Settling In

You know that you are actually "there" when the night lights (without which a sleepwalking mommy would fall down the stairs) are finally properly positioned to provide a dim floor level glow throughout the house.

We are finally getting settled.  We now have three working, properly elevated shower heads (which means that our bathroom is no longer clogged with extra razors, makeup, hairdryers, and towels).  When we moved in, one shower was set up so that spray would hit a normally sized person somewhere around waist level; another released a stream of water designed to dampen the tile but incapable, for example, of rinsing soap off of a body... The only shower head capable of producing an acceptable shower was the one in the master bedroom. That is all fixed now and we are discovering more about the "new" house.

The most troublesome thing, the thing that we did not anticipate causing trouble, is that the kitchen is centrally located - surrounded by the bedrooms. This is only a problem if, as in our house, you have two people who arise at (the ungodly hour of) 4 AM each morning - showering, making lunches, slicing bananas and eating cereal; one who crawls from bed and begins to shower at 6 AM; and another who does not have classes before 2 PM. Yesterday's comment from Stubble was, "Oh, it's YOU making all the racket." I was, at the time, measuring coffee into the coffee pot. Not exactly a noisy activity. In our former house, the kitchen was well separated from all bedroom areas and morning activity or lack thereof was not an issue.

The other issue of gravity facing us is the garbage disposal. I completely understand that MOST people have one largish side of the sink in which to wash cooking pans and one smaller side of the sink that contains the garbage disposal. We have, for the last many years, had one HUGE sink with a garbage disposal right in the middle of it. Therefore, we must learn to rinse pots into the smaller disposal portion of the sink before washing them. Something that, for us apparently, is very difficult. I spent a great deal of time this morning bailing beans and carrots out of the large side of sink so that it would drain.

There are many excellent things about this new house:

• The stars. That should probably be: STARS! We live on a small private drive that has no street lights and the improvement in star viewing is nothing short of amazing.  On the other hand, the lack of surrounding lights and the presence of coyotes can be un-nerving.
• The garden. The previous owners left a partial row of onions in their vegetable garden, whether by accident or design. I have discovered that there is nothing better on a hamburger than an onion pulled from the garden, washed off, and immediately sliced.  On the other hand, there are seeds to be planted, soil to till, weeds to be pulled, shrubs to be trimmed.  Oh, and did I mention the weeds to be pulled?  And then there is the fact that one of the neighbors came by Sunday with a picture guide to local snakes to show us which ones to not kill.
• The laundry room. Which is now separate from the cat's litter boxes. There was nothing quite like surprising a kitty in mid litter box activity with the buzzer of the dryer.  It accounted for some alarming noises issuing from the area behind the kitchen.  And some interesting clean ups.  On the other hand - there is no "other hand" here - we now also don't need to be concerned about clean sheets dropping onto scattered bits of clay.
• The "Family Room". Or as my family chooses to call it, "The Living Room" because you can only "live" where there is TV. Right? At any rate, we now have one family/living room (the upstairs room with couches and chairs and side tables) where I can read unmolested by television programs about cars, airplanes, or large machines that 'make things'.  The "other" family/living room is downstairs and contains couches and chairs and side tables and is the room where I can watch Modern Family, Gray's Anatomy, The Good Wife, and (best of all) Blue Bloods (with Tom Selleck*). Those are the (few) hours of the week when I evict the rest of the family from the vicinity of the (large) television and take it over as they scatter to other areas of the house.  The exception would be Ms. Flippers, who occasionally watches Gray's Anatomy with me.
• The Bonus Room.  AKA "The Gaming Room".  Originally a storage area off of the garage, it is now panelled, carpeted, and drop ceilinged.  It now houses all x-boxes, ps-whatevers, Wii's and gaming computers and their assorted monitors, speakers, 3 easy chairs and a couch.  The mini fridge left by the previous owners resides just a few steps away outside of the door.  I do not go there.  Ever.
• The kitty tower.  It is now accessible to the kitties.  Formerly it was locked away in the Family/Gaming Room which had been taken over by people under the age of 30 who left lots of power cords lying around.  Power cords that would attract the teeth of kitties who were attracted to the bits of food stuck to them.  It became not so much a Family Room as a No Parent's and Kitties Land.

Combine the last three bullet points and you will know exactly what attracted us to this particular house...

* About Tom Selleck.  He was gorgeous years ago when I was first married and he has certainly aged well.  I do enjoy being able to look at him watch him in a weekly television show again.  Note:  The Bearded One has aged well also.

Vanquished! (apparently)

Ms. Flippers reported that she heard the sounds of retreating Raccoons a few nights ago. She could hear them coming over the shed and ran to make noise at them, but they were already retreating across the fence.

I was afraid to believe her, but last night as I sat on the deck, I heard the rustle and patter of tiny (and not so tiny) feet through the bushes and along the fence. Soon the footfalls ceased and there were rustling noises - which were followed soon after by the sounds of rapid retreat. There was skittering along the top of the fence and a great crashing in the bushes.

Long live the Yard Sentinel!

Guardian

Last weekend our "Yard Sentinel" arrived. It is supposed to repel Raccoons with ultrasonic bursts. So far all that it has done is to send our neighbor's dog to the front bedroom and under the bed...as far away from the "Yard Sentinel" as she can get without running away.
We will be adjusting the sensitivity.

And This Time They Brought Reinforcements

The Raccoons, dang Varmints!  They are back and this time they are undeterred by the plastic mesh of the chicken "wire" protecting my pond .

At 10:45 PM, Stubble came up to our room to announce, "Mom, the raccoons are back and they're trying to break into the pond!  And THIS time there are SIX of them!"

Of course I leapt up staggered from bed to assist in the battle.  Armed with an empty Coke can, a sturdy dowel that usually acts as a secondary lock for the family room slider, and a flashlight, Stubble and I bravely advanced to the backyard battlefield.

One of them was on the lattice "roof" of the pond enclosure, another was inside having already uprooted the waterlilies.  Two youngsters were running about by the back fence.  For some unknown reason, the motion sensor lights had not come on.  Well, not really an UNKNOWN reason.  Somebody had turned them off, leading to the incursion into my territory.

As I found out later, the lights would not have deterred them as the elder raccoon has discovered a path to the pond guaranteed not to trigger the lights - over our neighbor's garden shed, down our fence by the bird bath, along the back of our shed and then up the wrought iron framework of the gazebo and finally into the pond itself...

Our timely entrance into the field of battle disturbed the maruaders and the adults retreated as quickly as they could given the need to stick to the shadows.  The two unfortunate youngsters, however, could not scale the stockade fence and fell repeatedly as they tried to climb it in the birdbath area.  As the intrepid Stubble closed in, flashlight in hand, they began to scurry back and forth along the fence, chirping for help.  Their mother hissed at us from the top of the fence.

Stubble grabbed a plastic parson's table from the patio and placed it so as to assist the littlest raccoons in their escape attempts.

"I'm only trying to help!  Don't you growl at me!" muttered Stubble to the mother raccoon who was by this time sitting upright on a cinderblock fence post, expressing her displeasure at the proceedings.

By then our neighbors were alerted to the goings on and offered their encouragement from their well lit back patio, which served to close off several potential escape routes for the furry invaders.

One of the youngsters managed to run to the front of our house and climb the reinforcing structure of the gate from which he fled to the safety of a darkened driveway.  The second, having retreated to the narrow passage behind the shed, managed to climb the gazebo wall from which he could reach the top of the fence quite handily.

Today the planning shall begin for a means to repel the nocturnal visitors once and for all!

Protect Wildlife - Please Crush...

Rufus the Unhinged, my furry little tuxedo cat, helped me clean the litter boxes this morning.  We keep our litter scoop in a cut down half-gallon milk jug.  While Rufus was "helping" he went to sniff the bottom of the milk jug.  Then he stuck his head all the way in, no doubt to get a better sniff...and got stuck.

I couldn't help him right away and he blundered around the laundry room shaking his head.  His sister Kimi couldn't figure out what was happening to her brother although she tried to help by backing him into the corner by the pantry.  As I was going to release him from his HDPE 2 prison, Rufus gave his head a mighty shake and the jug came off.  That he got stuck at all was surprising as the entire top half of the jug is removed.  Trust Rufus to figure out how.

On a really serious note:  As I was shaking my head and smiling over the cat, it occurred to me that while I was fine with waiting until I had finished scooping the litter and no permanent harm would befall the little fuzzball, in a "wild" setting, this would really be a problem.  I hereby resolve to crush all of my Yoplait containers even it it gets yogurt splashes on my floor.

Varmint

Someone new moved to our neighborhood about 6 months ago. Actually "something". A big fat Raccoon. And he is menacing our property. He started with the lawn, digging up sod wherever he felt like digging. At first we suspected any number of things, but when Stubble and his friend caught sight of the beast through the family room window one night while playing a marathon session of World of Warcraft, we knew what we were up against. Our first volley was motion sensor lights aimed to cover the entire back yard. The Raccoon's answering salvo was our fish pond. He started by shredding the netting that covers the gazebo that protects the pond from local fish eating birds. He escalated by tearing up my water lillies. I replanted and he tore them up up again. The lillies are now residing in a water garden on our deck where I hope that they will recover from the trauma.
The Raccoon continued his vandalism, leaping from the top of our shed to the gazebo roof - where he fell through toppling the waterfall that feeds the pond. He has also eaten one of our neighbor's koi and a frog (tossing the uneaten half back into the pond).
This means full out Raccoon War. Last weekend we bought "poultry mesh" basically chicken wire made out of really tough plastic. We removed the damaged netting and attached the poultry mesh with hundreds of black cable ties..,.
I sincerely hope that this keeps the little menace the heck away from our pond. Time will tell. Wish us luck.