I built my palace about 20 years ago when we finally realized we probably couldn\u2019t outlive our shack no matter how much remodeling and maintenance we were willing and able to do.\u00a0 It was sagging faster than me.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sagging fast.\u00a0 So I got out my trusty 16 ounce finish hammer and my leather toolbelt, powered up my bent Milwaukee skillsaw and set up a 1940\u2019s \u00bd horsepower Sears table saw and went to work.<\/p>\n
Two years later I had us a nice little two story cabin, brand new, mostly cedar and finished with curly maple.\u00a0 We had a view of the Olympics and Saratoga Straits and Whidbey Island.\u00a0 You haven\u2019t built your own home, you can\u2019t imagine the pride you would feel that first night sleeping in it, knowing you built it all by scratch.\u00a0 The house that Jack built\u2026.<\/p>\n
Course, after time, that new car smell goes away and after a decade or two, here we go again, trying to outlast and out repair the rot and rust, the whole entropic cycle of decay and depression and death.\u00a0 Plus, I still got the original shack on life support.\u00a0 And about 15 or 17 — I lost count — other buildings leaning and sagging and on living wills from the mailbox back to the trail to Tyee Store.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t want the old \u2018new\u2019 house taking shortcuts on me.\u00a0 Which is why I went up on the roof 20 years later to see what kind of moss plantation I had thriving up there — and let me tell you, it was a mossologist\u2019s paradise from gutter to peak.\u00a0 Reds and greens and exotic flowers — an entire alien ecosystem above our heads completely colonizing our roof.<\/p>\n
Twenty years in moss life, I bet, is like 500 for a Doug fir.\u00a0 And, oh yeah, I had a forest of them too, but mostly just the dead bonsais, a valiant attempt at aerial reforestation of the South End, but even on our lush roof, not really an ideal growing climate in the summer droughts.\u00a0 Moss, like rust, never sleeps.\u00a0 It naps.\u00a0 But only til the next fog or sprinkle or mist or gullywasher.\u00a0 It is the Big Lebowski of the South End.\u00a0 It abides.<\/p>\n
I puttered around up there reminiscing about the day I nearly collapsed the roof by horsing around, making the rafters sway wildly.\u00a0 But finally I climbed two stories down the ladder, left the gutters gorged with rich black compost and decided to simply co-exist.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see who lasts longer, me or the house\u2026. But I tell ya, I\u2019m putting my money on the moss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I built my palace about 20 years ago when we finally realized we probably couldn\u2019t outlive our shack no matter how much remodeling and maintenance we were willing and able to do.\u00a0 It was sagging faster than me.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sagging fast.\u00a0 So I got out my trusty 16 ounce finish hammer and my leather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2023,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions\/2023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}