Hawaii Flora, Part I

Some of the exotic plants seen in Hawaii. Last one is a coffee tree. Third one is a Palm Tree in bloom. Fourth is a bird of paridise found all over. Not sure what the others are, but are pretty.

Waiting for baby

Anyone who knows us, knows that we are dog people. It has been 3 years since our Golden Retriever passed away and we have REALLY missed having a dog around. Since buying the house, I have been impatiently awaiting the arrival of a new “ baby”.

Originally, we had agreed that we would get a dog after the yard was fenced. However, the landscaping is taking much longer than anticipated and we decided that we would not wait any longer.

We are working with a wonderful rescue organization in CT, Sunshine Golden Retriever Rescue, and have begun the process of adopting a Golden Retriever!

The first step in the adoption process was a phone interview. The SGRR volunteer was on vacation, but still took time to contact me. I was truly impressed. Very few people volunteer to help homeless animals and even fewer would take time from their vacation to talk with a prospective adopter.

The second step was a home interview. The SGRR volunteer came to our house with 2 dogs. It was wonderful to have dogs around again and we were sad to see them leave. We discussed the kind of dog that we felt would be a good match for us.

Now for the hard part…waiting!!! SGRR will review the dogs that they currently have up for adoption. If there is not a good match, then they will review new dogs that enter the program. We do not know when our new dog will arrive, but we are eagerly waiting for the phone to ring.

Mauna Kea

See my post on Mauna Kea.

Driving the Chrysler 300

The first big decision I had to make on vacation was which car to drive. Because of low inventory of intermediate sized cars at the airport, I was given the choice of a Dodge Sebring Convertible or a Chrysler 300. Being a big guy, I opted for the more room of the 300.

The first thing I noticed when I jumped into the 300 was there are two control sticks on the steering column; one for the blinkers & wiper controls, and one for cruise control. I fired up the 300 and noticed the parking brake indicator was on. I was frequently flicking the wrong control for the blinkers. The second time we got into the 300, the parking brake indicator was on again. “Hmm”, I thought, “the parking brake automatically comes on every time?” After a couple more times, I figured out that my foot kept hitting the parking brake pedal when entering the car. Annoying, yes, but once I was aware I adjusted my behavior and the indicator didn’t come on again.

All nitpicking aside, the 300 is a driver’s car. The V6 engine had plenty of power and the automatic transmission knew just the right times to shift. While going up many of the hills of the big island, the Chrysler downshifted at just the right time and stuck there until it made sense to upshift. Compare that to my ’91 Pontiac Grand Prix which would have been shifting up and down the whole hill. I was impressed.

The performance and handling became more apparent one day on the way back from Hilo. I was following a souped up Mustang somewhere around the speed limit when we got behind a train of 5 or 6 cars. After following this train for about ten minutes, the road split into two lanes. The Mustang darted to the right lane and floored it to pass all the cars and I followed him. We passed the cars quite handily and continued on. The 300 kept right up with the hot-rod past 70 and 80 until I eased off and let the Mustang go.

I found myself using the slap shifter on the many downhill runs on the southern side of the island. In particular, I descended about 4000 feet over six miles on Chain of Craters road in Volcanoes National Park and never touched the brakes. The $45 fill-ups were no fun, but at Hawaii’s typical $3.53/gal were partly to blame for the bloat at the pump. It also didn’t help that we got about 20 miles per gallon the whole trip.

I drove the 300 for about 1200 miles over the course of a week and never regretted my decision. It awakened feelings that have been smoldering since I sold my Trans Am many years ago. I can even see myself considering this car when my Honda goes kaput in another 100K miles.

Big Step

It may not seem like a big accomplishment, but the garage is cleaned out enough so we can fit both our cars in. Not totally clean, but clean enough. Three months ago the entire garage was packed with boxes.

The smelly visitor

Looking out the kitchen window the other morning, I saw what I first thought was a black cat walking in the back yard. I thought - that's interesting, I have not seen a cat before and then I took another look. It turns out that the cat was in fact a rather large skunk! The skunk wandered around the back of the shed and then disappeared. I just hope he does not decide to cohabitate with the wood chuck who is living under the shed.

I have not seen the skunk again, but with the windows open you can sometimes smell him when he passes by at night.

Guest room finished

The guest room is finally finished !!!
The new closet shelving and the window shades have been installed.
The only question is, who will be our first guest in this new room ?

Guest room

The guest room is almost finished! The last things left to do are to install the closet shelving and hang the blinds. The new ceiling fan really adds a lot of light to the room. We had originally thought this room would have pink accents, but when we found the blue window treatments, we were hooked.
One more guest room to refinish - but that will be our winter project.

Shark Fin Soup

This from Yao Ming (NBA Player) yesterday:

"I pledge to stop eating sharks fin soup and will not do so under any circumstances."

That's a fight I can join.

Doe with fawns

There is a doe with two fawns who often stops by the backyard for a snack. The doe appears to have no fear of people - she does not run off, unless you get too close. The fawns are more skittish, which makes picture taking difficult. It is a lot of fun to see the fawns playing together - already they are getting big and losing their spots.

Office Done

We finally put the finishing touches on the office on Monday. Considering how much work had to be done and our limited schedules, it was pretty amazing (if I do say so myself) that we were able to get it done in three weeks. We ended up painting the whole room; trim, doors, walls, and ceiling. The walls were given a warmer field color and a fresh coat of trim always makes the woodwook pop. We also added some shoe moulding to the baseboards and I put a ceiling light in. We capped it off with new window treatments and hung our pictures. If it weren't for Valerie's help and motivation, there's no way it would have been done on time. The office is very cozy now and I look forward to spending as little time as possible in there!

Before:

After:

Hawk Update

The hawks which were around so much last week, seem to have gotten shy. I can still hear their screeching, but they are not perched in any obvious places. Wish I could say the same for the woodchuck, who was sunning himself this morning on the wooden ramp that leads to the shed. I have no doubt, he was eyeing all the plants on the deck (just a few feet away) and deciding what to have for breakfast.

The lights in the downstairs and upstairs hallway were completely mismatched, so we bought some new Waterford lights. The first one has been installed and it is beautiful.

Just for giggles

Saw this on MyLeftNutmeg and thought it was funny...

Hawk

There seems to be a pair of hawks nesting somewhere nearby, or at least using our yard as a hunting ground. The last few days this hawk has landed on the back deck about the time I get home every night. Where was he the day I came home and found the woodchuck sitting on my pot of petunias having his dinner?

The hawks are beautiful to look at, but tend to wake us up at 5:30 with their screeching back and forth.

The king of all conspiracy theories

I sometimes wonder how so much imagination can be wrapped up in the head of Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. Still, I wonder if anybody is checking up on this? Sounds like a "Days of Our Lives" plot line, but sounds plausible...

Are you kidding me?

Wow! The perennial giant killers, College of Charleston, may have landed their best catch ever. After up-and-coming Gregg Marshall of Winthrop pulled a Bobby Cremins on them, Bobby Cremins comes out of retirement and brings years of ACC coaching experience to the Cougars.

Who knows, maybe we'll see Dean Smith come out of retirement to coach the Campbell Camels. Then again, maybe not.

Anonymous Comments, Round 2

A couple weeks ago I enabled anonymous comments so you could comment on each post. Since that time, a couple people have told me they couldn't post comments, but I got emails with the comment. I have tweaked the commenting a little bit and think this will be easier.

If you read this blog, feel free to post a comment to this entry just to see if it works.

Squirrels 1, Valerie 0

You may remember a certain member of my household has been having trouble with the squirrels at her feeders.

Well, the squirrels have won this battle, but not the war!

Seems as though they have chewed through the four layers of electrical tape and dislodged the linoleum. In fact, I think they were a little ticked off because they pryed open the steel around the feeder and poked another hole through it!

Right now, there's a 33% chance it will get fixed, 33% chance it will get tossed, and a 34% chance it will wind up on Long Island for a little welding treatment by our friendly neighborhood Mr. Fixit. Stay tuned...

Project Upgrade, Phase IV

With any luck, we're rounding the corner on the "initial" projects.

One of the cabinets in our kitchen is essentially worthless. It's about five feet high, but has no shelving in it. Sure, maybe good for a broom, but not much else. The other side has pull-out shelves that are very useful. About four weeks ago when we were in Home Depot, we talked to a kitchen designer and found out how to measure our cabinets so we could put roll-out shelves in them. We came home, measured what we needed to measure, and went back to the store to order them. Three weeks later, they were in.

I started putting them in last Monday night. I just got done Saturday. It was just like every other project in so much as it took about three times the amount of time and money I thought it would. Spent lots of time making braces, shimming this, trimming that, and screwed about 20 extra screws. I the end, found out the the drawers wouldn't open because the european hinges blocked the drawers, so I had to put external hinges on the doors.

In the end, they came out nice, gave us some extra storage space, and I got a table saw out of it.

Project Upgrade, Phase III

Phase three of the Kitchen upgrade is complete. We upgraded from a plain-jane Magic Chef oven to a KitchenAid convenction oven. The good part is it only took a couple hours to swap the old one with the new one. Next up, changing the broom closet to usable storage.

Triple thanks to J again for her discounting magic.

Landscaping the front yard

Last weekend we picked up a couple bushes that Valerie's sister was holding for us. We had the perfect place for them in the front of the house, so we planted them Sunday. Valerie decided to put her new birdbath in the center of the whole bunch to give the area a focus. We added a couple perennials and, voila! Instant landscape.

Project Upgrade, Phase II

The new Cooktop went in relatively easy. We replaced this older Magic Chef unit with a five burner Jenn-Air unit. We ended up with the Jenn-Air unit because I didn't really look forward to cutting granite and the Jenn-Air had the dimensions that would fit the best.

The electric connections were extremely easy since the old cooktop had the same connections. Only had to take one trip to Home Depot in the middle of the project to get the right connector.

Next up, the stove.

Double thanks to J for her discounting magic.

Things I didn't need to know

Got this from leahpeah.

Project Upgrade, Phase I

Why in a kitchen of dark granite countertops and black appliances someone decided a beige refrigerator would look nice, but who knows what the story was. We would have hung onto it, except when you opened it up, strange fuel-like smells from it. In fact, the ice smelled and tased like fuel. Needless to say, that had to go.

We researched various makers and with some advice from a family member in the business, chose a GE Profile. We ordered from Planet TV and the guys came in to deliver the new refrigerator and take the old one away.


We have ice again!!

Thanks for the tips and finagling J!!

Woodchucks R Us

We must be living in the country, because we have 3 woodchucks who can be seen around the house at different times of the day.

You would think that such a squat, chunky creature would not be able to move very quickly. However, they are suprisingly fast and can climb rocks quite easily. One woodchuck was happily eating in the yard, but as soon as I slid the door open, he was off like a shot.

We both scared each other one day down by the pond - I did not expect him to be grazing along the water's edge.

Here is a picture taken from inside.

Valerie vs. Squirrels, Round I

Valerie has had a 16 year battle with the squirrels pillaging her bird food. She has tried all sorts of devices to keep the pests off her feeders. Eventually, they find a way to either get the bird seed or knock the feeder down trying. Her latest setback was with a thistle feeder. Seems something (she insists bear, but I think just a big squirrel) had opened a large hold in the bottom of the feeder. Not one to give up easily, we embarked on a 30 minute journey to try and patch the feeder. A rather ingenious solution if I do say so myself. We cut a piece of linoleum around the hole and wrapped it with about 10 feet of electrical tape.

She refuses to give up. "This will show them who's boss! Do you think we need duct tape?", she asks. Maybe Santa will find it in his heart to bring her a new thistle feeder.

Buried Treasure

The first couple times I put the mower away, I noticed something blue and shiny buried in the ground. Both times I had other things to do, so I passed by and didn't even think about it.

Being the curious person that she is, Valerie started picking at the blue shiny thing in the ground and dug out a whole bottle. It was caked with dirt inside and out. After two sprays with the hose and several washings, the bottle was finally clean.

It is a beautiful cobalt blue with the words "SQUIBB" on both sides of the top. On the bottom it says "DESIGN PAT 87401", "BOTTLE MADE IN U.S.A." and the number 2. (Here's the patent record) It had a funky minty smell to it when she pulled it out of the ground, so we're guessing some kind of antacid or something. The house was built in the middle 60's, so we're also guessing it's from around that era.

I wonder if there is a market on eBay for this kind of stuff?

Return of the ducks

The pair of mallards that visited us for a few days last week are back. While working in the yard this morning, there was a splash in the water and suddenly, 2 ducks had landed on the pond.

Later in the day a third mallard arrived. His stay was very short, but perhaps he will come back and bring some friends.

Visiting Ducks

One morning we looked out at the pond and saw a pair of Mallard ducks floating in the water. We thought the algae might keep them away, but they didn't seem to mind.

The second day they were here, we decided to put out some whole corn for them and they seemed pretty happy with it.

The next day, they litterally jumped out of the pond and started waddling towards us hoping for a snack. At that point, we decided maybe it was better if they didn't rely on us for food.

They must have thought so as well, as they have moved on. We are hoping for another visit real soon.

Anonymous Comments

I have turned on commenting for anonymous users for now. Click on "Comments" at the bottom of the post and a new page will come up. Type your comments in the big text box, click the "Anonymous" user, and then click "Login and Publish".

Snakes for breakfast

Early this morning, while working out on the deck, I heard a bird screeching and looked up to see a hawk in the trees. After a few minutes, the hawk swooped down and landed at the base of a large tree. When the hawk didn't immediately fly away, I thought I wonder if he hit the tree - and where in CT is raptor rescue ?

All of a sudden the hawk flew off with a snake or lizard in his talons and breakfast was served.

Decorating Don'ts #1

If you're ever tempted to paint your electrical outlets, resist the temptation. When you have to take the wall plate off, it can also peel the paint off the wall.

One week to go

One week to go before we move in. The grass is starting to come in, albeit somewhat spotty.

The house is really starting to look like ours. We have started putting things back together by putting down area rugs and moving smaller pieces of furniture over.

We meet with a landscaper tomorrow to get an overall plan for the yard.

Packing is in high gear. We've been eating on paper plates for three weeks and I fear I'll be left alternating between two pairs of skivvies in a couple days.

Definitely Deer

Our old place was out in the country. Way out. We used to have daily sightings of all sorts of wild life; birds, squirrels and associated furry critters, deer, turkeys, and even a stray cow.

Now that we moved to a more populated area, we wondered if we'd see the same variety of wild life. Until today, we've seen a couple chipmunks, squirrels, and some birds. As evening faded to night, we watched a doe chomping at some weeds in the back yard tonight. She took her time chomping and watching, watching and chomping. We watched her for about 5 minutes until she finally had enough of our yard and moved on. (Note to self: no hostas in the landscaping).

Ewwww

One of the downsides of finishing your hardwood floors is there is a lot of dust. Everywhere.

Tonight, we decided to clean the baseboard heating registers. All sorts of things were found in the registers; marbles, crayons, lollipop sticks, light brite pegs, string, Barbie (or some other doll) shoes and more. Worst of all was the kitchen; Cheerios, pretzels, and yes, a petrified chicken nugget.

Floors are done

The hardwood floors are finally done. The process took 5 days from start to finish and as you can see from the pictures above, they look beautiful. We can walk on them now, but will be about 3-4 more days until we can really start using them with normal wear. We were afraid to wear our shoes on the new floors so we walked around the house in our socks all day Saturday.

There is sawdust everywhere in the house. There's not as much dust as I thought there would be, but still, everything has some dust on it. Time to break out the swiffer and start dusting.

The floors were done by Mountain Flooring in Wilton. They did a tremendous job and did everything in a professional manner. They came highly recommended and lived up to their reputation.

Restoring Hardwood Floors

Spent about 40 man-hours ripping up carpet and removing those darn staples and carpet tack strips. Having pulled up about 1600 square feet of carpet, I can tell you I won't do it again.

Here you can see the floor in the Dining/Living room with the old finish. This floor was definitely the worst condition of all.

The flooring company came in today and sanded all the hardwood floors down to the wood and it looks quite different. Three more days until the floors are done after they put on a light stain and three coats of oil based polyurethane.