05-AUG-C-10

 

MY DERWOOD DOMESTIC DUTIES

IN COMBINATION WITH DALE KRAMER’S

 PULLING VIKING REFRIGERATOR OUT OF THE ALCOVE FOR CLEANING, HANGING THE HEADS,

 AND SETTING OUT THE SALT BLOCK AND DIGITAL

“ALL ABOUT GAME” MOTION CAMERA IN THE DERWOOD DEERWOODS

 

AND, THEN COMES A BLOW---

NOT JUST TO ME AND DERWOOD,

BUT A GROWING REALIZATION THAT

THE GULF COAST IS AN EPIC DISASTER

 

August 31, 2005

 

            I am saving fuel.  I am sitting in the Game Room in Derwood, listening to the unfolding disaster along the Gulf Coast as the two main oil terminal ports have been closed accounting for 20% of all fuel imports into the US, and the shutdown of 31 refineries along the Gulf Coast, with no shipping allowed into the Mississippi as the search and rescue operations are going forward for thousands of stranded people as the death toll has surpassed a hundred.  The wholesale price of gasoline has gone seventy five cents per gallon over the price just on Friday of last week, and the gas station I had driven in to yesterday waved me off since they had no fuel.  I went to get the Audi an “Ultimate” car wash and drove it home and parked it in the garage for the day, to avoid getting it dirtied up in the overnight rain predicted and the rising price of fuel—both consequences here of the much more severe devastation wreaked upon the Gulf Coast.

 

            By pre-arrangement, I had promised to meet Dale Kramer this morning and show him photos which I had packed into three albums while I had awaited other developments in Derwood, and we did three other chores as he came by.  We hung the heads form Cumberland in the Game Room as some of the last trophies to be hung before the walls are saturated.  The full-mount Tur will go on the opposite wall on a habitat stand to counterbalance the snow sheep, and the wood duck drake and the Canada Goose still forthcoming will probably be suspended from the ceiling eventually but that will saturate the Game Room with trophies before I must start looking elsewhere—or (dare I say it?) make an addition somewhere to accommodate new ones!  We did, however, start out on another project.  We set up my Christmas present from Milly at Meijers’ last December called a “Trophy Rock” on a cement black in the woods under the white oak tree and then set up my new fixed Digital Camera named “All About Game” which senses both motion and infrared body heat to take flash digital pictures of the deer I suspect will be moving in soon under the white oak tree to reap the harvest of acorns.  That way we can have them take their own pictures as they cluster around the Game Room windows—as many trophies outside the glass as are staring glassy-eyed back at them from inside!

 

            The other thing we did was to pull the Viking Refrigerator freezer forward from its alcove after unbolting it from its recess stretching out the copper coil of piping that feeds the ice maker to expose the under refrigerator smelly mess that still is stuck to the floor (and ?under it) so that the commercial C & C Cleaning crew can come and finish the job on cleaning out the smelly nooks and crannies from the protein liquefied run-off, and then reclaim their big machines downstairs which are pumping out scented air through a Hepa-Aire scrubber and a dehumidifier.  If they approve the job (pending the discussion about the necessity of calling in another expert form “Environmental Services, Inc form Deal MD as an “industrial hygienist”) then I should be through the scrambling and scrubbing after the freezer meltdown contamination of the whole house and can start up on purchasing the upright refrigerator freezer and chest freezer for downstairs and the baker’s rack for the kitchen.  This should have me back to normal if the claims between the Cleanup Crew suggested by the State Farm Insurance Company (already riding on a very high deductible) are resolved.  As, I had told them, it is then time for me to get started on some serious meat hunting to re-stock the freezers that will be coming in to replace the two thrown out, and the Viking---which I still hope can be salvaged despite the contrary opinion of the Cleanup Company.

 

            Dale Kramer and his co-worker Tim are leaving to go bow hunting elk in Idaho on Friday, and Jerry his current boss and later board member as Dale becomes General Manager/Owner is also going to go out hunting riding the biggest year they have had yet.  My renovation was their biggest project in their biggest year ever, and it seems they may be going to a greater aggregate in sales this year, so the gasoline prices and other inhibitors of the housing market have not caused any recession yet in the upscale high end housing market.  Dale will return soon if I can get the C & C Company to come back soon and clean the alcove and pull out their big machines form the basement, then we can use the extended socket wrenches to re-fix the Viking in position after its final cleanup.  He also looked over the fallen Roebuck trophy to discover that in the heat it had slipped sideways to literally “unscrew itself” off the wall, landing on its extended tines of the left antler with such force as to gouge two holes in the new white oak hardwood floor as well as to snap off one tine.  We used the Gorilla Glue to try to patch the antler tines and will use either double sided tape or Velcro to keep the repeat sideslippage from recurring.

 

            So, the Game Room is up to normal, awaiting the arrival of the two oak mounts for the Wolverine and red fox, and with the further suggestion that Dale look at each of the pedestals to make a door/glass window in their bases to hold the bleached skulls of bear, wolverine and bush buck now on library shelves, with a back light to highlight them, as well as a shelf beneath in each for the special hunting pictures from the photo albums.

 

AND, THEN COMES A BLOW---

NOT JUST TO ME AND DERWOOD,

BUT A GROWING REALIZATION THAT

THE GULF COAST IS AN EPIC DISASTER

 

The wind picked up as I walked around the house picking up the fallen branches—a chronic phenomenon if you live in the woods.  Then I did it again, and again.  I realized I might be getting the last vestiges of the wrath of the hurricanes that had struck the Gulf Coast, and I thought that this gentle reminder cannot be as startling to me as the thoughts I had while listening to the news all day as I was trying to do domestic chores of a limited disaster cleanup.  I must put a lockbox on the door for the “Environmental Solutions Inc to come form Deale MD this next week to test the house for safety after blood spills at warm summer temperatures to determine that no mold has got started etc.  I began to think of the absurdity of this “full court press” of my losses of several refrigerator/freezers and their leakage after power failure for a month, when the entire Gulf Coast t6hat has not been washed away is likely to have no power for clean water let alone frozen food for the next six months.

 

As I had sat fascinated with the careful underestimates of the Tsunami at Christmastime (“a hundred dead and a thousand homeless”—while I thought “Right!  I know the coastal concentrations of the Asian peoples and there cannot be less than half a million affected; I was right.)  And now, avoiding any hyperbole I hear the announcers saying there are at least fifty dead and hundreds homeless.  This is the Gulf Coast they are talking about, and I know that there have been more people at risk than these numbers would imply even at the times the Cajuns came down form New England, and that tens of thousands are in misery right now with no one aware—except for those with some imagination at what must rally be happening, confirmation of numbers or otherwise.  It must be one of the largest environmental disasters in American history, I would guess.

 

            The phone rang.  It is my neighbor Debbie Lubers.  She wants me to know that a big tree has fallen across my meadow down near the overgrown garden.  I went down to see it, and sure enough, it will take all day Saturday to clean up that pile of as yet unstacked timber with my chain saw using the gasoline which will be four dollars a gallon by then.  I also saw that the garden gate was open and the vegetation had been cleaned out.  I thanked Debbie for looking after that and she said she had no idea and it must have been another neighbor I have never met who may have done that.  Neighbors helping neighbors in times of storm.

 

            I am going to work now—it is 3:00 AM.  Why?  I have a lot of school work to do, and I am sure I may not be here to do it.  I have a feeling—fresh as I am from Eritrea Africa and dealing with a mini-disaster of my won here in Derwood continuing as it seems to be,--that I may find myself in Louisiana/

Mississippi Gulf Coast before very long, school work or not.  Neighbors helping neighbors in time of storm…..