Thursday, October 22, 2015

I Just Saw the Funniest Thing on You Tube.

This was not just funny, but clever.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Fu2gTDMug is a video about building a tree house in Hawaii.  This is a nice project, and if I wanted to spend my time traveling back and forth to Hawaii, it might be worth copying.  The building is absolutely for tropical or at least warm weather only.
The film-maker had one great idea that I thought was just priceless.   She rerouted her toilet tank supply hose to a sink, installed above the toilet tank.  Every time you flushed the toilet, the supply hose squirted water into the sink, where you could wash your hands, and the waste water drained into the toilet tank, as it was originally meant to do, so you could perform both functions with one water supply. 
I think that I would want to install a second sink, so I would not have to flush to use it, and I would perhaps put a professionally cut piece of glass on top of the tank to reduce evaporation and entry of bugs and debris.  Just cut two holes, one for the drain from the sink and one for the supply line to go up to the sink.
What a great idea.
The only real drawback I can see, is the need to remove soap buildup from the inside of the tank on occasion.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Poem to Inspire Retreating to the Country.

Perhaps you will remember the wonderful film about Sean Thornton(John Wayne) returning to his ancestral home in Ireland to purchase his character's family home known as: White o' Morn.  The house is in total ruins today, though they are trying to raise funds to restore it.  It was situated in the fictional town of Innisfree, near Cong.  The town did not exist except in the movie The Quiet Man.   It does exist as a small island in the middle of a lake that William Butler Yates used to visit as a youth.  This poem is about that island, but it is also quite appropriate for the film.  This poem was the inspiration for my sister's retreat to the country, and it is my new found ideal for my own retreat.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree


I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping
     slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket
     sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
 
William Butler Yates.