One door closes, another door opens

And these days, there’s a lot of doors closing loudly, and being opened, and being closed again, loudly. All of it seems to be loud.

Here we have our new, nicely draft-proof doors.

Let me tell you a little something about them:

• They don’t swing open on their own in the night with a strong breeze.
• They don’t let in icy drafts from all edges.
• The handles turn the way they should.
• The keys turn in the deadlocks the way they should.
• They open with THE SAME KEY!

Oooooh, and look! A doorbell!

Ooooooh and look! An outside light!

Ah, yes, you’ll notice that the wood edge has not yet been covered. It will, never fear. And the wood will survive just fine until next month. Also, the cement edge below the door frame was skillfully built up by Rupert.

The old decrepit light had been home to a robin family. I’m sad to say they’ve been evicted. They left their mark on the wall above the light, though (peer closer, you can see it, yes you can). The nest came down, and in it — until the nest got bumped and dropped from where I was saving it to take a picture — was a perfect little blue egg which hadn’t hatched. Here’s the post-catastrophe nest-and-egg reconstruction:

There are also doors on all the rooms upstairs. In hindsight, door handles (as opposed to knobs) were perhaps not the most baby-friendly choice. Twinkle Toes has mastered the art of stretching to reach the handle, pulling the door open, getting her body to the other side of the open door (this move is key, for some reason), stepping back, and pushing the door shut with a loud bang. Then she usually turns and looks at me with a mix of wonder and self-satisfaction.

Little birdie, you won’t be flying away any time soon. You can’t reach the deadbolt yet. 🙂

Soffits, fascia and eavestroughs, oh my!

First, he assembled the scaffolding. Rupert did this while I was away with Twinkle Toes buying groceries at the farmer’s market and getting pants for Young Jedi, and generally killing time so as not to be home to witness Rupert fall and get pinned under the scaffolding. I was pleasantly surprised when I returned home. Scaffolding was up, Rupert was alive and well.

The old eaves and wanna-be soffits etc have been removed. We can see the insulation — what is it, R5?

All kinds of ugly here:

Closer shot of the insulation. You can see part of a hole in it. There were many many holes in the insulation. That means many many little animals found their way in over the years. (Ask me how I know. Go on. Ask.)

Someone attempted, at some point, to replace the old stuff with pink batting. 

Only a small sampling of the bird nests and wasp nests that fell down. 

The Fat Max crow bar-wielding hero and lord-master of home renovations: Rupert. 

Here, he is doing his part to keep the Red Army alive. 

Ever seen one of these? EW. So gross, it is still outside. But too fascinating to chuck. I want the kids to see this. Apparently, our home was home to TWO different kinds of wasps. These guys, the mud builders, and the other papery nest wasps. 

Other Cat Creek Residents

Casa Cat Creek has been home to a number of critters over the years. Not all of them have been welcome guests, but every year I am thrilled to see the robins return to nest. We find evidence of them all around the property: nests blown down by the wind, fragile remnants of the eggs, and, of course, we hear and see the birds. Two of the nests are very close to the house and see repeat business. Does anyone know the mating and nesting habits of robins? Is it likely to be the same couple returning every year? squatters? the babies? This is something I will investigate.

One of the nests is in the carport, just above where I park my motorcycle. Right now, it looks like this:

The other is right next to the front door. I don’t see any babies in it, but over the past few weeks there has been lots of action with mommy and daddy coming and going. Every time I’d open the door, the parents would fly out of the nest, perch on a branch of the tree in front, and loudly proclaim their displeasure. It was very clear to me that they were warning me to stay away from their babies.

Yesterday, I found one of the younger birds — I think from the carport nest — on the window ledge of our mudroom entrance. It kept trying to fly out through the window, and kept landing back on the ledge as it hit glass. So, (city girl that I am) I donned my gardening gloves, and attempted to scoop the bird up and orient it towards where there actually is an opening. Rupert does this very well with his bare hands, but I am still irrationally worried about things like rabies and bites. I know, I know… not rational.

I was too chicken to properly scoop the bird, but I managed to usher it in the right direction as it made these little attempts at flying, and eventually got itself to the open driveway, where not far off mommy and daddy squawked at me angrily.

Here he is: