New Resident

When we got back from LaCrosse yesterday I noticed a robin that was hopping into the bushes in the front of the house.  Then as we got closer, I noticed some grass and leaves on the ground in front of the garage.  I knew exactly where to look, and sure enough, we had the beginnings of a nest in the crook between the garage light, the siding of the garage, and the downspout.  Then as we were bringing in the things Sarah sent home, I happened to notice a broken robin’s egg in the grass next to the back stoop.  I suppose that was why it was making a new nest?

I like having the birds in the yard, so I don’t mind that it is building a nest, as long as it is out of the way.  The only problem will be if and when I need to clean out the front gutter of the garage, or walking past the corner of the garage when I cut the grass.  If it doesn’t mind the garage door going up and down a couple of times a day, then I’ll leave it alone.  The last time this happened a few years ago, I found its eggs broken on the ground one day and it had just left.  I hope that the eggs actually make it this time. 

LaCrosse Visit

We drove up to LaCrosse to visit Sarah today.  Actually the visit was two fold.  When she was home for Easter, we had discussed the whole moving out of the dorm process.  I didn’t want to have to either take two cars up in May to get her, and I didn’t want to have to rent a trailer to haul everything back home.  So we had decided we could come up one weekend before the end of the semester and take home some of the things she didn’t need, like some of her clothes.  Then after thinking about it, I thought we would rent a storage unit and put everything except her clothes in it until we could move it into her apartment next year.  So I thought it would be a good chance to scope out some places and see if I could find a place that was affordable and secure.

Since we brought Alison along she wanted Sarah to take her up on the bluffs.  It was a little cold, windy and misty/rainy, so the conditions were not optimal for walking around on the bluffs.  Sarah was actually wearing her Birkenstocks to walk around and I told Sarah that if she really wanted to hike around on the trails around the bluffs she should get a good pair of hiking shoes/boots.

Storage Debate

As the end of the school year is approaching, we are faced with a decision, how to get Sarah home from school.  The trip up to LaCrosse involved packing the back of my car full in addition to having to rent a U-Haul trailer.  If we do that to get her home for the summer, we’ll have to turn around and do it again to take her back up for school this summer.  Since Sarah decided to live off campus next year, she is able to move her stuff into the apartment in June.  But that will also entail getting back up there a month later, which seems like it would be counter-productive as well as expensive.  So we have been debating renting a storage locker for a couple of months until we can get her moved into the apartment instead.

The way I figure it, the cost of renting a storage unit is going to be roughly a wash with renting a trailer to go both ways as well as the cost of gas to go back and forth.  Or at least it shouldn’t be more.  The only thing is that if that is what I am going to do, then I should have really been looking for a unit to rent at least a month ago.  We are actually going up to LaCrosse this weekend to see about taking a few things back home for Sarah so that we don’t have so much to take back in a couple of weeks (mainly clothes) so the pan is that while we are up there to look around and see what we can find.  Hopefully we’ll be able to find something for not too much since it is only for a couple of months.  Stay tuned…

Well This Is Unfortunate

Today I was leaving for work when I happened to notice a dark spot on the garage floor.  I had noticed what I thought was a wet spot under the new car over the weekend but I didn’t think much of it because I thought it was just water dripping from the climate control system.  The old Santa Fe did that all the time, so when I saw the dark area, I just blew it off.  However, this morning after Kris left for work as I was getting into my car, I saw a large, dark area that looked “dry” and another spot that looked wet.  I thought, if this was water, why wouldn’t it have evaporated by now since Kris’s car had sat for at least 12 hours. 

I bent over and touched it, rubbing my fingers together and it was definitely wet and slippery.  And it smelled like oil.  What kind I didn’t know, but it was some sort of oil for sure.  So tonight when I got home from work, I crawled under the car to make sure, and there were a couple of beads of oil hanging off of a spot under the rear differential.  I don’t know where exactly it is leaking, but it is leaking, so I called the dealer right away.  There is no excuse for a week old car leaking oil.

When they found out it was a brand new car, they got me in right away.  So I will be taking it in tomorrow for them to look over.  Hopefully it is something that can get taken care of the same day.  I thought I would try tightening bolts and plugs, but I thought why should I do it?  It is under warranty and the job of the dealer/car company to make sure it is running properly, not mine.  So I am going to be making them do it.  Unfortunately, that means Kris is without a car for a day!  They better get this right!

Cleaning Gutters

Since it was going to be nice out this weekend, I decided to do some yardwork. I was waiting for the temp to warm up and the ground to dry out a little bit before giving the grass its first cutting of the year. It is still patchy and not in the best shape yet. There are a few spots that actually has moss growing on top of the soil, which is a whole other problem that is on the to do list. But after doing the first trim, I decided to climb up a ladder and check the gutters.

I have tried gutter covers, gutter screens, and even mesh/screens at the downspout openings, but nothing has worked to keep the gutters clear, so I have just given up and decided that I should just periodically climb up and make sure they are cleaned out. So when I went up today, I managed to get three 2 gallon buckets worth of the little red seed/bud covers. What a mess. In fact, I had to unscrew a couple of the downspouts to get sections apart so I could get them out, since they had been packed so tight I couldn’t get them washed out with the hose. Now the next thing to do will be to wipe them down since they are stained with dirt from the water running over the tops because they were so jammed up. Again, just adding things to the list. My summer is going to be busy!

Midnight Visitor

Last night, the cat woke me up as she does many nights, licking my face, and the pillow, looking for attention. So after deciding I needed to get up and get a drink, I looked out the back window into the yard and saw something moving around in the shadows. Being curious, I waited and watched just to see what it was. I thought maybe we had a new cat in the neighborhood that was making the rounds and possibly marking its territory (I hate people that let their cats out to roam, but that’s another rant for another time). When it finally got into the light, I could see it wasn’t a cat, but looked big and furry, so I thought it must be a raccoon. Nope. As it got closer to the house, I could see it was a possum. But this thing was huge, at least as big as Samson. Is 20+ pounds big for a possum? I don’t know. 

I watched wondering if I should go and shoo it away. It got up to the brick edgers by the air conditioner, and looked to be rooting around in the grass, sniffing, and then sort of jamming its snout into the ground. Every now and then it would lift its head and it looked as if it were chewing something. So it must have been eating insects? Or maybe big, fat night crawlers. But it rambled around for a bit, probably about five minutes, and then eventually made its way around to the driveway and off to the neighbor’s yard. Ali hates possums, just because they are so ugly and nasty. So do I. I suppose that as long as they aren’t out bothering me I should just leave them be if they come around. But they still creep me out.

Happy Easter , Here's a New Car

My car is now almost paid off, and since Kris’s car is almost 11 years old, and things were starting to need to be replaced, it was time to shop for a replacement. Kris had been looking online and pricing things out lately so on Friday since I was off, we decided to go test drive a couple. What began as just a trip to take a test drive turned into an all-day affair and resulted in us buying a new car. We now have a 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe.

I cannot stand the whole car buying process. It sucks! The people you end up having to deal with are total a-holes. We found the guy who sold us our last two, and we like him a lot. He is very low pressure, wants to make sure that we have what we want, etc... After test driving and coming back to discuss prices and financing options, the sales manager gets involved, tossing out all kinds of numbers and scenarios. If we had wanted to purchase it outright, lease, 72 month, 60 month 36 month, blah, blah, blah… We wanted to keep the payment around what we pay for my car now, so we swap out one payment for the other. And we also didn’t want a cheap, unsafe car either.

Anyway, we went into things with the intent of downsizing from the big SUV, to more of a crossover. Kris was looking at a Tucson. Mainly because the gas mileage was better and we thought that with only Alison at home we didn’t need to have as large of a vehicle. After driving both the Tucson and the Santa Fe, and thinking that with Ali, we might still have to haul around cheerleaders and we will still be driving to LaCrosse a couple of times a semester, hauling things for Sarah, that we should probably go with the bigger one. Then in three years when Ali is done with HS, we can re-evaluate and downsize then if we think we need to.

Overall, it is a nice ride. Very smooth. Much more "luxurious" (if I can use that term for a Hyundai) than the Tucson. The Tucson was a nice ride too, and there was plenty of rear seating room, but it just felt cheaper… very "plasticy" (if that is even a word). I would have driven either one, but the overall difference in the price was only about $2500, and they weren't willing to deal as much on the Tucson (which also should tell you how overpriced the Santa Fe is). So I guess I'll try and enjoy it, and not think about it too much. Because when I do, it hacks me off. I feel like I got screwed. But I also felt like I got screwed when I bought the Ford. Apparently, walking away feeling screwed is all part of the process.

Fence Isn’t Too Bad?

As I was raking I decided to check the fence posts. And they don’t look quite as bad as I originally thought. Don’t get me wrong, they are still slanting, just not as bad. If you stand at the one end and look down the lot line you can see which posts are no longer straight, and by how much. They are not as bad as I thought. Maybe that’s because the ground is not completely thawed? The next step though is to figure out how to get them straightened. I’ll have to do some searching online, but my first thought is to have to dig out some soil/grass on my side of the post, tie some ropes to it and pull it back. Then I’ll need to get some dirt to put on the opposite side to shore it up. That makes sense to me. Though I guess I’ll do some double checking. I just hope it won’t be something that I’ll have to deal with all summer in order to get fixed.

Raking The Yard

It seems early in the spring, but it has been sort of warm and wet the last couple of weeks, which means the grass is starting to grow. It also means I am losing my opportunity to rake the thatch. So today was spent raking. I figured that since the front yard is drier (because of the pond in the yard behind me) I started in the front. I didn’t go all out and tried to do it a little faster. As a result, I felt like I didn’t get quite the amount of grass raked up. Although it could also be that since the grass is greening up, there isn’t as much dead stuff to rake up. After getting the front finished, I started on the back yard. There was much more back there, and much more debris, like sticks and broken branches, scattered about. Unfortunately, because the ground was too wet, I was only able to rake up the patio. Hopefully we’ll get a few warm, dry days so I can get the rest done.

One thing that I did notice, and it doesn’t show up will in this picture, is that I now have a wildlife trail right next to the fence. It is obviously from the squirrels and rabbits (mainly) that have to walk along my side of the fence since the guy behind me is a goof 3-4 inches underwater. You can see it start from the corner, then goes along the fence until the final panel where we have the honeyberry bushes planted. The trail goes under the fence, and then comes back up around on the other side of the fence going along the side lot line. I was mad at first since it is killing the grass, but I can’t really be mad at the animals for wanting to be able to walk above water, and not thru it. So I guess my anger should be directed at the guy behind me, who is already on my list because he is causing my fence posts to slide/tilt.

Finally Finished

We finally finished Ali’s DNA model. With no time to spare. I was waiting for Ali to be able to help because I didn’t want to make her entire project for her. But I told her I would assemble it if she made all the components. The biggest thing was getting the spiral correct and having all the wrungs glued and held in place. I think it turned out pretty well.

The thing that worries me the most will be getting it to school in one piece. I am worried that the glue will break and then the pieces will be hanging out in space ultimately falling apart. And Ali doesn’t want to drop it off in the biology room ahead of time. So I don’t know where she is going to plan on keeping it until class.

Final Warm Up

Today was the final warmup before the start of the 2017 baseball season and as we have done in the past, we got tickets for it.  Our seats were just on the third base side behind the plate.  We were essentially looking up the 1^st base line.  What would be a $75 ticket for $10, plus we got food vouchers.  Not too shabby.

It was a little chilly, since it was only in the upper 30’s outside.  But overall not too bad.  And the Brewers did a pretty good job.  Although, you also have to look at it as a spring training game, which is hard to do when you are sitting in Miller Park.  But essentially there were a lot of players that won’t be on the opening day roster playing, and you also need to consider the pitching is still not going to be all that great as the managers are still trying out guys.  But Milwaukee went into the late innings ahead.  Then the bullpen essentially choked and the White Sox tied the game in the 9^th.  Luckily, Milwaukee was able to pull it out be getting a final run in the bottom of the inning.

Overall, it was fun, however just like with Cubs fans, the White Sox fans that made the trip up I-94 for the game were loud, drunk, and obnoxious.  There was a guy sitting two rows behind us who was yapping when Rene Garcia ended up getting hurt in a collision at the plate.  The best part was walking past him on the way out after the Sox lost and mouthing off.  If I remember correctly, Kris said something along the lines if “sucks doesn’t it?”.  HA!  That made me laugh.