Crunch Time

Winter is coming and if ever there was a time when I felt like the little ant, its now. I have double hung dining room windows that need to be painted and re-assembled. I have transom windows that need to be painted, hinged and installed. I have contractors coming to replace my front entry roof and gutters. I have bead board and trim that needs painting for the front entry. I have a furniture refinishing contractor coming to take off my front door and reface it. A lawnmower to winterize. Storm windows to make and install. Lamb bits to bury. Windows to clean. Yard and garden work. Tools to put away. Garage to clean.

I think I'm
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Bits and bits

Several weeks ago we had one of the neighbors over for supper. It was a nice evening, so we ate outside on the porch. As we were enjoying the food and the nice weather, Charlie turned to me and said, "So I know this guy who raises lambs for the fair. The fair's over. Interested in lamb chops?" It turns out that Charlie and his family have never had lamb and were looking to us for "expert" advice on how to have it butchered. Since our experience with lamb consisted of going to the butcher in Ireland and asking for lamb chops or leg of lamb, I'd hardly consider us experts. Still, he saw the opportunity and thought of us.

Charlie has taken over all the hassle of this. He asked at least three different butchers before he found one that would butcher the two lambs. He met the farmer at his work one day to pick up the live lambs and then took them to the butcher (in a trailer? his trunk? the back of his truck? I didn't ask.) The one thing that he left us is, well, the bits.

It turns out the butcher contracts with Sanimax to dispose of animal remains. It also turns out that Sanimax won't take lamb remains. I don't know why, but I sure would like to. So in addition to approximately 40 pounds of meat, we'll also be getting about 30 pounds of bits. And we'll need to dispose of them. Depending on our our solution, we may also be getting the bits from Charlie's lambs. That's sixty pounds of bits. That's a lot of bits.

On the upside, its only costing about $3.50 a pound for the processed lamb. If I can reproduce some of the leg of lamb that we had in Ireland, it's well worth it.

We haven't told the girls yet about the lamb. It turns out that Charlie, in a somewhat perverse manner, took pictures of the lambs and named them in the hour or two he had them before delivery to the butcher. I have no desire to traumatize the girls, but they do need to know where their food comes from.

Eat Your Heart Out Mary

We're getting a lamb. There's a story here, but I don't have time to tell it just yet. Check back later.

California Really is Smarter?

Redoing the windows in the dining room is a time-consuming, multi-step process that just seems to be dragging on and on and on. I've been stripping the existing paint off of them (probably lead based), in hopes that the raw wood and a modern primer will increase the longevity of the paint. I don't relish repainting these. As I was working outside with the paint stripper, I read the back of the can. Among the many, many detailed instructions and dire warnings was a phrase that I've seen often, but never pondered.

"This product contains materials known to the State of California to cause cancer."

How does California know that the material causes cancer? Did they finance their own study with tax payer dollars? what about the other 49 states? Are we dumber? Do our states not know that these materials cause cancer? Did we not finance a study? Does my state not care that these materials cause cancer? Are the other states just taking advantage of the California law?

Are these paint stripper fumes making me high?

Squeezebox

Some time ago I blogged about my musical dilemma. My existential music crisis started developing two years ago when I started listening to an online radio station of a college friend. I quickly realized that I really, really missed music. My wife and I had spent almost ten years getting married, buying houses, having kids, moving and living a fairly busy life. In that time, something had to give. I hadn't realized that I had stopped following the music scene. Last year my MP3 streaming DVD player died and I caught the tail end of an NPR program discussing Pandora. These three things forced me to re-evaluate the place of music in my life and I knew that I wanted (actually needed) to find a way to stream our MP3's around the house. I also started listening to Pandora. I've never claimed to be a music buff, but I realized that it's an important part of my life.

What I ended up finally buying was a Logitech Squeezebox and a year long subscription to Pandora. It's funny how technology changes our lives. I thought I was buying the Squeezebox to listen to our MP3's that we ripped from our CDs. But now I spend 95% of my music listening time on Pandora. I didn't anticipate that.

If you are looking for a means to listen to Internet Radio, I'd highly recommend the Squeezebox.

Skeeters

Dear mosquitoes,

In case you’ve forgotten the rules, I’ll lay them out for you.

• You do not like the sun. If I am in the sunshine, you are supposed to leave me alone.
  
• You live in woods, tall grass and in shade (see point one above).
  
• You do not live on shortly mowed lawns, driveways or any other hardscape.
  
• A light breeze is enough to keep you from landing on me and feeding.
  
• Regardless of location, the hours between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm are all yours. Anyone stupid enough to be outside during these times is fair game. They go outside at their own risk.
  
• If it is not between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm or if I am not in the woods, tall grass or shade, then you are not supposed to be feeding on me.
  

Failure to abide by these rules will result in something drastic on my part.

Thank you.

Camponotus Pennsylvanicus

Last week I woke up, got dressed, went downstairs, opened the cupboard for breakfast and saw something really, really fast, small and black running around. At first I thought it was a small centipede, but as I moved things around to find it, I realized it was an ant, and another, and another, and another.

Usually I don't get too worried about ants. Remove the food, put out some poison, wait a few weeks and they die. But these were carpenter ants. Besides that fact that they are big for ants and offer a higher level of creep factor, they also make their homes in wood. We have a house made of structural terra cotta, faced with brick, but obviously everything inside the house is made of wood - the joists, the floors, the walls, the ceilings, etc. I have no idea how entrenched they are in the house or how much damage they have done. Considering that we've never seen them before, we're hoping that this is the first year they've invaded and that it is related to the record levels of rainfall we've received.

So, we removed the food, put out some poison and now we're waiting a few weeks. I'm also kicking myself because this year, unlike past years, I didn't get around to putting down a good layer of diatomaceous earth around the house. That certainly would have helped.

We also went shopping for blinds for the windows, and I was more than a little surprised at how much money one could spend on blinds. I had once heard that the cost of drapes shouldn't exceed more than 10% of the value of the house. I scoffed at that as ridiculous. I can see now how it would be quite easy to exceed that for those disinclined to frugality.