C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 148

Got 2 new fishes…

Our pond place is closing for the year, because of intense construction in the area, and the fact the owners haven't had a vacation in ten years. So we went to see if there are any fishes that would be worthy successors to our lost ones. Mind, we still haven't gotten the bridge up, but I've got a Scarecrow mounted and a winter cover on the deep end of the pond, and we've had no further losses. We're hoping to get the bridge built by week's end…

We also thought it would be good to put Ysabel and Eushu in the car together for a relatively short trip. So we did. They did pretty well: Eushu was tolerably good, Ysabel was tolerably patient, and we didn't have WWIII in the car.

We found only two fish that appealed to us, one that's sort of like Grant was: that's Grant II, a very handsome fish; and one that's a little like a cross between Banichi and Yoruichi—a butterfly-finned black fish with bright gold/bronze edges, that we call Banichi. We put them in, and we're just being careful until we can get the bridge up and give them shelter.

 

 

That's all we need: spam attack.

I'm deleting anybody from mail15 or mail333, so if you're legit, e-mail me. If not, bye-bye.

Update 2: doing pretty well

Due to holiday, docs can't do anything until Tuesday. Otherwise, transfusions have made a good difference: she's much more herself, and your letters and Eushu's antics keep us in a good mood.

Update: spent the whole day at the docs…

Jane got transfusions yesterday: just as a point of information, it takes 2 hours to put in one unit of blood: we left at 10 am and didn't get back until 11 pm. She's feeling much better today but I'm going to defer the actual reports over to her site, it being her case and her situation, and she'll describe it better than I can and with more authoritative accuracy, except I am a wreck, a total wreck, and tests are ongoing, treatment under study. Major gratitude to OSG for many, many things, including getting her to the right place to get help fast. We are both completely exhausted.

The kittehs got left together by accident when we left to go for yet one more test today—and we came back to find them sleeping in the same chair. Eushu is now following Ysabel about with worship intended, though she is apt to paste him one if he comes up on her tail, and it is frequently an irresistible lure.

 

Think good thoughts for Jane: she's going in for tests.

The bridge pieces are going to have to be stowed. Jane's not well at the moment, and we're going to have to see to that first.

We are building the bridge…

This morning we painted one side and edges of the 2/ 2″x12″/ 12′ arches, cut and painted the 5/ 2×4 /29 inch interior braces, and have found room enough to paint 3 of the decking boards that will be sawed up into deck for the bridge. This afternoon we'll flip the boards and paint the other side 2 coats. Then we'll paint more decking boards—there's quite a stack—and tomorrow level the bridge footing and make sure it fits, then screw together the 2 arch pieces, mating them parallel with each other, held apart by 2 of the 2×4 bracing boards at either end, then one in the middle.

That's going to weigh plenty. Once we haul that into place, which may involve assembly on pondside, we're going to probably attach and hand-saw the decking planks after they're screwed to the arches, sitting on our previous work as we deck our way across the bridge. We haven't room to paint every decking board at once. But we'll get there. We're going to take some pix as we go, because this is going to be quite the bridge.

We priced a 12 foot bridge of this sort when we started. It came in at about 2000.00. We're getting out of it for the price of the lumber and the paint—and OSG and OSGuy's invaluable help, which they've given us.  Basically, this is what we did:

The main arches: two twelve foot 2″x12″ fir boards. Mark the high point of the arch at center and run a curve to the board ends plus 2″, ie, a curve ending at the 10th inch of width. Then mirror-image this to the other side. Give yourself a foot and a half 'footing' space, flat, for the bridge to set on. Shoot a mark 5″ down from the top of the board center. Run that in a curve to the inside of the footing. Mirror same.

You then have a 5″ thick 12 foot arch. Cut two of these. And let me tell you, OSGuy using raw strength and a bandsaw to cut the pair of these boards, and OSG holding the free end of these very heavy boards during that operation—priceless.

Everything else is little boards in 30″ or so lengths, but those two timbers are the biggie. That's why bridges cost so much. Finding an OSGuy and an OSG is next to impossible.

I don't think you could bribe them to do it twice.

 

Distressed at news about Joplin MO

This is the home of my earliest memories.

I was between 3 and 5, and there are so many.

Walking in an autumn woods near our house on Pearl Street, and my mother overcome with anxiety, running toward me through the woods…I'd been lost—well, I knew where I was—and she'd feared I'd fallen into one of the mine shafts that were in the area.

Photos of me and milkbottles in the early morning, by a picket fence, and flowers.

And a very young friend named Peter, who ran up to our car as we pulled out on the move to Oklahoma: I was 5. He was about that. He gave me his favorite toy, and I protested we were going away forever, and I couldn't give it back. He said he wanted me to have it. And I have no idea what his last name was, or what became of him.

All that's long in the past. A tornado hit the town today, hit the hospital, killed at least 25 people: CNN says 75% of the town is virtually gone.

 

Readers will rejoice to know that Jane and I have finally backed up…

We got a sub to Carbonite. We are in the several-day process of getting the initial comprehensive back up, and then it will simply update along the way. These computers are getting so big and storing so much it's becoming way too problematic to do a disk-based backup. My laptop and writing computer is, eg, a Latitude E5500, which reckons storage and speed in terms that still boggle the mind.

Henceforward, we can use our machines until they drop dead and still not worry. No more having to buy a new machine because the old one is getting iffy. We have 3 laptops, one a refurb old one of mine, that we use on occasion when we don't need speed, and, well, you can almost count Jane's that lost its screen—literally: it fell off—but I don't think that one's active any longer. What we are going to have to replace is our router, which is wheezing under the load of the house net, but it's old, and about time to get a new one.

Jane's a bit under the weather: pinched nerve in her neck—you know how that hits you where you live—, and I think it was from trying to take most of the weight of the door as we maneuvered it. I think we're going to have to make a chiropractor run.  But she's still icing it and trying to work through it.

The kitten is still quintessentially cute: I wish we could get a recording of his "let's play", which is sort of like mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeep! in the highest kitten-voice you could imagine.

He and Ysabel settled down to sleep within 5 inches of each other. We're gaining on the interpersonal skillz, too.

OSGuy promises us he's sanding the bridge supports…

and we may have them this afternoon. If that's the case, we're going on a bridge-painting-building binge.

We figure that having a  no-railing span across the waist of our 20 foot long pond will cramp the eagle's style—literally, since they strike in a swoop—and having the bridge to hide under will protect the fish.

Jane yelled: a Bald Eagle just raided the koi pond…

We've been trying to figure why the koi have been huddled on the bottom: we feared a crisis of water chemistry, and a dozen different things—but an adult male Bald Eagle plunging out of the sky?

We put up the winter shelter ring, a 6 foot circle of floating black shade stuff that will cover them in the deep end; and I finally (too late for some of our koi) put up the Scarecrow water jetter, which I hope will scare the blighter off. He may be an endangered species and our national bird, but he's not persona grata in our back yard at the moment!