To the Gramer Road Residents in Lenox Township, Michigan...

...  Bloody good luck to you, my friends.

I heard yesterday that DTE is building a new substation on Gramer.  It really sucks that these companies can just come in and do as they like, without care or concern to the neighbors, using protections given only to the government by the Constitution.  However, such is life, until the Supreme Court restores homeowner rights. 

Vibroacoustic Disease -- you may want to learn about it.  Depending on the substation, it can be noisy from the hum.

And the doctor wonders why my blood pressure is high.....

The Never-Ending Kitchen -- "new" table

Anyone who knows me, knows no matter how well I plan things, I always end up doing things backwards.  Perhaps I think ahead too far and get ahead of myself?  Jump to my new kitchen table, when we haven't yet remodeled the kitchen.  

The backstory:  My uncle had back surgery in May, and yours truly had nursing duties yet again.  Being over there at my grandparents' old house (and mine for almost 4 years) brought a few things back to mind, not the least of which was the necessity of getting that garage cleaned out.  It was a job my cousin and I were never able to finish (due to said uncle, who also has pack rat tendencies.)  So while he was bemoaning what he couldn't do any more, I was busy planting ideas to make him realize he COULD clean the garage out, with my help -- which lead to this:

It took me almost a month to decide to take this table on.  It was my great-grandparents' kitchen table from the 1950s.  It came to live with my grandparents around 1975, where I remember it as the table in the back kitchen, where we used to fold laundry on it.  In 1991, when my grandparents retired from farming and built the house across the road, it moved over there where Grandma used it as an island in the kitchen.  Of course, it clashed with 1991 country kitchen decor, so she painted the metal off-white and put contact paper on it.  (Cringe but be thankful, folks!)  After Grandma got her real island, it went out into the garage in the corner and held things for the next 25 years, until I rescued it August 12th.

With the paint stripped and contact paper off, it doesn't look half bad, does it?  Once I knew the table was still good -- thanks to the paint and contact paper that protected it, then I was willing to look at the chairs.  Of the 3 chairs -- yes, my great-grandparents only bought 3 chairs with it -- this was the best one.  Grandma mended it with wood-grain contact paper first, then Grandpa with duct tape later.

See what I mean?

And the final results:

Not too shabby, eh?  I'm very proud of it. 

I splurged and bought red cracked ice vinyl to match the top, though the top is faded.  It's about 65-70 years old, I'd guess.  I was asked if I was going to get new laminate for the top.  Heck no!  I want it to look good for its age, not new, and besides, if I had found some vinyl that looked more like the colors in the top, I would have gone with that.  After all, this came out of my grandma's family, and they were the sort of people to make something useful and not worry if it was original or not.  I haven't fixed the leaf yet, but I will. 

Like chair number 4?  My great-grandparents only had 3 chairs because that was what they needed (and had room for), but I had a chair with a cracked seat.  A little extra vinyl, and there I go -- a 4th chair that kinda matches but doesn't. 

If only the rest of the kitchen were this easy......

Another July 4th

I have heard it said that 'one never appreciates the freedoms one has, until those freedoms are gone.'

In the last months since November 2018, I have found that to be true.  Once upon a time, mineral rights meant something.  Now, all a company has to do is go to a judge who will grant them to a company, without compensation to the homeowner.  A pipeline can be put in on a homeowner's land, without permission, within FEET of the house.  Some companies have tried to tunnel gas pipelines UNDER houses.

We homeowners, who live in the bullseye of natural gas, are told to "just sell and leave" if we do not like it.  Easier said than done.  My home will be devalued next year by approximately 30%, by a gas company from Wisconsin, who has no oversight by Michigan because the pipeline only runs through the state.  However, the township I live in, which has been of no assistance, won't lower my taxes.  They will continue to get the same money and more, while I have less of a chance to get out.

Two hundred forty-three years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a now-famous document:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

According to Bluewater, we have no right to life or liberty.  Our lives are not even worth dirt berms and trees, designed to protect the area from explosions by directing the force upwards.  Our liberty does not exist when a company can say, "We will do we want, and you can't stop us."   Until the US Supreme Court returns homeowners' rights to the homeowners, this is the situation.

However, all hope is not lost.  Tuesday the second I was in Lansing with my neighbors, asking the MPSC to intervene however they might be able.   The youtube channel for the MPSC will show you my neighbors were more eloquent than I.  Right before I spoke, the January 30th incident flashed before my eyes and caused me to stutter (though I did mean it when I said I would rather have Consumers behind me than Bluewater.  I mean it with all my heart.)  The MPSC heard us.  They are doing what little they can to assist us with the safety of the plant, and for that I am so very grateful. 

I am sure Bluewater will find a way to punish us for that, but that is the price of freedom.  We signed our names in our blood Tuesday as did the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.   As gruesome as that sounds, it is true.  If Bluewater gets to build their plant like the one on 29 Mile and there's another explosion, it will mean damage and death here.  What do I fear more -- Bluewater's retribution or an explosion?  After all, they seem to like to blow up every 5-6 years.

On Loss, Regret, and Being Grateful

A year ago in June I learned of the passing of one of my chemistry professors in January, a brilliant organic chemist.  His classes were so well-taught I still have the notebooks from 1996.  I still contend that his notes were the best textbook I have ever had.  He would come into class with a 3" x 5" note card with a few lines written on it, pull it out of his pocket, look at it, and back into the pocket the card would go, never to be seen again.  This is the professor who taught me to take notes in color, who once mathematically proved there is such a thing as a no-brainer.  

Just this past week, I learned of the death of another of my chemistry professors.  This one I didn't care for as much, but I liked him as an individual.  His office was across from my research lab, and I grew to appreciate him though I had a hard time understanding his lectures.  He died three weeks after I learned of my organic chem professor's death.  This professor's death hit me rather hard.   Perhaps it was because of the other recent deaths in my family.  Perhaps it was because it was a year before I heard.  Perhaps the fact he was on hospice with the same group as my aunt didn't help, either.  

I realize it has been twenty-one years since I graduated with a BS in Chemistry, but it still hit hard to hear of their deaths.  It also brought to mind an event from some twenty-two years ago.  I was in my physical chemistry professor's office trying to understand something and failing miserably, and in frustration I muttered, "I'm just too dumb to understand this."  I received a several minute lecture from him about how I was only too tired, not dumb, and I shouldn't have to work so hard while a student.  I still remember that tirade today, and it still inspires me today.  Yet I neither thanked him nor told him how that speech has followed me through some dark times.  Until now.  This past week, I wrote to him and thanked him for that speech all those years ago.  Shock of shocks he remembered me, called me an "excellent student", and reiterated that he still felt the same as he did back then.  

Do not wait to tell someone how much they mean to you, or thank someone who has influenced you in your life.  You may not get the chance.

Oakland University's motto is "Seguir virtute e canoscenza", 'seek virtue and knowledge'.  It is from Dante's Inferno.  No matter the degree, it is an apt motto for higher education.  Life will throw many obstacles in one's way.  I could write a book about mine, about those individuals, even at Oakland University, who told me I "wouldn't be hireable".  Today, twenty-one years later, I use my degree every day.  I use classes I never thought I would use, which were not related to my degree.   I am not paid one red cent for using my degree, but I have retained my honor.  In my research in my garden, I answer to myself and not a corporation.  I have no reason to lie to myself.  I also continue to seek knowledge.  I have continued to read, my current book being Crime and Punishment until John Coykendall's book Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories is released this fall.   Higher education isn't about how much money one makes;  It is about improving oneself.   And honestly, I do not know if I would be where I am today, if a physical chemistry distinguished professor hadn't snapped when I called myself dumb.  

Crazy House part 1

In order to forget about the impending demise of several of my sewing machines, I am focusing on my crazy kitchen.  As a little background, I live in a 1976 stick-built trailer with hurricane strapping.  I call it a "trailer" after my neighbor's run-in with the mortgage company who refused to believe it was a real house because it was "too small" to be considered a house.  I was called in to attest to the structure and ended up offering to contact the nephew of the builder before the company would believe me.  Yes, really, a thousand square foot -- 1,000 sq ft -- house is automatically considered to be a trailer by some mortgage companies.  Even my 1460 sq ft house (including the garage which was turned into a room) is considered a trailer on a crawlspace.  Sheesh.

So when Mr. C bought this place in 1999 (with me failing to talk him out of it),  he got a house that he was excited about because "it didn't need any work."  I really shouldn't harass him about saying that, but you really had to be there to see him say it.  I still laugh when I think of how excited he was.  (In interest of full disclosure, the other houses in his price range were worse, with one in particular having 1940s wiring hanging out of the walls in the closets.)

This is what he got:

~over $6,000 (in 2001 money) for a roof (half of roof was rotten with 3 layers of shingles to stop the leaks and not enough roof vents or ventilation);

~ 3 types of siding that leaked in the Fall 2001 winds and rainstorm, and soaked all the drywall on the south wall around the windows;

~ "newer" windows that were neither properly put in nor square, which the siding guys discovered when the siding wouldn't line up right;

~a big gaping hole in the foundation where someone "installed" air conditioning by using a sledge hammer (and yes, the house inspector missed that), and the joist there not only not supported but rotted from inside water damage;

~indoor/outdoor carpet glued to the kitchen and laundry room floors (see water damage);

~washer and dryer and stove and fridge sitting on said joist with no support and rotted from water damage;

~a front door that wouldn't keep the snow out (not square, held by two nails);

~no insulation in most of the outside walls, and only Celotex with holes on it under the siding.  The story is that a tornado came through and damaged the house right after it was built.

This is only a partial list.  No one can say we haven't learned about fixing others' mistakes.  (Main beam, anyone? Or the never-ending mice issues? The alcohol bottle collection under the house?)  We've learned that lesson to the tune of $40,000, and we're not done yet. 

So here we are, 20 years later, having lived with stuff most people never would (like original carpeting), and now we can do some more much-needed work because he doesn't want to move after the "Event."  Now it is time for the kitchen and laundry room to be dealt with.  That story will be the next post.  

More Natural Gas

In my previous post, I wrote this:

However, after almost 19 years of living in the shadow of the natural gas industry, and after the night of August 10, 2016, downplaying the fear is no longer an option.  Either I leave and get far away, or I stay and fight.  If I stay and remain silent, then I lose all rights to redress when something happens.  (Not "if" something happens, "when.") 

"When" became a reality on January 30, 2019.

That fire was approximately 1500 ft from my house, and the explosion from the second vent stack lighting on fire damaged the picture window (yes, really, this one), put cracks in the drywall, and oh, the structural inspector found a cracked joist.  We are working with Consumers to get things fixed, though at first they tried to pawn us off on our insurance company.  Consumers wants things fixed sooner than can be, as this is not the weather to replace a window in.  Besides that, it is difficult to find someone to do the job, as there is a shortage of contractors, etc.  (God help you if you need a plumber, as we found out the hard way!)  

Since this incident, which affected the entire state of Michigan, multiple people have expressed to me the hope that Consumers would buy us out.  (Most of these people don't know about the new station behind us, courtesy Bluewater Gas aka WEC Energy.)  Imagine their surprise when I explain we live what is considered a "safe distance" from the plant, and they will not buy us out.  Natural gas wells only have to be off a residence about 300 ft, and in Washington Township, there are houses that sit on top of the wells, and yes, folks, that is considered safe.

Lesson #1 about the Natural Gas Industry :  If you live around natural gas, you are expendable.

Lesson #2 about the Natural Gas Industry : If you find politicians willing to help you, support them.  They are extremely rare.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the Gas War revving up again.  Eleven days before January 30th, I wrote and sent a letter to my representative and both senators in Congress about the concerns with Bluewater Gas.  The gist of it was my findings that twice Bluewater built new places, and within 5-6 years both suffered major incidents.  They are too quick to throw a place up and then *BOOM* --something happens.  Both times, it was relatively simple causes involving cut corners, if you catch my drift.

So I sent my letters off to one Republican and two Democrats, and waited.  I thought I knew who would answer and who wouldn't -- and I was utterly and completely wrong.  Representative Mitchell, to this point, is the only one who has called back and has offered any kind of support.   Neither Senator Stabenow or Senator Peters can be bothered, apparently.  I suppose I should have seen that coming after Kelo vs. City of New London, Connecticut, 2005 (US Supreme Court).   Basically, anything deemed "public good" trumps homeowner rights.  That is not exactly the way the case reads, but that is what it has become.  (Thank you, Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer.  I can only hope that one day your ruling comes home to roost in your backyards.)

This is where things stand right now.  Still gone 4 days a week; Still dealing with my aunt and other issues.  Since the explosion my wonderful Mr. Claraspet is finally on board for fixing up and redoing the kitchen (yes, you will all get treated to my crazy kitchen with the 1976 cupboards.)  Still working on finding a few more machines homes.  Still hoping I will have a garden this year.  Still hoping that the Bluewater nightmare goes away.  As Padre Pio used to say, "Pray, hope, and don't worry."  I am trying.