Sample sunrise

I don't need an alarm clock any more. The sun does it every morning. This is the view when I open my eyes.

More wildlife

Butterflies love the cone flowers! And the nighttime cicadas play maracas....

Visitors!

Louise and Rory are here from England. We are visiting the beaches, museums, cinema. Went to Manhattan for the day and Karli was tour guide. :-) Nice to have everyone here!

Hawkmoon, where are you?

Sometimes I look out of the window, across the marshes, and a dark tree takes on the shape of a castle. I think of Castle Brass appearing in the Camargue. I look for pink flamingos; we have white egrets instead. I look for wild horses; we have tall, rangy deer.

Yesterday, we were in Sayville, looking at museum boats. Some of them had runners as well as keels and rudders. For the ice. That rang a bell too...

Hawkmoon, where are you?

:-)

Hole in my bucket, dear 'Liza, dear 'Liza...

Actually it's a hole in the roof. Yuck. Bright side is that a) we found out before *real* storms in the winter and b) it happened before all the nice new drywall is installed. It's the flat roof and, as flat roofs like to do, it isn't draining properly.

Albert-the-contractor kindly just spent half an hour on a stepladder sweeping the water off.

I rigged up a nifty device with a bucket, some wood balanced across the stairwell, and an expanding cobweb-remover pole to guide the water into the bucket and stop that darn dripping. Worked perfectly until the pole dislodged itself, fell down and overturned the bucket of water...

Now waiting for roof guy to come and grin and have dollar-signs ring up in his eyes.

New York thunderstorm(s)

Major thunderstorm this morning. Had to put lights on in the office because it was so dark. Then the skies opened up, Fury started barking at the thunder, and it rained. Or rather, it RAINED.

In the picture, the water on the right is the water and pools in the marshes. The water on the left is the road to our house. :-)

This little bird...

... came to visit. He flew into the office and ended up in a corner, trying to hide under the radiator. I covered him with a cloth and took him back outside, where he (or she?) sat on the deck for several hours. Then, suddenly recovered, he took one look at Fury and flew away.

Anyone know what bird this is?

How the kitchen will look

This is an idea of how the kitchen will look once the existing kitchen has been demolished and rebuilt. It still won't be huge, but it will be open, a little bigger than it is now, and we'll have more light.

Progress--sort-of

I have at last found someone to take away the old 'fridge and stove from the downstairs kitchen. They will disappear this afternoon. Then I'll be able to do the floor and start on the cabinets.

This is the chest-of-drawers that I'll be refinishing for one of the downstairs rooms. It's in good condition, just needs cleaning up, some lighter stain, and new hardware.
And this is the colour scheme in the first downstairs room to be worked one--one more coat of paint needed!

The pond on a misty morning

Hot fog!

Strangest weather so far yesterday. It was really, really hot and humid. Probably not as hot as it's been over in California recently, but with the humidity it was like human meltdown. You felt as if you were a snowman in the desert.

That was the morning. Hot and humid. Then about lunchtime, it started getting hazy. Then misty.

And then the fog arrived.

Have you ever experienced Hot Fog before???

After the fourth

Having spent three days doing hard labour in the garden, I didn't have the energy to go out in the rain to see fireworks. So I watched them from the windows, in the dry... and then was woken in the middle of the night to nature's fireworks--a magnificent thunderstorm. Dog and cat were not impressed ;-)

Here are some more pictures of the pond and garden now--have cleared some of the borders, tidied them, edged and mulched them. Removed more of the creepers and vines and overgrown wild roses from the fence. I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards from all the scratches and bruises and scrapes.

Now I'm tempted to clear the land behind the fences... that really must wait until after the house is better. But wouldn't it be nice to have a wooded glade to walk through????

Busy Monday

Took the day off work. By 8 a.m., I'd given the trim in one of the downstairs rooms its first coat. I'm sure I'm doing that room in completely the wrong order. First I did the floor (which is now covered in a sheet of plastic to protect it from the paint I will no doubt splash/spill/spatter). Then I masked off all the trim with blue painter's tape without really thinking, and it cost 6$ for the tape and an hour or so's work so what the heck, I painted it. Tomorrow should be paint-the-walls day and I'll finish up with final coat on the trim after that. Remembered to remove the masking tape soon after painting this time, cos no matter what they say about masking tape glue coming unstuck up to 60 days later, if it's covered in paint it will rip of part of the paintwork.

Then went to the insurance agent to pick up paperwork, then to the DMV again, this time for my truck. It now has some NY license plates which I must remember to swap for the California tags. And in NY, you insure the vehicle not the driver. Seems like a better solution to me. As long as you have a valid USA driving license, you can drive my car. With my permission, that is.

On the way back from DMV, went to Forge River Nursery to buy first plants for the pond. We now have one white water lily, one pink water lily (both hardy so they should survive the winter), one purple flag with varigated leaves, and one non-descript iris (label just said, "Iris", so that's what she'll be called). And they had HUGE koi. Almost as big as the dog. Well...OK I exaggerate. They were only as big as the cat. How much? A little more than the goldfish we used to win at the fairground by throwing ping-pong balls into goldfish bowls. Not that these monsters would fit a fin into a goldfish bowl.

I think they were gold-plated. How much?

Only Five Hundred Dollars!

Needless to say, I didn't buy one. Though I think the local raccoons would have met their match if they tried to snack on one of these babies. I'm sure they have teeth.

The lilies, irises and a few water lettuce are now installed in the pond. And I cleared about six more bagsful of overgrowing wild rose and brambles and grapevines and Goodness-Knows-What too. I'm glad no-one turned up while I was doing that because I would no doubt have slipped off the narrow ledge and fallen splash into the pond. Given the heat today, I was tempted to do that anyway.

And at the beach this evening, found out what Fury was so excited about under the boardwalk to the sand. Rabbits!!!!! (I saw one, Fury didn't notice!)