Pages

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Silver Falls, Oregon

Northwest rainforest.

Yup, the path goes behind the waterfall. Yup, it was pretty cool.

 Tall trees.

The sun finally shined.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Back Hall Progress: Before and Now

The befores are on the left and the afters are on the right.

Here is a peek at the overall progress so far. I originally thought this was going to be a quick paint job. It didn't take long to figure out that we needed a complete repair. We are happy with the results so far, but this is definitely not an "after" post - yet.

The gutters no longer fit, so we will replace those soon - possibly this weekend. Everything needs another coat of paint once the weather is warmer and dryer. And the deck is just temporary to get us through the winter.

I love that the trim is period/house appropriate now (including the "look" of windowsills). I'm also happy that we were able to find a storm door, off the shelf...on clearance. Yup. We only spent $62 on what normally costs $249. So we can live with the brass handle and kick - for now.


Friday, November 2, 2012

Elephants in the Yard

From the book From Head to Toe by Eric Carle

Although we knew that some elephants had escaped from the zoo, it didn't really register with us. I mean, the zoo is on the other side of the river and about 20 minutes away by car. Well, it was just after dusk when I heard some noise in front of the house. I was surprised, and a little frightened, to see three elephants!

One was really large, maybe a male, and the other two were much smaller. They were acting like teenagers and messing around with the yard debris and recycling bins that I had set out for trash day. As they pawed at the ground, the lawn became a bunch of rolled up sod, bare earth and mud (it was raining, of course). That's ok, because I actually hate the lawn anyway. Then the big elephant took a hold of our still-baby birch tree and with a big yank completely uprooted the thing. Then he left it laying against our car.

While all this was happening I called the police. Why I chose to dial non-emergency rather than regular emergency...well that's a good question. I suppose it didn't occur to me that three wild (zoo) elephants in my front yard is an urgent situation. Anyway, it took nearly forever (like usual) to get through to an actual person, and it turns out that he didn't believe me anyway. So the elephants took off heading south and that was the last I saw of them.

A police (I've been watching The Wire and that's how they say it so that's how I say it now) came by about 20 minutes later asking about my phone call. I showed him the mess in the yard trying to convince him that I wasn't crazy. He wanted to know where the elephants were now. I told him I had no idea.

Then I woke up.

In other news, blog motivation has been low around here lately. The kid and I have been sharing a cold, and she's rejecting the idea of napping. So I haven't had much time to write my thoughts down. I do have about 10 posts started with four of them almost completely written, but I still have to take pictures to finish them up. We haven't been walking so I have no new Wednesday Walks to share. And the other things we've been working on the past two weeks aren't really post-worthy.

Let's see what other randomness is floating around the old grey-matter...
•I cleaned out a couple of kitchen cupboards, though they all need to be cleaned.
•I straightened up the basement. Aaaah-gain. It really needs a purge session and a mini-low-to-no-budget makeover.
•My FIL did some electrical work for us. Lights, switches and an outlet-oh my!
•We bought a storm door that will be installed this weekend.
•We are expecting some dry-ish weather this weekend so I hope to get the yard in shape for the winter.
•I want to put up holiday lights on the front porch. Whhhat? It is November 2nd, and I want to put up holiday lights already? Who am I?

I confess I've listened to The Barenaked Holidays already. And I still love that album. The holiday bug has hit me early this year. Usually it doesn't happen until December 23rd or so. I'm not sure what's going on...probably some need for comfort. It's out of the ordinary for me, but I'm sensing that I need to listen to myself on this one.

So maybe we'll get our Christmas tree this weekend! Umm...no.