Look what I found when I went to set the timer for the lights on the palm trees! Aren't they sweet? They're about 4" long and absolutely petrified. There were four of them but one was too frightened to huddle with the others.

However. The next morning I found where they'd spent the night. Obviously I'd scared them from the safety of their previous night's lodging. They'd taken up residence in my garage. Perhaps you ask: How did they get in? We've been fighting pack rats (Ah! The joys of desert living!) for years. The crafty rats have chewed off the ends of the rubber stop on the garage door and voila, in they go. They have forced us to set enormous traps to catch them. And trust me, I do not worry about removing them to safer havens. I have reached the point of being happy to toss their dead bodies into the trash or out for the coyotes. Pack rats are destructive and nasty. They love to eat wiring on cars and haul in all kinds of things to decorate their nests. The fact that they make nests is also an indication that babies are in the near future which only means more destruction and mess. Hence the annihilation of any who dare to cross into my garage.

So the bunnies, being smaller than the rats, probably went in four abreast and proceeded to conduct maneuvers throughout the night. Or perhaps they were just so excited to be indoors and safe, they couldn't control themselves. Whatever the reason, I awoke to tons of bunny poo and urine; this necessitated taking everything out of the garage, shop vacuuming and then washing it. I was not pleased. I left lights on last night as a warning that this probably was not where they wanted to be. If they don't take the hint, more drastic action will be called for. I cannot continue to clean the garage on a daily basis, for goodness sakes. I am toying with the idea of posting pictures at bunny eye-level, showing dead rats. You know, with the crosses over their eyes. Just as a warning.

Home Improvement

We have an older home. Not old, just older. Time for a few nips and tucks. A little straightening, a little cleaning out, a little maintenance. Doesn't sound awful, does it? But it feels as if we've been under siege for over a year now. It began, really, last year when I was going down the hall toward our bedroom to put away some laundry and noticed a funny smell. Not horrible, but just not right and I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. What it turned out to be, when investigated further, was septic tank back-up in the shower. And contrary to my first impression, it became more truly awful the closer I got. So, being as the house was 35 years old, the leach lines needed to be replaced. Unfortunately for us, they ran under our concrete driveway. So, as long as we're doing a new leach field, we might as well put in a new septic tank, right? And away we went.

We decided, thanks to a friend in the masonry business that the fireplace was in the wrong place and needed to be moved 90 degrees and about 20 feet to another wall. In the course of removing the old fireplace, we found there was NO insulation above our heads. None. As in, nothing. So, since we were thinking about doing the roof anyway we decided that would be an ideal time to insert insulation where we could. It had to be coordinated with the roofing company because the easiest way to access the areas where we could put insulation was top down.

Next came the roof. The house is designed with an open living room and dining room with great long beams and wood between the beams. Unfortunately, it was built in the 70s when energy wasn't as much a concern as today. Above the wood there is....nothing. We go directly into the roof. So we have about 2/3 of the house well-insulated and 1/3 with only 2" foam sheets on it. Better than the nothing we had before. And let me just say that there should be a special circle of hell for roofing contractors.

So after the roof there was a little lull. Then we started putting wood floors down. I love the floors. I'd love them even more if they were done. Parts are undone because we wanted to wait until the new windows went in so the wood floors would butt up against them. So we've been living with a 4' strip of concrete for months. Which is handy when sweeping the wood part---just push it all over to the concrete where it blends. So, now the windows are mostly in (we have "issues" with 4 of them) and we have to get the drywall repairs done and the painting done so the rest of the wood can go in. And, while we're waiting for that to happen, we're going to have the HVAC units replaced. You know, just so we don't get used to peace and quiet. I'm finding I don't function well anymore without strange men in enormous dusty boots, clomping through my house, accompanied by loud banging sounds, cursing, and music turned up so loud my ears bleed.

And in between all that somehow, we've gotten new furniture and I've recovered 8 dining room chairs and a bench and have the makings for pillows for the couches. But I have no earthly idea when any of them will be done since I'm going day-to-day. I also have a 32' wall of new windows that need to be washed (among other regularly sized ones) since I don't want large oily handprints on them. Imagine that. I don't know why contractors who deal in windows don't throw in that first washing. Why they don't contract with window washers to leave the windows clean and sticker-free as part of their contract. They could also, while they're at it, contract with a cleaning service to remove all the dust they create while they're "carefully" installing their products. There can't be more dust in the Sahara desert. In fact, I'm guessing the Sahara is a little low on dust since a great whack of it is now in my house, tromped in one large bootful at a time.