Cock a Doodle Do!

Well, I sure hope there's no crowing going on because we supposedly just welcomed four HENS to our family.  Their names are appropriately Dora (The Explorer), Maria (VonTrapp),  Charlotte (the Spider) and Mary (Poppins).  I have been wanting chickens for a while (yes, I might be crazy) and I knew Mattie would love them. I think it might be my Oklahoma roots coming out!   I was so excited to finally get to call my Uncle Doug for some chicken advice!

So, Pete got a great design from a friend and he and Scottongim got it built in a single day. 

It is the COOLEST design for a chicken house ... We can move it around the yard, they lay their eggs in this semi - external nesting box (which means we don't have to crawl in the nastiness to get them) and they have a food chute on the outside that I can put their food in each morning.   We love them!  And I think they love us.  They don't even mind when Mattie goes in with them and tries to "hold them."  

So far M loves going out each morning to check on them, feed them, and look for eggs.  She literally wakes up asking about them first thing.  She even remembers to save some of our food scraps for them at meals (so sweet).

We have only had one semi-insane moment and that was when The Animal Lover set them free in the yard and it took me, my mom (and Mattie thought she was helping) 30 minutes to get them back in the coop.  She thought it was HILARIOUS to see mom running all over the yard like a chicken with her head cut off (pun intended).   Somehow after escaping to the neighbors yard, the front yard, and all through our gardens and sauna, they all made it back in alive.   The dogs were even in the yard and didn't try anything crazy.
 

We get 4 eggs each day and I could practically time when they lay them.  Gotta love the girls!

Plumbing Adventures

I am tempted to start a "series" of posts of the all too true and terrifying events that happen to me in the name of "home improvement and maintenance." If you need some background on my incredibly awful "luck" or "karma", whatever you call it. Please read THIS and THIS first.

Ok, now that you are done laughing, read on . . . and here's a warning: this is disgusting and if you have heart troubles, weak stomach or a sensitive gag reflex - STOP READING NOW!

This sort of begins a last month. While Jim and my mom were here, we got a dishwasher installed and Jim graciously installed a garbage disposal for us. The dishwasher has revolutionized our (well at least my) life! I love the thing. I use it all the time, relishing the ease of doing dishes and enjoying all the extra time I have to play with Matine and do the 6 million other household things that are required to keep my sanity (or drive me insane?).

Well, a few weeks after it's installation and AFTER the super handy MacGyver Jim leaves (of course) the kitchen sink starts draining really slow. Hmmm... Interesting... I pour massive amounts of Drano Max down it, bleach, scalding hot water... Nothing. Still slow. I mention this to Peter... Could it be because of the dishwasher? I don't think so, but the timing sure is odd.

Time goes by. About a week before I go to Tulsa, 7am, Pete comes up from the laundry room on his way out the door, late for guiding. I hear a bit of a mumbling "there's water in the basement... we have a leak... bye, I love you."

Hmmmm.... I get distracted, assuming it's a small leak or he would have made a bigger deal of it. About an hour later I hear a "hissing sound." A LOUD hissing sound, one that sounds a bit like a gas leak. Baby is asleep (thank God), the cousins Loni and Marni were here that day. I run down stairs and see water SPRAYING out of one of our copper pipes near the ceiling above the water heater! EEKKKK! I scream. Is it just water? Is there a gas leak also? It sounds different? Is the house going to explode? Was it spraying like this when Peter left? Should I get the baby up and get her out of the house? Am I over reacting and it's just water? Probably... But now what do I do. The basement has water EVERYWHERE and the leak is up high... I can't even reach it to look at it. What day is it? Sunday, of course. Plumbing problems don't happen during a WEEK DAY... Never, only early in the morning or late at night when you get charged TRIPLE for a plumber. Well, I can't leave water shooting all over our basement all day and let Peter deal, or wait until tomorrow. So, luckily we know this really really nice guy, Kirk who serves as a plumber by day and kayaking addict at night and on the weekends. I call Kirk at 8am on Sunday ("please don't be on a river trip... please.....). He answers, I beg, he comes over groggy from being woken up.

That turned out to be a pretty simple fix. One hour and $20 later he has replaced a corroded pipe and he leaves. I ask about the slow sink ... Could they be related. "No" he tells me. Good. We will just deal with the sink later. Kirk wants to go back to bed and I now have a baby waking up.

Fast forward to this week. Sink REALLY slow. Right before we have some people over for dinner it completely backs up. Water stuck in both sides, not budging. Gross. Was it the leftovers I dumped in there earlier today when I cleaned out the fridge? Maybe, but the problem started before that...Right?

Where is the plunger? I spend 1 hour looking for our plunger... Nowhere to be found. Seriously? How do you lose a plunger? It's not like it's a tool or object that you take ANYWHERE EVER. They stay in your house, hidden from sight and used only rarely (you hope). Where the heck is it? Not sure...

Well, we let the water sit... It's late, order dinner in. Tomorrow I will BUY A NEW FREAKING PLUNGER surely to find my "missing one" the second I get home and use the new one. $8 I will never see again.

Next day... have the cousins Loni and Marni over again... AND they have a snake! They told me they bought one last month to deal with their own plumbing fiasco.

So, we snake, we plunge... I get the good job of holding down a plug on one side as Pete plunges (with the NEW plunger) the other side. Of course the massive force of water is too much for my puny arms and water sprays out of the sink all over me... Chunks of food. Yummm... All over me. Pete just chuckles silently as I drip our backwashed sink water that has now been sitting for 40 some odd hours.

No luck after all of us snaked, dranoed, plunged.

I call Kirk again. Over he comes that night like a faithful golden retreiver. He assessed the situation and decided he needed another tool, so the next morning he comes over again with his high powered equipment. All I can think of is "how much is this going to cost? and "Will we be tearing out walls and siding?"

This gets complicated, read carefully: Again, good baby sleeps during all of this on Monday morning... Kirk runs the high powered snake from the kitchen sink down the exterior wall into the vertical pipe that leads to the main. This pipe is fortunately exposed and in our downstairs basement office (no tearing out walls necesary). We then go down there to snake from the vertical pipe into the pipes that lead under the floor to the Main. He spends 1/2 an hour cranking on some big lug nut thingy on some "Y" so he can get it off and into the next section of pipe. It is caked with really really gross grime (probably been building since 1957 when the house was built). It stinks... It is essentially bacteria x 1000 wafting into the air just like a very pungent gas. It looks like tar with chunks of cheese and shrimp in it. He says the pipe under the floor to the Main Line is now free and clear, so all he needs to do is go back upstairs and snake down the vertical pipe from the sink further until he gets to this "Y" (that is now open, pointing into the office room) and clear the entire thing...

I lay down plastic tarps and towels in case there is some "spillage." It's my job to yell when I see a plug move down past the opening or hear the snake getting close or pass the Y opening.
So, he snakes, I stand over this opening cautiously waiting to see disgusting black tar sewage pass through the pipe. I have my head right at the opening and the flashlight pointed right at it so I don't miss it.

Well, maybe you can guess what happens next. The snake unplugged something for sure. As soon as it did a 6 inch diameter flow of black, tar, chunky sewage that has been riping for 50 years comes PROJECTING (a bit like the Exorcist) 2 feet out of the hole, into my face, all over the walls and all over the office! Needless to say - my plastic tarp was WAY too small! I scream. He stops snaking.

Well, plumbing problem fixed. After bleaching the floors, the walls, the desk, myself, 2 showers, and 2 trashbags of scrap towels later the room doesn't smell AS bad and the sink works. Yay. Baby wakes up.

Now I just need add "new carpet" to the list of things that we need to do and can't afford and do something about the nightmares I am having of being chased by a vommiting sewage pipe that smells like Death.

I hope you appreciate that fact that there are no pictures of this incident.

It's no longer my fault.

If anyone reading this EVER asks me to paint, stain, or help them with any project (creative or constructive) and it involves paint, liquids, or anything of the nature.

YOU ARE JUST PLAIN STUPID!

No longer will I hold a paint brush or carry vessels that carry liquids that create permanent stains.

I had a doozy of a time yesterday staining our friend/employer's multi-million dollar home. I was getting cocky as I admired my handi-work - noticing how careful I had been not to get the stain on the chinking between the logs -- when all of a sudden like the Winds of Armageddon (will there be wind with the coming of Christ? I am assuming so for this story), the ladder holding the gallon of stain is lifted from the deck, crashes on it's side, sending massive amounts of Autumn Brown wood stain all over the door, windows and Trek (synthetic) decking. Oh, and it splattered on Oliver, the hairless dog too.

I seriously thought I had just died and gone to Hell. Seriously? Could I have ANY worse Karma with painting? I was having flashbacks to the bedroom paint incident, the time I fell off my sink and broke the pointy chair with my uterus, and every other time I have painted or tried to do ANYTHING!

I wanted to lay down face first in that pile of stain and just huff it till I passed out. A little over-dramatic? Maybe.

As I frantically run around trying to figure out how and with what to clean up the mess that will likely get me fired from my "easy second job" I manage to track stain everywhere else on the synthetic decking that sucks up the brown stain like a dry cactus.

As I am weeping on my hands and knees and scrubbing the deck I look through the holes on the deck --of course, there are hundreds of feet of bare ground under the decking for most of the house, but where did ALL the stain drip through and land? Take a guess? Any guess at all . . .

Yes, that's right. Brooke made a dunk shot straight into the air conditioning unit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the cracks and crannys, the fan, the venting... covered in brown stain.

It's triage time. Save the decking or the massive electrical unit that if it turns on is likely to EXPLODE from all the gasoline I dumped in it.

I freaked out for 3 hours cleaning up the mess (as well as I could) go over in my head how to explain how I managed re-paint the insides of their AC unit, as well as add some lovely spots, foot prints, and designs to their extremely expensive decking.

Folks, Brooke doesn't just make catastrophic messes in her own humble home - no, I go ALL OUT and destroy trophy homes that take 4 years to build. Homes that are on the COVER of Log Home Living. If you're gonna do something - Do it BIG - that's my motto.

Yeah, so it's your fault, you've been warned. Never, under any circumstance hire or ask me to help you with a project where I could fall off a high point, stab myself with sharp objects, or spill flammable or permanent liquids. I have a disease, pre-disposition, bad karmic, habit of destroying beautiful things. As my brother says, "That's why you can't have nice things... "

I have given a whole new meaning to the term "Home Wrecker" and if you want to see me, you can find me in my padded room where I am not allowed to touch anything.