Posts Tagged ‘home ownership’
Inauspicious Start
Our New Year started with an unwelcome surprise. It being the first day of the month, I went downstairs to check the date I had written on our furnace filter the last time I changed it. A hall rug on the way to the laundry room was askew and I attempted to slide it with the toe of one foot.
It didn’t budge. The chain of evidence my eyes collected with each successive glance around me triggered increasing alarm. The rug was soaking wet. There was a puddle on the floor in the laundry room. There was water all over the floor in the bedroom but it was dry in between.
I hollered to Cyndie that we’d had a flood in the basement. Luckily, the water was clean. I’d like to know if it was salty, but I wasn’t about to taste it. I’d heard the softener going through its regeneration process overnight. That only happens at long intervals because we don’t generally use a lot of water. My guess is that something related to the water softener was the cause but we failed to find any obvious clue as to where the water had come from.
The more we looked, the more saturated throw rugs we discovered. It was confusing because the floor was dry in places between wet rugs. We couldn’t find any signs of water leaking from somewhere above the floor level. It’s a big mystery to us.
We’ve decided to seek professional advice from a local plumber. Maybe we will help a local business start 2024 with unexpected revenue.
I opted out of the next-level cleaning Cyndie embarked on in the basement in order to try finishing my ethernet cable installation project that involved drilling a hole through one of our log walls. The drilling was a little tedious but once completed, the real challenge remained.
The roof hadn’t dried up at all since the last mix of freezing drizzle and snow had coated the shingles. If I could just make my way to the narrow slope of dry shingles under the eave of the main peak, I figured I could safely stand on the step ladder already straddling the lower peak.
I hadn’t considered the stressful tension I would subject my muscles to for the operation. By the time I made it back safely to the ground again, multiple muscles were letting me know they were not happy with my activity. I was so focused on completing the final steps up there, I didn’t notice the extent to which I was tensing up to balance, hold my position, and avoid losing my footing.
However, the cable routing was done. All that remained was to crimp one connector to finish. With Cyndie’s moral support and willingness to hold a light for me, I lined up those eight tiny wires and crimped the connector.
The WiFi repeater light came on, the named signals appeared in the list of known networks, and… I’m getting no connection to the internet.
Happy New Year 2024, indeed. Humph.
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Digging Out
I’m not confident this is the final chapter of our woodchuck pest, but yesterday I dug out the window well to reclaim our egress space for the basement bedroom. You may recall I posted this image of the early evidence of a burrowing invader making a mess outside the window.
We did eventually enlist the services of a professional with wild animal extraction expertise, but the results weren’t exactly what we had in mind.
Initially, he set a trap across the opening of the hole. When that didn’t do the trick and the displaced sand filled over half the height of the window, he came back and added a second baited trap.
Days passed with little evidence of activity, but one trap tripped. The trail camera he added captured one image of the critter going under the little opening beneath the plastic cover over the window well, so he suggested we block that with a piece of wood.
The plan was to reset the trap one last time with the opening blocked. If there was no activity, we could assume the pest was on the outside and would no longer have access.
While he was setting things up for that last time, Cyndie warned him to be careful of the wasps showing up nearby. He spotted the ground nest a few feet away and offered to take care of it, at a discount, since he was already on site.
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Ultimately, those ended up being the only pests he visibly dispatched.
Yesterday, we noticed he had removed his traps, as planned since there was no additional activity. That was my cue to dig out the well and replace the cover.
I sure wish I could put all that sand back where it came from, but hardly any of it fit back into the hole in the corner. The rest had to be hauled away for use filling various washout voids around the yard.
In the absence of an actual capture, I will not be surprised if new burrowing shows up someplace else around the house.
It’s becoming pretty much the norm around here.
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Wild Interlopers
Lately, for some yet-to-be-determined reason, we have been experiencing a distinct increase in uninvited wild visitors, some of whom seem interested in establishing residency. Some of them are cute and for the most part harmless, like the five young deer Cyndie spotted grazing in the back pasture last night.
Some are, unfortunately, all too familiar, like the mice and bats that Pequenita seems to view as mere house playmates for her ongoing enjoyment.
There are, as noted in two other recent posts, a family of raccoons and a suspected woodchuck making their presence known in broad daylight on separate occasions.
Yesterday morning, Cyndie sent me a picture looking out the egress window of the basement bedroom revealing a large mound of soil tossed up by one of several possible burrowing pests.
I’m leaning toward the woodchuck, based on the size of the excavation.
When I got home to see for myself, there were two frogs peering in the window from the top of the pile, and a mole napping off to the side.
My adventurous spirit is at a low ebb and I am struggling to muster any interest whatsoever in addressing even one of these wild animal pests, let alone all of them. Sadly, neglecting to deal with them now offers nothing but greater complications later. I’d rather not admit that it crossed my mind that we could simply sell the place, as is, and let the buyers deal with the pests.
Or, we could throw money at the problem and hopefully find a professional who is genuinely interested in tackling the challenges. I wonder if it would be possible to trap both a woodchuck and some raccoons at the same time?
I will happily watch the critters be driven down our driveway and off into the sunset for relocation at some magical forest that is over 25 miles away from everywhere, where all pest control companies release their captives to live out pesky lives in blissful harmony.
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Unbelievable Response
Words you don’t want to hear when you are seated in an easy chair in the dwindling minutes before dinnertime:
“Honey, there’s no water pressure.”
What do I know about plumbing? Not much, but I know how to investigate. We cleaned the filter, but that didn’t seem like it was bad enough to be the problem.
I could see the pressure gauge reading confirmed Cyndie’s assessment of no water pressure. Next question was the electric control. I removed a screw and pulled the panel off.
Bingo! The capacitor had blown its top.
Um, now what? Who ya gonna call?
I asked Google. The first hit in the area was a well drilling contractor in River Falls that was listed as being open 24 hours. I don’t know how they can be open 24 hours, but I called and left my phone number and a brief message. I received a return call within about five minutes.
Words you want to hear when you have no water pressure in the dwindling minutes before dinnertime:
“I’m available to come right away.”
A half an hour later, the control panel was replaced, a new pressure gauge installed, and water pressure was back to normal.
Unbelievable.
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Big Changes
Last Sunday, Wintervale declared a “Snow Emergency,” restricting any parking on either side of our driveway until June, but it looks like that will be rescinded very soon. The weather has changed in a big way, from cold and snow, to chilly rain. 
The liquid precipitation yesterday made short work of the snow that had collected on tree branches, instantly changing the landscape views. The woods now have an incongruous appearance with so much snow still on the ground, but the trees all wet and dark.
At this point, the deep snowpack is absorbing the bulk of the water that is falling from the sky, but the situation should get interesting after a couple days of increasingly intense rain.
After the saturation point is reached, the water will start the great migration that ultimately takes it to the Gulf of Mexico. Can you say, “flooding?”
The glacier on the front side of the barn already has a lake forming on top, and the piles of snow on either side look like they aren’t going to offer an outlet any time soon. I may resort to a little creative drainage engineering to avoid the water choosing its own alternative route through the inside of the barn.
Up by the house, on the hill where I boasted about not worrying about flood concerns, I noticed the water running down the gutters wasn’t flowing out the end of the ice-packed downspout.
As a result, it isn’t directed away from the house, finding its way, instead, right where we don’t want it, along the foundation.
That situation shouldn’t last long, but in the land of freeze and thaw, I never like seeing any water pooling where it isn’t welcome.
Funny, how the landscaping which used to slope away from the house in November, takes on a variety of gradients after months of settling, being heaved by frost, and burrowed in by rodent pests. The results are rarely favorable.
Meanwhile, it is refreshing to have this glimpse of the next season making its rapid appearance. It’s WAY too early to expect such luck, but I would be thrilled if don’t have to plow again until next year.
On that note, I should probably make sure the lawn mower blades are sharp and ready to go.
Big changes are underway!
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Past Blast
Yesterday, a co-worker pointed out that it reached 80° in March six years ago. I had no recollection whatsoever about what I was doing in March of 2012, but I pointed out that I have this handy-dandy online journal that allows me to easily check.
The blast from my past that appeared on my screen was very interesting to read, in relation to some of the current challenges and discussions Cyndie and I have been having lately regarding what lies in store for us and Wintervale Ranch.
I am moved to re-post what I wrote for March 29, 2012:
Dream Hesitation
What the heck do I know about owning a horse farm? With the brains of this organization off gallivanting around Boston right now, it is I, your humble correspondent, who am on the front line of decision making. Yesterday, we received the first batch of properties from the realtor we met with a month ago, and I noticed some things about the listings that triggered a little apprehension in me.
“Do we know what we want to spend?” she wrote. Um… no. Well, that’s not true. We would like to spend nothing, but I assume that is not going to bring the results we are hoping for.
Private sewer? This property has a private sewer. Oh, just what I always wanted, a sewer of my own.
One property had a lot of acreage, but within a flood plain. Do I want to open that box?
Then, there are all the improvements we did to our home of 25 years. Looking at this first list of potential properties, I see all the things we’ve already done here, needing to be done all over again. Oy. Siding, insulation, gas fireplace insert, gutters, windows, garage door and floor, new driveway, landscaping, kitchen remodel, bathroom upgrades. Did I mention siding?
And, of course, now we are going to have all the walls and ceilings here repaired, freshly painted, and new carpet installed! How many of you can see John deciding to stay here and rent a stall in a stable nearby for Cyndie to have a horse?
Cyndie is the true dreamer of our team. I’m just a tag-along. I fill in some of the creative blanks, but I also tend to drag in a bit more realism (read “pessimism”) than she wants to hear. I guess we are a good balance, eh?
It doesn’t feel right trying to do this without her around.
But, hey, don’t let me get you down. This is just a normal phase of my processing things. I’ll get over it. Seriously. And, Cyndie visits again in about 3-weeks. In just a few minutes of arriving, she’ll have me back up on our dream cloud and we’ll be designing our little paradise together as if it is what my whole life groomed me to be doing.
Meanwhile, maybe I should sneak out to visit the horses she tends to here, on my own, and just stand near them… see if I can hear what they have to say. I could use a dose of their wisdom.
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It is so interesting for me to read that, especially the end. I had zero experience with horses at that time.
We did end up designing a little paradise together, and it has felt like what my life groomed me to be doing. At the same time, it feels jarring to read my pondering about staying put in our old house and renting a stall for keeping a horse when questions have been popping up recently about the viability of our current situation.
The past really does provide an interesting reference for the present.
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Unwelcome Infestation
Yesterday started with a shock for us. We had just stepped out of bed and were getting dressed to take Delilah out to tend to the horses. Delilah strangely fixated on something that we assumed must be a dog toy that had rolled under the chair.
I suggested it was probably a mouse. I had the wrong pest.
Oh my gosh! ANTS!
I grabbed a flashlight to look under the chair for Delilah so I could pull out what she was so interested in. What the heck!? Ants have moved in and taken up residence at this outlet. They must like the warm transformer to incubate their eggs.
Maybe they thrive on electricity.
I wonder if our carbon monoxide detector still works. I didn’t test it.
When I saw all the wood particles, I worried, “Termites?”
Naw. The ants were just pulling out the scraps left in the opening cut for the outlet box.
Ain’t home ownership grand?
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(Today’s post partially delayed by the very distracting youtube live stream of April the giraffe giving birth…)
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Home Invasion
I am now thrust from the bliss of the bike trip into the harsh reality of home ownership and maintenance. I came home to this scene Wednesday:
Some pesky critter is building a cathedral in my home and he/she/it is removing a LOT of insulating material in the process. I shudder to think what the space looks like in there.
We didn’t bother looking any further than the gaping hole located above the pile of pieces, which we immediately filled with a combination of some of the stuffing from the pile below, a couple of wads of steel wool, a section of screen mesh, and plenty of caulk.
I hope the residents were not at home when we sealed the entrance.
This kind of thing helps me to miss being on the bike trip even more than I already was.
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Relative Something 