This is going to sound ridiculous, but the greatest delight I felt this week was the result of removing a gutter downspout. I imagine that'll sound weird to some folks, so let's see if I can tell you! Because there's a great potential for joy and empowerment here.
We have a couple of rain barrels under one of our downspouts. I use rainwater to top up my wee half-barrel pond, fill our bird baths & deer water station, and water my garden. We're about to double this setup so that we have more water on hand for emergencies.
Why was I removing the downspout, though? Well, our house is 3 stories tall and has a metal roof. James tried to clean the roof and gutters once. Watching his feet skid repeatedly out from under him like he was on ice as he tried to catch his lost grip on the roof was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen, so we hire pros to climb on the roof now.
I realized I'd need to do something about the water barrels for this year's cleaning so that rotting organic material in the gutters wouldn't wash into my barrels and funk up the water. At first I thought I'd just tuck a tarp between the spout and barrel so the muck could cascade away. When I looked, however, I found that there wasn't enough clearance – the downspout fits very close to the barrel, so debris washing down was going to collect and jam. The downspout was going to need to come off entirely for the cleaning.
Should I ask the gutter guys to take it apart? Eh, I'm sure they could, but it's not what I'd hired them for. Should I ask James to do it? I could, and he would, but the barrels had been my idea and I'm the one who uses them, so I didn't love putting this on his list. I imagine that my friend who used to used to design and build gutter systems might chime in her to let me know he'd be glad to help, and: thank you, dear! I thought of you, too! But I also thought I could figure it out, and that this would be good to try.
I was, life going the way it often does, setting about this task after my first morning yoga class on the day the gutters were due to be cleaned. The screws holding the downspout were unfamiliar to me, with flat edges and a center slot. The center slot was easy, so I got my screwdriver and set to work on removing the bottom segment of the spout. Got the screws out, but the segments didn't want to separate; the metal was curled inward where the screw fit. As I considered this I realized there wasn't enough clearance between the spout and barrel filter for me to give a good yank downward anyway.
Take two! I went inside, got a stepstool, and tried again higher on the downspout. Got one screw off. The screw on the other side, facing the wind that comes in off the water, was rusty. I couldn't even see if it had a slot! I went back inside and got my headlamp, but: still too rusty to tell if there was a slot. I was going to need to figure out the weird edges of the screws situation, which were clearly designed to be another way to remove the screw.
Went inside again, got my keys, came out, opened up the shop. I used one of the screws I'd already removed to hunt for the right bit. Tried the mini bit set first: nope! Too small. Dug around in the boxes of screwdriver bits, found one that fit. For the mechanically inclined: it was a slotted hex washer head sheet metal screw, so I just needed a hex bit, but I didn't know what that was at that point!
Take three! I almost grabbed a drill, but decided first to see if the bit would work in my screwdriver because screwing by hand with less power meant I was less likely to damage the gutter. The bit did fit my screwdriver! That is a universal part! Basic knowledge for some folks, an exciting discovery for me.
Got back up on my stepstool with my tool. Got one screw out. The other spun without any forward motion, having rusted too much around the hole to grip. I moved up another joint on the downspout, got both screws out, gave it a tug and: Tadum! Downspout was in my hand. I put a trash bag over my barrel, stowed the spout in the garage until the roof and gutter cleaning was done and then ran inside
and jumped on James in bed. I was so excited! It was a delight to tell him all of the various little snags I'd solved along the way and the things I'd learned in doing so. I was all the more pleased because I could see the places where a younger me would have given up and handed off the job. James validated what I learned from years of watching him learn the systems of our boat when we lived aboard: so much of repairing/assembling/disassembling anything is perseverance.
Capitalism trains us out of perseverance, tells us that any problem that isn't immediately easy to solve is something to hire someone else for. Classism affirms this, tells us that manual labor is a waste of time, something that we should cease doing as soon as we can afford to hire someone else to do it so that we can have... well, it used to be leisure time but now it's just more freaking time to work?! Patriarchy trains women out of this: tools are for men; get a dude to handle things for you. This robs us of the empowerment of learning and the delight of problem solving, stunting our capacities for creative thinking and perseverance. Solving problems, making things, taking things apart: this is so much fun! Creativity, knowledge, and the capacity to persevere through frustration: all of these are superpowers which enrich our living. Removing the downspout: super mundane; also, lovely preparation and training for solving other kinds of problems.
I love creative problem solving in my work. Several regular attendees of my Workshops for Living are finding that they can't make the Saturday morning Gatherings live. The Gatherings are recorded, but it can be hard to motivate to watch a recorded event, so we'll be adding two things to the Workshop which begins this Saturday: The Story of Belonging. One new feature will be a study buddy system: folks who can't make a Saturday Gathering can buddy up with someone who can make it for discussion. This gives the person who didn't make it incentive for watching, the person who did attend a chance to review; both get the joy of connecting. The second new feature will be small group discussions led by me. We've got folks 3 hours earlier and 3 hours later than my Pacific time zone so we'll be aiming for variety in times. If not being able to make it on Saturday mornings has felt like an obstacle to you, I hope that these new options for connection and participation sound inviting! I'm excited to have new layers to explore.
Okay. Having completed this, I now get to try to assemble my new dual chamber spinning compost bin. Wish me luck!
Love,
Dahlia
Adventures in creative problem solving, clockwise from top left: using the pole saw to cut the branches rats were using to climb from the neighbors' chicken barn to our workshop, using leftover boat upholstery fabric and upholstery tacks to cover the top of a cheap secondhand stool for my standing desk, embroidering over a hole in James' favorite hoodie, pruning a rosemary bush, and painting the bedroom. Goodness I love to make and do.
Resources
Vast Creation
Do you like earthworks? Site-specific artworks made from natural materials bring me tremendous joy. Recently I learned of an astonishing one: Charles Ross' Star Axis, which he's been working on for 50 years and which is near completion. His website says: "Built with earth, granite, sandstone, stainless steel, and bronze, Star Axis is 11 stories high and 1/10th mile across. Star Axis has five main elements. The Star Tunnel is precisely aligned with Earth's axis. Here the viewer can walk through layers of celestial time, making visible the 26,000-year cycle of precession, Earth's shifting alignment with the stars. The Solar Pyramid marks the daily and seasonal movements; its collected shadows over the course of a year drawing the shape of the Shadow Field. From inside the Hour Chamber you can view one hour of Earth's rotation, and from inside the Equatorial Chamber you can observe the stars that travel directly above the equator."
There was a fantastic article about it in the NY Times this summer if you'd like to learn more: gift link.
Protection
As the politicization of science has made people skeptical of medical care, vaccination rates of all sorts have dropped. I find this tragic because we're also in the midst of a beautiful deluge of research on the benefits of vaccination. Did you know, for instance, that people who get flu shots have 40% less risk of Alzheimer's disease than people who don't? I'm looking forward to getting my seasonal shots soon and getting those sweet, wide-ranging benefits for my long term health!
The coolest thing is that this isn't a rare result. An article in arstechnica.com about a hypothesis on the mechanism afoot notes that "Shots seasonal flu, RSV, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap), pneumococcal infections, hepatitis A and B, and typhoid have all been linked to lower risks" of dementia." and the explanation for why might substantially change our understanding of the immune system – that article explains it! Super cool.
A Gripping Read, Listen, and Watch
This summer on our annual road trip to camp in the old growth redwoods, James and I listened to the audiobook for qntm's sci-fi novel There is No Antimimetics Division. Actress Rebecca Calder is the voice actor for this, and her work is incredible! We were absolutely riveted. The premise of the book is that there are entities who have developed, for self-defense, the capacity to consume information about themselves. Some of the entities are powerful. How would humanity go about fighting an entity that eats information about itself?! This makes for an incredible story with an ingenius narrative structure.
We purchased this audiobook from Chirp. Chirp sells audiobooks. That's it! No subscription like with the behemoths. I love a library, but sometimes don't want to wait for a library book. With Chirp you can buy the audiobook you want to listen to – and they have lots of very inexpensive books, too.
We loved this book so much that we bought a hard copy for our library right away. I'm reading it now and finding that my brain is able to pick up different clues in reading than it did in listening, which makes it a really fun book to take in both ways.
There Is No Antimimetics Division began as a web serial inspired by qntm's contribution to a collaborative fiction project, so there are also two short (15ish minute) films which depict earlier versions of the opening scene of the book.
Resistance
Nourishing Interdependence
It's quarterly estimated tax payment time, and I've tied that to my personal practice of seasonal tithing. 5% of my income for summer was donated once again to the Food Bank Growers. As greed continues to concentrate wealth in the hands of few and leave more people struggling to eat, food banks are struggling to keep up with demand. This organization grows food for our local food banks: good, fresh, organic produce grown by volunteers to feed our people. If you've paid me for anything, including this newsletter, you've helped with this. Thank you!
Protest and Voting
The next national No Kings event will be on October 17th. This one is different, with more local variations to emphasize early voting. For example, in my state, Washington, all registered voters receive a ballot by mail. Usually we have a choice to mail them in or drop them off, but ballots from our August primary had a 32% increase in rejection due to late postmarks, so there's a huge movement afoot encouraging people to drop off ballots instead of mailing them. I plan to check in with my neighbors, many of whom are elders, to see if anyone needs a dropoff, which will give me a chance to discuss voting with them, too.
What are you up to? I'd love to get inspired by you!
Here's my doc with more resources for stepping up. Your additions are warmly welcome; just drop me a line!
Supporting me in supporting you
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