INSIDE STORY

Yes, we have Chase colored carpet... the shaggy dog blends right in with the shag carpet. Did you know that shag is back IN! I shoulda kept my shag rake from 1975! Darn! WHO KNEW?

I waited for the big sale at Ashley and spent my $50 coupon and then some on a sofa table to go with the end table. I needed something to finish off the large space of the great room which borders the kitchen. It works great

KEEPING IT IN THE GARAGE

After 5 weeks of hideousness, our garage is starting to come together. I now have 2...yes 2 entire wire shelves to put stuff on.

And with typical spring weather (torrential rain, 45 mph wind, hail and snow, it was a good thing to get the Miata INSIDE! A big relief since thunderstorms are predicted all this week (it's Spring Break here in Oregon...guaranteed bad weather...in the 40 years that I've lived here, I can remember maybe 2 spring breaks with decent weather. Never been able to figure out why they don't make their spring vacation in April when they might have a 50/50 chance of some sunny days!

Got nuts? Mr. A has way too many nuts & bolts for one person to use in a lifetime and is now forced to sort them due to space constraints of a normal garage instead of a huge shop. Mark will get lots of them!

INSIDE & OUTSIDE PETS

Turns out we do have a local residential deer herd...7 of 'em. We're looking out our front door across the driveway to the vacant house. The deer blend in so well with the fence and trees! How many can you see?

There are actually 4...two by the front of the fence, one by the tree trunk and one laying down on the lawn looking just like a rock near the house. The others were in the backyard.


For indoor fun, we have Izzie, always ready to learn another culinary trick from her mom. A regular Ina Garten (bigfoot contessa) of the cat world.

JACKSON'S CREEK

That's our contractor Josh digging a nice drainage ditch so the run off actually runs off. Ah, just another thing to make our life in the country easier. We were tired of the lake effect in our driveway. That's our car parked at the vacant house across the former mud bog from us.

An

Not exactly a "French" drain...more of an "Irish" drain, me thinks. But now Jackson can park his truckette without having to step out into a mudbog!

TROPICAL EFFECTS OR AFFECTS

If you can't go to the islands, how about a gas insert producing wafting warm currents inside! Costs about the same as a trip to a tropical resort! But it's bound to help alleviate the hideous electric bill (heat pumps don't work well in cold temps...so one wonders why they install them here?)

Plus as long as we were putting in gas, we have a new gas water heater to replace the leaky 33 yr old electric one, complete with earthquake straps...which is a good thing considering we live near the Cascadian Subduction Zone!

IT'S GOOD TO HAVE LOTS OF GLASS!

An uptown sliding glass door from K-Falls!


The boys had to replace some of the sill and will have to add a grout line inside on the tile floor to mate up to the windowsill. But at least it's in and we won't have to hang a thermal blanket every night to keep the draft out!

DEGLAZED

"Yeah", they said, "We'll just pop it out and put in a new one!" The 1978 thermopane slider was leaking air and very hard to open. So $699 for a new one with the blinds built in from Jeldwen (made in Klamath Falls) from Home Depot...
4 hours later and I still have plastic over the big 6' hole in my dining room wall...seems that they found some dry rot, bugs, ants and ooooh, we have the wrong window! Yeah, we need one that opens from the left if you're outside or the right if you're on the inside.
They didn't want to do this installation yesterday when it was sunny and 60 degrees. More better to wait until it is raining and 44 degrees!
So another trip to Home Depot for the correct opening window and more hockey snot to install it.

A THING OF BEAUTY

Normally I don't think much about gas meters, but lately I've been obsessed with 'em. So finally today after 3-weeks of waiting, we got gas! That means we can have a water heater that works, a fireplace insert that works and a shop/garage heater that works! WHO KNEW getting a meter could be such a THRILL!

A PAIR PRUNE THE PEAR

Ah, the rights of spring are upon us. Not having enough to do, I just couldn't stand looking at that tree any longer without doing something for it!
We were too engrossed to remember to snap a photo whilst in progress but here is the aftermath of pruning a 30+ year old standard pear tree. Mr. A manned the pole pruning saw with a big extension while I scrambled up an extension ladder using the big long handle loppers and a hand held pruning saw. Lots of dead wood and lots of former heinous pruning by someone without a license! Poor tree! There outta be a law against folks wacking a tree who don't have a clue what they are doing!
It made for 2 hours of neck craning and ladder climbing . Now I get to wack down the remains so they'll fit in the Subaru Brat for an excursion to the dumps.

That's our driveway you see to the right up to the street.
Don't you just love the neighbor's horizontal, pecky cedar fence! A true work of Art somebody!

I still have some more selective pruning to do if I can work up the courage to climb up on the extension ladder to tree top height! We took off about 10'-15' from the top and a couple of dead limbs. We don't even know if this tree bears fruit any longer. I hope we'll find out this spring. Maybe we gave it a new lease on life!

THE BIG DIG

The snow was just melting off when the Brotherton Pipeline guys appeared! Our driveway looks like a plastic surgery patient with all the locate marks spray-painted on the ground the day before. We've been waiting for 2 weeks for this event to happen so we can replace the leaking, 33 year old electric waterheater with a gas one, plus have our gas insert installed in the fireplace.


The plan? This little digger would trench along side the driveway from the corner of the garage to the main in the street. Avista (the gas company here) contracts out this part to the pipeline company.


It did and made a huge, muddy mess, of course, as they couldn't do this when we had all the nice, dry weather!


Laying the yellow pipe in the trench. That's all the mud covering our driveway...


After 5 yards of gravel and a lot of shovel work, almost as good as new! Now if we could just get that plumber who has been promising us to appear for 2-weeks and ran the inside gas pipe....And then we have to call to get the meter set (Avista does that part themselves), so maybe by mid March we'll have gas here...could happen!