Dog Lake, part 2 (sort of)

This isn't actually about Dog Lake, but it is from that hike. This is something fun.

About a year ago (October 17th, the photo thing says), J and I went hiking and we had our picture taken together. I probably posted it on my blog somewhere before, but this is the picture:


This year we took a new picture together, on the same hike, in the same month, in front of the same sign.

It's kind of like those drawings where the pictures look alike but you have to find a certain number of things that are different between the two pictures. For instance, in the first picture we're broken up; in the second picture we're married. In the first picture, we have no dog to enjoy hiking; in the second picture we have Chalcy.

I kind of think we should go back every October and take another picture there. Then, someday it will be kind of neat to flip through our pictures and watch ourselves age and things change. We'll see.

(Isn't that cool?)

Dog Lake, part 1

A couple weeks ago J and I decided to go for a hike, and we decided to bring Chalcy along.*

We ended up doing one of the hikes we used to do back before we were married. I think it's called the Big Water? trail. Anyhow, it leads to Dog Lake**, and I'd heard Dog Lake is a lot of fun. So we went.

Chalcy was off-leash for the hike, and I was a little worried about that, because it was our first time taking her anywhere off-leash (except for the dog park). She didn't fall down the mountain, though, or race off after some other dog, or anything. She just had a lot of fun hiking right next to us. So it all worked out well.

We saw tons and tons of dogs on the trail. Pretty much all of the dogs were friendly. Some people could tell Chalcy is still a puppy, and she got a lot of attention from them. ("OH, LOOK at your BIG PAWS! You've got a lot of growing to do!!") We saw another Dane on the trail, too. It was fun; we stopped to chat with her owner for a couple minutes. People who own Danes seem to always love them so much. So that was kind of neat. Sometimes I forget how big Chalcy will be.***

When we got to Dog Lake, it was nice. It's this little lake where dogs run all over the beach and play in the water, etc. Chalcy was afraid to go in the water, so J and I started tossing a stick for her, just barely in the water. She would fetch it, and we would throw it for her again, slightly farther out in the water. The game worked pretty well until one time I threw the stick about 4 feet farther into the water, and she RAN out to get it, and suddenly STOPPED in the water, a couple feet before reaching the stick. The water had gotten deeper, and her belly was getting wet now. She left the stick right where it was and returned to the shore. We laughed pretty hard, and so did the people around us. Funny dog! Chalcy is getting better at socializing with other dogs. She tends to be a little shy, but then she warms up and starts playing too. She's definitely not a barker or aggressive at all. She's always very friendly with the people around us. Just sometimes when there are a lot of dogs, it's kind of intimidating.

We're thinking we may take her to California with us for Thanksgiving. She would have more fun with us than hanging out at home without us. We'll see.

* We found out that the Cottonwood canyons do NOT allow dogs. But Millcreek Canyon does.
** Eventually. After like 4 miles of hiking.
*** It just seems like other dogs are getting smaller. Like, I thought Labs were pretty big dogs, but now they look really small. On a similar note, as of a week or so ago, I can't pick Chalcy up anymore. She's too heavy for me. Not sure how much she weighs.

P.S. The last photo of Chalcy investigating the water is not blurry because dogs splashed the camera, it is blurry because it is like a dream come true for dogs. It's a dreamy-effect that just automatically happens when you take pictures there. :)

As of today...

All of our properties are rented!

Last Saturday was our busy, busy day where we had four people all fighting to apply first. In slow-motion.

On Monday everyone passed background and credit checks.

Monday evening I signed the first rental agreement, and Tuesday evening I signed the second one. This week I hustled to finish everything. Both wanted to pick up keys last night, so we did that, and they started moving in. Yesterday was chaotic! I hired a cleaning lady AND a handyman to help. I found out that the dishwasher I was hooking up was actually broken* and J arranged for a lady to deliver one. So I installed TWO dishwashers yesterday. I'm getting better at that. Last night J and I were there re-installing the dishwasher, re-gluing linoleum, and drying out carpet until 10pm. Each unit has a couple more things to do, but nothing too urgent.

In order to rent the fourplex we posted (and re-posted) ads on KSL, Craigslist, Rental.com, and "Over 20 other sites!" (through Rental.com). We also put a FOR RENT sign in the yard.

• Our first applicant was someone who had noticed people moving and asked my other renters for my phone number.
  
• Throughout the vacancies, I had many calls and showings that resulted from KSL and the sign out front. People who called about the KSL ads were almost always calling about the unit I put fake wood floor in. Even though the ad had pictures that represented the apartment well, the people almost always ended up deciding they preferred carpet. (I think this was because the unit with carpet was closer to being done.)
• Of the two accepted applications, one was from people who drove the neighborhood looking for a place, and the other was from KSL.
• Rental.com has neat tracking stuff to tell me how many leads have been generated. They assigned me a toll-free number that interested parties could call. They claim one person called. If someone did, it did not result in anything.
• I also received two e-mails about the Rental.com ad. Neither were serious. The first was from someone with an obscene name, who also listed an obscene e-mail address. I don't know if they were real or not, but I didn't call him back to find out.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of Craigslist.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of the "Over 20 other sites!".
• Lowering the deposit seemed to make a big difference in the quality of the people that were interested. So did lowering the price.
  

Today is a lot less stressful. Things are feeling better. They will feel even better when I get our house clean!



*I found this out by, you know, flooding the whole kitchen.

Congratulations, Chalcy!

This Monday, Chalcy graduated from Puppy Preschool!*


Our original class had Mos-B (?) (a big...retriever?), Mini (a little black fluffy puppy), Zulu (a Rhodesian Ridgeback show-puppy) and Breezy (a tiny yellow lab that looked like the Cottonelle? puppy). Plus Chalcy.

Mos-B only came the first week because his person (an older lady) had a hip problem and she wasn't going to be able to bring him anymore.

Mini just stopped coming, I think. She came consistently for the first month, and made up a couple classes, but we haven't seen her in a while.

Zulu stopped coming about when Mini did. Zulu's sister was in intermediate, and they stopped taking her, too.

Breezy missed a couple weeks towards the beginning, but she made them up, and Breezy has been at all of the classes since then.

Chalcy's graduating class included: Cougar (a bitey dog that we had never met before that class, so maybe he was making up his last class) and Breezy! Breezy is MUCH bigger than she was at the beginning, but she wag-wag-wags!!! her tail all the time and gets SO EXCITED!!! about everything. Breezy will do ANYTHING for a treat. If she can figure out what you want her to do.


Anyway, for her last class we practiced combining commands (Drop it- Leave it), "Return to heel"***, we learned how to do "Puppy-Push-ups" (sit! down! sit!) and we talked about what a great value Intermediate class is and when Intermediate class is starting. We also talked about how the Intermediate class fills up quickly and how it's even more fun than Puppy Preschool because it's building on what they already know. And then everyone got to have their picture taken--the dogs wore caps and so did their people because we're BOTH graduating. And then Robyn (the new trainer) filled out our graduation certificates. (And reminded us that we can sign up for Intermediate if we want.)

We may do Intermediate sometime, but we're ready for a break from classes for now. Life needs to settle down before we'll have time for more classes.

*Her certificate says Beginner level, because the trainer grabbed the wrong certificates. But they are equivalent classes.**
** But really, they're not, because Beginner is for dogs 5 months or older. We did NOT let our dog get out of hand and then finally try SOMETHING, ANYTHING to fix her. We were Responsible Dog Owners, so our certificate should say that it was the puppy class. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
*** I typed "Return to hell" first. Not sure what THAT trick would be.

Little update - part 2

Aside from work, there have been many other things going on.

- We got new chickens. Did I blog about that yet? I don't think I did, but maybe I did. We got them to replace some of our older layers that will uh, "retire" this fall. I got two teenage hens* from Sunny Brooke Farm in Sandy, where we got our adult hens last year. This year I added a gray Araucana (like Gertie and Maude are, except she has no tail. It will lay blue or green eggs, though.) and a Black Australorp.

I also got silkie chicks. Silkies look ridiculous! When I went for the other hens, the lady had silkie chicks "straight run" (which means 1/2 will be girls, 1/2 will be boys). I picked a white one and a red one** to take home. They live in Chalcy's old kennel, in our garage. Unofficially, I have called the white one "Cotton" and the red one "Karl." They're the funniest. Silkies have poofy feathers that look like fur. They have fluffy heads and fluffy feet. I often giggle when I look at them. God has a sense of humor, for sure. Anyhow! A couple weeks ago, Karl started trying to crow. "Err-errrrrr-rr!" He tries to crow usually about 8:00 am. Slacker!*** It's such a funny sound, though, because he's just learning. So he hasn't quite got it yet. It's like...half a crow.

- In anticipation of..uh... "retiring" one or both of the calves this fall, we got a couple more goats. One is a papered**** doe. Supposedly she is pregnant. So we should be able to milk her at the end of January, we think. She is so, so mild. Her people called her "Caroline" and she is very gentle. Despite being gentle, she is also a jumper. She keeps going to this one weak spot in the fence (where it is just the metal 4" squares, and not wood pickets) and she backs up a bit, TOTALLY clears the fence, and then RUSHES our garden to start eating the strawberries as fast as she possibly can. HEY! NO! So I take her by her head and guide her back into the fenced area. Naughty goat! A couple times the neighbors brought her back. We chained her to a post away from the weak part of the fence, but she doesn't like being restrained like that, so she has broken 2 collars and a chain collar. Ugh. Now we've just closed off that part of the yard and everyone is in the front and middle pasture. But she's about the calmest, sweetest goat you could think of. She was a 4H project.

Our other new goat is a buckling. He was 6 weeks old when we got him. He is from a family who was just getting into milking goats, so his mom supposedly gives a lot of milk. We wanted him to eventually breed Feta (our doeling that we already had), because by the time he's interested in her, she'll be big enough to breed safely. The family who sold him to us was VERY happy that we plan to keep him, because bucklings usually become meat but they like him. He's a cute little guy. He's kind of like a puppy--he'll follow you around and play chasing games, and he jumps up on people (which doesn't hurt and is adorable). He still drinks bottles.*****

- J and I have been married for 6 months (as of yesterday)! Go us! We got our wedding pictures back like a month ago, and I want to post some sometime, but Blogger laughed at me when I tried to post some because the files were too darn big. Eventually.

- Thursday evening J and I were driving up to Ogden and we talked about wishing we were going on a road trip. So we decided to take a road trip this past weekend! We ended up going up to Wyoming and Idaho, near Jackson. Our favorite part was actually Bear Lake, which we discovered by accident. We ended up stopping by again when we were headed home. We had a pretty good time.

- Chalcy is getting bigger! A couple weeks ago I took her in for her final shots and she weighed 54.6 lbs. She was almost 4 months old then. So. She's growing up. Next week is the last week of puppy preschool. (There were a couple weeks off because of Labor Day, and the trainer being sick, etc.) Chalcy is usually a good dog, but she sometimes gets a ton of energy. It's a puppy thing, I'm sure. She does this funny thing lately where she will sit on the couch halfway. She's tall enough that she can sit her bum on the couch and keep her front feet standing on the floor in front of the couch. (Kind of like how people sit, if you think about it.) It looks pretty silly, but she'll just hang out that way. Other news with Chalcy is that we discovered the joy of dog parks! They are SO FUN.*******

- I learned to separate cream yesterday. This makes J pretty happy. Cream is his favorite thing.

- Our garden is producing! Big tomatoes. And that's it. No blueberries. Not many strawberries (although the plants keep making more plants). Nothing else.

Well, there are probably a lot of other things happening, too, but that's enough for now. I need to get back to work!


* Not laying yet, but not so little that you have to keep them under light and be careful with them. They went outside right away. (But in a separate section next to the big chicken area, so that they wouldn't get pecked by our flock. Chickens are funny that way--the lady told us to have them in a nearby area for a couple weeks, so they can see each other but not get to each other. Then, one night, after the hens are asleep, take the new hens and put them on the perch next to the sleeping ones, in the chicken coop. In the morning our birds would wake up and think "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? ... I've seen you before, though, so it's ok.")
** GO UTES!!
*** I think it's because they're in the garage. So he doesn't get as much light as if they were outside.
**** Fancy! She took 2nd place at the Fair! She also has her registered number thing tattooed on her ears, with little holes, so you can shine a flashlight through her ears and read who she is. That's what they do with fancy papered goats.
***** When I go to feed him, I have to let him out of the pasture area and onto our driveway, because otherwise the calves see the bottle and push him out of the way because they want to drink it. LOL. They have nice memories, I guess. Also, here's something funny. The kids named the buckling "Nanny" and put a pink collar on him. I call him "Kiddo" because he is a kid, but that won't be good for when he gets bigger. Sometimes I call him "Buckley" because that's a little more masculine, but "Kiddo" comes more naturally to me.
****** Actually, she mostly just goes around and says hi to all of the people who brought their dogs. She sometimes plays with the other dogs, though, so...you have to start somewhere, right?

Little update - part 1

One of these days I'll have time (or make time) to finish the story about our floor.

For now, here is a little update about life.

- I am still working, working, working at our fourplex. We keep trying different things to get more, uh, qualified applicants. Right now we're doing a "FIRST MONTH PAY 1/2 RENT!!!!!" special. It's just been kind of a problem because I've shown both of the apartments a lot and for a while I was getting people who just...well...they were way too risky to rent to (or, they're not actually interested). Among people who have come to see the apartments:

* many people without jobs (so...uh...how are you planning to pay rent?*),
* a felon ("Is it a crime that the city considers a danger to neighborhoods, including sexual crimes, crimes against property, or violent crimes?" "Yeah, it's one of those ones." "Oh."),
* someone in the process of being evicted ("My landlord is such a @#$)&$* !!! He said he's not going to give me any of my security deposit because we have cats and we're not supposed to, but I have a note saying they're COMPANION cats for my daughters** because they've been through a lot, so they have to let me keep the cats. But he's evicting me so I'm going to just stay there another month and not pay him rent since he's not giving me my deposit back."
* people thinking about moving (after 30 minutes showing both units and discussing where to put furniture, etc: "Now, I have to be honest with you--we're not really sure we're moving. We won't know until Tuesday. In fact, I can't even say there's a 50% chance we're moving." [So...why am I spending my weekend with you instead of my family...?] "Mhmm...", OR "If I give you $100 will you hold this apartment for me until October?" [back at the beginning of August... Ouch.] "Uhhh, no. If you want to put down the deposit and first month's rent, then maybe." "Oh, no, I just have $100.")
* guys who just want to hit on me (A couple guys drove by while I was watering the lawn and they started honking and calling out to me. Then they called the number on my FOR RENT sign in the yard. "Did we just see you out watering the lawn? ... Ohh, hi! Can we come look at the apartment?" They did at least pretend to be thinking of moving.)

Anyway, we're*** hoping to finish getting the units ready pretty soon. There really isn't much left. I've learned a lot in the process. Next time we have a vacancy, I think it will probably go smoother. I will hire help faster. I will have clean pictures to post so that people can get an idea while I'm still actually fixing it up.

Some of the things I have done at the fourplex are: replaced tons more sprinklers, installed 17 boxes of fake wood flooring. Replaced showerheads. Whitened grout, re-caulked tub. Used an airless paint sprayer to paint all of the rooms in one unit and the downstairs of the other unit.**** Patched four holes in walls. Replaced ghetto 1970s ugly lights with modern light fixtures. Re-seeded the lawn. Cold-welded an iron handrail that renters broke. Installed a new motion light outside. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Installed a dishwasher and new garbage disposal (but I still have to finish that because it needs some change to the pipe work beneath the sink.) Changed locks. Replaced 10? sets of blinds. (But I mostly had my brother and the other guy I hired do those, because I really don't like installing blinds.)



* In Utah, you can't discriminate people based on "source of income." It's a Utah thing. That to me sounds like prostitutes and drug dealers, but Utah actually means you can't say no to people who receive housing assistance or child support, etc (if they are otherwise qualified). And that's completely fine. The trouble is, lots of people are unemployed and have no "source of income." (You can "discriminate" about that.)
** Can I say their names online? Stormy and Sulfur. And I don't mean the cats' names. They seemed nice, though. And I would have rented to them if they applied and were qualified.
*** [I'm]
**** Ha! I'm so bad at using a paint sprayer. It takes practice, I think. In the rooms that were dark, I ended up with drips all over the place. In one of the living rooms, I accidentally got way too much paint on one wall. I wiped it off with my hands (into a little bucket) and I painted a whole big storage closet all with the extra paint from around the outside of just that one closet door. Oops.

Free CIRCUS tickets!

Every year Jess blogs about going to the circus, and I've been with her a couple times. It's fun stuff.

The only thing better than going to the circus is going to the circus with your family or friends, FOR FREE!

This year, the Circus gave Jess 4 sets of tickets to give away on her blog. What an awesome giveaway! It's kind of like having a giveaway for 'magic,' or a superhero, or something. Who does that?

Her blog is small enough that I am going to win tickets for sure. So. Yeah. Kind of fun, because when TAMN gives something away there are like 900 entries and then it's just a waste of time even entering.

Since she has four to give away, all three of you guys reading this can go claim your pack of tickets on her blog. Hurry, because the deadline for the giveaway is TONIGHT.

Maybe we can all sit together!

New Toy!

Fun things to do with Carpet Tape Roll*:

1. Roll it like a BALL (on the roll-y side)!

2. Slide it like a puck.

3. Bounce it 3 feet high, like the pink bouncy BALL! and then GET IT.

4. DROP IT off of the side of the couch because it falls on the floor and makes noise!

5. Try to fit the whole thing in your mouth by squashing it a little.

6. Hold it in your mouth with the round part above your mouth.

7. Carry it in your mouth with the round part below your mouth.

8. GET IT and DROP IT so someone will throw it and you can go GET IT.

The carpet roll kind of reminds me of Abby, because when we got her as a kitten, her people told us we should let her play with the plastic ring around the top of milk containers. She loved them. Paley does too. Carpet tape rolls are the dog-version of milk rings. It's going to stay an only-under-supervision toy for a little while, because it seems pretty durable (and Chalce doesn't destroy toys) but I don't know if she could break it or swallow it somehow. So, we'll see.

Chalcy is more and more fun to play with because we communicate better these days. Chalcy is learning so much! (Learning is a lot of fun because when you do things you get TREATS, which are Very Very Good, and Definitely Worth Sitting To Get One.)

We've been doing Puppy Preschool for a month now, and Chalcy is good at:
- Watch me.
- Sit.
- Get it.
- Down. (But we still have to do Sit first and then Down).
- Up [on the couch, usually].
- Off [the couch, but even though she knows it, a lot of times she doesn't obey for this one.]
- Kennel up! (Very good at this now.)
- Come here! (Usually obedient for this one, but not always. We still need to do "Come" in class, so I think that will help.)
- Drop it. (Learned this a week and a half ago, but she is very good at it.)
- Leave it. (Another new one that she is pretty good at, except if she is supposed to LEAVE IT [the cat or chickens] or LEAVE IT [the compost], and I don't have a treat with me.)
- Take it.**
- Fetch! (Not a class one, and sometimes she doesn't do it, or she gets it and brings it but doesn't give up the thing she fetched. But usually she does it.)

I forget what else she knows. She does not know how to politely walk on a leash, because we've only been on a couple walks--we mostly just play in the backyard. But knowing how to politely walk on a leash is important for big dogs, so we're starting to go on walks sometimes. She likes them more than I thought she would.***

This is just a little update (which ended up being longer than I thought it would) because

* It can’t be ROLL, because otherwise how will we teach her to ROLL over?
** But it usually means you're going to have to DROP IT anyway, so why take it if you can just LEAVE IT before you're asked? Shouldn't that be the same and get you a treat faster?
*** Which seems like OF COURSE, because all dogs love walks, but I just kind of figured that since she gets plenty of exercise in the backyard, walks were not really very important or interesting(it's not like she needs more exercise or fresh air...). Plus, if she knows that she needs to stay in the yard, she is safer. If she feels like she knows the neighborhood, maybe she will decide to go on adventures or run off sometime, and that's not fine. I like her not-run-over, thanks. But walks are probably about teaching her to stay out of the road, too, so they're probably good, anyway.

The saga continues! - Episode 2

[CONTINUED FROM EPISODE 1]


I suddenly remembered--our carpet has gotten WET! Remember? When I walked in the alcove that one day, my feet got wet. We pulled the carpet up, pulled the sheet rock off, and set up a fan, but maybe we didn't get it dry enough? Maybe it molded?

And then I remembered the day that I had poured gallons and gallons and gallons of water in our furnace/water heater closet*, only a couple weeks before. When our furnace was installed, it had a little pump put beneath it. After I poured so, so much water in there, we tried to use a Shopvac to pick it up, but we got, like, a pint of water. "Huh, that's weird," I said. "I know there was WAY more water than we're vacuuming, but maybe the furnace pump already took care of it?" It seemed weird, but the water just wasn't there, so it had to have gone somewhere.

Maybe more of the water was in the carpet than we realized, and we couldn't dry it fast enough with our fans. Maybe it molded.

J and I decided I would pull up the carpet to take a look. Most likely, the carpet and carpet pad were moldy, and anyway, it wouldn't be a bad idea to replace them. I've really wanted fake wood floors, and one of my buddies at HD*** told me I could put in Trafficmaster Allure**** and it would be SO easy, and SO fast, and he said it's cheap, but it actually lasts. So. I was excited that I would be pulling up the carpet that day.

I got up to go look at the carpet by the furnace area, and as I headed that way I realized something. "J, no way, I just thought of something and you're not going to believe it..."

I crawled into the furnace closet to look beneath the furnace at the pump.

Back when I installed linoleum under our kitchen counters, I saw beneath the furnace: there was a line of 2x4s. It needed to be there to access furnace stuff, I just assumed.

"Yep. The pump is self contained. J. Remember how when you were buying this house, there was a line of 2x4s out in the hallway by the garage?"

"Mhmm?" (He was listening.)

"I think...I think the line of 2x4s goes all the way down the middle of our house...And that's why the floor is not level, and kind of goes up in the middle."

"Ohhhhh..."

I continued: "Yeah. I'll BET...I'll bet when all that water poured into the furnace closet, it wasn't pumped at all. It couldn't have been, actually, since the pump is all self-contained. You know what it did? It poured into this channel down the middle of the house. No way... Hm. I'll bet that's it. I'll bet that's why you're so allergic to the house. Think about it! The floor would get wet, from when it rained, and any water that got down there would sit beneath the floor, down the middle of the house. And it would just sit there. And that's why you're sick a few weeks after I poured so much water down there."

J nodded. "I think you're onto something. We never even thought about the 2x4s in the hallway. I think we just thought it was a vent..."

"Yeah."

J: "So you'll go ahead and pull up the carpet, then, because that would definitely cause mold under the carpet."

Me: "All right."

And I pulled up the carpet while J was gone to work, so he wouldn't get super-sick from participating in the project.

Sure enough, there were boards down the middle of our main room.

I started to pull up the 2x4s and I was in for a bigger surprise than either of us had imagined!

The ends of the boards were resting on little concrete ledges. Basically, there was a trench down the main room of our house. It was about 15" across, and about 10" deep. The bottom of the trench was gravel and dirt--just like the ground outside our house! Except, this gravel and dirt was damp, and very musty.

For sure, for sure, I had definitely found the source of J's allergy problems. No question about it.

The trench connected with the section outside. Down the middle of the trench, there was a 1" PVC pipe. The pipe we already knew about--it comes up from the 2x4s in the hallway outside.

When I talked to the previous owner (and also on the How the House Works DVD), he explained that the pipe went up along the wall of the patio, out to the roof outside, and then along a fence that no longer exists. They used the pipe to water their garden outside. Now, the pipe still goes up the wall, and outside, but then it is severed--there is no fence or garden.*****

So definitely, what happened is, all of the gallons of water went into a trench in the middle of our house, and sat there. But not only that! This year, we began irrigating. Any time water runs near the house, I am quite certain we have also been irrigating the middle of our house.

I determined that we should probably remove the PVC pipe and fill the trench in, but I wasn't sure what I needed to do, so I went to Home Depot to go find someone to explain what I would need to do.



[...TO BE CONTINUED!]


* This is a story that I meant to blog before, but I'm pretty sure I never did. Maybe I'll still get to it. This can be like LOST, with flashbacks that make the present stuff make more sense.**
** This is almost everything I remember about LOST, since I only watched part of one season.
*** Online, everyone calls HD "Orange" and Lowie's "Blue." So they're like, "I was at Orange the other day and they had x on sale!" Or, they'll ask "Orange or Blue?" and you're supposed to say whether you like Home Depot or Lowie's better. I don't get it. If I were talking about Vons, or Walmart, or Smithy's, or any other store, I would say the name of the store. Is there some reason we're not supposed to name names when it comes to Home Improvement stores? Like, I could say "Red, Blue, Yellow, or Green??" and mean, "Do you like Smithy's, Albertsons, Macey's, or Reams the best?!?" but I wouldn't...So, I'm not into using secret logo-color codes to talk about home improvement shopping, I guess.
**** When I say the names of home improvement project parts, it makes me feel like I am bragging about specs for something else--'It's got a 203948320 GIG HARD DRIVE, with 38 RPM!!' 'It's a Mac.' 'You just can't beat the suspension--nobody makes a better suspension than ThisBrand!' or 'We're installing Trafficmaster Allure. [*frownsmile*?] It has a 25 year warranty.' It's just like, whatever it is, it must be so good that for some reason I need to namedrop, and can expect people to know what it is. But actually, it isn't really bragging, because it isn't Pergo, and it's in my little house that is not deluxe deluxe at all.
***** The previous owner did not mention the trench went to the furnace closet. When I asked him about the 2x4s in the hall, and asked about what it connected to, he mentioned the garden, and he told me that, you know, they didn't do everything the best way, but that it had worked for them. When he said that, it confused me, and I just told him we enjoy the house a lot.

The roof/floor saga begins! - Episode 1.5

Here is the extra content that goes along with the first post of my blog-saga*!

It is a video of J demonstrating the installation of our fancy snow & ice tape.

Kind of makes me laugh to watch it now. This is from our ^*~cR-aFt-eRNooN~*^ on Easter of this year.



* My bla-ga?

The roof/floor saga begins! - Episode 1

I have been so busy lately.

My main project over the past month or so has been replacing our floor. There have been other things going on. This feels like my capstone [home-improvement] project, though. Like, I keep telling my Homies* about it, and they just can't believe all this. It's pretty hard core. I'll blog about it, but if you're going to read this, you should probably take a break to go grab some safety glasses, ear protection, and a ventilator mask. You will probably need all that, just to read this post. It's pretty intense.**

SO, here we go.

J has been allergic to our house*** ever since he moved in. It's a mold allergy. Sometimes it's been better and sometimes it's been worse. Before we got married, he sometimes moved into his parents' house for a little while, until he got better. When he's having an allergic reaction, he just can't do much of anything. He feels blah, and just not really great.

Right before he closed on the house (last summer), the bathroom ceiling fell in. There was mold everywhere.

It was a problem with the roof. On the How-the-House-Works DVD, the previous owner talks about getting on the roof to re-tar it.

We had the bathroom ceiling replaced. We had our [not-very-]handyman replace the sheetrock, and I told him to also replace all of the insulation that had mold on it, please. So he did. The "handy"man also patched the tar on the roof for us.

J did well for a while. We patched the tar on the roof a couple more times in September, and during the fall. When the bathroom ceiling kept getting moist, we had a roofer come out to replace the flashing around the chimney. He did a pretty good job, we thought, but we kept having problems.

We called him out, as part of the warranty on it (because he said we wouldn't have any more problems with it getting wet), and he confirmed that it was done correctly, and told us we could pay more to have them look for another problem. They started talking about re-sloping the roof (because it's a pretty flat roof.)

J and I applied more tar.

I realized that the sheets of metal on our part of the roof moved around a lot. So we got silicone caulking stuff and lots of screws, and we fastened the heck out of our metal sheeting that was on our part of the roof. We sealed the seams like crazy! The problems magically stopped.

And then it became winter. And then a few months later, we started having more problems. I forget what happened first, but basically, we wondered if maybe the rest of the ceiling/insulation in the problem area was moldy. We determined that I would demolish part of our ceiling so that we could just see what it looked like (without having to hire someone and pay a few hundred dollars if we didn't need to). So I did that (March 8-9th). It turned out that the part I pulled down was moldy, so I kept removing sheetrock and insulation until the parts I was pulling down were not water-damaged.

We had a guy replace it. (A handier-man.) He sprayed bleach and painted KILZ to take care of the mold. He also put a plastic barrier in some places. He reminded us that he is NOT a roof guy, but he said he thought it would keep the mold from being a problem. He repainted the area so that it matched the rest of our alcove.

A few weeks later, on April 1st**** it snowed again. I happened to go into our alcove to grab some cleaning stuff, and about 4-5 ft from the wall, my socks got all wet. I was walking into a giant carpet-puddle. It was not fixed. In fact, there were pools of water under the paint, and spots where water was dripping from the ceiling. OH, no.

We tore the sheetrock down, pulled the carpet up, and set up a fan to dry things out, but about a week later, J was seriously allergic to the house again. He was mostly living at his parents' house.

I called real roofers. We wanted to know what the cheap, quick-fix would be, and then what the lasting solution needed to be. We had heard before that we may need a cricket (a built-in thing to re-slope part of the roof), but we didn't want to spend $2-3000 to fix the roof.

One guy suggested water and ice tape. We tried this, actually. On Easter, between sessions of General Conference, J and I got up on the roof. I re-tarred it, and J was going to put snow & ice tape along the seams, and along the rain gutter. What a joke! It didn't stick to anything very well. It no-way would have solved the problem. Even a lot of it wouldn't have. J just kept laughing because the whole thing was so ridiculous.

Another guy told me with great confidence that we needed a membrane. I liked him because he called me "ma'am" and took off his boots before he came inside, and he had a nice accent (he was from South Africa). He also seemed like he REALLY knew what was going on. He kept explaining things to me, and giving me metaphors, and showing me things on the roof, and he seemed very genuine.

He showed me that our roof was basically rolled roofing (not sure what that is even usually for, but it's very cheap, very flimsy, not-at-all durable stuff), with sheets of metal attached to it. During the summer and winter, metal contracts and expands. So it was impossible for the metal roof to do much of anything. Basically, a 20 year old rolled-roof was all that was protecting us! NO WONDER J was having problems. The worker told me we needed to pull up all of the old roofing, replace all of the plywood, and put a TPO membrane down. (Because after years of getting wet, there wasn't much chance that our plywood would be good anymore.)

A TPO membrane is what they use for really flat roofs. The stuff was originally formulated to line ponds--water can pool on it and just stay there, and it doesn't go through the membrane. I don't know how they got started using it in roofing, but nowadays, it's very common for commercial and industrial buildings. Most people just don't build houses with flat (or very low pitched) roofs.

Another company verified that we needed a membrane, but they were willing to just do the junction between our back portion of the house and the front portion of the house. That was going to be quite a bit cheaper. We liked them until we Googled them to see reviews--and it looked like they had written their own fake reviews. It seemed really weird and dishonest, so we left them alone. We called the second company to see if they would be willing to do just the junction between the roofs.

They were willing to do that. So we had them do it on April 18-19th. And we felt pretty good about their work.

EXCEPT, even though the plywood wasn't in great shape, and there was obviously a lot of water damage in some places, there really wasn't much mold. So we were kind of confused.

Within a couple months weeks, it rained again, and J became sick again. Summer kind of started, and as J got sicker, I arranged to have another [cheaper, but still good] guy replace the rest of our roof with membrane (on June 22nd). Obviously since J was so allergic, it must have been a collective problem, right?

No!

The rest of the plywood was still in decent shape. We replaced it anyway. None of the insulation had mold on it. Our roof looks nicer, and our makeshift-skylight was transformed into a pair of very pretty, real skylights. But J didn't get better. He only got worse. J kept wanting to sleep outside (which I really, really didn't like), and he did for a week. Then we began sleeping at J's parents' house. J started moving his stuff over there, because he didn't even want to come home to get ready in the mornings.

We wondered...what could J possibly still be allergic to?

It didn't make any sense.

We guessed that it might be the carpet. Although we had new carpet "installed"***** when J first bought the place, we left the carpet that was in the main room, because it didn't look bad. We also left the carpet in one of the bedrooms. But J thought it was more likely a problem with the main room carpet, because he didn't spend a lot of time in our office and when he did, it didn't make him extra sick.

And then I remembered something very important!

[...TO BE CONTINUED!]







* aka. my friends at Home Depot. I mean, the workers.
** I was so tempted to put something like this (for while you were getting your stuff):

....
...
..
.

ARE YOU BACK YET??

DID YOU GET YOUR SAFETY ITEMS???

.

.
.

MAKE A WISH!

NOW FORWARD THIS BLOG POST TO 30 OF YOUR BEST FRIENS AND IF YOU DO YOU WILL BE KISSED BY YOUR CRUSH BY FRIEDAY AND HAVE A HAPPY LIFE AND IF NOT YOU WILL FAIL ALL YOUR CLASES AND YOUR TOES WILL FALL OFF!

THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!

*** One way he knows it's the house is because he wakes up feeling like he is having an allergic reaction, and he doesn't do too well at the beginning of work, but then by the afternoon he is feeling much better.
**** Now, remember, J and I were married March 20th. So, I was tearing down sheetrock two weeks before our wedding (the day after my bridal pictures!), and hiring roofers, etc., was just a couple weeks after we got back from our honeymoon. Hey.
***** By the "handy"man. WORST Carpet Installation EVER.

Chalcy + Paley = BFF

Chalcy (our new puppy) and Paley (my cat) are best friends.

(Well, Chalcy thinks so, anyway.) (Sometimes Paley thinks so too.)

They're working through their differences.

Paley was initially afraid of Chalcy. She was about the same size as Paley when we brought her home*, but Chalcy looks kind of like our renters' dogs--Chalcy looked more like the lab, but was about the same size as the min-pin, like some terrible combination of Paley's two mortal enemies. Our renters' dogs are MEAN**. And they CHASE her. We kind of expected Pae to be afraid of the puppy.

Pretty soon after we brought Chalcy home, Pae realized that Chalce was not the same as the other dogs. Chalcy would notice Paley and try to go be with her (like the other dogs (!!!)), but as Chalcy would scamper toward Paley, the puppy kept tripping on grass. And then, Chalcy would get near Paley, and the puppy would suddenly lose interest in the cat because she would suddenly notice, OH WOW, A NEAT PIECE OF GRASS! So Chalcy would lay down--right by Paley, but totally disinterested in her--to chew on some grass, or whatever. Chalcy was not exactly quite the same threat Paley was expecting. So Paley started trying to sniff Chalcy, and a little bit tolerated Chalcy sniffing her. Within a few days, Paley started to rub up against Chalcy sometimes.

Chalcy liked Paley, because they were about the same size, and Paley is black like Chalcy (and her missing littermates), and Paley has a tail. Chalcy licks Paley, so Pae knows that the puppy likes her.*** Since Paley is a friend, Chalcy always wants to play with her. Her littermates always wanted to play, so Paley must want to play too, right?

This is how their interactions usually go:
1. Paley rubs up against Chalcy, or comes to sit near her.
2. Chalcy gets excited. Chalcy licks Paley and nestles her head into Paley's side. (Paley is ok with this.)
3. Chalcy begins to suck and chew on Paley's face/side. (Chalcy is little rough with Pae, but Paley is willing to tolerate it, because it's obvious that Chalcy is trying to be friendly, and not trying to be mean.)
4. Chalcy starts to play-bite Paley, which Paley will sometimes put up with.
5. Paley gets tired of playing too rough. She yowls and smacks Chalcy with her paw.
6. Chalcy is excited about the new smack-each-other-with-our-paws game, and starts wagging her tail. Chalcy backs up a couple feet, and does that playful-puppy thing, where her bottom is up in the air, with her tail wagging, and her front is crouched down, ready to pounce on Paley. Chalcy jabs a paw towards Paley a couple times.
7. Paley playfully bats her paw at Chalcy's paw.
8. Chalcy tackles Paley and pins her down to chew on her.
9. OH NO! Paley does NOT want Puppy Fun. (Also, Chalcy is quite a bit heavier than Paley, so being jumped on hurts, or is uncomfortable at least.) Paley yowls and hisses. If Chalcy does not move quickly, Paley will GRAB onto Chalcy's front leg with her claws, and Pae begins biting Chalcy repeatedly, while she growls. (GET OFF, DOG!)
10. This hurts a little bit, but it is Puppy Fun too, so Chalcy enjoys it for a minute, and then it hurts a little, so Chalcy will back off, or Paley will jump out from under Chalcy (to go sit a few feet away).
11. [Repeat.]

As I've been typing this, it sounds a little mean, but everyone is playing, and nobody gets hurt. When Paley is really done playing, she will go climb a tree, or jump up a fence, or hop up onto the car, or go somewhere else Chalcy can't get to.

A lot of times, Paley and Chalcy will play on opposite sides of a fence, batting at each other through the fence. Sometimes they'll run through tall grass. Paley will run through the tall grass, and stop somewhere, and Chalcy will run though the tall grass to "catch" her. Then Paley will run somewhere else a couple feet away and crouch down, and Chalcy will bounce through the grass to find her again, and the game continues. It is a game for both of them--Paley loves all of the attention from Chalcy.

Sometimes they're not too interested in playing, and they'll just lie down near each other, a couple feet away. Usually Paley will come sit kind of near Chalcy and I, and after a couple minutes, Chalcy will take whatever she is already chewing on ("Tug!" or "Stick!") and go lie down near the cat, so that she can keep chewing on her toy, but also be near Paley.

In the past week or so, Chalcy has realized that Paley does not like to be jumped on, so now Chalcy catches her by standing above her, instead of knocking her over. Paley likes this better (of course), so she is willing for longer.**** I think they will be better friends as Chalcy gets older and learns to be a little more gentle. Paley sometimes gets tired of Puppy Games. She does like Chalcy, though.





* Except that Chalcy's mass is all bulk, and Paley's mass is all fur. So. Not exactly quite the same.
** To cats.
*** Chalcy also licks the calves and the goat, so they know she's different than our renters' dogs, too. She likes them, and they are friends.
**** Chalcy still loves to bite Paley's tail (because it is long, and it moves, and it is covered in FUR!), and she loves to bite Paley's ears--this is tricky, though, because Chalcy's mouth is bigger than Paley's ears, so she ends up biting half of Paley's head. This is not Paley's very favorite game.

Farm Update, etc.

It's been a little while since I posted about our little farm.

Our calves are doing well! We fenced the front and back pasture areas well enough that the boys are always out grazing. That's what they do all day, every day. Pretty much. We de-horned* them and castrated them, and after that they had the worst 6 hours of their lives, but they're fine now, and they've forgotten all about it.

The calves are suuuuper cuddly. They are the friendliest guys in the world. They both love to be scratched. When I go out into the backyard, often one (or both!) of the calves will come up to me to be scratched. They stick their necks out, so that I can reach to scratch their chins, and their necks, and I'll scratch behind their ears, and their little bangs, and their foreheads, and they just soak it up. If I'm busy, or stop scratching, they'll rub their neck against me, so that I know what they want.

The calves usually come when I call them. I'll call, "C'mere boys!" and they come running. This is helpful if they have gotten somewhere they're not supposed to be.**

When we brought the calves home, they had ropes around their necks. We left them on, and it helped us tell the calves apart. I think we could probably tell them apart without the ropes, but eh, just to be sure, we've left them on. They are also helpful for directing them to particular places. The calves are getting BIG, though, and the ropes have been getting tight. So about a week ago, I got them collars. IFA was having a sidewalk sale, so I bought cheap collars in basically the same colors as their ropes were. I feel like they need bells, because don't calves wear bells around their necks? J tells me he can't think of any useful reason to put bells on them, and it's true--I can't think of any reason to bell the calves either. Oh well.

I have the funniest video of the calves with Paley. I need to figure out how to post it, I guess. See, [months ago] I used to come home, and sometimes Paley would be all wet. Half of her head would be wet, or she'd have a big wet blotch for a couple inches on her tail... and I started to wonder whether the calves were licking her.

They were!

Paley would go up to the calves, and rub against them, and the calves would lick her! Except, their mouths are so big (and they're so slobbery) that they soak her.

One time J and I were out with the calves and we saw it happen. Too funny! We laughed and laughed. We were like, that's so weird! But then I told J, cats lick each other.*** And J was like, "Oh, yeah! They speak her love language!" and that made me laugh too, because it was like, "of course!"

The calves are great. We like them. The very best thing, I think, is when I go outside and Stew first sees me. He looks up at me, kind of like the dramatic chipmunk YouTube video. I feel like he's thinking: "*GASP!* SHE'S HERE! You're here, finally!" Often he'll start walking out towards me, to say hello.

The chickens are mostly doing well.

We moved them to a different area (because the calves were EATING the chicken coop. Hey!) so they have plenty of space to dig around and eat bugs. When we put them in their area, it was grassy, but now it is just dirt, because they tear up the grass so effectively.

When we had moved them before, one of our chickens went missing. It was Gertie, from the chicks that we actually raised. I mentioned to J that I wondered whether she might have gotten out and ended up across the street with the flock across the street. She did! Our neighbor came over one time, and we were talking about chickens and she asked if we had lost one of our birds a few months ago. Actually, yes!

She said a new bird had shown up at their house, and the bird kind of stayed to herself. Our neighbor had wondered if the bird might be ours, since she thought we had birds too. J went over later and picked her up. Gertie was so skinny! And! Our birds didn't remember her. It was pretty sad. They all pecked at her, and chased her. So she started spending a lot of time on top of our chicken coop. Poor girl! She spent every night on the roof of the chicken coop.

Gradually she has integrated back into our flock. She's fattened up again, too. Now, several of our birds spend some time on the roof of the coop. It's kind of a pain, because they poop all over it, so I hose it off but it often looks dirty.

We started irrigating this year. When we water, snails come out! They slide all over our ag water pipes, and they climb all over our water access places. I pick them up by their shells and toss them to the chickens. What a treat! The girls love snails. They all cluster together and it's like watching a game of football--one bird will grab the snail, and start running, and everyone will follow, and try to get the snail. Awesome.

Yesterday morning when I went out to take care of the birds, I found that our white bird with more black was dead. I think she died of natural causes. She was one of the older ones, and it didn't look like anything interesting had happened.

We also recently picked up our final addition to our farm: a goat! She is a Nubian doeling. Nubians are the best milk goats, so J really wanted that kind. They are also the least pleasant, supposedly. Their bleat is kind of annoying. We named our girl "Feta" and she is about 4 months old, so we plan to start milking her probably next March.

She was very nervous about coming to our house, but she fits in very nicely. She feels like she is part of a herd with the calves. She just follows them around. Feta is very friendly! Especially for a Nubian. The family we bought her from had 4 young children, so the goat definitely got her share of love from them, and I think it made her a very patient goat. She lets people touch her and she is not aggressive at all**** (except with Chalcy! Poor Chalce!), so she's pretty nice.

It's very funny because the kids next door are SUPER interested in our animals. They love to come up along their side of the fence, and watch our calves. They like the goat even better, though. Yesterday I saw them outside bleating at her. It was the funniest thing! The calves are mostly quiet. (They only 'moooo' once in awhile, when they're really hungry and they think we've forgotten them.) The goat bleats fairly often, though. Not all day, or anything, but quite a bit, and a few times a day. So the boys 'bleh, bleh, bleh'-ed at her from the fence, and she would turn around and look at them, and sometimes 'bleh' back to them.

Well, Chalcy is crying because she is Not Allowed to play inside today (because of the work I'm doing), and she does not like to play outside Without Me. I think it's nap time, and time for me to get back to work. I do feel like I have so, so much to blog about, but this is a good start, eh?*****





* (Not for the weak of stomach:) For dehorning, we used a paste to burn the root of the horns. I think it hurt them a lot and they hated it. For castration, we used a band castrator, which is basically a contraption that stretches a really really tight rubber band, and then you stick the whole thing over their parts, and then let the handles close, and roll the rubber band off. I think this actually didn't hurt them much.
** A couple weeks ago, J moved the calves into the back pasture and forgot that he hadn't closed the fencing on the other side of the house. In the morning he was leaving for work and as he drove out of the driveway, he stopped and came running back towards me-- "Em! The calves are out! Come help me bring them back!" So I put Chalcy in her crate, and went to help him bring the calves back. He was trying to tug on the ropes around their necks, and they weren't too interested. They were hanging out in the middle of the road, in front of our house. (And I thought ducks in the road was funny...) So, not a good place for them. "C'mere! Chuck! Stew! C'mere boys!" I got them excited and started jogging in front of them, toward their other pasture. So they started trotting and followed me. Of course.
*** I remember at the Humane Society, when I adopted Paley they told me she was a really sweet kitten and she had gone around grooming all of the other kitties that were in the same cage as her. If cats lick each other, it means they're being sweet.
**** Except with Chalcy. Poor dog!
***** Happy Canada Day!