We got a lawn well

Well, spring is upon us here in the Pacific Northwest and slowly feels like summer. This time of year the fact that we don't have a ceiling doesn't matter, because the house stays cool enough and warm enough. The temperature, thankfully, doesn't fluctuate much. Once we get the ceiling in and everything insulated we should be fine. Last summer we ROASTED, and as you know we froze over the winter.

Anyway, this weekend marks the anniversary of the destruction of the family room. I can't believe it! We've done so much and made tons of progress, but at the same time I wish we were farther.

I have more stuff to write about later, but for now I want to talk about our lawn. We had to mow it a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully our wonderful neighbor offered us his lawnmower. The one we inherited with the house, which is a Toro that looks fairly new, is in the shop. But I digress. Take a look:

What you see is what appears to actually be a lawn. That green, fuzzy patch is the earth that we so painstakingly tilled, rolled, seeded, etc. It looks better in the pics than it does in real life; it's still a bit patchy when you look straight down at it. But that's not the point- it's an actual lawn, and we love it. Now all we have to do is make the rest of the yard look like that and we'll be golden. Heh.

Playing Possum

Holy mackerel, it's been a while!

But we're not dead, although maybe we wished, at times, we were... I was CRUSHED during the past several weeks by classwork and freelance work, and el marido started his new job. So things have been too nuts to work on the house.

We did get our sliding glass door in - here's a picture.

That doesn't mean that nothing was happening, though! Over the past few weeks we've been hearing strange noises under the house. I thought that maybe it was the fattie raccoon that we saw over the wintertime. Sometimes in the morning we thought we could smell urine in the bathroom, and since it wasn't either of us, and seemed to be coming from the tub, we figured it was an animal living under our bathrooms. Of late, the noises have become louder, and we knew for certain something lived under there.

A few days ago, we got sort of tired of it. We don't know if it's damaging things down there or not, and we just don't want a huge mess on our hands (which it's probably too late for, anyway). Our trapping escapade didn't go so well last time, but a friend of mine told us that bleach works pretty well for driving away animals. Seems the strong smell is too much for them, and that makes sense to me. So, the ol' husband was outside at dusk, making ready to put a bowl of bleach under the house, when I hear him calling my name. I come outside, and there he is, face to face with what could only be our house guest: an opossum.

It wasn't running away, just standing there 20 inches from him, mouth open and hissing. He took a heavy step toward it, and it flinched, but it didn't budge. It was obviously freaked out, but just as obviously stubborn. He put the bowl of bleach down on the ground, and it sort of went over, like maybe it thought we were feeding it? Strange. Anyway, he grabbed the push broom we have on the porch and sort of scooted it at the possum, and the possum finally retreated. But it didn't run away, it went for hiding in the piles of garbage under our carport. It wanted under the house badly, apparently. We saw as it moved that it was injured, which made us sad. What also made us sad was the fact that it was being so stubborn and brave probably meant that it had babies under the house. GREAT. Husband went to put the bleach under the house anyway, while I watched the possum reappear, waiting for us to leave so it could get under the house. We eventually got tired and left.

We heard it that night, under the house, and have heard it since, so it's obviously alive and okay. Husband will probably have to go under the house this weekend and see what's what. Hopefully it won't be as bad as we think it is. At the very least we'll be able to put screens up and block entry to the house from under the porch. Yup, it's rustic her in the rat hole. Heh.