Removing the plaster ceiling in the kitchen, a messy project that took place in the very early 1990s, was probably historically wrong. (I learned long ago that removing the plaster from the exterior of stone buildings to reveal the stones is also a historical no-no.) However, doing it added charm to the kitchen, and from the exposed beams there soon were hanging all types of “country home” doodads like baskets and pots and pans.

The beams aren’t hand-hewn. They were obviously cut in a 19th Century sawmill. And they were obviously not meant to be open for viewing. Although they have flat sides, for the most part, some of the old beams aren’t too far removed from being tree trunks.

Nevertheless, I didn’t think any of them had remaining bark, so I can’t explain how a 21-inch piece of bark suddenly appeared on the kitchen floor about a half-hour ago. Actually, it didn’t just appear there. It apparently landed there.

I say “apparently” because I didn’t see it happen. With the exception of the sleeping dogs, I was alone in the room. In fact, I was washing dishes when I heard a pretty loud “bang” from behind. What the hell?” I asked, presumably addressing the question to the awakened dogs or to God.  I soon found, on the floor on the other side of the room, the strange chunk of bark.

Falling Bark Zone

The only possible source for this solitude-smashing piece of wood is the exposed beams. However, I can’t find any obvious evidence showing which beam decided to shed its skin. I’m not going to get all weird and poltergeisty. It’s a slice of bark. It fell to the kitchen floor. If I’d been washing a sharp knife, I might be missing a finger now, but I don’t think ghosts are to blame.

All-in-all, incidents like this remind me that life in an old house sure is different than life in a new house. How many denizens of new construction can say pieces of bark have fallen from their ceilings? If we’re talking about pieces of cheap, plastic molding or flimsy light fixtures or poorly-installed drywall, then maybe low-quality new houses also fall victim to gravity-based mishaps.

I might save my wayward slab of wood as a reminder that it’s normal and OK to lose bits and pieces as we age. My pieces of bark are the hairs atop my head. Or maybe the lesson is that things in life fall apart all the time, but the trick is to be on the other side of the room when it happens, if possible.

A couple years ago, I was up on the front porch roof. I know you’re not supposed to stand on a tin roof, but the thing is in need of replacement anyway and, short of using anti-gravity equipment, I can’t think of another way to get to the siding and windows above the porch.

I don’t remember why I was up there. Probably scraping and repainting the windows. The sun beats on that part of the house without mercy and even the  best paint throws in the towel and starts getting flaky after a few years.

It was a breezy summer day. Maybe “breezy” is an understatement. While I was busy doing whatever I was doing I heard what can only be described as an “aluminum scraping on tin” sound. The breeze had turned into a wind ;and the noise I heard was my lightweight aluminum ladder sliding across the edge of the tin roof. The scraping sound was followed by a crashing sound, as the thing hit the cement walkway below.

This is what’s known in technical manuals as being “stuck on the roof.” It’s similar to being “up the creek without a paddle” but possibly worse (unless the creek leads to a waterfall and you can’t swim). Aside from breaking a window to get into the house, my only option for descent was jumping.  A more limber person, perhaps one named Gumby, might have been able to survive that method of returning to ground level. Not me. I have absolutely no flexibility. I pull neck muscles while shaving.

I’m pretty sure there were people inside the house. However, my knocks on the window went unanswered. I didn’t want to scream “help” because … well because that would have been incredibly embarrassing. The neighbors, after all, were sitting on their front porch.

What I soon found out is that the crashing sound of my wayward ladder didn’t go unnoticed by the aforementioned neighbors. I looked over at them and saw that they were looking back. I’d rather not describe their facial expressions but mine was similar to the one I displayed at a Kansas concert in the late 1970s when I accidentally moon-walked into the ladies room. Have you ever been experienced? Well I have.

It no longer mattered that the neighbors were smirking. When one of them came over to rescue me, I thanked her profusely. Smirk all you want, my savior.

Today I climbed onto an even higher tin roof. I tied the ladder down as a means of preventing it from trying to escape, but when I was ready to get down I got a case of the heebie-jeebies. Why is it always the case that ladders placed at what seem to be perfectly safe angles at ground level appear to be virtually vertical when you’re ready to get down.

Everyday a little sadder, a little madder. Someone get me a ladder.

As if that trick of geometry isn’t bad enough, there’s just something about an aluminum ladder resting on a tin roof that doesn’t inspire confidence. Maybe that something is called “lack of friction.” I found myself 20 feet off the ground and frozen.

I will not claim foresight or preparation played a part in me having my cellphone. I just happened to have it. And, for a change, its battery wasn’t dead.

“Come outside and hold this ladder so I can get off this roof,” I texted my son. “Ha ha ha” began his reply. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

I’m down. The ladder is still up. It can’t go anywhere, even if a wind kicks up, because it’s tied down.  And this blog is named “Permaladder” for a reason, dammit.

I hear all sorts of things in this small, country hamlet called Marksboro. On a quiet Sunday evening, when the traffic from the highway that bisects the old village is light, the sounds of voices from a quarter-mile away float to my ears. The words, distorted by air and obstacles, are muddled just enough to be indecipherable.

Laughter better survives the movement from source to recipient, as do dog barks, car engines being started, car doors being closed. The wind often carries the drone of farming equipment working a field.  For a brief time last year, an owl let its presence be known and on many mornings a murder of crows makes a loud appearance (especially when I toss into the yard  popcorn uneaten the night before).

The cessation of sound is often more jarring than the sound itself. I hear, and virtually feel, the sudden blanket of quiet that settles when somebody finally finishes cutting the grass and hits the kill switch on their lawnmower.  It creates guilt about my own weekly muddling of the aural atmosphere with my mower. I’ve been very annoying with a chainsaw, but at least I can say I’ve never owned a leaf-blower (the noise pollution king of autumn).

With two decades of life here under my belt, I expect and recognize the routine sounds. But there came a day not long ago when an amazingly wonderful new noise filled the town: The crowing of a rooster. I doubt there’s any sound that better proves you’re living in the country and does so with all-day-long gusto and high-decibel stamina, than rooster proclamations.

My across-and-down-the-road neighbor John, I recently learned, is the man responsible for adding the cock-a-doodle-doo ravings of a rooster to the Marksboro soundscape. He said he simply wanted to have chickens, so he took the plunge. The cacophony begins early each morning, alerting all in the village that the feathered father is awake and on duty guarding his hen and flock.

Airborne Lacrosse Practice

I wonder what the residents who are beyond visual contact but within earshot of this house thought when, about 18 months ago, there came across the borough another unusual sound: a deep and repetitive “thwump, thwump, thwump.”  Occasionally accompanied by laughter, the sound of our trampoline in use is probably not too different from that made 150 years ago when my predecessors, who weren’t likely to be laughing at the time but could have been,  beat the dirt from their rugs during spring cleaning.

I can have fun on the trampoline but only if I force myself to not look at the  house while bouncing. If I don’t, I stare at clapboards that need repainting or windows that need cleaning. “I shouldn’t be having fun on a trampoline. I should be on a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand,” says the Internal Voice.

That inner nag is one sound heard by nobody but myself. It’s a persistent sound capable of drowning out even a broken-record rooster, a rug-beater trampoline and the “jump harder” urgings of a 14-year-old who always wants to be “launched” higher.

I long ago gave up trying to keep nature out of this old house.  Correction: I long ago gave up trying to completely keep out the bugs and other critters. I do my best to block entry points, but there’s always a nook or a cranny in a 19th Century house that can be found by heat, food or shelter-seeking critters.

You don’t see them in action, but it seems there are house flies constantly circling the building on surveillance missions. Leave open a door for 10 seconds, perhaps while waiting for a slow-walking dog to make his or her way back inside, and you hear the insect buzz past your head. Inevitably, the bug will find its way to the bedroom to perform touch-and-goes in the dark using your face as the runway.

The living room is another popular destination for flies that successfully make the transition from outside to inside life. Here, they tend to gravitate to the blue glow of the television. I can’t count the dozens of shows and movies diminished by a fly walking across the screen, often treading rudely on the faces of Hollywood icons and ruining the fragile suspension of reality that makes movie-watching worthwhile.

On rare occasions, the presence of a fly in the TV room somehow adds to the entertainment. If a fly happens to land on the nose of a Boston Red Sox batter during a game against the Yankees, that’s worth a smile. If it bothers Derek Jeter, out comes the swatter.

However, nothing’s come close to tonight’s situation in terms of humorous irony.

The fly that decided to grace the screen during my viewing of 1986′s “The Fly” remake, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, was one of those really, really big fellas. The word “ginormous” is terribly overused these days, but it nevertheless is a great way to describe these flies. They’re the C5 Galaxies of the fly world – huge and combersome and loud.

Yes, that dot on Jeff's right chest is a fly watching The Fly

I’ve had, in this place, bigger ginormous flies than the one that joined me to watch the movie. But my companion was still a lot bigger than your average housefly. He remained on the screen throughout the entire film, possibly growing ever more in love with Goldblum as the actor slowly morphed from a scientist with insect-like characteristics to a disgusting scientist-sized insect that most definitely needed to have its head blown to bits by the shotgun-toting Davis at the movie’s end.

My problem, right now, is that I don’t know what happened to the big bug after I turned off the TV. I can only assume it headed straight upstairs to the bedroom so it can provide the perfect 2 a.m. soundtrack to my “The Fly” induced nightmares.