Home, Sweet Home

This bird house/feeder had not only fallen into disrepair, it had fallen off the tree and had lain in the dirt for several years.  One of Steve's many talents was building incredible, detailed bird houses to give to friends, and this treasure was mine.  Larry put a new roof on the barn, built a new platform, and rehung the feeder on the big oak off the breakfast room.  It does my heart good to see it back in its rightful place.  Grey squirrels compete with sparrows for the bird seed; no problem there.  However, though technically turkeys are birds and it is a bird feeder, this bird house was not built to withstand the weight of three humongous turkeys who felt they shouldn't have to dine with the hoi polloi below.  That's why it fell off the tree in the first place.

Larry replaced the mini-blinds in the guest room.  What a welcome difference that made!  I've never heard of anyone else's doorbell disintegrating, but mine had.  Dave and I had tried to fix it with Super Glue without success.  Larry took it apart again and I made the run to Mt. Aukum to find a new one.  Dave at the feed store just looked at me over his glasses when I asked if he had one of those round doorbell push thingies.  Long pause.  Said he didn't have a stock of thingies (and he didn't have any doorbells, either).

After much tinkering the night before, Larry got the weedeater to run...twice...for seven minutes each time.  Blast!

By far, the biggest job of the day was cutting down three youngish-but-large oaks down by the driveway.  Live oaks have prickly leaves like holly, and in between the oaks were the treacherous, low-growing buck brush with thorns.  A neophyte with a chainsaw, Larry did an excellent job of felling the oaks, trimming the buck brush back to reach them.  My job was to pull the trimmings away and help load the truck to haul them up to the burn pile.  We must have made seven or more trips with the branches piled higher than the cab.  When burn season comes again, I'm going to have to get a special permit to fire off the mountain of brush.  (I may just put up an official "Bird Sanctuary" sign and leave the pile there.)  It was fortunate for me that the chain came off the saw before my legs gave out.  It was a gift from heaven.  With the underbrush cleared, I was able to see the poison oak where Larry and I had been working and I could feel hives coming up on my arms.  Aaargh.  Coming back to the house (at last), we took showers with Fels-Naphtha soap and I threw our clothes immediately into the washer.  We seem to have dodged that bullet.

Dinner was do-it-yourself with leftovers.  I don't think I had the energy to scramble an egg.  Larry again went down to fool with the weedeater.  I didn't even feel guilty when I fell asleep in the chair to take a nap before going to bed.

It was a good day.