Squeals in the Night

Last night we woke up to the strangest sounds. Actually it sounded sort of like a baby giraffe or some other strange animal, squealing. And then there was running around, sounds of hooves and huffing and snorting. Right outside our window.

I had no idea what sort of animal makes those sounds. I did hear one of the dogs running around too, barking. I went to the back door with two flashlights and tried to figure out what the heck was happening out there.

I saw several sets of eyes, moving around. The squeals continued. Some of the eyes bounded away, and I figured out they belonged to mule deer. There was more squealing, and further away was huffing and snorting. I called the dog in the house, and he was panting, out of breath.

One set of eyes was near the ground, I heard the little deer sort of flopping around, not quite able to get up, and squealing. The deer must have gotten trapped in the new corner of fence created when our neighbors moved their garden, joined the fence with the fence on the field and took out the natural pathway from the orchard, where the deer clean up the fallen peaches.

In the distance, I heard the mother deer call softly, similar to a goat's bleating, to her fawn.

I moved away from the door as I saw the mother's eyes coming back. She was still calling to her fawn, and huffing. I'm not sure if the huffs were from running and jumping or just a sort of warning to me and the dogs.

I went back to bed, the squealing stopped, and the dogs settled in for the night on the carpet.

In the morning, there was no dead baby deer behind the house, as I'd feared we would find. It's mother must have gotten it to its feet and guided it out of the yard.

Shelving Maniacs

In the new master suite, which used to be a very small bedroom, there was an old, small closet. You know, the regular size closet that accompanies every small bedroom. We had a guy rip out the walls that framed in the closet (it only had one door anyway, the other fell off years ago and was never replaced), patch the drywall and flooring where the old walls came out, and it became...

...an Alcove.

It made more sense, since we just added two big closets to the master suite anyway, and didn't need a third, ugly little closet. Now, the alcove looks like it belongs, like it was part of the room originally. (I haven't had time to take a picture, sorry)

We decided the Alcove needed some bookshelves. Number One and my Dad went to town for wood and supplies, and got to work. You may remember the shelves Number One built for the new pantry? He's a good shelf-builder, but I wanted a different design.

Number One and my Dad came up with the shelving design. They ran the plans by me, but then while I was gone they changed them. (I'm over it now). Number One decided the shelves needed arches at the top.

They spent two or maybe three days building, then my Dad spent a day sanding and varnishing. And here they are:


I like how open they are, and I like the arches too. You can barely tell that space used to be a closet! They are just waiting for all of our books and things.

Now, we just have to do something about this light fixture in here:

Lost & Confused

If you're going to claim to be a "tour guide" taking people around this area, don't you think you ought to know where you're going with customers, instead of tearing around the ranch driveway looking for the road to the Basin?

"This isn't the road to the Basin, is it," he said, pulling up in his classically logo-ed up tour company vehicle after zooming right past me and turning around at CG's house at the end of the drive.

"NO. You take the road by the [lovely new] bathrooms," I replied. "You're a guide???"

"Yeah, sorry, I just haven't been to the Basin for a while."


DUH, DUDE. What do you think "No Trespassing" means exactly? And while we're at it, how about the sign that actually says:

"Basin -->" ???

The Dining Room

Never mind that my parents are mere hours away, after driving across the country to visit us.

Ignore the piles of as-yet-unpacked boxes you may glimpse in the corners of the room.

Please imagine that the painting and lovely photographs are hanging on the wall, not propped up against it waiting for frame clips and picture hangers.

Oh, and definitely don't look too closely at the windows!


I just had to show you:

The Dining Room!

My vision for this room was to have mismatched black chairs that would tie in to the chandelier, the bar stools, the appliances in the kitchen. You know I don't like things to match, but I do like them to coordinate. Black has become one of our main accent colors in the house, along with yellow and possibly burnt orange (if I have my way in the living room!)

Originally I thought, wouldn't it be nice to find chairs at thrift stores and garage sales, and paint them all black? But then I realized that our teeny tiny town doesn't have those kinds of thrift stores OR garage sales, nor do I have that kind of time for treasure hunting if I ever want to eat a meal in the dining room.

So I went treasure hunting online. I kept going back to Target, for their reasonable prices and occasional free shipping They actually have lots of choices for black dining room chairs, and they are relatively inexpensive. I went there, and went there and kept going there. Finally, it happened. Four different styles of black chairs, in sets of two, all On Sale, all with Free Shipping and all with an Additional 15% off!


UPS delivered three sets, and FedEx finally surrendered the set they had been given to ship (after they'd hauled it around in there truck for almost a week--that is another post all together). Number One and I assembled them, and here they are. I have two chairs set aside because I made the table smaller and they just didn't look right. But now, the table is just the right size for the whole family, with my parents.

I am still looking for two arm chairs for the head of the table, black ones, possibly with fabric, we'll see what turns up. This may be where the thrift store shopping comes in, since I haven't found any chairs that I like that aren't outrageously expensive. Yet.

This is a work in progress.
But for now, isn't it gorgeous?

Legacy

I showed H-Bomb and Sawed Off a picture of their grandpa, on a horse pushing cattle in the 1960’s. I asked them if they knew who it was, and they shrugged their shoulders.

“That’s your Grandpa, when he used to live here and be a cowboy and run this place, even before your Grammy did” I said.

“Awesome!” said H-Bomb. He asked why I moved here, and I told him because I fell in love with his Daddy.

Number One asked H-Bomb why he lives here, and H-Bomb said, “Because I came out of Mommy’s tummy! And Sawed Off too!”

We asked them if they like living here on the ranch, and they both said they do. We asked them if the ranch is their favorite place to live, and they said “YES.”

And then H-Bomb said, “Maybe when I’m older, I’ll live here with my wife and Sawed Off will live here with his wife and when me and my wife have babies and Sawed Off and his wife have babies they will just stay here and play on the playset, because I want the playset to stay here.”

What a lovely plan.

You Gotta Be Kiddin'

Days before our final walk-through with the contractor and our ABEG rep, we noticed that one of the new electrical outlets wasn't working. Number One checked it out, but couldn't figure out what was going on. On the day of the walk-through, the contractor checked it out, but he couldn't figure it out either. He said he'd have to call the electricians. Great. (I don't remember really harping on the electricians on here, but let's just say it took so many trips for them to "fix" their stupid [intentional?] mistakes that I hope I never have to see them again).

The other day, Number One asked if I had seen the bathroom. "The bathroom? No. Why? What?" I replied.

"The electrician was here," Number One informed me, and told me it was the one with whom we had so much trouble. The one who told me "dimmer switches just get super hot, they just do" and then I had to call his boss to have him come back and upgrade the dimmer switches. Grrrrr.

I ran back to our lovely, spa-like Master Bathroom to find this:



Perhaps you can't see it in the picture. You see the two outlets, to the left and right of the sinks? And in between those outlets, you see the THREE CUTOUTS, oh excuse me, THREE HOLES in our freshly-drywalled and textured and painted WALL. Here's a closer view, just so you can see it:

Seriously? WTF, man!!!!???? Number One said the electrician told him that somehow the wire between the outlets had gotten cut (again, WTF??) and that he had to run a new wire in between them. Number One asked him if he couldn't just fish it through the less than 60" of wall space, instead of cutting THREE HOLES in our brand new wall.

Guess what. He said he "couldn't." Guess what? I say he's an ASSHOLE.

At least Number One convinced him to cut the holes higher up on the wall, instead of right down next to the backsplash on the countertop, where the idiot evidentally was going to cut them. And he saved the pieces of our wall and gently placed them back in their holes. And then he left them that way for us to deal with. Now we have more patching and texturing and painting to do.

His lame excuse? "The inspectors want the wiring stapled to the studs." UHHHHHH...the inspector will not be able to see THROUGH the drywall of a completed wall. It doesn't appear that an inspector will even come down again, having already been here. We haven't heard a peep about another visit from an inspector, and it's all over but the painting and moving furniture.

I think the guy is just LAZY and didn't want to fish the wires through. Plain and simple. He is lucky I wasn't here.

I really hate this guy. He is sooooooo not invited to the Housewarming Extravaganza.

Dust

On Friday, Number One and the Irrigator sanded the dining room and kitchen floors all day long. When the boys and I got home from school, they were still at it. We couldn't go in those rooms at all. The boys and I retreated to the master suite, and I occasionally went around the outside to retrieve apples from the kitchen for H-Bomb while Sawed Off continued his nap.


Nearly everything in the kitchen had been covered with tarps, and Number One turned off the refrigerator for the day. Now I know why we haven't moved many of our dishes and utensils and appliances back yet.

This morning, despite much shop-vac-ing by Number One, everything, and I mean Ev.Ry.Thing, was covered in dust. I wish I had bought more plastic tarps. I wish we had been able to finish the floors before the entire kitchen went it. Even though I know that wouldn't have been the best solution, given the months of builder/plumber/electrician comings-and-goings that followed the kitchen installation. Still.


The few cookbooks we brought over, which incidentally were under a tarp, were covered in dust. This clean up is going to be huge.


I pulled the coffee maker out of its pantry retreat, and cleaned the dust off of it. Yes, dust infiltrated the pantry. Thank goodness I hadn't moved very much in there yet! I wiped a spot of the counter top free of dust, just big enough for the coffee maker and a couple of mugs.

I didn't clean off the entire counter, because today is another sanding day. Hopefully we'll get a coat or two of varnish on the floors today too.

Number One and I stood there, admiring the floors. He says they shine when the sun hits them. I'm so proud. What a multi-talented cowboy I have!


And as you can see, someone has been having fun with this dusty situation. I guess it's not all bad! Those footprints look H-Bomb-sized to me.