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.

Thursday already!

Two really big events coming up (or so I'm told). Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, when loads of people trek through wind, snow, rain or whatever to see if a groundhog, cruelly disturbed from its winter sleep, can see its shadow or not. If said groundhog can see shadow, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow, winter will soon be over. I.e., if the sun shines tomorrow then expect more wind, snow, rain and whatever.

The other big event this weekend is Superbowl Sunday. This is the final game of the season's football (i.e., American football) ... and when you get to see all the coolest adverts (which cost their producers more than Britney's mansion). However, the fate of this game has already been decided by Princess the Camel. I saw her on TV. She is a two-humped Bactrian camel and, by choosing a cookie with the name of one team or another from her owner's hands, she has decided the result of the superbowl eight out of the past ten times (or seven out of nine, or something like that). This year she has cast her winning spell on the New York Giants.

Who knew America was ruled by a zoo????

Week on speed

The days are hurtling by in a mad rush of work, meetings, remodelling going on, storms blowing by (rain, wind, sunshine, warmth then freeze all within twelve hours)... it's all going so fast... no time to breathe or blink or even think sometimes.

Muffin the cat just walked in with fur ruffled by the wind, jumped onto the sofa and immediately became serene, smooth, and asleep. I think I can learn something from that.

Sunday project

The house needs cleaning--there's dust everywhere from the new drywall that the guys have put up downstairs. They've ripped out and replaced the rotten drywall in the downstairs kitchen. It's now a mini-kitchen with a sink, a kettle, a small microwave, a small 'fridge and a few cabinets. Replaced dangling lamps with four recessed lights. I'll be able to paint it all when they've finished and it will actually become usable. Vistors welcome!

This weekend though I'm ignoring the housework unless I suddenly feel inspired to grab the vacuum cleaner. Have started a mosaic. It's big--can't be bothered working with little tiddly bits-and-pieces--and it's mostly made with sea glass (I cheated and bought it, there's not much washes up round here, not like that beach in Fort Bragg in northern California, entire beach of sea glass).

Don't know if this will work. Have an ingenious method for applying thin-set mortar but won't brag about it until I know that the pieces don't all fall off...

Ice

There are lumps of ice scudding across the bay... it was about 13 degrees farenheit early this morning. The wind is bitter but it's supposed to "warm up" to above freezing this afternoon... and then rain... and then freeze again.

Anyone have any spare ice skates???

Work in progress--bathroom vanity

With the tiles in place, but no grout yet. The blues are glass, the rest is tumbled stone.

Oh and it's cold

Very, very cold. Brain-freezing cold.

But the sun shone all day, and the day was beautiful.

The big heron glided, half an inch above the water, all the way up the creek before finding a good spot to huddle out of the cold air.

Tomorrow will be even colder. This is winter!

More remodelling starts this week!

The guys will be here Tuesday to begin work on what will be the master bathroom (AKA the bathroom that has been unusable since the previous owners bought the house from the owner before that). Was hoping to reuse the (supposedly new) whirlpool bathtub but found a big crack in it last week, so that has to go. Good thing: allowed me to rethink the overall design and layout of the room, and make better use of the space... and now I'll be able to have that amazing view of the wetlands from in the shower without anyone except a low-flying heron looking in.

We are going to open up a door from the bedroom, seal up the door to the living room, move the sink, reduce the interior wall (where the nasty tacky gold-plated non-working shower cube was, install bathtub at ninety degrees to the exterior wall with the shower above it. Close up the entry to the attic and remove the stairs (can still get in from the bedroom) which should provide more storage space. Tile the floor and the walls. I have fifty square feet of black pebble tiles (i.e., flat, black, smooth pebbles stuck to mesh, like mosaic. Will do something inventive with it...

The picture above is the basis for the new vanity in the second bathroom. The frame/legs is part of a buy from ReStore: it came with an ugly, heavy sink, I'm just using the chrome frame and making a counter top (plywood, backerboard and stone tiles), with a "vessel" sink. That is, as long as I can persuade the guys that it really will work...

Lesson learned today: when you buy a set of circle cutters for your drill (I have absolutely no idea what you call them: they are devices that you fit to drill in order to cut holes of one or two inches in diameter), you absolutely get what you pay for. I threw my set away after having to remove second half of the hole for the tap with a chisel. Was especially annoying because I had to spend about an hour trying to find the darn things in the first place...

Saturday in the city

Spent yesterday--Saturday--in the city with Jade. Brunch, West Village, Lower East Side, tea at the Cake Shop, dinner at Orchard on Orchard, really nice day. I promise to do this more often.

Nearly missed the stop on the way home. The train is smooth and there's very little warning when you're reaching your station... easy to fall into an I've-walked-a-lot-in-the-cold-and-ate-big-steak-and-now-I'm-tired sleep at 10.30. Could have ended up in Montauk...

Morning arrives earlier and earlier

I thought I'd overslept today: woke when it was almost light. But no, it is just the day dawning a few minutes earlier each morning. How quickly the earth spins moves in its annual path. More noticeable too, here in New York, as we are further north than we were in California. But not so far north: despite harsher winters, this is 40 45' 40 north, the equivalent of Naples in Italy, or a few miles north of Madrid in Spain.

The birds are hungry. I have to refill the feeder. It is attracting not only all the American equivalents of bluetits, plus several pairs of bluejays and a gang of starlings, but also several bright-red cardinals . (These are the birds that had Jade jumping up-and-down saying, "I saw a red bird, I saw a red bird!" like it was Long John Silver's long-lost parrot or something. They are very special the first time you see one--bigger than an English robin, and very cheeky.) You can hear one singing on Whatbird: http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/692/_/Northern_Cardinal.aspx

Can't wait to do more work in garden

Can't wait can't wait can't wait.
Clear more undergrowth/briars but leave sheltered spots for the deer to hide in case that's where they have their babies. Make wooden pathways from old-deck-wood around the raised garden and winding through the woods. See if bluebells come up OK in next-door undeveloped woodland plot (really must mark out what is "mine" and not "theirs" and be satisfied with it) and plant more for next year once the back wood has fewer brambles/briar. Add some places to sit. Get help really fixing the pool as soon as winter is over. It needs a liner as there is obviously a real leak somewhere. Make a wetland for the laundry water as in a real planned wetland that filters the water and doesn't just pour detergent where it shouldn't go. Put up a shed and maybe a greenhouse too. Keep the nasty spiky green vine out. Encourage the wild roses. Hope the poppies come up. Plant more poppy seeds. Wonder if deer eat poppies...

P.S. on my eye

In case you were concerned, don't be. The eye is fine. I just had what is called a "separation", and it didn't damage the retina at all. That I am very pleased about. Apparently it happens to most people at some time--usually later, much later--in their life, but my myopic astigmatism put me more at risk. Anyway, no lasting damage, just a few annoying floaty things that will eventually go away.

Now if I could just recognise immediately that an uncomfortable contact lens might just be an inside-out contact lens instead of suffering it and being irritable for several hours thinking it was an after-effect of the nasty pupil-dilation potion that was stung into both eyes yeseterday during the tests, I might be getting somewhere...

Dancing, singing maggot. Believe it.

It sings, "Born to be Alive". And it wriggles forward. And scares the cat...

Thank you Mother.

A flurry

Just in case you blinked, and missed it.

Crying wolf

Guess what?

No snow. Yes, it rained. Yes, the wind blew. Yes, Fury barked like mad at 3.15 this morning because of a strange noise (freezing rain? sleet? just big raindrops? hitting the house from the north). But snow??? Not a trace.

"The ground temperature is too high."

I don't know if the American media was like this before 911, but this is pretty typical. Get really, really, REALLY worked up about something dangerous/risky/problematic... and then see nothing happen.

Remember what happened to the little boy who cried, "Wolf!"?

My snow shovel is going to stay in the garage today.

Oh.... an "Arctic Express" will arrive this weekend. Based on the reliability of the forecasts for the non-existant snowstorm, I'm going to prepare to go sunbathing on the beach. :-)