Cleaning Day

Now that I'm clean, I can share with you the filthy, depressing events of my day:

I cleaned out the barn loft.

The loft is where, six or so years ago, I put my things from my house in town into "storage" when I moved down to the ranch. Number One and I were sharing a tiny, three-room house, and there just wasn't room for everything. I packed it all up, and naively assumed it would be safe in the loft.

I was wrong. A few years ago, after I hadn't had a reason to go up into the loft for a while, something took me up there. I was definitely not prepared for what I saw. Every Single Box of Mine had been ransacked. They were ALL standing open to the dust and the mice. There were lots of things that were obviously missing, and more to be discovered missing. Some boxes were tipped, the contents spilling out. Things, like my luggage set, that I had stuffed into garbage bags, with labels, were torn open, exposed.

Who could have done such a thing? Well, it was mostly the Mexicans we had working here for a while. We discovered many, many things missing, during the time they were here (from when I discovered my brand new fleece blanket draped over their couch--I nabbed it back when they went to town--to the time I saw Hector loading sacks of oats into the back of his truck). We discovered many, many, many more things missing after they left--tools that hadn't been needed over the winter (almost every tool on the place, including some that had been locked up!), shower heads from the bath house, and even the bath house toilet! I can't even name everything they made off with, but when I told CG about all my stuff in the loft, she said "you know, they asked me about that stuff and I TOLD them it was yours." So I KNOW they were into it.

But I can't just blame it on Hector and Co. There was also the cowboy who stole Cases of Heineken beer from our Wedding, and then served it up at a party a few weeks later. I wish I were joking. So, my things have been openly ransacked, gone through, and stolen for several years. I've been too depressed to think about it, so I just left the mess up there, as is, for years.

I forget what even made me think about it today. Possibly the fact that there's a big ABEG dinner coming up, and CG is wanting the place to look nice. And when CG is wanting the place to look nice, she...well, to be honest, she goes just a bit nuts. She takes it upon herself to throw things away in a cleaning frenzy. I knew there wasn't much left up there, but I certainly wanted to be the one to go through it, just in case the loft got into her sights this time.

Today, I spent most of the afternoon up in the barn, amidst the dust and dirt and mouse poo. My hands were black. Twice. I sorted through everything. It was very sad. I found one box, marked "Kitchen," which was completely empty. At this point, who knows what had originally been packed in there. The boxes that had been tipped over, contents all over the floor, were missing lots of things, and a lot had to be thrown away because it was mouse-damaged, broken or just plain filthy. I'm glad I was alone, because I couldn't help but say some choice phrases about the looters during the cleanup.

Now, I think the results were about even: the same amount of garbage and salvaged items. (you can see the garbage stacked in front of the barn) Possibly a couple more salvaged items if you count the luggage and my old wine rack. I found one of my two pairs of roller blades (unfortunately not the good pair), but only one of my knee pads. I still took a break to roll around the barn. Slowly. After I knocked the mouse poo out of them. H-Bomb said, "Wow, Mommy, you're really good at that!" as I inched around in circles in the barn. Ha.

The things that made me the saddest were my jewelry equipment. I used to have a whole kit for making glass beads, including a special torch, special bead-cooling pads, glass rods, etc. By some miracle, there are a few glass rods left (they were removed from their packaging and just strewn about in a larger box) and They must not have seen or recognized the value of my $50 safety glasses. They did steal my torch, along with the MAPP gas canister, and the cooling pad box was left open and the pads subsequently taken over by mice who needed a bed.

Number One had quite a bit of stuff up there also, for his leatherwork. I found several empty boxes that used to contain leather-working tools. There is still leather strewn about the room, hanging out of boxes and containers as if someone was looking for something and just left it where it fell (I'm sure that's exactly what happened)

I packed up a bunch of stuff to use at our house in town, and stored a few things in the cabin with all the rest of our "storage." The cabin, by the way, is currently locked and we have the only key. We have learned our lesson, albeit the hard way. The rest of the garbage is piled up by the barn, waiting for someone to take it to town and/or the boneyard for disposal.

I admit, I just cleared out my stuff. Number One's leather is still strewn about and littered with dirt and mouse poo. There are some other things up there that are not ours. I wasn't about to do any sweeping in there without some kind of a dust mask.

Now I have showered thoroughly. However, if I fall suddenly ill, be sure to test me for the Hanta Virus...(I wonder if Airborne can cure that?)


P.S. I'm just kidding about the Hanta Virus. Kind of. Number One says he always worries about that for a while after he's cleaned out one of the outbuildings, but he's always fine. So I'll be fine too. No worries. I might take a shot of Airborne just for the hell of it. =)