NEW DUNBURY

And since I was accused of updating this blog, I guess I’ll have to do just that.

Yesterday a couple of the builder guys came by to deal with two of the punch list items. The big one was adjusting the drainage at the north-east corner of the house. We’ll see if it works. Naturally, thunderstorms have fallen out of the immediate forecast.

Today I learned that my arms are currently only good for about 1000 shovel loads of mulch, with attendant barrowing about and raking out. Added to yesterday’s work, we’ve got the future hedgerow berm now covered and part of the “overflow parking” spruced up. There’s still a few more “days” worth of shifting that stuff, but it looks like there will be enough to cover what we want to cover. It will remain an early morning job for a while, since even at the reduced temperatures I end up totally soaked.

Mudding in the garage proceeds at a slow pace due to need to re-mud places where the tape is showing. Naturally, that means I need more mud.

On the wildlife front, today was a day for animal athletics. I saw a SBB (that’s a small brown bird, for those who don’t know) take a butterfly in mid-air. Also one of our local Eastern fence lizards, in departing from the tree down which he was crawling, leapt three times his body length to his chosen landing place. In other related news, I convinced a very agile blue-tailed lizard that he really did not want to worm his way into the garage. This was less difficult than evicting the one I found in there the other day.

We need better seals on the carriage doors.

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And rejects again, this time with reasons.

He wants railings on the stairs (which Michael thought he might) AND balcony. Hunh? Didn’t we specifically say to the builders that we wanted code-approval railings up there?

Then there’s something about electrical boxes next to combustible material. Heck, it’s all combustible. I’m not sure what we have to do to fix that one.

Mood result: grumpy

Guess I’ll go collect the mail before the evening t-showers think about rolling in.

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So you get three posts today because I’ve been away for a while.

Now the news:

This AM while the pest guy (on his rescheduled visit) and I were inspecting the foundation for ant incursions, we encountered a black snake coiled up under the west deck on the brick ledge.  Surprise!

I took some pictures and will see if I can identify him.  He may not be a Black Snake but merely a black snake.  There are several different black snakes around here.

We have been visited by acrobat ants.  Why acrobat?  Because they do “high-wire” routines and contortions.   The first is related to where they like to march in a house, the second to their reaction to a confrontation that involves lifting their abdomen over their thorax.

And we don’t have powder post beetles.  Yeah!  It’s another minor borer who may be a one-time only bug.

Anyway, the pest guy gave me advice on how to deal cheaply with the pests.  If we see ants again after following the advice, it’ll be time for stern measures.

On the good news front, we have grass most everywhere it got seeded.  Much thanks to the periodic thunderstorms we’ve been getting, for doing the watering.

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Our doorbell has been a bit cranky about actually working.  It’s pretty as heck but it is an “old-fashioned” design and thus not 100% reliable. Still, it’s been better than the last “modern” one.

Last week it gave us a one-two punch. On Wednesday, we missed the pest guy because it didn’t ring and I was in the basement. On Thursday we missed the inpector doing the garage final inspection, not knowing he’d come (nobody told us the inspection had been scheduled) till I spotted the rejection “due to lack of access” notice on the garage door after business hours.

To add insult to injury, as I was trying to adjust the doorbell contact to better positioning, it snapped and thus rendered the bell truly broken.

Mood result: frustrated

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Last Tuesday we had our punch-list walk through with Michael and the HVAC guy. Michael had been waiting to schedule it till he heard from me about getting the last register installed. Then he figured out that I had probably done it myself, which I had.

Anyway, the list was a short one and we will soon be visited by the clean-up crew to tidy up the loose ends. Two things on it were not on my list. Turns out the piping installed in the HVAC unit to get the drainage to the drain doesn’t have the j-trap it needs. Also the vent in the small room to the right of the basement stairs is not only in the wrong place, but oriented incorrectly. Sometimes it’s good to have the boss check out his employees’ work.

Michael is having Crystal arrange the final inspection for the garage now that all the insulation is covered. Yeah!

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