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Mid-January, Rain - January 13, 2012
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October, White - October 31, 2011
October, 2011 - October 04, 2011


August 12, 2009

8:23 a.m.

Up Before Light

Rose is better. No gallstones, no appendicitis. Just more of the erratic family digestive system, I think. Bad enough, but thank goodness it wasn't worse.

I heard the mice this morning. Or one mouse. Gnawing in the walls of the pass-through room between dining room and living room. Gnaw, gnaw. I snuck up on it. There was no need; even when I banged repeatedly on the wall, it only hesitated a bit and then continued. Doggone complacent mouse.

I knew there were probably some here, owing to the dead ones we found down below. Now I have to figure out where to put traps. Long ago, when I was dreaming of a house, I imagined being all Havahart about it, but you know, there are millions of mice in these woods, and where am I going to take mice where they won�t be a problem for me or anyone else?

(Although the cute factor�)

But, having as little time as I do to relocate rodents, I probably will actually kill them instead.

This hardly makes sense, as I will rescue a rescuable mouse from the cat any day of the week and let it go.

But� this is my House. I am the guardian and I have to make it safe. End of story.

********

Marc takes off from work again today for their closing. Hallelujia.

Last night after work we emptied the pickup truck of various things that came from their old house, such as 50-gallon barrels, loads of bricks, and metal objects of mysterious purpose. Regarding the bricks, he�s going to make a brick path somewhere in their garden. He even has a bricklayer�s wheelbarrow.

Then we took that truck to the old house and removed the aluminum liner from the chimney that connected to his pellet stove. (I got to steady the ladder while he went up to the roof. This will have to happen on my house, too.) The buyers said they don�t want to put a stove there, so they wouldn�t be using it. It�s a somewhat flexible, corrugated pipe that connects to a chimney cap, and I�ll be able to use it for my dining room chimney when I install the pellet stove there. He said that�s two hundred dollars worth of pipe I won�t have to buy. Thank goodness! Then on the way home he spotted a lime spreader someone was throwing out. It�s kind of rusted and the cable needs oiling, but he said it would work, and we�ll have to spread a buttload of lime this Fall after we burn the field. Another free thing!!! (And I�m sure it�ll be easier to push than the LAWNMOWER.)

My chimneys need to be recapped; the top bricks are askew. He said I could get a few years out of them yet, though.

One thing I have to do today is look up the University of CT Agricultural Extension website and find out how to collect soil for them to test. For something like seven bucks they�ll look at your soil and tell you what you need to mix into it for best gardening results. We have a high clay content, not to mention the bumper crop of rocks, so there will be some plowing and dispersing of sweetening substances. Cow poo, I�m sure, as well as the lime.

********

I found the pellet stove of my dreams. Of course it�s more expensive than what I thought I�d get, but I�ll start looking around for used ones. Marc�s are big, blocky and black, and that�s what I expected. This one is smaller but highly efficient, looks like an old fashioned wood stove, and would fit into this house like it was meant to be here. We thought, even if I can only buy one this year, this one will almost heat the whole house. We can get a tax rebate next year of 30%, too, which I imagine Dar will snag, since he pays more taxes than I do. Maybe that way I can get him to pony up the greater part of the cost! �Cause I�m cutting it to the bone here.

Yes, I�m living from one paycheck to the next. I don�t have my �nut� back, but I hope in a couple of months that will improve. And come on, Obama bux, get here. I need a kitchen, and a back door, and plumbing. And some mousetraps.


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