It is up

Some of the dangly bits are missing, but no doubt hidden in the box of worms, all nicely-static and ready to stick to everything.

One Of Life's Great Mysteries: why do electricians always find more to fix, and to charge for, than you asked them to????? I now have a brand new surge protector on the house. I guess that is a good thing?

Don't know about these colours

This is the downstairs sitting-room, the one that used to be dank and dismal and septic-yellow (which I'm sure somebody-else really liked once), and smelled like... well use your imagination/memory. The walls, ceiling and woodwork are all freshly-painted. The ceiling is deep brown, the walls a sort of peachiness, the wood is off-white. The floor is still gross and the radiator covers still to be painted and fitted back on (that is always a job-and-a-half).

The chandelier is emerging from its cocoon of polystyrene worms...

Anyway, it is only paint, and if it doesn't work it can easily change back to septic yellow. (Or maybe not!)

What's growing in the wetlands today?

Took the dog for her morning constitutional; out of the house, turn right towards the bay, past the reeds with the red-winged blackbirds, past the little ditch where Rodney the Musk Rat takes his bath and leaves a trail of foot-and-tail prints across the road, past the big gulls pushing each other off the telegraph pole, round the corner... and face-to-face with an off-white jeep, growing in the ditch.

Whoever put it in there must have been going at quite a speed round the 90-degree corner, or they took it too sharp in the dark (the streetlight has not worked since I moved here), or they were being too polite to a motorist going the other way, or they were avoiding a deer or ten in the dark... whatever, right now it's at a sharp angle with both passenger-side wheels plunged soggily into the ditch. No-one inside (we checked), but if someone doesn't come and pull it out soon, it will get sucked deeper and deeper into the mud and water. Leave it a week and it may have reeds coming through the engine block, if the cold holds off. They are going to need a big pull to get it out of there.

I didn't hear a thing. Didn't go that way yesterday, so it may have been there two nights... or might have happened this morning. Who knows?

And the earth moved...

I hear the earth just moved! In England, of all places!

Here is the evidence:

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ous/STORE/X2008nyae/ciim_display.html

Wow. Am amazed. I'm sure you were too. That's as good a jolt as I felt once in Los Angeles.

Wow. England. I miss you.

Another storm

The wind is howling, raindrops spattering against the window. The windchimes playing havoc, loudly, the big ones at the back of the house and the medium ones under the trees at the side.
The small, tinkly ones have gone, flown away at some point during the past couple of months, probably the same day that the rocking chair fell over again and the left-outside flip-flops went dancing across the deck, tripping and twirling and scaring the dog.

I hope the fish are cosy under the ice. I promise to make the pond better once spring arrives.

The mosaic... waiting

This is the mosaic so far--it's as big as the dining-room table (that's where it is) and about as heavy. I have to decide where I'm going to put it before I do any more work to it, because it's already heavy. Won't grout it until it's been mounted to wall.

It is seaglass (i.e., not real washed-up-on-the-beach seaglass, but bought-from-craft-store-for-use-in-flower-or-candle-arrangement-glass-that-has-been-smoothed-in-a-rock-sanding-machine), smooth pebbles, and some glass drops that you can buy in bags from the Dollar Tree. Stuck to tile backerboard with ordinary tile thinset, squeezed into place from a plastic bag (like icing/frosting a cake).

Now I wish I had collected glass from the Glass Beach in Fort Bragg.

Sunrise

I am still getting used to sunrise. Despite several years in California, where there were definitely sunrises happening each and every morning, and sunsets in the evening.

This comes of spending years in Grenoble, in France, which is a pretty city sitting within a basin of mountains. The sun just appears, fully-risen, adult, over the mountains in the east, and sets, still too young, behind the western cliffs. Beautiful in its own way, but makes me appreciate these new mornings the more.

Sneak preview

This is the part of the bathroom with the tub (stating the obvious). Porcelain tiles and black pebbles. From the shower there is a view out over the marshes, and only a low-flying seagull can peep in. The plumbing will be finished tonight!

Happy

The sound of a sunny Sunday morning

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/144/_/Red-winged_Blackbird.aspx

Moon on the water

Where the heck is my tripod????

Saturday stroll

The snow has melted and refrozen along the edges of the streets. The marina is empty, and still. The seagulls had been there, leaving their footprints and a few pecked-dry chicken bones. In the summer they will be laughing at us again, but for now they are trying to stay warm too.

Muffin is snowily hopeful

She sat watching the bird-feeder for quite a while, waiting for a sparrow or finch to fly straight into her mouth. "I thought I saw a puddy-cat..." She can't get to the feeder unless she is prepared to free-fall about twelve feet. She has too much ballast for that.

Had enough.

Let me in. Pleeeez.

Snow! Yes!

It started sometime after four this morning. It's now nearly eight, and we have three or four inches of snow--with more to come. It may turn to rain this afternoon, but expected to be really cold, well below freezing, tonight. I am staying home.

The ducks flying through the snowflakes like fighter pilots. The heron lumbers through the air, circles, disappears in a flurry of distant flakes.

The snow is collecting against the door and on the deck railing. I cleared the bowl of birdseed once already, but it's already covered again. At least they have the hanging feeder which has a roof to keep seed and birds dry.

Shop request on behalf of Mastic/Shirley

After living here six months or so, these are the shops that I feel are sorely lacking in this area. Happily we have a Home Depot and many excellent nurseries/garden centers, and several Targets within easy driving distance so am not complaining about those. There are plenty of farm stands for seasonal fruit, vegetables and flowers--at least in the warmer months. And it's OK Borders and Barnes/Noble and other big bookshops being a journey away, it means I can't go shopping there every day, and a visit is a treat. I am really not complaining--I love it here--but some of life's little necessities are missing/far away:

1) Ross Stores. Nearest today: New Jersey! Not one in NY state!
I miss the treasure-trove of clothes, shoes, tops, bottoms, soap, towels, curtains, sheets, baskets, boxes, weird ornaments, mirrors, undies, socks, mugs, glasses, vases, pictures, mirrors, pullovers, scarves, handbags, luggage, shirts, ties, Christmas cards in June. There's a perfect spot for a Ross, next to Staples and close to the ATT phone shop. I emailed them and told them so, but they haven't acknowledged the brilliant idea. Yet.

2) Trader Joe's. Nearest today: Lake Grove, twenty miles.
It's a long way for everyday food but nowhere closer sells gluten-free bread, European (i.e., real,) cheese (and yes we do have cheese in England for those of you who may be French), frozen jasmine rice (lazy, but good), real olive tapenade, and frozen Vindaloo Chicken (yes, really). And to those of you who commute to the city every day and take Nicolls Road from the LIE to Sunrise, my route to Lake Grove, a polite reminder. THE BL***Y STATE SPEED LIMIT IS 55 MILES/HOUR AND NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED WHILE DRIVING UNLESS HANDS-FREE. I think you misread the signs and added a 1. Before the first 5. Scary.

Put a Trader Joes in Riverhead, that's OK, could combine a trip with a visit to the Polish shop (see below) and avoid the I-own-the-road loonies.

3) A Russian food shop. Or Polish food shop. Whichever. Only a few requirements: must sell real honey (the sort that crystalizes and tastes of spring or summer or forests or lavender fields and buzzes), the makings for bigos (kielbasa, sauerkraut, cabbage and that special bacony-ham), and Krowki. Mmmmm krowki. So I should make an effort and go to Riverhead to the Polish deli when it's open and bring back a cupboard full of honey. and stop moaning about processed sugar-water. OK. But it *would* be nice to have one just down the street. Dziekuje bardzo.

4) A coffee-shop/tea house. Somewhere nice to go for a coffee. Not necessarily Starbucks: just not Dunkin Donuts, McDos or the deli (deli coffee is really good but nowhere to hang out). People have accosted me in supermarket parking lot asking where the Starbucks is. And I really don't know.

5) A real bakers'. Where the smell of fresh-baked bread drifts out into the street and the loaves are whole and uncut and not-necessarily-square-shaped and where some may have embedded olives and some have cheesy crusts and some have HOVIS like raised scars. Not that I can eat the darn stuff any more but real bread smells sooooooooo gooooooooood.

6) Any shop at all that sells tinned fava/broad beans. Ful!!!!

The shop that we absolutely do NOT need close by:

A yarn shop. I have sixty-year's worth of knitting wool in the loft. If a yarn shop opens nearby I will not be able to resist that beautiful, soft, sweet-smelling, warm, green/blue merino... so no yarn shop needed. Please. No. Really.

Total eclipse of the...

... moon. Then it went pink. Now it's a pale, pink, eclipsed disk in a dark dark sky. The stars are out. The planets are out. And the deck is an excellent place to watch it from. But very, very cold tonight.

(Bonnie Tyler won't stop singing. Now I have to watch Bandits again.)

The sky is falling

Tonight there will be a lunar eclipse. The moon is full, the sky should be clear, and must remember to look for it!

At the same time, "they" are planning to shoot down a rogue spy satellite that is descending into the earth's atmosphere and is carrying toxic fuel. The idea being that blowing it up in space will dissipate the toxic stuff before it reaches earth.

I just hope "they" don't give the gun to Dick Cheney.... he might shoot the man in the moon instead.

Pebbles :-)

The pebble floor is being installed... if you don't like it, blame it on all the summers spent walking on Sheringham beaches.

:-)

Spooked at the beach

Took Fury for a late-afternoon stroll on the beach at Smith Point. It was foggy, getting foggier by the minute. Big waves, hardly visible behind the first breaker. Not much sand. Very few people around, just footprints going one way.

Fury ran after a stick. Twice. Then didn't want to play any more.

She kept barking at things that were not there... spirits hidden in the fog.

Spooky.

Second bathroom, grout adventure

Grout removal outfit. Armed with two grout saws and a nifty little triangular scraper-thingy. Lots and lots of dust.
Getting started...
And finished. All nice and clean again. White grout, not black/brown/grey slime, and no more cracks in the corners.

Swan step

They look so graceful when swimming, and regal when flying. Yet stepping-out across the sand at low tide, not quite.

Nature's weather vane

I can tell which way the wind is blowing by looking at the direction the starlings are pointing. Their beaks are into the wind so their feathers don't get ruffled.

February 14th high water

The storm (about 2.5 inches of rain, lots of wind) was on Wednesday, but the ocean was complaining on Thursday. This is spray from ocean waves breaking on Smith Point, visible right across the bay.

It is hissing it down

Serious rain. Washed all the snow away, darnit.

Very very sad story

On Monday evening, I saw the local TV news where--due to the very cold weather--they made a feature story of a homeless man and his lady, who refused to go to a shelter because of bad experiences in the past. He had been on the streets for I think nine years, the lady for a shorter--but still significant--time. They said they had each other to keep them warm...

Last night, he was dead from hypothermia. Aged forty-nine.

Here's the article: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-licold0213,0,4668169.story

It's not like this every day despite the photos...

... I just think it's pretty.

Weekend project part two

The cabinets are painted and the doors are back on! This picture doesn't capture the colour correctly: it's slightly redder than this appears. There will be knobs on all the doors and drawers when I go to Home Depot and buy screws that are long enough to fit through a standard cabinet. Why the heck they supply screws that are 1/4 inch too short I don't know...

The cracked tiles have been replaced in the countertop, and the old grout has been sawed out (that was fun). Have to wait for the thinset on the replacement tiles to harden, then I'll regrout it all the same colour as the tiles and it will look better. Now I know why you need spare tiles when you have to cut them :-)

Beach time!

Jade and Beth and Fury

Fury has been sniffing sand and slobbering... yuk

Just the sea, the sand, and us, and one or two other people far away by the pavilion. The beach was ours today.

This weekend's project.. downstairs kitchen cabinets

They will not stay pink -- that's the primer. It's white primer with 50% of the final colour. The final colour will be semi-gloss Behr "California Poppy"... but it's not orange (like California poppies are orange) but rather a very startling red. These cabinets are not in very good condition, not good enough to refiinish with varnish, so on went the primer. Once they are painted I'm going to try to regrout the tile countertop otherwise I'll have to either retile it or buy a complete new countertop which budget won't stretch to right now... so fingers crossed.

Pink is the new blue

The first of the indoor hyacinths has started opening up.

I bought a bag of blue hyacinth bulbs. A beautiful blue, somewhere between bluebell and midnight. I swear I am not colour-blind except when putting matching clothes together in before-dawn light. I don't think you're colour-blind either. Do you see what I see?

They think it's spring already

Last night, about 9 o'clock, I realised I had not collected the mail. As I opened the front door I thought I heard a strange wailing scream... but it stopped. Went to the mail box, took out a couple of letters and too-many circulars, turned to go back into the house... and this large creature was proudly walking down the middle of the street towards me.

He saw me and I saw him and we both stopped like statues.

He was under the orange street-light. Was he a giant cat? A small lion? He was orange and had a lion's mane and big feet...

No such luck. He was a big proud raccoon, lit by the streetlamp. We stared at each other for a couple of minutes, then he seemed to shrug, "whatever", and sauntered carelessly away into my neighbour's garden.

The wailing and squealing happened again during the night. It's not someone murdering their children, it's the raccoons making love. They think it's spring.

The Happy Couple

Back together again. When the male was absent for a day or so last week, the female was quite distressed. Maybe he went fishing...

(Now I'm hearing Chris Rea's "Gone Fishing"... maybe the swans had a disagreement over the remote control, who knows?)

Sunday afternoon

Sat on the deck in the falling-to-bits wooden rocking chair, reading in the sun. Beautiful afternoon. Pale blue sky, blue water, sand-coloured reeds, bare trees... a few birds... children playing outside in the street, no doubt practicing the moves that their heros will make in the Superbowl in a couple of hours.

I never would have believed I could sit outside in the sun in New York state in February. Was a lovely afternoon.

... and this will be the view from the shower!

Remodelling update--master bathroom

There is now a door to the bathroom from the bedroom! It fits neatly between the bedroom door and the closet.

The bathroom has been stripped down to the studs: all the badly-placed partly-done tiles removed, the "brand new" (and broken) bath tub removed, the too-wide separating wall narrowed, the sink removed (to make a place for the door). Today the plumber will be here (yes on a Sunday) to work on the pipes. The bathtub being broken is not a bad thing: it's allowed me to rethink the layout. The bathtub will be replaced at a right-angle to the outside wall.

This is the door to the bathroom from the living room. It will be sealed up once all the work in the bathroom has been completed. Right now you almost trip over the toilet when you go through this door--and the windows don't allow much privacy!

This is the sink that's been removed. We'll be reusing it, placing it against the wall that is at the head of the bath.

It feels like spring-with-a-frost

It was a still night. Must have been a couple of degrees below freezing, but not deep below. I woke to wetlands dusted in white.

Took Fury out early. The wetlands beach. A few seagulls, a distant grebe, and the sentinal heron.

We walked to the marina. A man wrapped in his winter coat sitting on a bench looking out over the bay. It was so beautifully quiet.

The sun is drifting in off the deck through the open door. The birds are singing spring songs already.