Happy Holidays everyone!
Yes, I do say holidays because within six weeks there is Thanksgiving, Chanukah/Hanukkah (dec 8-16), Christmas and New Years and I cannot combine them into anything pronounceable. The closest I have is Happy Thankskahmasear. I have enough issues with word pronunciation, I don't need to make it harder on myself.
I have found the perfect way to celebrate Thanksgiving. Allow your mother to call you in July and say she and your father are coming for Thanksgiving. Make sure she and your sister will be doing the cooking (this is essential). Then invite friends over and assign them to bring something. All I had to do was unlock the front door. Perfect!
A Detroit Lions loss (shocker), seventeen people, ten bottles of wine and several beers later it was a party!
There were several flippings of the bird, both fingers and the turkey; a threat of fire, and only eight chairs. We were surrounded by good friends and good food, it was perfect.
The best part of Thanksgiving? It gives way into the Christmas season. I no longer have to secretly listen to Christmas music in my car or through headphones. I am able to play my favorite Christmas movies on the large screen instead of my laptop and I get to wear my Elf hat.
There is tons of candy and Chex's Puppy Chow (if you call it Muddy Buddies you do not deserve presents this year).
The stockings are hanging by the chimney with care, with lovely garland with lights on the mantle.
The perfect corner for the perfect tree is empty.
The tree substitute with its teeny tiny tree-like-shaped-thing that fits in a small
corner and holds ornaments is up in the kitchen. I'm still angry about the stupid fake impostor with its stupid plasticness. I'm not going to rant again, if you missed it last year here it is.
The upside to the fake tree this year?
We get to go home for Christmas this year. This is the first time since I moved out here I will be returning home for Christmas. And there better be snow!
As per tradition the day after Thanksgiving the Christmas lights went up on the house. It was your typical lights on the house adventure. Me trying not to fall off the roof in the pouring rain. I'm not a fan of heights. My fear of heights has been decreased to a dislike. So you put me on the roof in the rain, and I am not going to be moving very fast. It was a slow and steady process until I said the gutters were overflowing. Not surprising as we were out in the pouring rain.
My goal for lights to be on both levels of the house went out the window when my dad and husband began cleaning out the gutters as we attached the lights to the house.
As Chris and I attached lights my dad put his hand in the nasty gutter and came up with a handful of gunk. Chris did the same. I was not putting my hand in there. There could have been a crocodile. Probably not. Most likely a swamp monster.
I continued hanging lights, Chris took the peak over the garage and my dad began to rake out the gunk.
Then Chris began to rake out the gunk on the upper level of our roof. He did not take lights up there with him. I finished my strand, my dad fastened to the shingles since I couldn't lift the shingles off the roof (there may or may not be a leaking roof later).
Cold and wet I went inside to decorate.
Chris and my dad made it their goal to fix the gutters. For the most part it is fixed, thanks to a scrap piece of wood from our neighbors. Don't worry they already know we're weird.
Lights are up. Gutters are working, and now we begin the Christmas Season with some lights and music. In the words of the Muppets:
It's time to start the music. It's time to light the lights!
Monday, November 26, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Messing with Squirrels
I think I've written about the two squirrels who like to hang out in our backyard. Steve the Squirrel greeted us the first morning in our house with a pine cone on the patio next to our glass sliding door. Since that morning I've been greeted by Steve in one way or another.
There have been times where it looks like he is almost peering into our house. And there are times where he and his mate (gay marriage is allowed in Washington, and we don't discriminate in our house) have gotten a little frisky. I'm telling you, they have no shame.
As I cleaned up the backyard this past summer, Steve kept a watchful eye on my movements. If I got to close to one of his hiding places he would squawk and leap down from his tree and quickly dig it up and rebury it elsewhere. Depending on what I was doing he had to rehide his food storage up to seven times in a day.
He never complained.
On Tuesday of this week we removed three large trees. Okay, we personally did not. We found a limit to my ability with shovel and hatchet; and 100ft trees is that limit. Two trees were side heavy and leaning towards our house. The third was leaning towards the street.
Normally, Steve spends most of his time running up and down the trees and then backflipping when he hit the ground. He's a funny little squirrel.
As I sat on the couch watching the 21st century's take on lumberjacks (hoodies and cargos, with chainsaws and harnesses) cut down trees from the top and feeling the tree's trunk sections hit the ground with a large thump, causing the couch and house to shake, I looked at Chris and asked, "What about Steve?"
We didn't see Steve that day. I'm not sure what his exit plan is for his trees being cut down. But whatever it is, it kept him alive.
Once the trees were down, and the branches chipped and chopped through the chipper chopper the arborists left. Tree removal companies do not remove the wood that used to be a tree; instead they partner with firewood companies to come out and remove the old tree trunks.
Before the wood removal/collector came yesterday afternoon, Steve and his mate made an appearance. Unfortunately for them, the nuts they buried in the backyard were under several thousand pounds of former trees. This did not stop them.
Steve pushed, pulled, and hopped around the fallen trunks, with no success. Steve went so far as to try to burrow under it while his mate tried to pull the log up.
Not going to lie, Disney got the facial expressions of squirrels struggling to lift something much larger and heavier than themselves. I think they spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to get to their food stash.
The wood removal person who liked to think there were multiple people with him at all times showed up about noon.
"Hey! We're here!"
There was one of him, but I wasn't about to point that out to the guy who is going to clean up the yard.
He asked if we had dogs, and I told him no, but there were a couple squirrels who like to hang out in the backyard and could possibly be among the wood piles.
He said he could handle a couple squirrels.
I went inside and about fifteen minutes later I hear him screaming, followed quickly by him shouting, "It's just a squirrel, just a squirrel!" And there was Steve and his mate sitting on logs squawking at him.
For the record, I did warn him.
After all the logs were cleaned up, Steve and his mate came down from the remaining trees and promptly dug up and rehid their food.
I'm afraid to see what they do when we relandscape the yard this spring. The creatures are probably going to have a conniption.
Oh, here is our backyard.
Before
The finished yard
There have been times where it looks like he is almost peering into our house. And there are times where he and his mate (gay marriage is allowed in Washington, and we don't discriminate in our house) have gotten a little frisky. I'm telling you, they have no shame.
As I cleaned up the backyard this past summer, Steve kept a watchful eye on my movements. If I got to close to one of his hiding places he would squawk and leap down from his tree and quickly dig it up and rebury it elsewhere. Depending on what I was doing he had to rehide his food storage up to seven times in a day.
He never complained.
On Tuesday of this week we removed three large trees. Okay, we personally did not. We found a limit to my ability with shovel and hatchet; and 100ft trees is that limit. Two trees were side heavy and leaning towards our house. The third was leaning towards the street.
Normally, Steve spends most of his time running up and down the trees and then backflipping when he hit the ground. He's a funny little squirrel.
As I sat on the couch watching the 21st century's take on lumberjacks (hoodies and cargos, with chainsaws and harnesses) cut down trees from the top and feeling the tree's trunk sections hit the ground with a large thump, causing the couch and house to shake, I looked at Chris and asked, "What about Steve?"
We didn't see Steve that day. I'm not sure what his exit plan is for his trees being cut down. But whatever it is, it kept him alive.
Once the trees were down, and the branches chipped and chopped through the chipper chopper the arborists left. Tree removal companies do not remove the wood that used to be a tree; instead they partner with firewood companies to come out and remove the old tree trunks.
Before the wood removal/collector came yesterday afternoon, Steve and his mate made an appearance. Unfortunately for them, the nuts they buried in the backyard were under several thousand pounds of former trees. This did not stop them.
Steve pushed, pulled, and hopped around the fallen trunks, with no success. Steve went so far as to try to burrow under it while his mate tried to pull the log up.
Not going to lie, Disney got the facial expressions of squirrels struggling to lift something much larger and heavier than themselves. I think they spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to get to their food stash.
The wood removal person who liked to think there were multiple people with him at all times showed up about noon.
"Hey! We're here!"
There was one of him, but I wasn't about to point that out to the guy who is going to clean up the yard.
He asked if we had dogs, and I told him no, but there were a couple squirrels who like to hang out in the backyard and could possibly be among the wood piles.
He said he could handle a couple squirrels.
I went inside and about fifteen minutes later I hear him screaming, followed quickly by him shouting, "It's just a squirrel, just a squirrel!" And there was Steve and his mate sitting on logs squawking at him.
For the record, I did warn him.
After all the logs were cleaned up, Steve and his mate came down from the remaining trees and promptly dug up and rehid their food.
I'm afraid to see what they do when we relandscape the yard this spring. The creatures are probably going to have a conniption.
Oh, here is our backyard.
Before
The logs Steve and his mate tried to move, unfortunatley I couldn't get them in the photo
The finished yard
We have so much more light, and the yard seems a lot bigger. I just hope Steve and his mate aren't to angry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)