seen pruning his vines ( stop it!) Cindy and I had met him a few times and so I went into the barn and started up the tractor and drove to where he was mired, after a quick strategy meeting in sign and Braille we decided I reverse the tractor down the road pulling him, a little rope trick and a quick couple knot tricks and away we go. It was fun helping someone we had watched pruning his vine till sundown earlier in the winter. As he was getting ready to drive off he told me an old French saying, “A good deed is how most friendships start” I drove the tractor repeating his saying, it warmed me as I drove through the rain to the barn.
Well sleep time, dawn comes early on this here farm, you all come back now, you hear?

another day

It’s ten past eight, and I’ve just crawled under the covers. Today has been a long one, luckily I start the day off driving Caleigh a couple kilometers to the school bus stop, and it gives me a chance to talk with her while we wait the ten minutes for the bus. She is doing well; she was moved up one level in her French class, which fills me with so much pride. Her school day is long and arduous, it’s a world of non-stop French speaking classes, and even her English class is in French. Then I return home after stopping at the Boulangerie for an “ancienne” style baguette. Today I continued on the kitchen ceiling, installing some more old wood beams perpendicular to the existing structural wood beams, to give it a more rustic appearance. After a few of those I decided to go outside and test out the new Huskavana chainsaw, there are a few unruly trees that need guidance. It is really rewarding, so I decide to attack the front driveway where it is overgrown and the type of task that you put off because of how intimidating it seems. This is the area where all the tractors attachments were parked when we bought the place, of course when we arrived to take possession, all the farming implements were gone. Luckily in their place was a collection…of crap. There were disorganized piles of cinder block, none useful, and a ton of termite infested logs, and rusty wire, etc. After about three hours of sorting and piling like pieces of junk in piles, I was able to start raking all the leaves that the Germans in WW2 had trod upon. It was starting to look pretty promising,…until I looked up, the tree that starts our driveway had some Jurassic aged vines engulfing the trunk, I kid you not. Someone had cut it at the ground level but had neglected to remove it from the tree trunk. So I went to the old outhouse on our front yard that now serves as the garden shed and retrieved our pole handled tree trimmer and returned to the strangled tree. After an hour of prying off the atrophied petrified vine, the tree and I took a break. Cindy had returned a short while earlier from going to pick up Caleigh from her one short day, and it gave me a chance to load up our other recent purchase, a new trailer, we had to buy one of course because all three that we bought with the place were gone, but luckily the crap that had been piled into the trailers when we bought the place was left for us. First I piled all the trimmed tree branches into the trailer and drove it to our back brush pile and deposited into the soon to be torched collection of multi-aged branches that were also left for us scattered about gods fifty acres. Then I returned for the trailer load of salvaged wood that would be suitable to be firewood for us next year and drove them to our wood barn. The last trailer full was of 800 pounds of leaves, topped off with all the cinder block pieces, and my trusty pitch fork. Cindy had been helping gather up logs from and adjacent field, which had housed 8 generations of termites, so that wood went to the brush pile, or the termite Viking funeral mount, whichever you like. Off I go to the dump, about 5 miles away, the trailer being fully loaded down with our collection of Sanford and Sons landscaping decorations made their way to the dump. I arrive and already know the routine and set about disgorging the two separate materials into their appointed containers, I watch as some novice arrives and is given the detailed instructions as to how to use the container setup. I smile the way you do at the wide eyed freshmen on the first day of high school, except I will admit that this rookie at least understood the instructions, the same ones that I faltered with. As I’m getting ready to leave I tell the attendant the name of my town” Saint Jean De Duras”, he nods he remembers me and I smile and hand him the Coke a cola I was going to drink on the way home, “Un Americain Champagne” he laughs as he takes it and say thanks and I make my way home. At my jobsite back in L.A. I used to give the Porta-potty cleaning guy a soda each trip he made, as he was a treated like a social leper, but if you thought about it he was the guy one most wanted to see on a regular basis, and he always had a smile and said thanks. It was a little thing but I was glad I had given it the thought initially, and then kept it up. I got home and raked up the remaining overspill of leaves and tidied up the area, and it looked great. I went inside and got a couple glasses of water and told Cindy to come out and check it out, we walk out there, and I’m not making this up the guy who speaks the oddest dialect of French has parked his car smack in the middle of my newly raked Pebble beach putting green. Luckily he sees me as Cindy disappears back into the cottony warmth of our house, so I head over to talk to him for forty minutes about what I still don’t know, either I’m expecting a litter of kittens, Beelzebub is fronting for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, or he’s offering to mow the grass near the house. I look on bewilderedly as he continues to admit to liking whipped cream of mushroom, Stalin was a misunderstood debutant, albeit a great accordion player, or he has to take his tractor to another pasture. I look at him nod as thought what he’s saying has made my day brighter and nod goodbye. Walking inside Cindy looks at me and my expression explains the pain I cannot describe, I really like the guy, I have French friends that have talked to him and also don’t understand much of what he says, but I really have to repeat that I truly like and most importantly trust this man. Cindy cracks up as I sit down for the first time in what feels like three days, she has prepared the most delicious dinner, and we visit with Caleigh for twenty minutes. It was a hysterical dinner with Caleigh relaying the romantic goings on at her school; mostly the naïve courting mishaps of kids here age. Cindy and I stay at the table in our combo kitchen, dining room, and living room and talk about what’s on tomorrow’s slate. We each have a glass of red wine from Bordeaux, which I love because it comes in a wooden six pack. Then she stays up a few minutes more checking e-mail and I lumber off to bed thinking what respect I have for farmers on all continents, waking at dawn, quitting at dusk, eating and shortly checking up with their families, going to bed to continue the cycle the next day. I can’t wait for my litter of kittens? I will post pictures tomorrow of before and after.

Archie and Fenetre’

Winter seems to be winding its way down. The T.V. film crew left a couple days ago, and we are left to complete the items started when they were here. We have probably five or so weeks till the kitchen is complete. The comfort of not having a working kitchen is wearing thin; we get to prepare and eat our meals in the house, then go outside to the kitchen entry and wash the dishes in the partially renovated kitchen. Good news is that today we are installing a temp kitchen sink in our laundry area. This will allow us to remove the old kitchen sink and cabinet and complete the kitchen demo; we have already installed most of the new electrical wiring, and will finish that today. Tonight our plumber / electrician is coming to help route the plumbing, and cap and remove the existing kitchen plumbing. Even with the insulation and drywall installed the kitchen is freezing as we have a hole in our southern wall, the effects of needing something to film for the crew, however this forced us to complete the masonry aspect of the window installation. The mason brought over five ancient blocks of stone and then preceded to template them to the new kitchen window, then spent a day and a half cutting and chipping the stone. The photos above are of the interior kitchen south wall with the window (Fenetre’) and the hole, the other photo is of the exterior showing the hole and the arched stone surround. (Archie) We have to finish the interior shell of the kitchen, then we will be able to roll on installing the as yet un-purchased base cabinets, and then install the rough top for the counter, and then it gets easier.
We are also dealing with setting up our “Auto entrepreneur” paperwork that allows us to conduct business in France. We need Driving licenses in the near future, and we need to plan the next phase of our remodel in order to have rentable rooms for the summer. That list doesn’t even start to scratch the surface of how busy we have been and will be, so much to do and a limited timetable to get it done in. I hate Darwin; his theory about the survival of the fittest is catching up with me. Who am I fucking kidding; it’s lapped me twice, and is catching up again. The tortise and the Hare; …my ass.