I’ve been in a rather strange mood lately. Perhaps I’m a bit batty after seven months of feeling like I’m staging a magazine spread rather than living in my home (if you’ve ever sold a house, you understand what I mean!). It’s been enough to drive a perfectionist crazy – constantly rotating spice bottles so they’re label side out, wiping water droplets off surfaces that are normally allowed to get wet, hiding things I use every day only to drag them back out again . . . you get the idea.

And as each month goes by, I get a little more obsessive, a little more determined to have every atom in place, preferably with electron clouds spinning in sync.

Even though this current arrangement is getting a little insane, I do enjoy organizing things. My grocery list is categorized, my forks all point the same way, and then there are my bookshelves. I’m the daughter of a bookstore manager, so really I have little choice but to divide hardbacks from paperbacks, sort by genre, and arrange alphabetically by author’s last name (What? You mean you don’t?). It’s in my blood.

One afternoon, in yet another flurry of cleaning for a house showing, I had had enough of this stiff, nitpicky existence. Before I knew it, I had swept every single book to the floor in a heap – fiction landing on nonfiction, Hemingway tangling with Cornwell – it was scandalous!

Having recently re-watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I feel a certain kinship with Roy as he throws shrubbery through the kitchen window in a fit of creative obsession. Books flew through the air, some landed on shelves, my face grew smudged with dust, and when I finally stepped back, I surveyed my creation – a rainbow.

Now, I realize that arranging my books R.O.Y.G.B.I.V. is no less perfectionistic (nobody said I was giving that up!). But as I looked at the rainbow, I was struck by one very distinct difference – this arrangement made me feel happy. The practical arrangement made sense, yes, but why not arrange the little details of our lives in a way that makes us feel joyful?

I mean, who doesn’t love rainbows? I loved it so much I went and did the same thing to my clothes closet.

It’s kind of a silly thing, but I can’t adequately express how wonderful it is to walk into my office and be greeted with a rainbow. That bookshelf full of dry, practical stuff is now a piece of colorful art. And from a home-staging standpoint, the colors draw attention away from the personal book titles, giving the whole thing wider appeal.

Books that lend knowledge now also add beauty. And, incidentally, I’ve yet to have trouble finding a book (turns out, it’s pretty easy to remember what color they are). I love it!

Related posts:

• Lightening the Load

You know, normally I try to view life’s little mishaps as opportunities to laugh, but with my house on the market, I feel like a walking disaster! One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to go “paperless,” so I’ve been spending a lot of time scanning and shredding paperwork, which also means I’ve been spending time oiling and repairing my poor overworked paper shredder. The other night, I took it apart and laid the oily parts (carefully, I thought!) on a plastic bag on the floor. Boy, did I ever mess up!

The bag was flimsy, and before I knew what was happening, a big oil stain had soaked its way into my hardwood floors. Now, I just had my floors refinished about three years ago, so after I snapped out of my trance of disbelief (isn’t the whole point of floor finishing to protect the wood from spills?), I scrambled to find answers on how to remove this oil stain.

First I dashed off a few e-mails to my Today’s Homeowner gurus, which were answered with, “Um, it doesn’t sound promising.” Undaunted, I went to the paint department a big box home improvement store, and was answered with “It doesn’t sound promising.” Ever optimistic, I went to my favorite little local hardware store, and FINALLY, someone was able to tell me, “Um, it doesn’t sound promising.”

Since I never believe anything until my knuckles are bleeding, I went home armed with some solvent, dish soap, and a scrubby sponge. I attacked the stain until I, too, could say with confidence that it doesn’t look promising! The solvents didn’t do a thing, but the soap and water had some success. After much scrubbing, the stain is a little lighter, but so is my floor finish, and I eventually had to stop before I turned a small stain into a huge worn spot (with a stain in the middle).

So what happened? All the experts I consulted agreed with me that a well-finished floor shouldn’t have stained like that. Well, I’ll tell you what happened – in typical Julie fashion, a perfect storm of well intentioned, but imperfect decisions came together:

1. When I refinished my floors, I opted for water-based clear polyurethane. It gives a lighter, brighter finish than oil-based finishes, but it’s less durable. Trust me, it’s less durable.
2. I didn’t check to make sure how many coats the floor guys applied. I hired the floor company six months into a backbreaking renovation, and I was just grateful that someone besides me was in charge. Once they fired up their big sander, I headed for a hot bath faster than you can say “DIY Floor Refinishing Is For The Birds.”
3. In setting up my home office, I neglected to put down any floor protection under my desk. I spend a lot of time in my office, and my rolling desk chair had worn off the finish just enough for the oil to soak right in.

So there you have it – all of my mistakes offered in hopes that you can have a better experience. In the days since my scrub-a-rama, I’ve had to resort to feeling grateful that it isn’t the WORST flaw in my 60-year-old floors, it’s simply the newest one.

So far, it doesn’t seem to be affecting the sale of my house (which just went under contract!), so I’m just holding my breath and trying not to spill anything else.

Related posts:

• How to Remove Water Stains from Furniture
• How to Repair a Scratch or Gouge in a Hardwood Floor
• Problems Sanding and Refinishing Heart Pine Wood Floors

Over by the fence, I’ve got a little compost pile (or, if you’d rather, a “’possum buffet”), where I toss veggie scraps, leaves, branches, leftover bits of potting soil, handfuls of deadheaded blossoms, and whatever else I happen to be hauling around. It’s pretty much hidden from view, so this year I decided to challenge myself to compost everything I can. See, sometimes I get in a hurry, and before I realize it I’ve tossed the cutting board scraps into the trash, or cleaned out the pantry and slam-dunked an old loaf of bread still in the wrapper. I try to remember, but I’m a person who likes systems, and this was a project in need of a system.

A side dish of garbage!

Habits are hard to break, but in my house I’m finally making some progress by introducing a new dish to the work island: the Garbage Bowl. It’s a big, old stainless-steel bowl whose sole purpose is to catch compostable scraps – if I’m chopping veggies for soup, the entire veggie gets chopped, and the good parts get scooped into the soup pot, and the peelings get raked into the garbage bowl.

Nothing goes into the trash, and my obsessive-compulsive brain loves the sight of the two neat bowls, one with garbage, and the other with dinner. In addition, thanks to the garbage bowl, I finally have a place to drop a gooey eggshell, to dump the coffee filter, and to toss my tea bag, all tasks – by the way – that normally leave a drippy mess on the way to the trash bin.

The garbage bowl is a very simple solution that reminds me that I can compost a lot more than I think I can – it’s made all the difference in the kitchen. And in addition to convenience, the garbage bowl has a couple of other wonderful qualities: 1) it’s ugly and 2) it stinks.

Those qualities work together to remind me to EMPTY the garbage bowl every day, and as it turns out, actually putting the scraps into the compost pile is a critical step toward making compost! I’m not sure how my neighbors feel about it, but I’m coming to love the satisfying whang! of knocking that steel bowl against the tree to dislodge the coffee grounds, and I love watching the scraps turning into earth for the garden. The system is working!

Related posts:

• Benefits of a Compost Bin in Your Kitchen

The most common questions I’m asked have to do with pruning – or, as we say around here, “Can I just whack it, or what?” No matter the season, everybody wants to know if (and how) they should cut back overgrown plants. And who can blame them? What’s more satisfying than physically taming a wasteland, stepping back from a perfectly-shaped behemoth, surveying a mountain of conquered brush and vines, and wiping a forehead laced with scratches?

I always feel like such a party pooper when I offer all of my standard cautions – “If you cut that now, you’ll cut off next spring’s flowers . . . you’ll invite disease . . . you’ll cause a flush of growth that will be killed by the cold . . . .” It seems like I’m always advising against cutting plants back.

Well, here we are in late winter, and for once in the year, when asked if it’s a good time to prune, the answer is “Yes!” For many shrubs and trees, late winter/early spring is a great time to do large-scale pruning and rejuvenating. The bare branches will be easier to see, wounds will heal with less risk of disease, and plants won’t respond with the same crazy flush of growth that they would have during the growing season. It isn’t perfect for every plant of course, but if you’re only going to prune once a year, now’s a good time.

Poor spindly thing!

Taking advantage of the season and a rare warm day, I headed outdoors with my pruning shears in the hopes of cutting back my Lady Banks’ rose. What I found were the startling consequences of not practicing what I preach! You see, my Lady Banks’ rose grows faster than kudzu, and all last summer and fall I was constantly (against my own better judgment) cutting back the large branches that threatened to overtake the side entrance of my house. I knew I shouldn’t be pruning so late in the season, but I did it anyway – my house has been on the market, and I was willing to take risks in order to keep things looking neat.

What I found, here in late winter, was that my rose was covered in tender, shriveled dead growth. In response to pruning last fall, the plant had sent out a flush of very soft tendrils, and the freezing winter weather zapped them dead. To make things worse, the damage wasn’t just to the new growth – the entire plant was stressed. In fact, as I was working on the plant, almost every leaf fell off, leaving a very naked, cold-looking vine against my porch column. I very sadly did a much larger pruning than I had intended, to try to encourage the plant to start afresh in spring, then I swept up all those fallen leaves and entertained both the chagrin of disobeying my own advice and the satisfaction that my advice had indeed been correct!

If I had to learn this lesson, I’m glad I learned it with Lady Banks, because I think she has a good chance of a spring recovery. I have, however, filed this away in my brain under the category of “Lessons Learned From Mistakes,” because those are the lessons that stick the best. This year I’ll keep my pruning shears under control!

Further Information

• When To Trim Trees and Shrubs
• Basic Shrub Pruning Techniques

Related posts:

• Lady Banks Rose Update
• Growing a Lady Banks Rose
• Can I Plant Trees and Shrubs in Late Fall or Winter?

Given the pattern, I really should have been prepared for anything from earthquakes to temporary paralysis. Nevertheless, I was rendered nearly speechless when I crawled under the Christmas tree to add water, and I found the floor underneath the tree littered with what appeared to be ticks. There were dozens of them. Meandering around, looking bewildered and hungry, slowly spreading out across the living room. Ticks . . . you gotta be kidding me!

I wish I had a photo to show you, but frankly I pulled out the vacuum cleaner faster than Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. And then I reached for the tick spray and gave that tree the dose of a lifetime. In a couple of days, my house would be full-to-bursting with houseguests, and my organic sensibilities were overrun by the fear of spreading a little Lyme Disease with my Christmas cheer!

The next day—after one more pass with the vacuum—the problem seemed to be under control, but it was quite a while before I found the time to face (and to learn about) what had happened. I’d never heard of ticks being in a Christmas tree, but, as my life has proved over and over, anything’s possible.

Meet the Cinara Aphid

Before you become infected with my panic and throw your Christmas tree on the curb, I’d better hurry up and clue you in on the punch line – it turns out they weren’t ticks at all. In fact:

• Ticks don’t live in trees, and they don’t lay eggs in trees. They dehydrate too easily, so they stay closer to the moist ground. They aren’t found in Christmas trees, period.
• Ticks need live animal hosts, so it would be impossible for them to multiply and infest a tree without a food source. It doesn’t fit with their life cycle or habitat.
• Ticks spread by clinging to and falling off hosts – they don’t swarm or form colonies.

While tree growers look for infestation, it can be difficult to spot on a large farm.

So what CAN multiply and infest a tree? Cinara aphids, also known as Conifer aphids, that’s what. Here are a few facts about the little critters:

• They’re harmless. That’s right, harmless. They feed on trees, not animals, and they don’t bite or carry diseases. For us humans, they’re nothing more than a nuisance.
• As I can testify, they look almost exactly like ticks, with their brownish-black, flat, round bodies and short legs. The dead giveaway, though, is that Cinara aphids have only six legs, while ticks have eight. You can see what they look like at BugGuide.net.
• They even leave a purple-red smear when you smush them (believe me, I smushed plenty of them).
• They feed on trees and infest pines, firs, and other conifers, making Christmas trees vulnerable.
• They can infest only one tree in a large area, so the tree grower may not know about them.

Aphids are no match for the vacuum – just be sure to throw away the bag.

What If My Tree Has Aphids?

If you’re like me and unknowingly bought a Christmas tree infested with aphids, not to worry! It really isn’t that difficult to deal with them. Try these tips:

• Shake your tree before bringing it inside, to dislodge as many as possible. You can also rinse your tree with mild soapy water and allow it to dry outdoors. Aphids are soft-bodied insects that are easily washed away.
• If your tree is badly infested, don’t be afraid to take it back to the tree lot. The grower should identify and understand aphid infestation and exchange it for a healthy tree.
• Inspect trees before you buy them. Look along the tips of branches and also deep within the tree – the aphids move to more protected branches as the weather gets colder.
• Vacuum up any critters that make it onto your floor. I only found them right under the tree – they didn’t travel far, and most of them were dead or barely moving. They really were easy to control – my only panic was because I thought they were ticks!
• Don’t squish them – they’ll stain your carpet or floors.
• You can treat your tree using a room fogger or insecticidal soap, if you wish.

Further Information

• Cinara Aphids on Christmas Trees in North Carolina (NC State University)
• Rogues’ Gallery of Post-Harvest Pests (NC State University)
• Pests on Christmas Trees (NC Christmas Tree Association, PDF 144kb)
• Insect Pests on Christmas Trees (Iowa State University)
• Buy a Real Christmas Tree! (University of Florida)
• How to Select and Care For a Live Christmas Tree
• Christmas Tree FAQ

This winter, I’ve been hard at work in the evenings making crocheted snowflakes, a family tradition made famous many years ago by my grandmother and her sister. My grandmother was one of ten children, and I do believe the entire family tree is decorated with their crocheted snowflakes and angels every Christmas! As I struggle to get the hang of the tiny stitches, I remember how Grandma and Aunt Daisy could turn them out by the dozen, often making them up as they went along.

Grandma’s angel.

I’ve always loved to do things with my hands, but this year I’m especially savoring the chilly evenings by the fire and twinkling Christmas tree, working busily on something beautiful. No computer, no phone, sometimes an old movie and sometimes just silence – as the thread loops and twists, my thoughts straighten out into one long appreciation of the simple life. My ancestors didn’t have it easy, but they had a sense of fun, beauty, and family that holds us together to this day.

After decades of enjoyment, this year the old snowflakes are finally beginning to show their age, losing their stiffness and looking grimy from years of hands. Thanks to the modern connective threads of the digital age, cousins are exchanging a flurry of instructions for washing, starching, and blocking the snowflakes to restore their shape and sparkle. I like to think of all these cousins, each in their kitchens, carefully preserving our heritage. And I’m enjoying adding some of my own to the collection, hopefully in fine family style.

The other night, I was getting dressed to go out for the evening when I heard the most ominous sound a homeowner can hear: Drip . . . Drip. To my chagrin, a rivulet of water was making its way down the bathroom wall and dripping off the chair rail.

Within seconds I was in the attic, crawling around the ceiling joists with a flashlight (not an easy thing to do in heels, I might add), trying to trace the water back to the source of the leak. Turns out, there was not one but SIX leaks, scattered here and there around the attic! Eight, if you count the steam coming out of my ears as I dove around with plastic buckets.

I’m a woman trying to sell a house, I have a showing in less than 24 hours, it’s pitch dark and raining frogs and toadstools, and my roof has taken on the characteristics of a kitchen colander. I’m covered in insulation dust, I’m expected at a holiday party in five minutes, I’m almost out of buckets, and a new roof is NOT on my Christmas list!

I couldn’t do anything more about it right then, but as soon as the sun came out the next day, I hauled out my rickety old extension ladder (lovingly dubbed “The Widowmaker”) and headed up to investigate the roof.

Roof leaks are tricky buggers – water can sneak under a broken shingle at one end and snake its way along the underlayment before seeping into your attic someplace else. Once in the attic, it can follow pipes and joists for long distances before finally dripping onto your ceiling.

To add insult to injury, sometimes it only happens when it’s raining hard, or the wind is just right, or you had eggs for breakfast. And don’t get me started on the fact that something supposed to repel water is made from thousands of individual pieces – full of nail holes attaching them to something that rots when it gets wet!

Anyway, I headed up to the roof armed with measurements to locate the drips, but I knew that the problems could be anywhere.

How to Find a Roof Leak

My roofing experience is rather limited, but I did know enough to:

          Seal exposed nails.

Start at the Source

Using landmarks such as edges and vents, I was able to locate the areas of roof directly outside the wet spots. I was looking for loose, broken, raised, or bent shingles, pulled-out nails, and any other damage.

Question the Obvious Suspects

When shingle damage didn’t explain everything, I moved on to inspect the parts of the roof most likely to spring a leak:

  Seal around plumbing vents.

• Plumbing and furnace vents
• Chimneys
• Roof valleys
• Skylights
• Ice dams
• Seams where shingles meet flashing, framing, or masonry
• Satellite dishes and antennas
• Ridge vents

Simulate a Rainstorm

Using a water hose, you can systematically test each section of roof to try to find out where the water’s coming from. For the time being, I decided to skip this step. Wet shingles are dangerously slick, and my relationship with the Widowmaker is tentative at best! I’ll come back to this if I need to.

                                          Seal joints on ridge vents.

Armed and Dangerous

Armed with enough roof cement to glue together a warship, my investigation yielded answers that were, as they say, “clear as mud.” I found:

• Bent and exposed flashing around the plumbing vent, an easy fix. One down, five to go!

• A small hole in a shingle, probably caused by those wicked walnuts. Two accounted for! Moving on.


    Patched damaged shingle.

• Here’s where the whole operation took a bad turn. The other leaks weren’t so easy. I crawled all over that roof and found nothing out of place, although I added some sealant under any suspicious shingles just in case.

  Finally (it’s always the last place you look) I discovered that the sealant on the ridge vent had completely disintegrated, leaving the seams wide open and many of the nails uncovered. Somebody (not me) had used silicone, which eventually broke down over time.

  The ridge vent had become a virtual funnel, which would explain the sudden appearance of so many drips in different places. I sealed that thing like it was the space shuttle!

                                  My freshly repaired plumbing vent.

Watching the Skies

Having attacked the roof like a tar-coated ninja, I slowly backed away and am now waiting for confirmation that it worked. We’re forecast to have rain tonight, so I’ll be spending the evening in the attic with a flashlight, daring the roof to spring another leak.

It better not, that’s all I have to say! You’ve heard that saying about a “woman scorned”? Well, that’s nothing compared to the fury of a woman in a freezing attic on a dark night, jockeying buckets like bowling balls.

Further Information

• How to Find Roof Leaks in Your Home (video)
• How to Repair the Roof on Your Home (video)
• How to Clean and Inspect Your Roof (video)
• Leak-Proof Flashing: Fixing Leaks Around Chimneys (article)

Related posts:

• Combining an Attic Vent Fan with a Roof Ridge Vent
• How to Repair the Roof on Your Home
• How to Find Roof Leaks in Your Home

Greetings from the Crystal Coast! We’re down here at Emerald Isle, North Carolina, this week, and I’ll tell you what, the beach is a perfect place to spend the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ve got family, friends, turkey, and pumpkin pie. We’ve also got sand, waves, dolphins, and rocking chairs. The weather’s mild and the island is nearly deserted. I’ve been reading, writing, walking, visiting, and eating, but honestly it’s hard to fit much in between naps.

My family has a tradition of eclectic Thanksgivings. We have our traditional family gathering on the Sunday before the holiday, leaving the long weekend open for whims, trips, friends, and adventures. We might be camping, or throwing a party, or eating out, or traveling. We might have a big to-do or not do much at all. I love these holidays – I never know what’s going to happen!

This year, we’ve got a beach house for the week, with more family arriving as the days progress. By Thursday we’ll have a house full for a blowout feast. In the meantime, as I said, there is a full napping itinerary – I’d better get back to it. Happy Thanksgiving to all, wherever you may be!

Related posts:

• Getting Ready for Thanksgiving
• Getting ready for the Holidays!

This morning, I’d like to be pondering the many ways that gardening increases our sense of beauty, harmony, and self-sufficiency—especially as we move into the quiet starkness of winter—except that my thoughts are completely blasted to bits by the three (yes, three) backpack leaf-blowers hard at work in the neighbor’s yard. And after they finish relocating every leaf, twig, and gnat within a half-mile radius; they’ll come back with a truckload of store-bought, triple-ground, hardwood mulch to spread underneath all those now-chilly trees and shrubs.

Oh, wait. Now, the three leaf-blowers are standing in a circle, aiming a cloud of leaves at a huge riding lawn mower, which is spinning in circles (shredding and vacuuming the leaves, I guess) like a dancing elephant in a tutu made of greenhouse gases. Sorry, I’m entranced – or rather, assaulted – by this display, not to mention the noise. The only thing that could make this better is if, after they’re finished, they all go to the gym to work out those muscles that could have been used to pull a rake.

I’m not a totally unplugged gardener—at least, not yet—although I’m happiest with tools that don’t scare away the birds. But it’s so easy to get caught up in chores and tasks and forget our actual purpose, to let our desire for things to be “just right” distract us from the rightness of things just as they are.

In the fall, the leaf crusade is only the beginning. In just a few weeks, the holiday season will kick into high gear, inviting us—if we’re not careful—to work ourselves silly while completely missing the point.

Thankfully, nature reminds us of our purpose with quite a sense of humor, if we just get outdoors and look around. In fact, nature is laughing right now, in the form of a breeze that is fluttering bright yellow mulberry leaves down onto that perfect green lawn next door.

Related posts:

• Don’t Forget the “Curb” in Curb Appeal

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.”

With the end of daylight saving time this weekend, the idea of “precious sunshine” really hit home as I set out for an evening walk and found that it was already pitch-dark outside! Thankfully, the route is so familiar that I don’t need to see the low-slung tree branches in order to duck under them.

This is the time of year when the days are so bright and crisp you can’t stand to be inside, then evening arrives like a light switch to remind you to savor the sunshine while you can. This dark evening, I didn’t waste any time – I piled the logs on the fireplace to fill the house with warmth and light, my own tiny little sun to chase away the cold.

It’s not quite the same, but if you add in some hot cider and wool socks, it’s not a bad trade. If the sun’s out, you’ll find me outside, and if I can’t be outside, at least I’ll be cozy.