Meet Cyrus

This past Sunday, all of the other crazy on-goings in this house came to a halt. You may ask what could have caused this? A storm? A trip? Visitors from afar? Some random part of the house fell down? Nope. It was none of this.

What caused this halting of projects of all sorts was the bringing home of our new puppy, Cyrus. He is of the English Springer Spaniel variety and thus far is proving that the Springer is very accurate in his name. He likes to jump and tackle things. He is 8-weeks-old and about a foot high and a foot long. He is mostly white with brown spots. He is currently small enough to fit under the rungs of the chairs in the dining room.

He even comes with Official Papers that tell us not only his birthdate, but all about his parents and grandparents - rather like a birth certificate for a human. This means that he has a regular name and an Official Name. His Official Name is Doorcreek Cyrus. We were very lucky that we found a breeder only about 30min drive from our house. This will be good if we have any questions, and also when he is old enough to learn to retrieve. (As this breeder happens to be a Field Trial Judge, and trains dogs for hunting.) We did have to stop 2x on the way home though, once for me and once for him. All in all his first car ride went okay.

He has a puppy-sized crate and puppy-sized dishes. He has a new set of house keys to go with the new house, a semi squishy frog, and a red ball that can be made to dispense kibbles.

He has a brand new leash and collar that will let him go for walks around the block.

I knew that a puppy of this type had a lot of energy, but my goodness! I am exhausted just trying to keep him entertained, and it's only been a few days. Although, I suppose some of the tiredness comes from the fact that he does not sleep through the night. No, he cries when he goes to bed, he cries when he needs to go out, and he cries at 5am when he decides it's time to get up and play.

We do not agree with the 5am assessment. I have not seen this many sunrises in a row for a Very Long Time. We have tried ignoring him, which is hard to do, as he is very loud and very shrill. It also does not make for good sleep when one must have a pillow over one's head just to try and quiet the noise down. We went so far as to warn the neighbors of the noise, so that they do not worry.

In other activities, he is doing much better. He has learned his name, and the command 'Come'. I hope that the rest of the training goes this well. We have even signed him up for school. This Sunday is his first class in Puppy Kindergarten. I hope that they can help us to get him to sleep when we want to, not when he wants to.

Oh for a peaceful 6 or 7 hours of sleep!

Curtain dilemma

One of the random things that I am trying to do amidst all the other ongoings is to try and find some curtains for my living room window. It is of an extremely wide width (118"), and is on the west side of the house which makes the entire room 90+ if the sun is out. It is also located behind one of the couches. This means that the best curtain rod for hanging curtains to cover it is one of those types that allow for a drawstring on one side, rather than trying to close curtains whilst standing on the couch cushions.

Our current curtains are from approximately 1960 and need to go. You may have seen them in previous posts. They are of a dirty golden textured variety. The challenge in this endeavour is that the living room is bright orange (similar to the Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee). There are not many styles of curtain that can go with such a color. In addition, there are also not many choices of curtains in the style that allow for the drawstring rod.

After an adventure to the department store, where I was informed that they are properly called draperies, not curtains (??), I was given 3 choices of pattern: strange hospital texture, plain, and striped. This is the first set that I have brought home - the striped.

I don't think I am liking them, but maybe I'll leave them up a bit and see. Some times after a bit, changes don't seem so bad. Or maybe I'll go online and see if I can find something I like better.

Note: I feel rather more adult than I did previously, ordering draperies rather than curtains. I don't know why, I just do.

Note 2: I have also finished knitting a rug for the kitchen. It was an easy project, good for watching TV.

The Yucca Appears

As mentioned in a previous post, the Overwhelming Variety of Weeds had taken over my gardens. You may not have believed it, but there was indeed a Yucca plant hidden in the weeds. The weeds were so dense, that the Yucca sent up a flag, in the form of a flowering stalk, to let me know exactly where it was.

And so I was able to weed and mulch, and weed and mulch until finally, the entire Yucca plant itself appeared. I am not actually certain if I would have found the Yucca if it had not sent up that stalk. Either way, progress is being made in the Siege of the Overwhelming Variety of Weeds. I still have a ways to go, but at least now wanted plants are being unearthed, and it is starting to look more like a garden.

A new adventure

Now that we have finished up most of the remodel, and I am making inroads on the garden attack of the Weeds of the Overwhelming Variety, it should come as no surprise that we have not had enough chaos in the house in the last few weeks. This is expected to be remedied in the near future by the addition of a puppy. We looked around and researched breeds and have decided that an English Springer Spaniel will fit our requirements nicely.

These requirements being: good family dog, will play nicely with wee humans, will be of the hunter/retriever variety, and is large enough that Nate cannot injure it if he runs into in the dark hallway and small enough so that even when it is full grown it will look like I am walking it and not vice versa.

We are lucky enough to have two breeders for English Springers just a short drive away, and so were able to find a litter that will be old enough to take home yet this summer. This weekend we went to visit the puppies at the breeder. They are about 4wks old, and do not stop moving.

The whelping box is divided into two parts, one with a heat lamp, and the other with water and mom. This ideally will give mom a break when she starts weaning them. I'm not sure how long this 'break' will last seeing as they are getting quite adept at climbing over the partition.

The puppies have just started exploring around, and are not content with their side of the box.

They also like shoelaces.

And they are just now big enough to see over the edge of mom's water bowl.

Finally one stood still long enough for me to get a good picture.

One more month until we find out who will get to come home with us. That also means one month to get the house and garden puppy-proof. Oof.

Weeds, weeds and more weeds!

At my other house, I thought having a bit of garden was great. A few flowers, some veg and herbs, a back patio with fire pit, and look how nice my backyard is. This was also the initial thought I had had when moving to my Small Town. I have a much much bigger backyard, that came with much much more garden. 2300 square feet of garden to be exact. This means A LOT of area for growing of the above mentioned items.

You saw the nice flowers in my last post, but alas, this is not the way the entire yard and gardens look. Oh no, not at all. The rest of the garden seems to have been taken over by Weeds of the Overwhelming Variety. For the last few weeks I have been pulling weeds and pulling weeds and pulling more weeds. I have been trying to get them out by the roots so that they Will Not Return. I am not sure how well this will go, or if the Weeds of the Overwhelming Variety will win. I have now worn a pathway from my driveway to the local compost site with the pickup truck. I hope that they can make the weeds and their seeds die a painful death.

Here is what the 2300 square feet of garden started out looking like. You may not see them, but in these pictures are full-grown peony bushes, coneflowers, raspberry bushes, and a yucca. I know they are there, I saw them last year when I started out weeding. I then stopped, as I realized that I was probably pulling just as many flowers as weeds, so decided to wait things out and see what popped up.

In an effort to combat the return of the Weeds of the Overwhelming Variety, I measured the garden space (hence the knowledge that there are 2300 square feet) and ordered some mulch. Actually, more than some mulch. A Lot of Mulch. A giant amount of mulch. So much so, that when I called around for prices, the mulch people all asked if I were a commercial property. One woman even said she felt sorry for me that there was so much garden to reclaim. The end amount of mulch currently sitting in my driveway is 13 cubic yards. Not cubic feet, but yards.

This is enough mulch to fill a smaller sized dump truck, and creates a pile larger than our pickup. Now the plan is to shovel the mulch into a wheelbarrow, cart it to the other end of the yard, and pitchfork it into place. I figure if I put down about 4" of mulch it should help. It has to, I can't justify using that much weedkiller in one yard.

Flower Power

I decided to take a bit of a break from working on the house projects to play in my gardens. They are immense. In fact, there is more garden here than the size of my entire previous lot, I think. This makes for a lot of weeds, but also makes for a lot of flowers. Part of last summer I spent trying to identify what exactly I had in my gardens. Mostly weeds, but a few nice flowering plants.

Here are some that have bloomed quite nicely this year.

Daffodils
(much earlier than this, but they fit nicely in this post)
Bachelor's Buttons (aka Cornflower)

Bleeding Heart

Bearded Iris (Purple)

Johnny-Jump-Ups
(which I didn't know were perennials here)

Peonies
(I have both pink and white, but only have the pink in the picture)

Climbing Roses

Giant Allium

Lots of Stripping

For the last few weeks, I've been working on the stair project. As it was my idea to take the carpet off the stairs, it's my job to get them looking nice. I started out stripping the glue off with wood stripper. Normally it only takes a few minutes for the finish to get soft. This glue is so thick that it takes a minimum of 4 hours for the stripper to work. And even then I think I'm going to have to go over everything again.

The challenge in this project is to keep the stairs usable at all times, as we really do want to use our new upstairs. I'm stripping both the treads and the risers to hopefully get them to a stainable condition.

Here is the pile of old finish and glue from just 3 of the stair steps. I can't imagine how much I'll have at the end.


Meanwhile, Nate has been working on stripping and refinishing the window trim in our bedroom. He'd like to have curtains back on again, rather than multiple layers of poly film. I can't imagine why.

As he was working away, he discovered that the name of the manufacturer was still stamped on the bottom of the sill. Kind of neat to find it still there after all of these years. I guess you don't look at the bottom of a window sill that often.

A sign of spring!

Today we a great day to be outside, nice weather, nice temperature, and things are very green. Additionally, it is always interesting to see what the other creatures in our yard are doing with such nice weather. We have several families of birds located near us, which makes me a bit nervous, seeing as there are quite a few neighborhood cats around. I guess it will be survival of the fittest.

Today our entertainment was provided by a young robin just out of the nest. He couldn't fly yet, but hopped all over our yard. We were able to get some fairly close up pictures, as apparently his mother hasn't told him to stay away from strangers.

First, he hopped around the yard.

Checked out the compost heap.

Then, he investigated our fire pit.

And then finally decided to see what was in our garage.

He checked out the lawn mower, the bicycles, and the random pieces of plywood before leaving. This made me a bit nervous, as I didnt' want to accidentally shut him in with no food.

Sweaters Galore!

Here's a picture of all of the sweaters that I have in my possession that have been knit by my grandmother over the years. My mom is making a scrapbook of all of the sweaters that they can find that she's knit up for various people, so I got mine together to take a picture.

I guess I have a ways to go to catch up.

House update: We are now the proud owners of yet another new toilet, as when the original toilet was being retro-fitted with a new handle, someone tightened it too much and cracked the tank. Oh well, this one is much more water efficient.

Our "new" den and the stairs revealed

Finally, with all of the major activities getting finished upstairs, we were able to finally get the den primed and painted. It went from a rather sickly pea green to a nice denim blue. We actually managed to get everything painted in one coat, so now we have a leftover gallon of blue paint.

Anyone want something painted denim blue?

This also allowed us to move the first floor furniture back into its proper places, in effect doubling the size of our rooms. All in just 20 minutes!

I also decided to start pulling the carpeting off of our staircase. It was shiny, shimmery blue and very dirty from this project. It also the only installed carpeting left in the house. Things started off well. I pulled the carpet up from the landing and found the maple hardwood flooring still intact and in decent shape. It should only need a bit of sanding and some new finish to look nice again.Then I pulled the carpet off the stairs. And pulled, and pulled some more. Then pulled the carpet padding off also. And what did I find?? Staples, lots and lots of staples. I think whomever put in this carpet used the entire store's supply of staples. Who needs this many staples to hold down a piece of carpet?!? I mean really. Leave some for someone else. I also found glue on the stair treads. A few different types in fact. This will need to be either stripped with wood stripper, or sanded, or both. We will see how this project goes.

At least the risers are still in good shape, and are actually rather pretty. They will need ridding of their staples, but should also be pretty salvageable.

In another interesting bit, we found out that someone had also put at least 10 screws in the tread of each stair step, in effect permanently making the stairs squeaky. Nate removed all the screws one night, and the stairs creaked and groaned for a half an hour while they settled back into place to match up with the house again. So even though the stairs should be louder without the carpet, they are actually quieter due to less squeaking.

Gotta love the rain.

This weekend, we took another short break and had visitors. These were visitors with a purpose. These visitors were friends of ours who had signed up to run a race with us. The Crazylegs Classic. We signed up for the 5mile run. This run starts at the State Capitol, goes through the University campus, and ends at the football stadium, where you have the option of rehydrating with either water or beer.

It has been a bit cold here, so that we were expecting. What we were NOT expecting was the deluge of water that poured from the sky. We ate our pre-race breakfast thinking, maybe the rain will stop. We drove downtown and parked, thinking, maybe the rain will stop. We walked about 6 blocks to the Capitol, thinking, maybe the rain will stop.

Nope. It even added thunder and lightening during this process. We decided to hang out in the Capitol to get a bit of warmth before the race started. Three of us started in wave ll, that's double-L, as the waves started at A and then continued on right past Z to start over again. We weren't last, however, as the waves did end at nn. One of our party started in wave S. (One other actually was supposed to start in wave P, but was nice and decided to "run" with us girls back in wave ll.)
He headed into line, while the deluge poured from the skies. We stood under a roof canopy trying to stay dry. From the time the gun went off to the time we crossed the starting line, it was almost 45 minutes, and we were thoroughly soaked. Our shoes went squish, our noses were dripping, and there was no thermal insulation left in our pants. Luckily we had raincoats to help with the water from the sky. We had nothing to help with the splashing up from the ground.

Our goal was to finish in under 1hour. At first it seemed like the race was going to go on forever. But, soon we got into a rhythm and off we went. Down the street, up the giant hill, and through the campus we ran. At least there were thousands of people (about 19,000) running, and many more cheering along the route. I sort of trained for the race by running up and down our stairs many many times. The training was proving to be ok.

(We are the two in blue in the picture.)

After 4.75 miles, the end was in sight. We could see the stadium and hear the cheering, and our stride sped up to match the energy level around us. Finally we crossed the finish line, completely drenched and exhausted, but under the 1hr time limit we had set. Yay!

Time for a beer, warm food, and dry clothes. At least I got one race out of the way this year. It remains to be seen if there will be more - I'm aiming for a few more at least.

A Shiny Blue Tub

For days now, I've been eagerly awaiting the return of the cast iron clawfoot tub. After my stint with the angle grinder, we sent it off to be sandblasted and painted. As so much of Bath Two is white, I thought that painting the tub a pretty color would make a nice statement. So off it went to the Auto Body Shop with a piece of the blue tile as a companion. I wanted the outside of the tub to be a shiny cobalt blue, and the feet of the tub to be shiny white.

After I'd done this, of course, I was a bit nervous to see the results. Luckily, it turned out even better than I'd imagined. It is Very Blue and unbelievably shiny. The shop used the same clear coat finish that they do on cars, so it will only get harder with time. Great for not having the paint chip and flake off as it does on every other clawfoot I've seen.

First the tub went from the truck into my kitchen where it hung out for a while, until a few things got moved and the plumber got organized. Then up the tub went on the stairs. We'd left the carpeting on in order to be able to slide heavy things up and down during the construction. At the top of the stairs, we put it on wheels and maneuvered it into place.

Additionally, the ductwork for the cold air return and the heating/cooling got done this week, making it that much closer to having heat upstairs again. Seeing as it's been a bit colder than normal, I can't wait!