We found the energy to tackle a few more projects. Last weekend, we cleared out the mess that is our shed, tore down a non-load-bearing wall in the basement, and stripped the old boiler of its casing and insulation, under which we found thousands of peanuts raccoons has stashed away. Too bad Jill didn’t get a pic of me going to town with a sawzall. Cutting through pipes is sooooo satisfying.
I don’t want to get all provincial, but Malone, NY* isn’t where I would expect to fine some fine entertainment and cocktails. Yet there we were, last Saturday, to see Phoenix Mendoza perform at Café Nouveau. He’s a hell of a storyteller, songwriter, and musician, and the cafe serves a hell of a cocktail.
*Malone, however, is known for being the possible-but-unlikely resting place of Dutch Schultz’s fortune.
The North Country hasn’t seen the sun in a while, so when it did come out I grabbed the opportunity to go for a ride. My route: South along the lake to Crown Point, across the Champlain Bridge, then north to Burlington, VT and Grand Isle, and across the lake on the ferry. Afterwards, a cold beverage on the roof and grilled hot dogs. Maybe summer is on the way.
We’ve made so much progress so quickly renovating our odd North Country bungalow. Until recently, we had our fingers crossed that the aging galvanized steel water main wouldn’t burst. The first time Jill’s dad saw the house, he looked at the cut off valve and said, “Do not touch that. Don’t even look at it.” It was long past its expiration date.
Rather than roll the dice and hope it lasted through the winter — winter being the absolute worst time to deal with a broken water main — we had it replaced. The first challenge was cutting off water at the street, because the valve extension had corroded and wouldn’t turn. The guy from the city tasked with turning it off went away and returned a few minutes with a new extension.
Then the digging started.
That sandy-looking stuff? Cat litter. The previous owner and her housemates had disposed of years of cat litter in the front yard. I have a stack of zoning code violations that tell the story.
A steady stream of neighbors showed up to tell the team excavating the main exactly what it was, and what they should do with it. The supervisor was a paragon of patience, though he told me later that it was hard to hold his tongue.
A few hours later, we had this. Exciting, isn’t it?
Two sections of sidewalk were sacrificed, and three weeks later we did the city a solid and replaced it.
The finishing touch will be new grass, but that’s going to have to wait until Spring.
The Port Kent Ferry is closed (for good?), but I took advantage of a warmish November day to see what’s left, and look for Champy.
Saturday was unseasonably warm (though still pretty cold compared to NC), so I took a ride to Mother Cabrini’s Shrine and AuSable Chasm to catch some fall colors.
The first impression of our Plattsburgh bungalow is…polarizing. Since before we closed on the house, we’ve heard many opinions about what we should do with the walls just beyond our front door. Here’s a taste of what people are debating.
A local artist, Les Cosgrove, painted the entryway walls in 1995 in her distinctive style. It’s a riot of colorful, supernatural cats and feminine icons, and it touched off a running debate among friends and strangers who stopped by to satisfy their curiosity. Everyone had the same question: What are you going to do with/about that?
There were three trains of thought: 1) Paint over it, 2) Leave it, or 3) Split the difference, paint over most of it, and frame the remaining parts of the painting. Jill and I vacillated. We’d pour a glass of wine, stare at the walls, and continue the debate. We did this a lot.
For several weeks, we’d veer between answers. One week, we were keeping it. Another week, we chose option 3. Completely covering it never felt like the right thing to do.
The house has an interesting history, with art and literature baked into it, and in the end history won out. The cats, as we call the painting, are staying. At least for the foreseeable future. Nothing is permanent, but for now, the cats stay.
You can see Les Cosgrove’s work throughout Plattsburgh, including at the Koffee Kat Espresso Bar, where she contributed to painting the interior and sells her art and jewelry. It’s worth a visit, and the coffee is excellent.
It’s 6:30 am, and it’s going to be a two pot of coffee morning. Temperatures are slowly decreasing, and it’s cool enough at night that we’ve closed a few windows throughout the house. Across the lake, snow is falling in the higher elevations.
After retrieving my motorcycle from North Carolina, I took a little ride through the Adirondack Park to see the fall colors. I made it as far as Saranac Lake before the rain turned me back.
