Look closely there's blood on the glass from an injured tale
Three squirrel's, one on top of the other
The flew
two squirrels, again one on top of the other
One Squirrel
Well we had a little excitement this past weekend. On Saturday morning long after I had gotten up and headed off to work, Melissa was sitting in the living room having a morning cup of coffee, watching the news, and enjoying a leisurely start to a nice weekend. She had no idea what was about to start a new episode of drama in our house. Squirrels!!! Apparently there was a change of cast this year, instead of Santa coming down the chimney it was a pack of squirrels and they came a week early. Melissa heard some chattering and an occasional bark coming from the chimney and soon the dog, Sydney, also became aware. It did not take long to realize that it wasn't coming from outside but actually from within the chimney.
When I came home that night she had already informed me of our house guests or guest... at this point we thought there was only one! I opened the trap door to the flew hoping that he would eventually come down into the fireplace where they would be trapped behind the glass. The weekend went by and he did not emerge but continued to chatter from within. Each night after work, I went up on the roof to shine a light down the chimney on to my little menacing, uninvited guest. Sunday night my father in law and I made some failed attempts to extract the invador. Finally Monday came and I had a day off and with it an opportunity to solve this vermin infestation once and for all.
Dana, Melissa's uncle called and came to my rescue around 10am. He showed me that it was possible to remove the trap door. This proved to be the key. With the trap door removed I could finally see the little bastard's and it was then that I realized that there was not one, nor two, but three squirrels living in the chimney.
After several unsuccessful attempts to remove them including a home made net, poking and prodding with sticks, shovels, tennis rackets and trowels it became clear that there was only one way to remove them witch was to roll up our sleeves put on work gloves and reach up there and pull them out kick and screaming by hand!!
This was not an easy task. Being it my house and there for my responsibility to defend, as Dana pointed out on several occasions I was the lucky person who got to go after them. I reached up, grabbed the little bastard from the back of the neck pulled him down and stuffed him into a trash can we had positioned in the fireplace. We then put a lid on it and carried him out side and freed him. He instantly took off and up a tree. This sounds like it was smooth but it was quite a challenge. After helping me removing the first son-of-a-bitch-squirrel Dana had to leave. This left me to deal with two now very angry unhappy barking hissing growling squirrels. I took a break to allow them to calm down. An hour or so later I went in again after the second squirrel. This squirrel came out much as the first only luck was on my side and he did not put up much of a struggle and was relatively easy to remove.
After such success with the first two squirrels I went after the third, perhaps with little false confidence in myself. I pulled him loose from his perch and went to put him in the can. He fought like a son of a gun and I dropped him. Pulling my hands out of the fireplace I slammed the door shut. At this point I realized that he was a little faster than I had been. He was on my side of the fireplace door. He ran off into the living room and started scaling the drapes and attempting to head butt his way out the dining room window. I ran into the kitchen opened the back door and was able to finally shoo him out the back door after he knocked over a pile of cds and books. Just as he disappeared up a tree Melissa opened the front door. This was good timing. If she had come home a moment earlier with the squirrel still running though the house I'm not sure how she would have reacted.
Needless to say, we will soon be installing a chimney cap to eliminate the possibility of future invadements.
This past weekend we had a baby shower/tea for Donna and Greg's soon to be son, Leo. I don't think anyone took pictures, which stinks, so I just posted a recent picture of me and Donna. We had a nice time, and Leo will not have to wear the same outfit twice for a while:-) Donna's doctors are predicting he will be arriving fairly soon. We can't wait to meet him, it's been a while since there has been a baby around!
We have spent a lot of time raking leaves this fall, and we're not quite done. These pictures are from about a week ago. We put all the gardens to bed which you can see behind the shot of Sydney. Oh, and don't let the non action picture of me fool you, I helped rake too!
We had a great Halloween this year. I posted the pumpkin we carved together. Sorry for the lack of creativity with the face, we could have done way better. Sydney is also there with the pumpkin in her possessed dog costume complete with glowing eyes! We had tons of Trick or Treaters, they're so cute in their costumes. Gavin and I sat inside and drank martini's and had a nice dinner, so we got our treats too!
Melissa and I went on a drive after she got home from work today. We ended up buying two Blueberry bushes at Broadway Gardens. When we got home we pulled up all the Marigolds (don't worry Dad I saved a bunch of seeds for you), and planted the new bushes. At the advice of my Dad I raked a pile of pine needles up from the next door neighbor's yard... they've moved and won't be missing their needles. According to Dad the needles will add acidity to the soil over the winter and Blueberry bushes do best with acidic soil. That make sense to me if you think about it the places where you find wild blueberries growing is often in woodsy areas.
Melissa and I went to the Wedding of Nikki and Matt Duplisea this past Saturday at St Patrick's Church. The wedding was lovely. It was the first wedding we've gone to since our own wedding and the reception was also at the Italian Heritage Center. Their Wedding party was huge in comparison to ours (compare the two) . We found it challenging to organize our wedding with only 4 brides maids and groomsmen. They had 10 of each! We wish them well on there trip to Italy and on all their years together to come.
On Monday Oct 2nd Melissa and I went to the Fryeburg Fair. I had never been before. Monday was Woodsman's day. They had a bunch of contests like a race to chop a 10x10 timber in half with an axe. The winner did it in like less than 30 seconds. I think it would have taken me all day. There were also a lot of farm animals, horses, cows, pigs, sheep, etc. Those work horses are a lot bigger than you realize. Their ass is like 6 feet tall. We also got italian sausages, fries, fried dough. We didn't buy any real souveniers... It gets expensive just to go. We brought the camera but in the end didn't take many pictures. Here's a scenic view near where we parked the car. Fryeburg looks like a beutiful place to live, half an hour from where Melissa grew up. I don't know if I could stand the commute though.
Last Saturday on September 30th, Melissa, Dan, Tiffany, Cheryl, Dan, Deidre, Dave and I went apple picking up in Cornish. There was this Cornish Apple Festival going on. It was fun until I accidently hit Deidre in the face with an apple... Sorry. Later Melissa baked a pie... Mmmm
Hey all! It has been a while since we have posted on here, but I promise we have big events coming up and we will have plenty to post about. Life is good, we got a piano recently, for free, we just had to come get it, so we are both enjoying that a lot. I have even taught Gavin what few songs I can remember myself, but I remember more every day. I am holding on for my vacation next week, I can't wait, haven't had a day off since the wedding! We have plans to work around the yard and go the the Fryeburg Fair and go apple picking. I will be sure to post about all of this and take lots of pictures!
Today we did the steps and started on the railing. We decided for nice wide steps. we would have finished the railing today but this morning the weather did not cooperate with us.
Today Tim and I made some real progress. The weather was much better for digging holes. We got the holes finished in about an hour and then lowered the concrete pikes in, leveled them and got to work building the frame and putting the decking down. We fnished around 3:30. The deck is about 6 inches lower than it used to be. We didn't build it right under the door but framed it out a little lower to prevent water from building up and causing water damage.
Today was the hotest day of the summer. Tim and I deffinatly felt the heat, Espahally while we were digging holes for the new concreat pikes that will support the deck. We also jacked the house up a few centimeters to take the old sill out and put a new one in. After that we got 1/2 a yard of gravel to put up aganst the foundation to stop water from pooling up there witch can damage the foundation. While we did that the plumer came and out a new spiket in the frount and back yard and moved the oil pipe from the back to the side of the house to make room for the deck. Sydney was not too afraid of Tim.
Yesterday Tim Boucher and I started work demolishing my back poarch to make room for the bigger deck we are going to be building. are original plan was to salvage as much of the old deck as we could and just add on to it. As be proceded to take it apart we found that not only was most of it roting away it was also not built sturdly. we also discuvered thst the sill that the house sits on that never flashed so it to was rotten.
