The house I've been living in was officially sold today. My belongings, the cats and I will be staying in the house for a few more days.
The house is small and in poor condition; the fake plastic tiles have been falling off the bathroom walls, for example, and the toilet can only be flushed by quickly pouring a bucket of water into the bowl. The owner sold the property by placing a classified ad in the Orlando Sentinel beginning with the words "handyman special." This magic phrase produced quite a barrage of phone calls and visits, both from professionals who remodel homes and sell them at a profit, and also from amateurs who imagine they could do so.
I don't think I will miss the house itself very much. I have grown attached to the garden. My attempts to landscape the grounds were not a smashing success. The azalea hedge along the front property line was quickly overwhelmed by weeds; I put too many citrus trees in the front yard, and planted a chinaberry tree too close to the house. The back yard was starting to look better: it had a wooden fence on the west side covered with colorful blooming vines; a circular rose bed with a tiny round pond in the middle of it; and a micro-forest of oak, pines, golden rain-tree and camphor near the back property line.
But the traffic noise from Interstate 4 (less than a block away) constantly spoiled the experience of being in the garden. To enjoy any real tranquility in this garden it was necessary to visit it at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning when very few cars and trucks were on I-4. Between midnight and sunrise on April mornings I would often sit outside and listen to the mockingbirds singing their repertoire. When they have eggs in the nest, mockingbirds sing all night long; on a quiet night you might hear several, one nearby and two or three others in the distance, repeating every birdsong they've every heard and (I suspect) some birdcalls of their own devising.
In spite of all its shortcomings – the smallness, the traffic noise, the design flaws – this was the garden in which I operated my trowel and hoe for several years, and I'm going to miss it.
I've been practicing highway driving to prepare for this move. After several years of only driving around in my immediate neighborhood, never going faster than about 35 miles per hour, I knew it would take a little effort to regain the skills of merging into highway traffic, steering at speeds up to 70 MPH, and navigating in unfamiliar territory. Today, a real test of my skills: I drove a load of belongings up to the storage facility in the new area. The trip went smoothly.
I took another load of stuff up to the storage facility in a rented minivan. I had potted up some seedlings from the old garden: boxthorn, crape myrtle, Spanish bayonet, Asclepias, and a few others. Some of these came along on today's trip and I dropped them off at the new homesite. Saw a wild turkey near Sink One.
In the northeast corner of the main part of the property, there is a long-dormant sinkhole surrounded by a thick circle of oak and chinaberry trees; I call this Sink One. At the opposite corner of the property is a smaller but similar depression called Sink Two. The rest of the land is empty except for a stray wild cherry tree near the center, a widespread cover of blackberry vines, and some pecan saplings the former owner had installed. The pecans appear to be dying because of the drought. A barb-wire fence surrounds most of the property, but in most places it only has one or two strands of wire: not enough to keep any creature from going out or coming in. Whoever tried to make this fence gave up before it was finished.
Moved out of the old house. Left behind a lot of clutter including my old bed, a cheap bookcase made of particle board, the big air filter that was purchased hastily during the massive wildfires in the summer of '98, the dumbbells that I rarely exercised with, the L-shaped desk in the southeast corner of my room, and the dining-room table that had taken such a beating over the years.
I had been keeping some gold minnows in the tiny pond in the middle of the rose garden. I gathered half a dozen minnows and put them in a gallon jug of water so they could come with me; I left an equal number in the pond to face whatever destiny awaits the garden there.
Took a last look at the graves where the cats Hosanna and Bosko were buried. I paused a moment to remember our friendliest neighbor, Mrs Brooker, who had recently died.
Several other neighbors had died during my stay in the neighborhood. Mitch Gazil, a landlord who liked to rent his property to men who had just gotten out of jail, lived in the house across the street; a disgruntled tenant accused him of having a cache of child pornography and the cops raided his house. He died of AIDS several months after that. Rex Barnhard, a tree-cutter whose hobbies were getting drunk and getting into fights, died at the age of 40 from lung cancer. And a woman I never met, who was engaged to our neighbor Joel Jiminez, was shot dead by a couple of men who wanted to buy or steal Joel's supply of drugs.
So, after a brief remembrance of these passages, I put each of the cats in a separate carrier. And then it was time to drive away. Rosko meow'ed constantly during the entire trip, but the other cats settled down shortly after the journey began. Eventually we arrived at the destination motel; I dropped the cats in room 132. I took the minnows and the last load of plants from the old garden to the new land. The jug the minnows were in had sprung a leak, so they got into their new micro-pond just in the nick of time.
The well has been dug on the land. A mound of orange clay-like soil and white limestone was brought up by the well drilling rig; it's interesting to see what sort of material is down there, 200 feet below what we can normally see.
Living in the motel is not as luxurious as I might have hoped. Room 132 is on the corner of the building next door to a gas station, and every now and then I hear the attendant's voice coming from loud intercom speakers at the gas pumps. The cable TV picture is not very clear, suffering from some kind of interference that comes and goes. The air conditioner smells moldy. The sink drain is clogged; I saw liquid from the sink in the room next door backing up into the basin; it was light green in color and smelled like mouthwash.
The motel continues to be less than ideal; some rowdy fellows have moved into the room next door. Their philosophy seems to be, why settle for just closing a door when you can slam it? Why settle for talking quietly when you can yell?
Looking out the peep-hole in the door, I can see the daily gathering of rain-clouds while listening to the sounds of classic episodes of Star Trek on the TV.
The people in the adjacent motel room made a lot of noise all night long, so I didn't get much sleep. I went to City Hall and read the town's zoning ordinances. (I wanted to read all of the ordinances, to see if there were any oddball rules against whistling after dark or whatever, but the complete code of ordinances doesn't seem to be available to the public.)
A couple of workers from the manufactured home dealership delivered a camper to the land today. This camper, also called a "fifth wheel," is like a tiny mobile home designed to be towed behind a pickup truck or other strong vehicle. The zoning bureaucracy has finally granted a permit for the manufactured home to be installed, but we will stay in the camper until the house is ready to occupy.
I planted some milkweed and other butterfly plants near the camper. The soil here is a very dense sand with a texture that reminds me of concrete mix; it is not the kind of "loose" or "fluffy" texture a gardener would hope for. There don't seem to be any earthworms.
Checked out of the motel and moved the base of operations to the camper. Plenty of rain today.
A rough morning. I didn't get much sleep in the cramped quarters of the camper. Because the land is so quiet, every noise made by the cats seems like a major disturbance. At one point I heard something walking around outside the camper – a dog? a person? a deer? Don't know.
Last night at sunset I hastily decided to go into town and spend the night at a motel. I got a much-needed 10 hours of sleep without interruptions and had a chance to take a shower with hot and cold running water.
The concrete "footers" for the house were poured today. These heavy strips of concrete provide anchorage for the house and hopefully prevent it from blowing away in stormy weather.
I installed a new battery in the camper and this has made it possible to use the 12-volt lights, fans, and water pressurizing pump, so now the sinks and shower are functioning. I can get water out of the well by hooking the generator up to it. Each time I energize the well, the first few gallons of water seem milky-colored and oily-smelling, then it clears up; hopefully this is a temporary problem. This is a hot day with no rain in sight; the well water is delightfully cold.
The manufactured home was delivered today. The delivery crew annoyed the neighbors by using their driveway and running over a couple of survey stakes. Later while traveling into town I noticed that a street sign had been knocked over, probably by the same crew. But hey, the house is sixteen feet wide, and it's not easy to transport it down dirt roads that are 10 to 12 feet wide.
Every evening I run the generator and air conditioner for an hour. It bothers me to tear up the tranquility of the area with the noise of the generator, but the neighbors are so far away that they probably can't hear it when they are indoors. Running the air conditioner for an hour seems to reduce the humidity enough to make the air in the camper bearable for the rest of the night.
It rained all afternoon and into the evening. There is nothing to do but sit in the camper and watch the rain, listen to the rain, smell the rain; step out for a moment and feel the rain, taste the rain. The rain and I are alone here this evening; there is no one else (but cats).
If I step out of the lit-up camper into the night, the property seems pitch dark. But if I'm sitting outside at sunset and stay there as night commences, it doesn't seem dark at all. There's a line of houses a few hundred yards to the east, and they have three streetlight-style outdoor lamps that are bright enough to cast a subtle but visible shadow on this land. To the northwest a small patch of sky is polluted with a bluish-white glow; I don't really know the source, maybe it's the collective glare of all the streetlights in the nearest town. Depending on her phase, the moon may also contribute some light; and if the clouds are away, stars also shine down. So the surroundings are indeed illuminated, but only if the observer's eyes are willing and able to use the light that's available.
Visited a plant nursery and bought 6 pine trees, about waist high, for $10 apiece. Seemed like a good price. Planted them later in the day in the northwest corner of the main part of the property.
Dug a new posthole and re-installed the street sign that had recently been knocked over.
"The power pole" has been installed. This is the wooden pole that will have the electric meter and main circuit breakers on it. Wooden stairs have been delivered also, but it seems to me they are not wide enough to meet the peculiar requirements of the intrusive zoning bureaucracy.
A powerful thunderstorm lingered over the land this afternoon. Lightning struck over and over again. The plumber who was working on hooking up the manufactured house dropped his tools and drove away rather quickly. A supervisor from the manufactured home dealership phoned me later; he explained that the plumber had been struck by lightning several years ago and is now eager to avoid repeating the experience. The man's tools were scattered all over the place; I gathered them up and put them in a cardboard box under the back stairs.
Went to Lowe's and bought a cheap lawnmower, just a temporary measure to keep things under control until the budget allows for a lawn tractor or something. The blackberry vines and other volunteer plants are several inches tall over most of the property.
I brought a load of stuff from storage to the new house and unpacked a couple of boxes of clothes and kitchen utensils. A flock of white birds (possibly cattle egret or some kind of ibis) came to the land, hopefully feasting on the numerous grasshoppers. When I walk across the land, dozens of grasshoppers go skipping and flying out from under my feet; it's like a biblical plague of locusts.
The plumber returned and connected the house to the well and septic tank today.
The town's zoning inspector stopped by and said the stairs were not up to par. A man from the electric company came to mark where additional power poles would be installed; he said the guy-wire on the power pole next to the house needed to be tightened up. I wonder if these fellows ever leave a property without finding at least one thing to nag somebody about.
I assembled and tested the lawnmower, then fetched some more stuff from storage and unpacked a couple of boxes. Lots of wind followed by rain, but no lightning.
As far as I know, I was the first human being to sleep in a house on this property. I slept alone in the dark and silent house, on the floor of the master bedroom. The cats remain in the camper.
I have not been using the toilet in the camper. When the camper arrived, the meter indicated the sewage tank was already full and I didn't want to open the sewer output to find out whether it was really full or the sensors were defective. Today I used the generator to power the well-pump and provide water to the new house for the first time. It's a great luxury to have running water and unlimited-seeming drainage, to be able to flush or wash or shower when the urge hits.
The inspector looked at the house today and gave it a preliminary approval. Now the skirting must be installed before final approval can be granted. The electric company is not allowed to connect the house until the zoning bureaucrats have granted final approval. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "electric power." The 'crats know that the vast majority of people are too weak to live without electricity and too feeble-minded to hook up a solar power system or a fuel cell. By restricting the flow of electricity to approved houses, the 'crats make sure that everyone lives in a uniform cookie-cutter structure that is "up to code." Up to the Code of Conformity, that is. The code that consists of only one commandment: thou shalt not be different.
I brought home another load of possessions from storage. This emptied out one of the two storage units.
Workmen came and installed the skirting on the house. This hides the messy support columns and tie-downs behind a nice veneer.
I have been taking care of details inside the house, details that the crew left undone for some reason. Removing the straps that held the washer and dryer in place during transport; unstrapping the stove and removing the packing material and instruction manual from inside the oven; the same with the refrigerator.
Linemen installed utility poles and a transformer on the property today. Brief rain showers came and went but the men carried on with their work. The supply of electricity now comes as far as the power pole next to the house.
The power company linemen I've seen over the years seem to be a homogenous bunch. None of them are stocky or fat; they all have a slender build that you might call "wiry."
The house passed its final inspection today. The trenches in which the water pipes and electric conduit were buried had been left open, and they had to be hastily filled in before the inspector arrived. Make everything look nice and tidy for the inspector in order to get permission to live in one's own home. It's great to live in a free country, isn't it?
Near sunset, I returned from a trip to storage and found some stray cattle on the land: a bull and two heifers. I followed them around in the car and tried to keep them away from the house and the camper. With a single chomp they could have destroyed any of my potted plants or any of the shrubs I've installed. They nibbled on the cord that connects the generator to the camper but didn't find it worth eating. They knocked over a stack of bags of composted manure.
There is no telephone line on the property yet; the local AllTel office said they cannot provide phone service until the electricity is connected. (I think this is baloney.) So I had to use a cellphone I had borrowed from an acquaintance to call the police about these invading cattle. I remembered all the radical magazines I had read, with their "never talk to cops" articles, their stories of suspects and innocent bystanders being pepper-sprayed and beaten. With a feeling of dread, I dialed 911 and hit the SEND button.
The dispatcher was pleasant enough but she declined to send an officer out to my location. She said she would wait to see if anyone reported missing cattle. I was disappointed. Frankly, I had been imagining that a cop with a shotgun would come out and blow the cattle into the next life. I was already fantasizing about making arrangements to have the carcasses butchered and then selling the meat at the local farmers' market. I gave the dispatcher my cellphone number and she said she would call me if the owner of the cattle called in to report them missing.
After complete darkness had fallen and I'd been driving around the land with the invading bovines in my headlight beams for about an hour, I called the police again. They had heard from a nearby farmer who was missing three cattle. But the dispatcher hadn't called me back, she explained, because my cellphone had a different area code. (I don't know if this means dialling a ten-digit number would have been too complicated, or making a long-distance call would have broken the police department's budget. Either way it doesn't exactly inspire confidence.)
The dispatcher tried to give me the cattle owner's cellphone number and have me call him to describe my location but I didn't have a pen, it was dark and my cellphone battery was expiring. It was impossible for me to write down the number or make another call. I was left twisting in the wind.
Eventually the cattle wandered off the property and five or ten minutes later I heard a commotion on the road. It sounded like their owner had found them and was wrangling them into a truck.
Apart from workers and inspectors, these cattle were the first visitors I've had here. Maybe I should have welcomed them. Instead I chased them around like a watch-dog. In fact, I am the watch-dog, left here by the land-owner to watch over things, having no-one else to call on for help, nothing but my own claws and teeth to defend myself with. My situation is exactly like a watch-dog's situation.
©2000 R.K. Harrison.
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