The Litle House

This is what I call my ‘studio’. I go here everyday, every season, weather, and temperature. It is my ‘Litle House’. It is my home away from home.

When my ‘garden’ adventures turned into more massive undertakings requiring more utensils and tools for cutting, digging, moving, lifting, spraying, etc. and there was no place in my house to store all this stuff.

I’d stored the electric mower in a small space under the house but didn’t have any space to stack the formidable growing handled rakes and shovels and hoes. The hand tools (powered or not) began to fill buckets then trashcans for there was no convenient place to put them.

So, as the story goes, after cutting down a 12’ row of bushes that divided the yard from the alley, a trip to the Hanover Building site in Hanover Country, a selection, a contract and a check signed and a large flatbed truck backed up into the yard and slide this 10 x 20 foot building onto cinder blocks. The plywood floor was painted brown and then everything poured into it. The little porch was a good shady respite to cool down from the fieldwork.

An electrical line was run out to the Litle House with an outside outlet for the extension cords, lights and pumps. Eventually a television was brought out and a drawing board and storage bins and the bikes. Window fans cooled the hot days and a space heater kept the windows from frosting over.

As the interior of the house continued to change, refuge was found outside. Slowly books and records were brought out and stored so room could be made for boxes and chairs and sofas and shelves and tables, etc. inside.

The digital age put up the t-squares and triangles and the desktop publishing computer and modem became the new tools of late night work. In the darkness of a single light bulb the second office was used for management reports impossible to prepare during the day while inside the menagerie was entertained by volumes of DVD binge watching and wine. Some night’s work ended at sunrise.

At the same time, email and social media became a daily ritual and ideas lead into memoirs and fantasy stories that lead to an establishment of a blog. Musical instruments were brought out and homemade basic recordings were uploaded to websites.

Since then many things have been thinned out to make space and organized to find. The Litle House has it’s own storage house behind for still more stuff that isn’t used all the time. After a robbery, the ponies are kept inside under lock and key and out of the elements. The boom box is permanently tuned to NPR with cassette and CD options. The same old TV hands on the wall. The clock is one hour behind but will catch up in the fall. The little refrigerator keeps the salads and beer cold until it is unplugged and the space heater plugged in. Since it is also the dining room, the hot sauce and black pepper stand ready along with the stapler for the monthly preparation of the bills.

Every morning after a cup of dirty water and some soap in my mouth, I am propelled into the world. With empty refrigerator and cabinets bare, it is time to pull out one of the ponies, check the atmosphere of the neighborhood before taking off to the Tummy Temple to restock and rotate the old bones. Once back and spreading out the buffet for my neighbors, I go into the Litle House as my base camp. Some days are just writing and reading. Some days are sweating in the yard listening to the sound of children and dogs then taking refuge back inside. Some days I have little feathered visitors. Some days are just lost on hefty men running up and down a green pitch knocking down each other between selling big trucks.

How will this routine change as the bones get older and the movement slower? I have no idea but for now it is relaxing to sit on a hard high chair covered in a blanket and a cushion looking out a small window as the sun’s shadows drape what should normally happen if I was not here.

She has held up pretty well except for some chew marks from the knurly ones. A few patches here and there and another coat of paint is on my ‘to-do’ list but it hasn’t happen yet. Even in the dusty spider webs and the foggy windows and skylights, this is the room. Everyone can only do one thing at a time in one room. If it is the kitchen, that is your room. If it is your in-house office, that is your room. If it is your man’s land room or your sewing room or ironing room or craft room or bedroom; that is your room.

There are plans to get a Plexiglas sign (after the painting of course) to name this building “nimrodstudios”. Until then, it is my refuge until dark when I’ll lock up and go back to the big house to turn off the porch light and rock in the darkness and quiet.