Little Things

Hi! We're still alive! Just a little itchy, swollen and loopy off of Benadryl.  Well, that's Andrew, not me. Andrew, previously immune to poison ivy, was hit hard with a case of systemic poison ivy after our fence project. Lessons we've learned from the past 2 weeks: take care of poison ivy once you see it appear, be extremely careful outside with open cuts, and always listen to Gina. 

While the swelling in Andrew's legs had him off of his feet, relatively few projects were done at the house. So the long weekend came and went with no hardwood floor in the bonus room, no raised garden beds along the fence, etc. It was hard to go back to work and leave Andrew alone, but since his swelling had gone down and his parents were coming to check in on him, I thought it would be okay. A few hours later, I asked Andrew how he was feeling and what he was doing at the house. His response, "little things" included the attached picture:

Odd Fellows Zoo

On Saturday night, Teddy and Eleanor Roosevelt arrived at the Odd Fellows Zoo and decided they would rather stay in their carriers then explore their new home.

On Sunday morning, tensions had eased and I found Teddy and Thomas playing in the kitchen together, but we couldn't find Eleanor. Until we checked that hole we made in the wall when we found the washer dryer hookups: 

As I yelled to Andrew that I had discovered our missing First Lady, I peeked outside to see that Grania was digging the bricks and gravel out from under the gate: 

So I left the cat in the wall and ran outside to keep the dog from escaping.

After we plugged the hole in the wall and brought the dogs inside, we went back to the apartment to hand in our keys and bring the last group of pets home:

Andrew's 4 parakeets: Martha Washington, Samuel Adams, Elbridge and Button. 

Fast forward past carrying their cage in the pouring rain, trying to fit the cage up our old twisty stairs, trying to get the birds out of the cage, to this: 

Andrew installing a french door between the kitchen and living room. This will keep the cats separate from the birds, create a cat-free zone for our guests, and give the birds the temperature control that they need without Andrew and I having to take the roof off of the house to get the cage upstairs.  

Some of you may wonder if there was an easier solution than to install a door, but to those of you who haven't had to deal with a cat in a wall, birds flying out of cages and dogs digging out from under gates in the same day, I say, don't come to my zoo and tell me how to zoo-keep!

We're so Amish right now

We can check "fence" off of our to-do list. Boy, does that feel good. 

We decided to fence half of the backyard for both a cost saving and a hassle saving measure. We want to put in a patio and get rid of a lot of the English ivy that afflicts the front of our yard, so we fenced off the back half so that the doggies can still play while we work on the other half. It cost less than $200 for the materials and we were able to put it up in one day (with the help of 2 Freds!).  

For some reason, putting up this rustic looking fence made me feel very Amish. The process was pretty straightforward: first we marked where the fence would go with string. 

Then we fitted the gate.

Dug holes for all the posts, and secured them in place with cement. 

We picked up cement at Home Depot that is made specifically for fence posts. You pour the cement powder into the hole with the post already set. Then you pour water into the hole. You don't have to mix it or anything! 20 minutes later, the cement is solid! It was $4 for a 50lb bag, which is more expensive than regular cement, but it made the process so much faster and easier (and less messy!).  We ended up using 4 bags for the entire project.

Since there is an existing chain link fence on 2 sides of the yard, we only needed to put up about 120 feet of fencing. We spaced our fence posts 8 feet apart. 

Once the posts were ready, we unrolled the galvanized steel wire fence, securing it to the posts with a fancy 2 handed staple gun maneuver by Andrew. 

Look at that teamwork!

My job at this point was to keep the 4 staple guns we used full of staples. 

And to take pictures. 

And more pictures. 

Look at those boys. 

We didn't worry about the posts being cemented in at different heights because we plan on using them to hang the dog leashes and some bird houses and feeders. 

We've got some more jazzing up to do (we plan on planting some flower beds at the base of the fence and adding privacy lattice) but for now it's sturdy and the dogs love the extra outside time they're getting. It is really starting to feel like paradise.