22-XI-2008.
In the morning we were like a Montenegrin when he craps in the wood and then steps into it, „our own on our own“. Drove the corolla to Undersville, put up the gas rešo and made coffee (instant) and poured into the small metal cups, ranger style, and simply enjoyed the feel of the place.
In the morning we started clearing up the weed. Tried to break a path down the slope. Discovered we have one huge tree down in the creek, it's beautiful. The spring actually flows around it, partly through its roots, and it doesn't matter. There's not much water in that stream, had it flown through a hose, it wouldn't throw a jet more than a couple of meters. The agent thought that we could brag, if we ever meant to sell, that we have a „trout stream“. The water is nice and clear, but doesn't even make a sound. Maybe when the snow thaws, if any.
I already saw myself there, sitting with my laptop on a wooden table, with the wifi directed down there by means of a parabolic dish. It's a plan.
I pushed the tone curve for this shot, to make it look as it would at dusk, or in my head. Actually, it would have looked close to this had I had a tool to process raw shots from the Fujica, but the app that came with it was buggy, produced dead white pixels here and there, so I gave up the uphill battle and went for jaypegs straight from the camera. Don't know why I welded it in my head that the raw format is proprietary and that no other app would know how to process it, specially when I already knew that wasn't the case in so many previous examples (developing color prints and films, spare parts, software...) where it didn't matter at all, there were dozen ways to do aside from manufacturer's autistic view. Too bad, many shots could have looked much better. Well, fuckit.
We worked a lot, though without much of a purpose, we didn't really have any plan what to do with this. Below the house, on the slope facing that huge tree, we have a foundation half dug in, about nine by nine meters. With concrete walls where it cut into the slope. Of course, it's full of garbage, mostly empty bottles and shards. On the other side of the valley, beyond that tree and to the left, there's a trailer park and their alco club meets here. They probably sit atop that wall, and pee and drop empty bottles there, nobody can see them from the road.
There's also a tree growing in the foundation, which I started to cut, with the single handsaw we bought in december of 1999, when we wanted to cut deadwood to have a fire in the fireplace. And that saw still cuts true, I made a dozen cuts quite easily - it's still sharp and it did see a lot of use while we were redoing the house. The genuine american product, not chinese junk. I also cut a similar tree which grew next to the kitchen.
We didn't have too many tools - the shovel/spade, american curved type, with the handle embraced deeply into the metal, and a machete. Machete turned out to be pure bullshit, too heavy and tiresome while made of soft steel, which required sharpening every ten minutes. Chinese shit from Walmart.
So nice to hear the little birds, and a woodpecker at lunch, instead of these fighter jets.
Went to check the other triangle, which connects to the lot where the house is at one point, in the creek. There a tornado, who knows how long ago, felled some eight tall pines. That would be enough material for a large ceiling. We started imagining a soil sack house. She acquired a book later, where the tricks used for making such a house were described. Many different designs are possible, and though it would resemble Tatouine, could be quite nice inside. And if grass grows on it outside, why not.
Mentions: Fujica, rešo, Undersville, in serbian