Around the House

Hello there! I've missed a whole summer . . . blogging-wise. Maa. I get around to it, or I don't. This summer, that's been a definite "don't".

Since I've been home I've been puttering around and getting some house stuff done. I found another swampy spot in my lawn and called the plumbers out to deal with it. Of course this morning I notice that my outside faucet in back won't completely shut off. It drips slowly and constantly. So after Labor Day I'll have to call the plumbers back out.

I've almost got all my camping gear cleaned up and put away. I'll blog at another time about the trip (which was fantastic). This blog is about house puttering. So besides the leaking plumbing issues, I've also cleaned out my closet, putting many, many clothes items into bags to be given away. Despite the fact that I'm exercising regularly now and beginning to drop some weight, I just have to accept that there are some things I'll never get into again. I've also been doing some minor re-arranging and general cleaning out of things. And of course basic lazy reading.

One big thing I had done on Friday was tree work. Over the summer my peach tree went from lushly overgrown to dying. Remember the pictures from early June with Zoe hiding in the peach-laden branches? Well, one over-laden branch broke and I cut it down and removed it. The first picture in this blog is the tree missing that branch. Now check it against the next picture down with the dying branches turned all yellow-brown. Granted some of those dead branches are other ones that broke from the weight of the peaches, but many of them were not broken, just dying. So I called a tree-trimming-removal service to come out and work on it.

I also had the tree guys do a bunch of other work while they were here, namely cut back the neighbor's trees to the fence-line on both sides of my house. One neighbor tree, a big elm, has been hanging over and interfering with the growth and health of the peach tree. And on the other side a Mulberry in the neighbor's side of the fench, wrapped by a huge vine (base as big around as my leg) growing on my side of the fence were both rubbing on my roof. So the tree guys cut back the elm and the mulberry to the fence lines and removed the vine completely. They also trimmed and cleaned up the tree out by my mailbox so that the lowest limbs are up at 6 feet, rather than down at three feet, causing me to have to struggle under them to mow and causing the mail carrier to have to drive through them to reach the mailbox. The tree guys did an OUTSTANDING job. Not only does that front tree look wonderful, and the neighbor trees are back out of the way, they cleaned up and hauled off all the stuff they cut. PLUS, they fixed my broken fence gate and fixed my half-knocked-over mailbox! Really! I was so surprised and delighted. Sometimes companies really do give you that little extra "After Service" that just basically makes your day. This company was Hallmark Tree Solutions out of Kennedale, TX, and they were wonderful.

And of course, they cut all the dead limbs off the peach tree. The last picture is what's left of the little peach. It's hard to see against the elm behind it, but there is a top section left, which shows just slightly brighter green than the elm, and the limb that projects toward us. I'm not sure if it will survive. I've decided I'll wait until it goes dormant (if it lives that long), then call the tree guys back and have them cut it way back. Then I'll just wait and see if it comes back in the Spring. Poor little thing. I don't know what got it, but it's seriously struggling to live.

I've had kind of a bad year for keeping things alive it seems. I've also lost pretty much all the St. Augustine in my back yard to "chinch bugs". The Bermuda is making a comeback in big patches where the St. Augustine has died out, and the rest of the yard is weeds. Bermuda in general doesn't do as well in the heat, and it's been a hot summer, but the Bermuda is happily ignoring whatever is taking out the St. Augustine. The Bermuda may take over the whole lawn eventually, especially given that the few patches of St. Augustine that are left look pretty sickly. The areas have been treated for chinch bugs, but I'm told it may take a while for it to recover. In this picture you can also see the dead lawn where the grass has died. The bright green in the fence corner is a small struggling patch of St. Augustine. The blue-green area in the bottom left corner of the picture is Bermuda thriving happily against the dead area.

So that's mostly what I've been doing for the last week. I'd like to get all the house-related stuff done before I dive back into work, so I'm probably going to be trimming shrubbery around the front of the house for the next several days. That should keep me out of trouble . . . maybe.

HOT!

It's really hot outside. The temperature did hit 101 yesterday, but I got my grass mowed while it was still in the low 90s. The paper this morning said it would be cooler today because of overcast skies. True to typical weatherman-form though, there's not a cloud in the sky. It's a gorgeous brilliant blue with the sun beating down and the temp sitting at about 95 currently. I'm thinking it will hit 100 again. It's a interesting thing that I consider it cool to mow the lawn in if it's less than about 95. I've mowed in 103, but it was miserable . . . to put it mildly.

As you can see from this picture (maybe), Zoe is in her favorite place, hiding under the peach tree waiting to rush unsuspecting birds. Mostly she just lays under there though. You can see the little peaches fairly clearly too. They seem to be doing okay this year. I took these three picture a little while ago. This first one is with Zoe pretty well hidden. Then farther down the post on the right, her peaking out at me when she heard me step outside. Lastly, at the bottom of the post, her proximity to the birdbath that she watches over so carefully.

The two pair of birds working on their respective nests out front are back this morning. Remember how I said it gets really HOT on that porch in the afternoon? Both bird pairs disappeared about mid-afternoon yesterday, but both were back about sun up this morning. The swallows are working really hard and making a fine mess of my front porch, although I don't see much structure to their efforts yet. Just lots of mud. The female finch seems to be adding padding to the old swallow nest. She brings things in and fusses with them in the nest and hunkers down in it and gets up and rearranges. Repeat. Repeat. She's not working as hard as the swallows, but she's definitely trying to get that nest to suit her.

I'm doing my usual Sunday chores today and loading music into i-tunes. My old desktop computer died, so I lost my i-tunes and have been restoring it slowly in my new computer. In the process I've realized that I need a bigger version of i-pod to hold it all, since currently my biggest i-pod is 16 gigs. I've restored 17.68 gigs so far and don't have all my music in yet. Luckily you can charge an i-pod without syncing it. I really like taking i-pods with me when I travel. They're invaluable for planes, airports and hotels, and of course when I drive long distances. I used to take boxes full of CDs when I drove to Utah or Colorado. A couple of i-pods beats that all to hell.

I really enjoy days like this, staying in, puttering around the house. Work has been . . .somewhat stressful lately, so I really appreciate the time away from work these days. Sadly, it's not the work itself, it's a few of the people at work who are stressing me. I keep reminding myself that I've ridden the waves of a LOT of changes at that place in the last 20 years. I can ride these waves too. But I do like my quiet, puttering weekends.

The next two weekends will be fairly busy, which is also probably why I'm enjoying this one. I don't expect to get any posts in for a couple of weeks either, so I decided to do another one today. Next weekend, I'll be visiting with my sister, and the weekend after is a party for a friend who both gradated for nursing school and turned 30. It'll be loads of fun, but won't make for a quiet weekend. At least I'm not traveling this month. July, August and September are the months I'll probably be traveling. August-September will be my usual three week vacation. I'll no doubt be seriously needing it by then.

I suppose that's all for the day. The swallows are still at it but I expect them to quit soon and go wherever they go to beat the heat. The thermometer in the shade on my back porch is reading 101. Beating the heat sounds like a great idea.

Two Interesting Things

I've learned two interesting things this morning. Two things related to my little bird friends around my house.

One thing I've learned is the reason the swallows built their nest on top of the twig nest from last year. Those boxes I put up are too slippery for them otherwise! Huh. Who knew?

My baby swallows are gone, although I see one or two around occasionally. So the parents have apparently decided to try raising another brood. I've been watching them this morning struggling to build a new nest on top of the left-hand box. And struggling is the correct word. The mud won't stick to it, and the swallows themselves slip when trying to stand on it. So before I mowed my lawn this morning, I wired a small piece of mesh up on top of the box, then went and mowed my lawn. I was a little afraid to do it for fear that me messing with the box would scare them away. Not so much. Instead they flew around scolding me for getting in their way.

Anyway, the two swallows are now incredibly busy flying back and forth with mud and twigs, so hopefully they'll successfully build on that mesh. I'm not too sure about them raising a second brood though. It's soooooo hot on the front porch in the afternoon. It faces west and the temps have been high 90s for the last couple of weeks. It's supposed to be over 100 for the next four days and probably won't be much cooler the rest of the summer. I've seen swallows do a late brood one other year. It only had one chick and the chick didn't survive. Maa, they successfully raised four chicks in the first brood, so if they want to try again I'll help with a little piece of mesh.

The other interesting thing I learned is that it may not have been a sparrow that built the twig nest last year. This morning a pair of house finches was checking out the now-empty swallow nest in the right-hand box. They flew in and out and checked it out several times this morning. I don't expect they'll nest there with the swallows nesting so close, but it was interesting to see them. I didn't realize the males are such a bright purple-red. This picture gives you an idea of the difference between the sexes. At first glance I thought it was a cardinal in the nest, until I realized how much smaller he was than a cardinal and his feathers are more purple-red than cardinal red. Still he was much more red than this picture, probably because it's that mating colors time of year.

After I mowed the lawn the cats went outside. Zoe is currently hiding under the tree and rushing any unsuspecting birds who try to use her birdbath. She's not quick enough to catch any, but she's enjoying herself completely. I imagine she'll wander in as it gets hotter. Addy's already back in, but her black coat makes it too hot for her much faster. There are blue jays and morning doves wanting to use the birdbath, so they'll be happy when Zoe gives up and comes inside.

Hmmmmmm. The female house finch is back making herself comfortable in the empty swallow nest. Guess I'll have to see how this plays out. O.O They don't seem to care! The swallows are still busily building on top of the left hand box, while the pair of finches sit in the nest in the right hand box. Maybe I'll have two new broods out there. I'll probably spend all weekend, randomly checking on the two pair out there. Fun!

Swallow report

It's Memorial Day Weekend, so I have a three-day weekend, which I am incredibly grateful for. Last week was a long, busy, stressful week, and I'm ready for a little break. I don't have any plans this weekend, other than shopping. And of course that's not any different from any weekend, except that I have more time to do it this weekend. I also have more time to clean things up around the house. Robovac is working as I type this.

I thought I'd give a baby swallow report. Those babies grow up so fast!!! Let's see. My last post and pictures were from the May 16th. The babies were probably just hatched, within a day or so. Today is the 30th and the little guys started flying on the 27th. So 10-12 days between hatching and flying. That's just incredible!

It turns out that there are four baby swallows in this brood rather than the three I first thought. The pictures in this post are a progression from the last post. The first one on the left above was taken on 5/21 and you can see they're already pretty well fledged five days after the first picture, although they still have some of the fuzzy, downy feathers sticking out in all directions. The next picture on the right was taken on 5/23, about four days before they started flying. At that point they were already looking pretty adult-like in color and size. And also for the most part doing a great job of hiding whenever I opened the door to try to take pictures. There really are four in that nest.

The last picture below was taken yesterday morning before the four of them left the nest for their daily excursions. They actually held still briefly for this shot. You can tell them from the adults when they're sitting still like this because they have yellow beaks. The adults have black beaks. In flight they're easy to tell apart because they still do a fair amount of clumsy fluttering, totally un-swallow-like. Plus their wing feathers and tail feathers are considerably shorter still. They don't yet have the noticeable scissor-tail the adults have.

They'll probably hang around and return to the nest every night now for a couple weeks, I guess until the baby swallows are more adept at flying and fending for themselves. Then they'll go on their way, and I'll be able to thoroughly clean my front porch. That's the only down-side to having them nest there . . . messy! But it's soooooo cool to get to watch them grow up. Totally worth the mess.

Anyway, just a short post today with a baby swallow report.

Swallows and peaches

What an interesting week it's been! It's even been "interesting" at work, but I'm totally not going to go there today. It's Sunday and it's currently pretty and cool outside, and I've mostly finished my Sunday chores even though it's only10:00 am-ish. So I'm in a good mood. No use ruining it by thinking about work.

Friday it rained quite a bit and it was supposed to rain all weekend. They even had flash flood warnings for the area (lakes are past full), but yesterday afternoon it cleared out and it's been gorgeous. Right now it's about 70 degrees and beautifully sunny, although I'm sure it will heat up as the day goes on and be muggy after the rain. Still, much as I like it like this, I wasn't unhappy to see the rain. The lakes may be full, but my yard needed the water. I actually watered the lawn Thursday because it was so dry.

One of the things that have made this an interesting week is the hatching of swallow babies. My baby swallows are so cute. You can see the tops of two little fuzzy heads in this picture. I've seen three little heads, and I'm pretty sure there are just the three of them in there. I took this shot through my glass front door so I wouldn't disturb them too much. The parents get kind of frantic even when I'm out front mowing the lawn, so I keep off the front porch as much as possible. In this picture you can also see my jerry-rigging to get that 'box' up there. Looking at it, it's really amazing that the swallows decided to come back and nest there. I just felt so bad about the siding closing off their little ledge that I had to try putting something up there. For whatever reason, it worked. I'll try to get more pictures as the little guys get bigger.

The other major event that happened this week was on Thursday. I took the day off to sit at home and wait for the insurance adjuster. I'm going to be having some repair work done on my roof. Anyway, about 7:30 am I looked out back, and guess what? A limb had snapped on my peach tree! And of course, it wasn't one of the dead limbs on the back side of the tree, but one of the live limbs, covered in small growing peaches! It's been really windy here this last week, so I imagine it was a combination of the wind and the weight of the peaches. So instead of sitting around and waiting on Thursday, I spent five hours cutting the limb down, along with the three major dead limbs from the back of the tree. Then I cut them all up into the size of pieces the trash guys will haul off, and bagged up all the foliage and baby peaches. Lest you think I whipped through this with a chain saw, I did it all with a hand saw. I don't own a chain saw. Anyway, I have a gap in the living side of the tree now, which you can kind of see in this picture. The limbs from the dead back side are now nicely cleared out. Interestingly, those three big limbs were full of carpenter ants. I don't know if they're responsible for the dead side of the tree, or they moved in when those limbs died. Anyway, it's significantly easier to mow under the peach tree now, which I know because I also mowed my lawn Thursday as long as I was outside doing yard work. The part of the tree that's living is doing well ... too many baby peaches, but it looks good.

The cats are continuing to enjoy being outside, although the black demon has put in a couple of appearances. Luckily, he hasn't appeared awhile they've been out there, so they continue to go out there and lounge or explore. They very helpfully laid on the patio and watched me work on Thursday while I was sawing and hacking.

So that was my interesting week.

A Pretty Day

It really is a pretty day, if maybe a little overly windy. Bright sunshine, blue sky, nearly perfect temperature. The cats have been outside enjoying it. And for the first time since the black demon cat began his territorial terrorizing of my cats, both cats were outside for an extended period of time. Zoe even laid out under the peach tree checking out the birds. She hasn't done that for more than a year thanks to that black tom. The limbs of the peach hang low anyway and when they're growing peaches they tend to drag on the ground. Zoe loves to hide out there amidst the limbs and watch everything. I have some blue jays in the area that are less than happy while she's out there, but she manages to ignore them fairly well. This picture is of her hiding out there. You can see she's fairly successful at it. (Yes, she's there!) Lower down is a picture of her emerging when she realized I had come outside. Hiding and watching birds takes a backseat to the possibility of strokes or brushing.

The little swallows are definitely nesting now. One of the pair is always on the nest, so I guess eggs are laid. About the only time when they're not sitting on the nest is mid- to late afternoon when it's hot on the front porch. They'll be gone or be standing on the edge of the nest rather than sitting on the eggs. I haven't bothered to try to see the eggs. I'm even going in and out through the garage or back door, so I don't disturb the swallows too much. I'll get to see them plenty after the babies hatch.

My roses are blooming like crazy as you can see. Again I have big, full red roses and clusters of smaller roses, as if I have two separate rose bushes. I only planted one the year after I moved in, but a couple of years ago it began to put out the two different types of roses. You can also see that my little yellow rose from last year may not make it. It's been struggling since it began putting on leaves before the multiple freezes.

Much of north Texas has been in bloom recently. The blue bonnets are past their prime blooming now, but everything has been really pretty. We've been getting rain fairly often, so things are nice and green and colorful. I was at my sister's place yesterday and she has flowers blooming everywhere, roses, iris, marigolds, snap dragons, and others that I don't know the names for. It's all really pretty. Unlike me, Lynne has a green thumb and does a fair amount of working in the garden. She's also got tomatoes planted and banana peppers. Yay! I'll be getting home grown tomatoes from her later in the year. Yum!!!

Yesterday my sister and I went with her son, her daughter and granddaughter to play at the Main Event. It was lots of fun. I don't see these folks too often, and we had a good time. We played arcade games and glow-in-the-dark miniature golf, and just generally visited a lot.

The hole in my jaw from the extracted tooth is healing well. No dry socket. Actually it's pretty well healed over but has left a nice little hole that traps food particles like a magnet traps iron filings. It's going to be a pain removing trapped food from that hole until it fills in. Not a painful pain, just a hassle pain. It's weird. Back a long time ago when I had all my wisdom teeth removed, there was nerve damage to the nerve to the left lower jaw, which left me with some permanent numbness to the lower lip and jaw on that side. This is the side where I've now had an implant and am having another one done currently. For about 4 days after the extraction, the numbness on that side was really bothering me. It's like the new Novocaine injections had aggravated the nerve or something. Besides the usual numbness that I've lived with for 30 years, there was increased tingling and numbness in the front lower teeth, lip and side of my tongue and stiffness in the corner of my mouth, like it was hard to smile. Luckily, it's gone away, and I'm back to the numbness I was used to from before. I was concerned for awhile that I was going to be drooling from that corner of my mouth. I'm glad it's back to 'normal'.

Not much else going on. I'm not traveling for awhile so I'm looking forward to spending some time kicking back and doing nothing. The next house project will probably be the roof, but I think I'll pay off the flooring first. I may have somebody come and trim the dead limbs from the back half of the peach tree. You can see from these pictures of Zoe hiding, that the front of the tree is doing well. We'll see how the peaches do this year.

Definitely Spring .... FINALLY!

This has been such a cold winter for this area. I've been waiting, relatively patiently, for Spring to make it's appearance. Just about the time I think it's going to be warm we get snow again, but I have some good signs that it's really here now.

One sign is the growing small peaches on my peach tree. Yes, they survived despite that snow when they were blooming. Another sign is that I mowed my lawn for the first time. It's growing well now.

The best sign though is that the barn swallows came back and are nesting over my front porch!!! They had been nesting there every year since I moved in here, but about 4 years ago I had siding put on the house. I didn't realize that when they put the siding on, they closed off a small ledge over my front porch where the swallows had always nested. When the swallows arrived that Spring they had nowhere to nest and went elsewhere. So that summer I put some small open boxes up there where the ledge used to be. The first year they ignored them. Last year they were around checking them out but didn't nest there. Later in the summer a small bird, house wren I think, built a twig nest in one of the boxes. This year a pair of swallows have built their mud nest on top of the twig nest in that box! I'm so delighted to have them back nesting there. I can watch them clearly from the small window by my front door. If course they make a mess of my front porch, between the mud for the nest and the usual bird droppings, but a messy porch to clean is worth watching them nest and watching the babies grow up. I've seen them have anywhere from 2 to 5 babies in a nest. One year I had two pair nest up there, but not at the same time. The second pair actually waited until the first pair had raised their young and left. The second pair didn't do well though, probably because it was so late in the year by then. My house faces west and the front porch gets very hot during the summer. They only had one baby and it didn't survive. This year, there's just the one pair and they're happily building on top of the twigs and staying there at night. They haven't laid eggs yet, but I imagine they will soon. This is a picture I found on the web of what these little birds look like.

Today its raining. It started yesterday and last night with some heavier rain, but now it's a light, steady soaking rain. My grass will need mowing again by the time it dries out. This is now the massive growth time of year for lawns, when mowing more than once a week is necessary.

Thursday I had a molar extracted. It was a crowned tooth that had decayed up under the crown. I'm going to have it replaced with an implant, but the first step is extracting the decaying tooth. The oral surgeon I went to was fast. He shot me up with Novocaine at 11:21 am and at 11:46 I was getting into my car to drive home. Amazing. I have a gaping hole in my jaw, but so far it hasn't been too bad. A couple Advil every 6-ish hours has been enough to keep it from hurting. I did take a prescription pain-killer Thursday afternoon when the numbness wore off, and half of one at midnight that first night, but since then Advil has been enough. I've been following post-extraction instructions religiously. I had a dry socket after extraction of my wisdom teeth a few millenia ago, and I'm hoping to prevent a repeat of that. NOT fun.

This will be my second implant. The molar behind this molar went through the same thing 6 years ago. A crown with the tooth decayed up under it. We tried to save that one ... remove the crown, drill out the decay and replace with a new crown, but the tooth was too far gone. There wasn't enough left to re-crown, so I had it removed and an implant done. The whole process takes 6 to 9 months, giving time for healing of the jaw bone, placing of the implant, various impressions, etc, etc. But I've never had a day of trouble with my other implant. It's just like having a good tooth back there. So I'm having another one done. Yes, it's more expensive than dentures or partials or bridges, but it's permanent and you don't have all the extra care you have to take with those things. You brush, floss, etc, along with all your other teeth.

Time to do the usual Sunday chores. I'll keep you up to date on how the nesting swallows do this year.