in the churchyard

We've been working!

But there are no pictures as yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it....  But in other happenings, last week things were on fire!  Literally....

We felt a strange vibration in the house, and the lights flickered so we went to look outside.  A few houses up part of a tree had come down (on a sunny calm day) bringing down a power line.  The line proceeded to catch fire, and eventually the transformers on either side caught fire as well.  While our local fire department was there almost immediately, they couldn't do anything except watch the flames until the power company showed up over a half hour later.  Thankfully there was no damage to cars or houses, but it's a strange feeling to watch ones power lines burn and spark....

When we walked by the next day there was another discovery, there was an active honey bee colony in the tree - we joked that maybe this was where all our swarms were coming from, only to witness an epic battle of the swarms the following day at our house.  It looks as though the bees from the fallen tree attempted to move into our current hive in the porch column, resulting in utter chaos and all out war.

As for the last of today's updates, while I was going though my hundreds of Charleston photos I came across something interesting - I mean, you can't walk through countless cemeteries without capturing at least one ghost right?

Charleston Unitarian Churchyard ghost?

In the center of the photos you can see an odd cloud of mist behind the headstones, forming in the first photo, and thicker in the second.  My favorite part?  I believe this was in the Unitarian Churchyard, where the story goes that Poe's Annabel Lee (Anna Ravenel) is buried in an unmarked grave.

There will undoubtedly be more Charleston photos in the future, but hopefully I can manage to take enough photos for a real post shortly.  I know the anticipation must be killing you....

the back porch

When we bought the house, one of the first things we had to shore up was the two story back porch.  While it was a large and glorious space, the wood was rotting, it was home to thousands of honey bees, and had a variety of odd patches and makeshift walls.  There's no way of knowing what would have been here originally, but we did find a fair number of artifacts in the dirt under the porch, including the decorative iron brackets to the original screen door.  Our guess is that the brick replaced the original decorative woodwork...

Luckily, the three brick columns added in during the 1920's conversion to multi-family were stable and well-built, and the brick used was even a good match to the original brick of the house.  The first thing we did was tear off the bizarre attempt at a stud wall and remains of the fence picket railing on the second floor (first that is after taking care of the bee problem)...  After that we patched the rotted original floorboards on the second floor, and rebuilt the first floor porch from scratch, reusing as much of the original wood as was possible and moving the stairs from the side to the front, giving us a nice sitting area.

second floor "railing" there was only this one section...

Although the ends of the fir tongue and groove boards were rotten, we figured out that they were all reusable if we cut off the rot, and made up for the shorter lengths by laying a border around the perimeter - doing this just required extra framing underneath to attach it to.  This wood is far better than anything you could buy today, it was a shame we ended up painting it.  

After building a railing to satisfy the bank's requirements, we let it sit.  And sit and sit and sit.  At the time we did the work there was no money to buy nice materials, so we had to make due with 2x4's and salvaged spindles.  Coming up with a design that looked decent and met building code was more than a little bit aggravating.

2x4 Victorian railing with salvage spindles and newel posts

Truthfully, I'm not all that pleased with it, which may be the reason I put off doing any more work on it.  Now that it's not falling off, we won't be investing any money into it anytime soon, so it was time to try and prettify it somewhat.  We straightened some of the pieces that had warped, and renailed others with the better nail guns we now own.  After that we scrubbed the railings with bleach (actually my mom did last time she was here), and after everything was dry we primed and caulked all the joints.  Finally, 2 years after we built them, we painted....  Although we still haven't finished the second floor since some bees have moved back in *sigh*

Next time, the door...

 

But as ugly as the porch has been, it's had to argue with view like this out your kitchen window while you're doing the dishes....

paint it black

If I learned one thing in Charleston, it's that anything in a garden looks better painted black.  Were it not so late in the summer already I'd be playing out a goth version of Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, only with a black paintbrush instead of red.  Being that we've made little progress on the schoolhouse, that little fantasy will have to wait until next year....

Although we've been getting back into a new routine around here without Jack, I'm too lazy to try and formulate an actual post.  But in an effort to not let the blog whither and die, some pictures from Charleston's Magnolia Plantation...  I still owe them a letter after nearly choking at the sight of the docent walking, and rocking back and forth, on the cracked Victorian hearth tiles (yes, of course I said something) - but other than that it was enchanting, and worth a visit, if only for the adorable petting zoo (I almost took a friendly bantam rooster home in my purse)!

  

 

  

one less

We're back from Charleston with one less family member.  Our dear epileptic bitey thing Trigger Happy Jack collapsed on Friday night, and x-rays showed a hopeless mess of problems - all of which would have been fatal on their own, but which included advanced cancer that had collapsed a lung.

It's surreal - just a few days before we were running him up and down the hotel stairs to burn off energy while preparing for the likely loss of our other dog.  Meanwhile Luke seems to be once again on the mend.

I'm dazed, and more than a little lost without him.  Posting will resume soon I hope.

snails, spirals and shibas

We're still here, still, kicking, still chasing baby bunnies.

Our much adored shiba, Cool Hand Luke, went downhill fast after that last post - ending up in full blown congestive heart failure by the following morning.  Bad enough that he had to be carried in, and the vet warned us he would likely not make it out of the office.  Every damn test was negative, except for the x-ray that revealed hip dysplasia and a rather large kidney stone...  But neither of those explained what was wrong.  We never did find out what was going on, other than it appearing that he may have had a blockage.  We took him home after he had been re-hydrated via iv, and stayed with him 24/7 for the next several days until he was able to eat again and perked up.  Just as we thought we were out of the woods he relapsed and we were back to square one.  We're repeating the same meds as before, and again he seems be to recovering - still not eating, but he at least attempted to capture a rabbit today.  We think this may be the beginning of some sort of bowel failure, and hopefully keeping him on the prescription diet will keep him healthy for the time being.

So, we haven't done much other than pet the dog and stay with him in the air-conditioned bedroom.  We did pick up that mystery couch (settle, bench?) I mentioned, and it's enormous loveliness hasn't left the entry room.  It's a curious piece of furniture, and looks as though it may have been a built-in at one point judging by how it's pieced together and has been reinforced.  It's Art Nouveau, with some Arts and Crafts influence in the carving, and looks to be solid mahogany with fruitwood inlays. I'd guess that it's pre 1910, and almost definitely European.  It has many flaws, but then again, it has satyrs, so I can forgive it anything...

Art Nouveau inlaid fauns

antique couch?  settle?  bench?  

I only just now noticed these are snails.  how utterly marvelous...

I think we've established I'm obsessed with spirals

If you couldn't tell, that's not our house.  It's been too frantic around here to even think about trying to clean enough to take photos.  But if there are any secret Art Nouveau aficionados out there, I'd love to know what you think, a piece like this definitely had a maker, and I'd love to put a name to their beautiful work.