Rocking chair rehab

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I apologize for going so long without posting. I’ll blame it on the weather — first freezing cold, with some water problems, followed by heavy rain. January has been dreary so far.

But today was fairly nice, and Ken got started on a project that I’m happy to see come up in the queue: the rehabilitation of the rocking chairs. I bought the chairs as a gift for my mother some years ago, and she gave them back to me when I moved back to North Carolina. The chairs are classics, made by the P & P Chair Company, the original maker of the Kennedy Rocking Chair. You can still buy these chairs, and they’re very pricey. Mine have been sitting on the side porch for five years, and the weathering had taken its toll.

I did not like the original finish on these chairs. It was that plastic-skin finish that everything seems to have these days. The finish does not soak into the wood, and over time it peels off in tiny flakes, leaving the wood unprotected.

Ken’s first step was to sand the chairs. That left the chairs with a silvery-gray patina that is quite beautiful. The next step will be to apply a new finish. We’ve chosen a deck stain, because it’s the kind of finish that goes on thin and soaks into the wood. And of course it’s a finish designed for protecting wood that is exposed to the weather. I’m hoping that it will protect the chairs better than the original finish.

And whose knows. After the finish is dry, the chairs may come indoors and sit by the fireplace for the rest of the winter. Life is hard for porch chairs.

In the photos below, the new finish has not yet been applied.

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What did the cat see?

Lily was in stalking position with her nose to the glass, staring down at something just on the other side of the door. I couldn’t see what it was, but I approached quietly with the camera. Lily moved away, and the bird hopped away from the door when it saw me. I think they must have been virtually nose to nose, having a stare-down. From Lily’s perspective, I get it. But what in the world was in it for the bird?

Pfotenhauer's new web site


This house, from a photo on Pfotenhauer’s new web site, clearly is a customized version of the same plan that Acorn Abbey was build from.

I had an email from architect Rodney Pfotenhauer today saying that he has a new web site: here. I know there are a lot of Pfotenhauer fans who come to this blog and who appreciate Pfotenhauer’s imaginative but practical designs.

Normal weather at last??


My whole-house fan, as seen from the attic

I am starting to feel optimistic that the frighteningly hot, dry, droughty weather of the past few years was abnormal, in spite of climate change. I am hoping that we are returning to more normal temperatures and levels of rainfall. When I say this, I am ignoring the clear global trend of extreme weather events. I am thinking selfishly only of this little part of the world, and of my ability to grow things here and to endure being outside in the summer without being baked to a crisp.

I suspect that La Niña was the culprit. La Niña, of course, is one extreme of a normal oscillation of water temperatures across the tropical Pacific. This oscillation still is not well understood, but it has been observed for hundreds of years. This oscillation causes a redistribution of rainfall on both sides of the Pacific. If India and Indonesia are getting more rain than normal, then here in the American southeast we are getting less. And the reverse is true.

Typically this oscillation occurs every three to seven years. Often La Niñas are 10 years apart. But since 2008, the pattern has been unusual. The La Niña of 2008 was quickly followed by another that lasted from 2010 until 2011. This La Niña ended in this past few months, and it was one of the strongest ever recorded. It was the cause of a devastating drought in Australia and probably last year’s drought in Texas as well.

Those years since 2008, unfortunately for me, were the years I’ve been working so hard to build Acorn Abbey and to get a garden, orchard, and landscape going. No wonder I have been so discouraged and exasperated at times, watching young trees die and gardens baked to a crisp.

The amount of rainfall varies greatly from spot to spot of course, especially the rainfall from thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are the source of most of the rainfall in this area during the hot part of the year. One spot can be flooded, and another spot 10 miles away can be high and dry. So I realized that I needed my own accurate rainfall record, and I started collected data on Sept. 1 of last year. Since Sept. 1, 39 inches of rain have fallen on Acorn Abbey, well on the way to equaling or exceeding the official average of 44 to 45 inches for this area. That is most encouraging.

I also am finding that, with normal weather, I need far less air conditioning at the abbey. So far this season, I have not turned the air conditioning on at all. The highest temperature we’ve had so far was about 92. The temperature in the house reaches 86 or so on a day like that, but after the sun goes down and the outdoor temperature drops, I turn on the attic fan and the indoor temperature comes back down to the upper 70s. I can live with that. But when the temperature gets above 95, I probably won’t be able to take it.

I’ve often mentioned in this blog how odd it seems that a fanciful house such as a Gothic revival cottage can be so practical. Here’s another way it’s practical: It’s livable when it’s hot outside. Actually, that was one reason I liked the design. There are lots of big windows, as with older houses. The high ceilings and large attic help. If I had large, grand shade trees — as I hope to have in 10 or 15 years — this house would be as livable in hot weather as any Southern country house of the 19th century.

A lot of the readers here are building houses, including Gothic revival cottages like mine. So I can add a few points to lessons learned after living in this house for almost three years. Large, south-facing windows are pure gold. They will warm you in the winter, and yet in the summer when the sun is overhead, they admit no direct sun at all. West-facing windows, however, are a different story. Heavy sunlight pours in on summer afternoons. You’ll want deciduous shade trees outside your west-facing windows. Lacking that, awnings would be good, though window shades are better than no protection at all.

I cringe when I look at some modern houses. The windows are tiny. Some people probably never even open them and instead rely on their heating and cooling system year-round. That would make me crazy. I like hearing the birds. And if a chicken squawks to alert me to some emergency, I can hear her.

If there are day lilies, it must be May


[Click on image for high-res version]

Each year, there are more blooming things at the abbey. I’ve decided that it’s impossible to have too many wildflowers, even if some of the blackberry patches have to be cleared. Next year: More wildflower patches. I also saw the first finch yesterday. They were attracted last year for the first time by the wildflowers, and they’re back again this year.

Dry summer = colorless fall

It has not been a particularly pretty or colorful fall. The changing leaves are fairly drab. The grass should be lush and green in the fall, but there was not enough rain to produce the lushness.

This was not the case everywhere. On a recent trip to Asheville via the Blue Ridge Parkway, there were extraordinary fall colors around Linville and Grandfather Mountain. There was more rain in the mountains during the summer and early fall.

Part of the price one pays for greater privacy is the maintenance of the road that connects one to civilization. The road ate up three loads of gravel yesterday. The cost would have been enough to pay for a short visit to California. The cost makes me gripe, but it can’t be helped.

The abbey organ has been upgraded


Rodgers Cambridge 730, made in 1992

For a long time, I’ve known just what sort of organ I really want. It needed to be a Rodgers, because Rodgers has such a sterling reputation. I’m talking about electronic organs, of course. There’s no way I could afford a wind instrument. I wanted a Rodgers made after 1990, because that’s when Rodgers switched from analog technology (oscillators — an artificial, synthesized sound) to digitally sampled pipe organ sounds. The post-1990 Rodgers organs also have MIDI interfaces, which allows the organ to be controlled (and played, like a self-playing instrument) by a computer connected to the organ. I also wanted an organ with at least one 32-foot stop (I’ll explain what that is in a second). And I wanted a classical instrument, not a theater organ.

I kept hoping that such an organ would jump into my lap, at a price I could afford. One did. The organ was being abandoned by a church about 20 miles from here that has changed to a different kind of music. They just plain didn’t want the organ anymore. It was taking up too much room up front on the platform that they call “the stage.” Anyway, their loss is my gain.

Rodgers has an interesting history. The company was started in 1958 by some nerds from Tektronix. For a while they were owned by CBS, which also owned Steinway. In 1988, they became a subsidiary of the Roland Corp. — good sound engineers, they.

This 1992 organ is by no means obsolete. It has only been out of warranty for eight or nine years. It uses the same digital sampling technology that Rodgers still uses today. They call it “Parallel Digital Imaging.” Using several microphones, they record the sound from thousands of individual organ pipes, each pipe separately. When you touch a key, you hear the sound of actual organ pipes. Each pipe sound is played through a minimum of two speakers for a kind of stereo effect. My organ has six audio channels (two for each keyboard and two for the pedals) and requires a minimum of six speakers, though it came with 10. There are two subwoofers, each weighing 92 pounds. The other eight speakers are of more normal size, 40 pounds each. That’s 500 pounds of speakers, plus about 650 pounds for the organ console. It was no easy moving job. And it does make a mighty sound, though it also can be very quiet and sweet. I was prepared for this. I knew before I built Acorn Abbey what kind of organ would eventually be here, so I made sure that the house had an appropriate place for the console (in the living room) and the speakers (upstairs). I put wiring in the walls for the speakers when the house was being built.

The subwoofers are there for the 32-foot pedal stop. Not all organs have 32-foot stops — only larger organs. With a 32-foot stop, the longest pipe in the rank is 32 feet long. This produces a very low note — 16 cycles per second, too low for human hearing. Nor can recordings of organ music capture this sound, because few stereo systems support frequencies that low, and I believe frequencies that low are outside the specification for CD recordings. But the sound can be felt, as a kind of vibration in the room. This profound organ sound is something you’ll only experience when you’re in the same room as a large organ. The organ is the only musical instrument that can make a note that low.

The abbey’s new Rodgers 730 is a more competent organ than I am organist, to tell the truth. But I’m practicing to work on gaining technique that I’ve lost over the years. And of course the computer will be able to play what I can’t play.

I’ll post YouTube videos of me, or the computer, playing the organ in coming weeks.

Note: It’s probably misleading that I call my house an abbey, and there’s a church organ in it. Though I value much of the cultural and community work that churches do, I consider myself a pagan, like my Celtic ancestors before Rome with its armies and bishops came around and stomped all over everyone.

What's happening outdoors, June 3


One of the first cosmos blooms in one of my wildflower patches. Can you espy the beetle?

May was cool and rainy, but we’ve been in a hot, dry spell now for about a week. So far, the garden and landscape are tolerating the weather well. I’ve watered the celery, but that’s just the nature of celery. The beets are looking a little wilty, but they’re a cool-weather crop, and they’re almost ready to harvest. Otherwise the garden is looking great. The tomatoes love the hot weather, as do the cucurbits — squash, pumpkin, watermelon, and canteloupe — all of which are young plants started from seed. The real test will come in July and August, but so far the water-saving gardening methods advocated by Steve Solomon (Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times) seem to be working well. The tomatoes and squash, in particular, seem to be finding plenty of water deep in the soil.


The day lily bank


The onions are blooming and will need to be harvested soon.


I’ll harvest the celery as soon as the hot weather slows it down.


A young pumpkin plant


Young blackberries, on the way to the mailbox


Holly, who lives up the road near the mailbox and who sometimes comes to visit and stomp in my flower beds. The funny look is because she’s suspicious of my camera.

Digital Kinkade?

A friend sent me this altered photograph today. He took a copy of a photo on this blog, then applied digital effects to the photo using tools at BeFunky.com. I guess I’m getting ever closer to making Acorn Abbey look like a Thomas Kinkade painting, as long as some digital effects are applied.

The wildflower patches and day lilies will be blooming soon. Then I can take photos with much more color.

Yes, I’m aware that sophisticated artsy types look down on Thomas Kinkade. But I’m not ashamed to say that I like his cottage paintings. They evoke a simpler, more innocent, more rural, more self-reliant time. And what could be wrong with that?


A Thomas Kinkade painting