Little House by the Dome

.: 05:36 :.

I’m back on line for tonight, thanks to Karen, hereafter to be known as Karen, Wonderful Karen; nee While Away Karen, who loaned me her lap top to let me get on line and doesn’t expect it back until tomorrow morning. Phew. So I’m typing from the Laundry Room shed, on a cute little Toshiba lap top, with a funky mini joy stick mouse and no key on the letter “O”. I love it! Thank you Karen, Wonderful Karen!

This will be short, not for lack of news, but because of everything else taking up my time. John has Logan duty for now, and she’ll probably go to sleep early. I could take the computer in to the RV (AKA PlayBus) and type but not have net access, which would let me type a longer post. I’ll see how cold I get out here with no heat. Today was pretty well hot, but more rain is supposed to come. We planted onions and potatoes and, um, uh, snow peas, and sweet peas, and oh, I remember more lettuces yesterday. We wanted to do it on the equinox, but ran out of time Saturday.


Whoops, Logan and John just came out to fetch me to eat. Okay, I’ll get back to this after that.

--

Thanks to Joana and Andrea and Cheryl for the blog comments, and the dog rescue service, and the meals, and the moral support, and the blog posting, and the company . . . and there’s probably still more. Logan is settling in a bit better now that we are back on the land and in the RV. The RV is small, and I don’t like it much. But it gets us on our land. Logan and I have now been in the house, although I think we’d both be happier if we hadn’t had to go in.

The smoke smell is still overwhelming, and it’s been airing for two and a half weeks now. The majority of our stuff has been moved out, some by professionals who do a halfway decent job, and some by us, cleaning and salvaging what the professionals say isn’t worth it. Loads upon loads of laundry. Books (which the professionals convinced my the would handle badly early on, inventoried cleaned and boxed by Karen, Wonderful Karen) yarn, hand knit items, an assortment of things. The devising is between how easy it is to clean very how easy it is to replace.

Thank you, and Many Congrats to Cousin Erin for sending Miss Logan toys (received today, much to her delight) and for birthing the first boy in his generation in our family. I was excited to hear Young Master Wolfie’s full name. I’m going to call you, soon, really. As soon as I actually find a quiet moment when it’s daylight on the east coast.

Thank you to Ty and Susan who have also fed us, and came to help with sorting hauling and inventorying. Ty is now working on finishing our laundry room for us so we’ll have a space larger than the RV to work from. He hooked up the phone line today, allowing me Internet access with Karen, Wonderful Karen’s computer. With luck and a bit of rain (which will cause Ty to work on our project instead of his Christmas tree farms) we’ll have a finished guest room to live in by the end of the week. If you wanted to come visit this summer you’ll be welcome, provided it’s after we’ve gotten to move back in to the dome.

I just looked at my EFN mail box. 1500+ messages. Wow. Even knowing that most of it is mailing lists. That’s too much. Too many. Something like that. I gave up with being on line and moved in to the RV to try typing with Laptop in lap. Kind of strange, but it works well enough.

Let’s see. The RV – it’s small. It has a water heater that must hold a couple of gallons max. One can take a three minute lukewarm shower, if one is lucky. I’m planning to bathe at the WomonCare office in the morning, probably while Baby and Me is going on, before Trekking to Eugene to meet with Robyn’s disability lawyer with him. And going to buy a new crock pot, and some more clear bins, and who knows what else. Never-ending supplies needed. The, um, polite RV man seemed surprised that I wanted an oven rack in the oven. He says most people just grill and eat outside. How nice for most people. I’ve just gotta be different. The dome house will seem so big once we get back in it, in our two to five months.

As for the house, demolition of the inside starts Thursday. John is working on kitchen and bathroom redesign plans, waiting for the true drawings from the reconstruction folks. We’ll put in wood floors. And a bath tub. And some closets, we hope. And a new wood stove.

Karen, Wonderful Karen, if you’re reading, the espresso web site I told you about is at the following URL. I can’t remember how to make it appear as a link, but you can cut and paste easily enough I suspect. http://www.quiknet.com/~frcn/Coffee/Coffee.html

I’ve got to quit typing. This will post in the morning, I hope. Then Logan and I will be out the door to the chiropractor and Baby and Me. Call if you want to. T
he phones are still the best way to reach us until you hear different. And talking on the phone gives me the chance to say the same things to people who haven’t heard them twelve times already. : - )

These woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.

Fire and such update

.: 12:32 :.

Happiness is a cooperative insurance agent!

Penny and John are continuing to outsource their blog to Auntie Cheryl, as she works cheap.

They met Tuesday with the agent from their insurance company, United Heritage, and have several good things to report:

-- Insurance will pay for a 30-foot travel trailer (with popouts) to be hooked up on site within the week, so they can live there while the repairs are made. John's estimate is about two months, but it will be available as long as needed. Pets are not allowed, so Narnia and Sunny will stay fostered out until May or so.

-- Insurance will pay for gutting and rebuilding the interior of the house, as they'd hoped.

-- The contents will be pulled out and sorted for what's salvageable, what's cleanable and what must be tossed. For the tossed items, a dollar value will be assigned for reimbursement after it's all inventoried. (Including, Auntie Cheryl hopes, the DVDs she loaned them last year.)

-- The house will get new drywall throughout, and John and Penny will have a set amount of money to do with as they choose to renovate the design. If they want wood flooring and more closet space, they can work it into their budget. They've already tapped Mom Jacob to fiddle with the design of the upstairs portion, to try for they closet space.

-- Penny and Logan are not to go into the house until it's done and dusted, to prevent possible asthma flare-ups.

-- John can take unpaid leave from work to do some of the framing himself, and insurance will pay him a comparable wage.

-- The investigators think something got too close to the wood stove and started the fire. John's not sure about this.

The hotel living is starting to wear on Logan, as well has her parents. The Red Cross gave Logan a stuffed bear the night of the fire, currently named Bear, and she's playing with Bear in the hotel.

John will eventually put photos on his site, Chocolate Alchemy -- see the button link on this blog.

For those asking what they can do, Penny's answer is "I don't know." They're waiting to see what develops as the insurance company takes over and they get into the trailer. Until their stuff gets sorted, they won't know what must be replaced.

WHAT'S STILL NEEDED:

1. Laptop computer (so they can do this blog again on their own), and advice about what to look for in a laptop that needs to run Windows ME, Word, Quicken, Eudora and Opera, and has a large hard drive and a modem, all for less than $500, if possible.

2. Information about cleaning yarn.

BREAKING NEWS:

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, John has a Sebastian-cat sighting! The missing cat is now accounted for.

Also, the goat-kid count is up to nine from six mothers, with at least one mom still loaded

quiet little life in the country. . .

.: 12:43 :.

SUMMARY:
Penny and John’s house caught fire Friday evening, causing extensive heat and smoke damage to the interior and forcing them out for the next several days. The family is OK, but as this essentially happened on the weekend, they’re waiting to find out what’s covered by insurance.
The cause is unknown. The wood stove had a fire going, but the firefighters on scene Friday night said it might have been electrical.
Penny said anyone who has her cell phone number may call her, but the number will not be posted online. Comments on the blog and personal e-mail will not receive immediate response, as they are computerless while in the hotel.

WHAT’S NEEDED:
Able-bodied help sorting through the house to salvage anything not too burned or waterlogged.
Advice about cleaning smoke and soot from books, stuffed animals, clothes, furniture, and especially wool and alpaca yarn. Also, the contact information for professional cleaners expe-rienced in fire and water damage.
Toys, books and other distractions for Logan.
Loan/rental/sale of a notebook computer with a modem.
Loan/rental of an RV or travel trailer to live in on their property while the house is re-paired.

DETAILS:
This update is written by Auntie Cheryl from Florida, based on information told her by Penny and John. John posted it on the blog, and so might update/correct anything Cheryl’s got wrong.

The fire broke out about 9 p.m. Friday, some time during the 30-minute period while John and Logan were picking up Penny from town. The worst of the damage was between the stove and the now-melted stereo. The sofa was reduced to “sofa bones,” Penny said. You can scroll back through past blog entries to find photos of the interior.

The investigation is ongoing. “The firefighters were quite excited figuring it all out,” Penny said. They also told John that the time span between when he got a hose in through a window to start fighting the fire and when they’d have to let it burn to the ground was only two to three minutes. The heat melted a smoke detector upstairs by Logan’s room, and soot covers most everything, including stuff in the cabinets and drawers. The firefighters did say that the dome design is probably the only reason the house is still standing — a standard house would have burned down.

Casualties include at least two cats, with one missing and Narnia, the kitten, recovering at the vet. Sunny-dog is fine and staying with friends. All the house plants were fried, but the fish survive despite a more tropical water temperature for a while. All the farm animals were unharmed — five baby goats, at last count.

The Red Cross put them up at the Sutherlin Regency through Monday. Penny said she didn’t know if they’d keep that as a base, or move to the truck stop closer to home. (John used his heat-warped coffeemaker Sunday at the hotel, but most of their recovered tea smelled sooty.)

Penny and Logan have not returned to the house. Logan, of course, doesn’t grasp the enormity of the situation. John went back Saturday, and said the investigators were on scene, tracing the source of the fire. They were puzzled by one misshapen black lump, unable to figure out its original shape or purpose, until John explained it was a soot-covered rock collected by Penny, and that was the shape it was supposed to be. John took some photos while he looked through the damage.

Their computer wasn’t melted, but the power circuit is blown. This is why e-mail and computer access will be spotty, as they go online through friends’ accounts or from work.

This incident does not mean they intend to leave Oregon or abandon this property. On the bright side, they get to replace the carpet with wood flooring, something they wanted to do later.

There are a lot of unknowns, such as what the insurance will cover, how many of their possessions can be reclaimed, the extent of structural damage to the house, where they will live while it’s repaired and how long it will take to fix the damage.

Stay tuned to the blog for updates. Penny will post as she’s able. If you’re not local to them, please don’t plan to visit — a supportive comment here or a phone call would be nice, when they have the time to catch up with the nonessentials. Most of the e-mail addresses of people they’d want to contact are on the computer in the room without power, so if you know someone who knows them, but who doesn’t read this blog, spread the word.

If you are local and can help, please get in touch with them. Even someone to help watch/distract Logan while the adults get to work on the house might be what’s most needed as the days go by.

Please don’t try to send flowers or money yet — there might not be anyone at the property to receive such things.

PS:
I forgot to add this line (and I don't know how joanna spells her name):

JoAnna took their hamper of dirty (and sooty) laundry, and brought them back a cleaned and folded load of clothes. Thanks, JoAnna!

PPS:
OK, as I hit "send" for the JoAnna lines, I remembered I needed to add this, too. (I obviously didn't read my notes very well.)

While John was at the house Saturday, his boss brought by sandwiches and sodas. John's boss is associated with the firefighters, so when he heard about a dome house ablaze in Oakland, he knew whose home it must be. While there are some essential tasks John must be there to complete, he's under orders not to be at work more than absolutely necessary. Thanks work & Thanks boss Bill!

posted from john's work computer without proofreading - but Cheryl's good.