Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

Apifera Farm is a registered 501 [c][3]. #EIN# 82-2236486

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©Katherine Dunn.





Monday, January 08, 2007

D is for dust















D is a good strong letter. The last name Dunn sounds good as a last name, especially with the multiple syllable name Katherine. I also like the word 'donkey'. Some words are just great words, sounding wise.

If I am not making sense it is because I have dust in my head, lungs and nose. The dust came from ripping up flooring in our kitchen. For two years we have been planning, re-planning, altering plans, giving up, and starting all over again on our kitchen. Hopelessly outdated, and not in a charming way, our kitchen suffered from 1970's bad country style, and to be blunt, a lot of crappy material. I primed all the cupboards when we moved in, just to lighten up the fake looking oak veneer. That was about it. I mean the place had fluorescent lighting...I look yellow much of the day. The cupboards are rotten in areas from leaking drains, the wiring is outdated and dangerous, the flooring was put in over too many layers of other crap so not to be level, and to top it off, they added the wonderful piece -de- resistance of fake brick siding in places.

We spent all weekend over the holidays planning, determined to make a real stick with it plan. And we did. We thought we'd wait until May to begin. But Martyn awoke Saturday and announced casually, "I'm going to rip the floor out, and that wall. So we did. It was marvelous. Hard work, but there is nothing like getting rid of old crap. This house had virgin fir floor boards under bad carpet and two layers of bad linoleum. Surprises any home owner lives for.

It was also good therapy for me. I have been doing quite a bit of letter writing and work on the sub development that has been tentatively given county "preliminary-approval". It is being appealed to the next level, and I have no doubts it will go to the State Court of Appeals. I can't go into more details right now. I go back and forth about writing in detail about this whole thing here- I started my blog with the purpose of sharing stories about my farm, my animals and my art, and the mix of all three. Writing appeal letters and spending time on this whole thing is so draining. It upsets me, it unbalances me, but it is a fight I feel I must put energy into. But for now, I want my blog to be a haven from it, for my sake, selfishly. With the new state legislature now in session, and Democratic majority, we are hoping to get some changes to the original pro-development Measure 37 law that so many voted for without understanding what they were voting for. I have hope that it will make a difference for many sad cases around the county, and hopefully on our road too. We and the neighborhood are not giving up.

So, a new kitchen is on the horizon. With a new layout, and refurbished cabinets, a pantry I don't have to get down on my creaky knees with a flashlight to discover what food I have, mouse proof drawers, new lighting so we won't look jaundice like - and the laundry will be incorporated into it so I don't have to squeeze myself into the basement to do clothes. It will take months, and in between we'll have some lambs and fix some fences and weed lavender and make some art.