Something in the woodshed....

We have "wildlife".

This morning, my beloved came in from the garden to inform me that something was "hissing at him" from the pile of rubbish (stuff from the old kitchen, cabinets, drywall, wood etc) that is stacked up against the wall of the house.

A while ago we found a (harmless) corn-snake in the driveway. In addition we found out that there is a species of rattlesnake that lives in ny state (nowhere near us though and it's rare). Einar's brain had clearly abosrbed this information in a somewhat selective fashion- "corn-snakes=snakes=I am going to be eaten alive by a massive timber rattlesnake that has caught the bus up from the Southern Adirondacks specifcally to hunt for tender fleshed Norwegians."

In view of Einar's snake jitters, and feeling that it would be a little cruel to leave him to face this dangerous hissing pile of rubbish alone, I decided to march out bravely (and for tactical reasons behind my husband) to take a look.

I wouldn't say it hissed exactly. But it was making grunting piggy noises and shuffling sounds. It sounded a bit put out actually. Mind you it sounded even more put out when I gave the pile of rubbish an experimental kick. Was it even possible to get a pig infestation....?

Anyway, before we could figure out what to do with the piggy-sounding wildlife under our rubbish pile, the boiler repairmen turned up again. I should explain that (see yesterday's blog entry) we have been having a problem with our boiler. After finishing my blog yesterday the boiler man was still here, saying things like "oh my", and "this is NOT good" and "now what's THAT doing there" from the depths of the boiler cupboard. Eventually he emerged to tell me that there was water in the boiler where it shouldn't be and he wasn't sure how fixable the problem was. He'd done "stuff" he said, but had to order more parts as it was an old boiler type. These wouldn't be in until tomorrow. Even if he did put new parts in though he was concerned that more water would pour out from the boiler casing somewhere, in which case the only option would be to replace the whole thing....at a cost of $3-4000......Oh, and the bill for today's work would be $469 so could I write a cheque!!

At this point I think I began to gibber helplessly at him. $4000-Jesus Christ! This was it, were either going to have to leave. Either that or Einar was going to have to prostitute himself while I attempted to sell crack to the tofu-eating, vegan, Ithaca locals....Oh dear....

I began to have visions of scavenging in the rubbish bins of our neighbours in order to feed ourselves, while the boiler repairmen whistled cheerily from the cupboard under the stairs.

Seeing me wilt visibly at the thought of replacing the whole thing, he said he'd leave me to chat with my husband when he came home but could we call tomorrow when we'd decided. He could then order the parts if we had decided to risk fixing the old boiler. After all this I called Einar with the news and we spent the rest of the day worrying ourselves silly trying to decide whether to risk patching up the old boiler which might not work, or biting the bullet and using all our "fuck-up funds" to replace it. We were definitely not a pair of happy campers yesterday night.

But, this morning the gods appear to be smiling-believe it or not! We called the plumbers and spoke to another man (Dave) who said he was coming out with the guy from yesterday to take a look. Dave has done the plumbing on our house for years and so they'd asked him to come and check it out. Thankfully, when Dave and mate turned up, Dave rummaged around in the cupboard, went to get a part, then did some more rummaging and then..thank the lord...declared the problem solved! We practically wept with gratitude-this man was some kind of god, he clearly knew everything! So we also asked him whether he knew what kind of things made piggy noises and lived in rubbish. He thought for a bit, contemplated the rubbish, and suggested it might be a raccoon (one of those animals that have stripey tails and black fur round their eyes so that they look like minature highwaymen.) Having solved our boiler problem and helped solved the mystery of the "thing in the rubbish" Dave and mate then departed, leaving us very much relieved!

So that was that. We now have hot water-which is great because I was starting to whiff. We also have a new dishwasher which was delivered after the plumbers left. Of course we still have the thing in the rubbish pile, but then you can't have it all. Maybe we can keep it.......

more animal updates soon!
x

Up at 8am!

Well, it's before 9am and I'm up! I know any Norwegians reading this will react somewhat skeptically to this assertion, but believe it or not, it's true. In fact....in even more shocking news, I have been up since 7am! The coffee's brewed, my cheerios are crispy (well actually they're a bit on the chewy side...they are a month old) and it's a lovely sunny morning.

Einar is getting ready to go for his morning run and I'm avoiding going for mine by writing this.

Now I thought that I should explain a bit about the blog entries that I'm hoping will follow this one. As you all know I have been shamefully lazy and haven't been keeping up with the blogging thing. This has meant that gradually a LOT of stuff has happened that I haven't written about. The knock-on effect of this has been that I have found myself trying not to do anthing that would give me extra blogging work when I finally got round to writing anything. It began with not taking many photos because "If I take photos I'll have to put them on flickr and write about them in the blog." Gradually I found myself avoiding any activities that I felt might be blog worthy....I had enough to write about what with all our guests turning up and forcing us to enjoy ourselves! So anyway, eventually I stopped doing anything that could be construed as interesting and now I have no life...but at least I don't have to write about it!

In a bid to remedy this situation and to make the whole blogging mountain seem more molehill-like, I have decided to blog about bits and bobs that have happened in the past few months but not attempt to recount what we did with all our visitors in minute detail or in organised fashion. The result will probably be a mish mash of snippets that don't necessarily inform the reader about what we've been up to in any coherent kind of way. There are things that have stuck in my head as blog worthy, but sadly a whole lot that is also worthy and probably more important/interesting has been jettisoned by my brain in favour of useless odds and ends. But....well....tough.

Well, what to tell you all first.... let me see.

Well, the electrician is here at the moment doing lots of exciting stuff like putting up recessed ceiling lights for us, attaching our new oven (delivered yesterday), putting sockets in for the dishwasher, the fridge the range hood etc. He must be working hard it's VERY NOISY!! :)

What else...oh yes, we have no hot water as our furnace has just broken! We discovered this the day before yesterday. So we waited for the electrician to come out to do all the other stuff (we though it was an electrical fault at the time) and asked him to take a look. Anyway, it turns out it isn't an electrical fault. In The electrican's words "something's fried" somewhere..... so I've had to call an emergency plumber out. Apparently one is on his/her way over when they're free. So I am currently very greasy as I'm avoiding having a cold shower. Einar got back from his run, was forced to shower in icy water with chattering teeth and is now at work.

So yes, it's all happening at 120 Eastwood today ;)

As for past events, well it was all rather special knowing that lots of people were coming out to see us. We felt really chuffed that anybody would bother! So yes, our guests were fab. They put up with humidity, a wreck of a kitchen, mosquitos, and frequent supermarket trips with great equanimity and good humour. We were very grateful! Mum and dad spent quite a bit of time when they first arrived going from one room to another and getting a bit lost. Mum would turn up in the kitchen with a startled expression, having expected to find herself in the bathroom. Gradually though they settled in and made themselves very useful by mowing lawns, tidying garden borders, washing up and generally making themselves indispensable. I'll be putting some pictures up of their time with us shortly. Oh! Just remembered, even before we had mum and dad to stay, our friends Jill and Jim (or "JillJim" as I like to call them....like "Bennifer" or "TomCat," only higher profile and better looking...) came to stay. In fact after my visa crisis, I flew back to the states and they picked me up from JFK. Then they very kindly ferried me all the way back up to Ithaca. They hired a car, a yellow one. Not a muted, understated yellow you understand. YELLOW yellow. It was great.

I think Jim was discussing hiring an understated silver car with the rental person, until Jill popped up and gazed with longing at the bananamobile. So the yellow car it was. We never lost it in a car park and the bugs loved it. What more could you want from a rental vehicle!

Had great fun with Jill and Jim although the weather was shocking for a lot of the time. Pictures from their trip are posted on flickr.

Right, well, as the electrician has gone off to have his lunch I think it's time I had mine. Who knows, sometime today I might get to have a hot shower!! Back soon everyone!
x

At last!

Hi all,
apologies for being so crap at posting stuff. As most of you know we've had a lot of visitors (8 in all) in the past couple of months so I've not really been keeping up to date with "stuff". Anyway, I'm back! This is just a quick post to let you know that I have been wearing my poor fingers to the bone for you all and have posted a new set of pictures on flickr. For anyone who doesn't know, we have moved into our new house and have set about doing some of the much needed renovations to the kitchen and the downstairs bedrooms. So if you want to follow the story of our kitchen toddle over to my flickr photos and check out the "diy progress' set.