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.

Back when this township was a bit kinder and a bit gentler, the friendly guys from the road department would come around once yearly to pick-up junk too large for your regular trash. There was always much excitement in the air when the locals rallied for the annual Spring Cleanup.

Somewhere along the line, those in charge of keeping our taxes low (as if that’s even remotely possible in New Jersey) decided that it cost the town too much to have the fellows driving around and gathering Spring Cleanup items. They didn’t cancel the event, they just made it inconvenient by forcing residents to somehow lug the junk over to the disposal site.

Nevertheless, Spring Cleanup remains A Good Thing. This year, I took three Chevy Suburban loads to the Dumpsters parked behind Town Hall. (I should have left the ever-breaking Suburban there and walked home, but that’s another story.)

Too Chilly For Spring Cleanup

The highlight of this year’s gathering of the junk was my encounter with a very beautiful, and very lethargic, garter snake that was hidden under some stuff. It barely moved when I pet its cool scales. I am sure it joins me in wondering why mid-May has been so cold.

Another wildlife-related discovery: A mouse made a home in a pair of Acousti-Phase speakers I’d been storing in the basement. Right before I saw the hole that was gnawed through the front cover, I entertained the idea of putting the speakers for sale on Craigslist. The fact that the speaker had become a mouse apartment killed that idea.

It’s unlikely anybody would have bought the things anyway. I forget where they came from, but one person, writing online, contended they were sold by the infamous Crazy Eddie. He or she also named them as the worst home audio speakers ever sold:

The worst were Acousti Phase sold by Crazy Eddie in NYC back in the 70′s. They would disconnect the tweeters on JBL L100′s or put speaker upside down and then play Acousti Phase with an equalizer hidden away to improve the sound. They sold many of these speakers with Kenwood receivers which they would sell for close to dealers cost. (They made big bucks on the Acousti Phase speakers though)

I don’t know the truth of that story, but another person’s feelings about the speakers convinced me the fancy-sounding units deserved a toss into the Town Hall garbage bin:

I thought my pair were about as bad a speaker as I’ve ever heard. Even padding the tweeter down massively didn’t help. Foam suspensions on the (folded paper) woofer were surprisingly stiff, and that may have been part of the problem, but running in did nothing. Gave them away (with apologies to the recipient).

So good riddance to those mouse-eaten, good-for-nothing relics of the disco era.

The township not only stopped coming around to gather Spring Cleanup items, it also shortened the duration of the service. It used to be Spring Cleanup Week. I have a problem with there now being only three days.

We pack rats need time to gather the strength and courage necessary to throw things away. On each day of Spring Cleanup, that courage builds and more gets tossed. I’m just getting warmed-up by the third day and then, like Haley’s Comet, the Dumpsters disappear. A mouse or a snake, cowering inside some piece of junk that escaped removal, sighs with relief.

“It’s just stuff,” said my friend. “You can’t take it with you.”

The “stuff” being mentioned didn’t include only the movable items that usually come under the “stuff” heading; the furniture, appliances, tools and other possessions that are scattered and stored everywhere. It also included the house itself. In the end, a house is just another piece of “stuff,” he asserted.

Circumstances are dictating that I put the house on the market, hence my good-intentioned friend’s desire to have me classify it as just another piece of “stuff.” I’m not sure I can fully accept such an emotionless approach to something that, for a fellow who comes up short on the Zen enlightenment scale, serves as a foundation, a marker of existence and proof of accomplishment.

But people sell houses all the time. In the end, a house – even an old one that’s been under restoration – is like pretty much everything else: a temporarily-bound collection of raw materials destined to change and change hands.

Old Walls Echo The Trampoline Giggles

This one served its purpose: It was a home where children were raised, pets were given shelter and burial, friends were entertained. Life was lived within its old walls (and inside them by heat-seeking rodents). On its patch of tilted lawn countless softballs were pitched, lacrosse balls were flung, sticks were chewed by dogs. Perimeter patches of ground were tilled and flowers were grown.

Christmas days, Thanksgiving dinners, Easter egg hunts, the highs and lows of marriage and family – the “stuff” of life – had a unique place to happen here. The yard echoed, and still does on sunny, warm days, with the laughter of kids in the pool and on the trampoline or swingset.

OK. So innumerable days were spent, and still are being spent, doing the hard work of removing layers of caked-on old paint, replacing rotted window sills and broken panes, tightening slates, mowing grass, painting/painting/repainting, sanding and hammering. I don’t think the effort was wasted time or wasted money even if it doesn’t equate into any meaningful increase in property value.

Despite periodic bouts of frustration and weariness (and a realization that the job would never be finished) the time spent fixing the old house brought pride, purpose, experience and honor. It enriched my soul even as it stole time that could have been spent on more relaxing endeavors.

I wanted the house to be perfect before putting it on the market. Clearly, that’s not going to happen. I can only say that some parts, especially the exterior walls, are in a lot better shape now than they were then. They weren’t sealed in vinyl siding. They were treated with respect.

I just have to stop worrying whether the next owners will do the same. I realize they might not. In fact, they might bulldoze the old girl. That, like the passing of time, is out of my hands.

I like to run, but I hate running on treadmills. If I’m going to exert as much energy as it takes to run, I at least want to cover some ground and go somewhere. I will never encounter black bears or see baby snakes or come across ripe blackberries while running in-place on a treadmill.

Maybe that’s why I sometimes find this house maintenance stuff discouraging. When you scrape and prime and paint something for the third time in less than seven years, the joy of accomplishment tends to fade. It becomes tantamount to running on a treadmill.

I’m beginning to feel that way about the rear deck. I went through great pains, only about three years ago, to prepare and prime and paint the fancy wood sections between the deck posts. At the time, the wood was in good condition.

Last week, I  noticed a bit of peeling paint, so out came one of the many scrapers piled up in the basement. As is usually the case with this situation, that small bit of loose paint turned out to be the tip of an iceberg.

Of Wood and Water

By the time I was finished, I found that large sections of my relatively new paint job had let loose. Even more upsetting was the fact that moisture had done a number on the quarter-round moldings. They literally crumbled when touched by the scraper.

What I’d neglected to do three years ago was seal with caulk the horizontal seam where those quarter-rounds met the vertical scrollwork sections. Water entered the unsealed crack and couldn’t escape. The constant dampness rotted the moldings and also caused the adjacent paint to let loose.

So, instead of going for a run on the next nice day, I’ll probably be climbing on the treadmill I call “fixing the deck.” It’s a form of redundant activity that uses few calories but does tend to burn through a lot of money.

I was questioning how the paint company Pratt & Lambert went about choosing the name “Maid of Orleans” for the shade of lavender that graces this house’s clapboards. It made me wonder if there was connection between light purple and Joan of Arc (the Maid of Orleans). Did the armor donned by the burned-at-the-stake seer-of-visions come in pale purple?

I searched, in vain, through the Voltaire poem La Pucelle d’Orléans. There were quite a few references to rosy cheeked women with firm bubbles and other types of “throbbing breasts” (as well as fleshy thighs), but nothing specifically lavender stood out.

I doubt the paint company’s decision had anything to do with speculation by some, including “The Lavender Locker Room” author Patricia Nell Warren, that Joan of Arc was genetically male. For sure, such a condition would be of deep interest to the gay, lesbian, bi and trans readership of “Lavender Magazine,” but I’ll eat my my paint brush if somebody can prove paint company color-namers are involved in that level of subtext.

Same Paint. Different Light.

All this thinking about exterior paint came about when the sun was setting this afternoon. Part of the house was in the shade and an another part was in the fading sunlight. The unusual light made the two sections appear to be painted with drastically different colors.

Over the years, this ability for Maid of Orleans to temporarily stop being lavender has intrigued me. Depending on the time of day and the presence of clouds or snow on the ground, the house can go from appearing pure white to deep purple or blue.

I guess that befits a paint color named after a woman who couldn’t be pigeon-holed.

When my house morphs from pale purple to baby blue, it’s just the Maid of Orleans listening to the advice of her saintly advisors and slipping into some menswear.

I figure the local kids consider me to be an old guy. Maybe not a geezer (and maybe, since I ride a sport-bike, not too pathetic), but definitely climbing the hill if not yet over it. Nevertheless, I don’t think I fit the description of an “old timer.”

To qualify for that title, you need to live in a town longer than most everybody else. I live in a place that had a 90-year-old mayor, so my two decades here don’t cut it. Elmer, who wears suspenders and runs a tire shop/pool supply store down the road, would agree he’s an old timer. If I were to walk into his shop and call him that, he wouldn’t take offense (although he’d probably have some smart-ass rebuttal, and nobody can slap you down like a witty old-timer.)

Maybe I’m getting old, but I can’t remember  which local old-timer told me how – back in the day – they regularly used open flame to strip paint from the exterior of houses and barns. For all I know, it could have been Elmer.

It’s a method that’s dangerous as hell because sparks and flames can easily ignite the stuff stuck up underneath clapboards. Even electric tools can do that, especially heat guns that blow heated and sometimes flaming bits of paint into those tinderbox crevices.

Stripped With Flame, Slathered With Beige

So I tend to leave open flames to the old-timers, the fellows who know how to re-build a house, should they accidentally burn it down, and can do it between fertilizing the back 40, installing a new transmission in the pickup and catching a few 11-pound bass with homemade lures.

However … yesterday, on a whim, I grabbed my MAPP torch, squeezed the trigger and pointed the 5,300-degree flame at the door to the attic which I’d been stripping (outside) with my heat-plate.  The nasty old paint nearly flew off the surface and, by keeping the flame moving, I never left a burn mark. Now that’s cookin’ with gas.

Already pleased with the time I’d saved, I found yet another reason to smile: I decided to paint the hidden (attic) side of the door with the same beige paint from the Lowe’s bargain bin that now graces my oil tank and served as food for my twisted blogger brain just the other day.

The sun was out and I was inspired to write a poem about the joys of discovering ways to make use of cheap beige paint. It seemed that God was willing me to tackle this creative endeavor, but finding words to properly rhyme with “beige” proved impossible.

A Day at the Beach for the Box Elder Bugs

I don’t care if you’re harmless. I don’t like you Mr. Box Elder Bug.

Actually, I have nothing against you as an individual. But you never walk alone, do you? There must be a thousand of your look-alike brethren piled atop each other on my once clean lavender clapboards. It happens every spring, when the sun warms the ground or the wood or wherever you and your kind hide out during the winter.

I go outside expecting to be pleased by the sunshine and warm air. I am greeted by squirmy scrums, knots of little black and red ovals or convoys of you guys, lined up nose to tail, sunbathing.

Making matters worse, you never stay outside. You always find a route indoors where you head right to the windows and try to get back outside.

When the sun sets and you retreat to your hidden hives or nests or insect apartment complexes inside my walls, I see Box Elder Bub poop stains on the siding I spent years stripping, sanding, priming and painting. And your poop, once dried, apparently is made of permanent ink.

So here’s the deal, Mr. Box Elder Bug: I’m holding a can of insecticide. It’s the kind that can shoot several yards. It will probably stain my paint worse than does your excrement, but I’m in an “I don’t care” mood. You’ve gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya’ punk?

Suddenly it’s spring and that means I can no longer use the “it’s too cold” excuse to not clean windows. It was a bogus excuse anyway because I decided it’s easier to clean these old double-hungs by just taking them apart and doing it inside the house.

That’s a big benefit of having taken the time to strip all the old paint that kept the sashes from sliding up and down. Not only do I now have windows that work, but I also can easily remove the wooden stops and jambs and, in a few minutes, take out both sashes.  It’s a lot easier than trying to clean the glass from the outside, a job that entailed dealing with ladders and screens and storm windows and running in and out of the house and asking for help.

Window Cleaning Stops Here

As I worked my way around the living room today, merrily performing a job that usually doesn’t rise to the top of anybody’s Fun Things To Do list, I came to the window with the broken counterweight rope. I admit it, part of me wanted to just clean the glass and put the thing back together without fixing the counterweight system.

I don’t like that part of me. It’s a part that lies, usually by saying, “I’ll come back and fix that later.”

So window washing is now on pause and window repair has commenced. That’s OK. I find fixing broken sash counterweights to be a really fulfilling job.  I get the feeling it’s a very, very rudimentary form of the satisfaction likely felt by surgeons.

Ready to be Repaired

You remove the screw that holds the narrow counterweight chamber cover. You reach beneath the skin of the house into that dark space. You find the forlorn iron weight that one day plummeted to the bottom of the chamber when the rope broke. You cut the proper length of fresh, new rope. Let the counterweight healing begin.

When the weight is re-connected, when the panes are clean and all the parts are back in place, I’ll be able to enjoy a sparkling view of the spring. And when spring turns to summer, I’ll be able to lift that sash and feel the helpful pull of the dangling iron cucumber as it does its simple-but-ingenious part in bringing a cool breeze into a hot room.

A Ladder Jack

I was a full-time news reporter in September 1999 when Hurricane Floyd paid a visit to New Jersey. As such, I was expected to be ready to hop in my vehicle, during the most deadly phase of the  wind and rain, to capture the story for our readers.

The fact that Hurricane Floyd turned out to be little beyond a lot of rain out here in West Jersey might be the reason I don’t remember it. However, I DO remember making an unauthorized Floyd-related departure from the news bureau right before the storm arrived. I left, without securing the bureau chief’s approval, because I was worried about my ladders.

In 1999, my home renovation attention was focused on the house’s expansive northeast wall. I’d erected a RubeGoldberg combination of extension ladders, planks suspended by ropes, ladder jacks and pump jacks. I used the ropes to lift the planks off the ladder jacks so that I could raise or lower the jacks.

It's a long hike to that northeast roofline apex

It was quite an operation, one that included the use of a super-long extension ladder (possibly a 40-footer) that enabled me to strip and paint the tippy-top peak of the house.

As I sat in the bureau, listening to warnings of hurricane force wind approaching the area, I grew increasingly nervous. The northeast side of the house happens to be the side that includes the main electrical service. I cringed at the thought of strong winds whipping around the house, grabbing my ladders and flinging them into the power line.

I also cringed at the thought of toppling planks and jacks smashing the windows or flying into the neighbor’s nearby house.

So as the sky darkened, I raced home in my Ford Aerostar. For all the newspaper knew, I was at the local supermarkets interviewing panic-stricken housewives as they stocked-up on milk (because we all know dairy cows stop providing milk during a hurricane). Instead of taking notes at ShopRite, I was outside my house, running up and down ladders,  tying them down with any and all pieces of rope I could find.

It got windy, but not one ladder moved that day.

However, there came an evening – about six years later – when I left a ladder standing on the ( by then fully painted) northeast wall and never tied it down. As day turned to night, a summer  thunderstorm ripped through town. The unsecured ladder didn’t stand a chance. Neither did the storm window it smashed. Neither did the big, thick metal lightning rod it took out. And I wasn’t thrilled about the scrape marks left in siding as the ladder made its destruction-filled descent.

I’m grateful the toppling ladder didn’t strike the electrical line. That would have been cute. Maybe it just proves that, when bad things happen in life,  it’s often because somebody didn’t tie down their ladder. So to speak.