For the Birds

I know that I've mentioned that I am beyond busily crazy, quite often (what mom isn't)...but I figured out why.  It's because there's always something weird going on... not to mention the pair of crazed maniacs that call themselves my youngest sons, to clean up after.  And you know the one we call Dennis, not just because of looks but more importantly for his devious, curious, get-into-every-imaginable-trouble-possible personality...that one...he just poked a hole through the cushion of our new leather couch.  How you ask?  With half the handle of a wooden push toy...the half that holds a screw in the bottom.  That's how.  So I've been researching leather repair kits online.  And his partner in crime has decided he loves to get the expensive Ziploc freezer bags out and open them and put his shoes one by one in their own baggie and carry them protectively around the house. Odd kid. At least it's a fairly clean/non-destructive pastime.  Heck, I'm all for it!

Anyway, an off-the-wall incident has taken place in our home recently...birds have built a nest in the fan vent in my downstairs bathroom. Seriously. Why?! How?! Now my house sounds like an aviary. They are squawking, squeaking and chirping and the noise grows exponentially with their age.  I avoid that bathroom at all costs as we try to decide what to do.  There are baby birds living there, so do we remove the nest and thereby kill the birds, or cover up the vent and wait until they fly the nest?  Anybody got any quick, easy fix?  Anyone??  *SIGH* What to do...what to do.... (for now we've boarded up the vent until further decisions have been made.)  For sure we'll cover the vent with mesh as soon as they vacate the premises.

See here's their front door.



And I waited around trying to catch the mommy for proof but she was skeptical and kept flying away whenever she spotted me.


Finally I caught her! 

Wanna see that closer? You got it.

And then after planting our own grass (probably tempting our bird roomates to set up camp) and trees and grapes and roses, we realized there were sprinklers broken.  So I spent last week fixing sprinkler heads...digging holes, finding the problem, replacing the sprinklers....etc, etc, etc.  Then one of the valves didn't work.  So my husband and I spent ALL day Saturday replacing the entire valve system one.by.one. It consisted of digging more holes, cutting pipe, measuring, priming, gluing, some electrical work and so on.  It was painstaking, back-breaking, finger-gluing and mucho tiring. But after all that we stood back (slowly because of our aching backs and knees) and admired as one by one, each sprinkler group came on and worked without a hitch.  It was quite satisfying to have fixed it all by ourselves.  It's coming along nicely...the grass just needs to thicken up and then we can re-seed any bare spots.  The little tree on the right is one of the orange trees, grapes are along the back and then the beginnings of a nice shady Chinese Elm on the left (with itty bitty roses behind). The lime tree and other orange tree are not pictured.

So those are some of the things that eat up my "extra" time.  I guess this is where it would be fitting to say, "at least we're never bored..."

I told my husband that apparently for us, homeownership is for the birds...literally.