Another busy weekend here at Home, Crap Home. Got rid of the petunias, which were dying, cleaned up a bunch of the garden, organized the foyer (FYI- when I am bitching about not being able to find it in two years, someone remind me that I taped the key to the cedar chest INSIDE said cedar chest), got a dozen broccoli plants in containers on the deck, and did a bunch of various other stuff. Here is the re-organized up foyer (and yes I will straighten the photos):
This was an important project. I used to have a table under the window and a big chest to the left of it. I wanted to put a bench there under the window but could never find one I liked, and I just couldn’t shell out 500 to have one custom made, and I also never had a place to put my flags and umbrellas and most likely in a few years the cane, so I just did this. My fall and winter boots are in the cedar chest, and I can just put a mat down to the left of it for spring summer shoes. Then when the seasons change, put the summer stuff in the chest, etc.
I forget if I ever showed you this, but if you remember when the house was finally finished and ready to move in, I snapped a photo of the crew. I finally got it framed and gave mini ones to all of them, and it is now hanging by the doorway- it’s the first thing you see when you walk in!
It’s so funny to look at because the boys were SO YOUNG and even though it has only been a couple of years, they have grown so much. Dom (lower right with the Dumbo ears) is every bit of 6’3″. I swear every time I look at him he has grown an inch.
Steve and I are now relaxing:
Also, because we live in the dumbest fucking timeline, this happened:
Scoop: Trump suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting U.S. https://t.co/qy3H1avs8l
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) August 25, 2019
Have fun with those 72′ purple irradiated alligators, Betty.
rikyrah
Steve is huge.??
Good to see your menagerie, Cole??
Casa Cole looks so nice??
Amir Khalid
I can already hear the Trumpistas’ argument: “Radioactive rainwater is good for you.”
J R in WV
Hey Cole!
Pretty sweet looking house, now.
We’ve done a lot of work here, or the contractors have. Took out a 4′ thick beech tree behind the house, hoping to slice a chunk from the butt log for a big desktop.
Then built a new path, compressed stone up to the front door, and then dug up the old pond and rebuilt it with a new liner, and dig out with a flat bottom, and a deeper trench across the middle — it’s tiny, maybe 14 x 10 or so. But full of well water, ready to receive water from the wet weather spring it was built to catch basin for.
Tomorrow I get to write the check for the pond, wife will be mailing the check for the timber crew. Ouch! But it all needed to be done!
First comment? can’t tell til I push the button. Good night all!
Oops, third…
dmsilev
The only thing which can stop a bad hurricane armed with nuclear weapons is a good hurricane armed with nuclear weapons.
RepubAnon
Apparently this idea has been around since the 1950s – and repeatedly debunked. You’d need a really big nuke, and it isn’t clear that it would work.
Alternatively, imagine the Chinese built a system to explode really big nukes (or drop big meteors) in the Pacific for typhoon control. Such a “peaceful” system would be a bit destabilizing, yes?
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: Healthy skin glows, right?
hells littlest angel
Why doesn’t he just hereby order the hurricanes to stop?
dmsilev
@RepubAnon: Google ‘Project Plowshare’ for some of the absolutely gonzo proposals that were floated for using nukes.
smike
The chair is too close to the mirror.
Also, too, cue fox talking heads pointing out how brilliant an idea nuking hurricanes is and how original the idea is. 3, 2, 1…
MaryRC
is it a trick of perspective or is Steve as big as the dogs? What a magnificent beast.
NotMax
That alcove where the chair and mirror currently are would be an ideal spot for one of these.
;)
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Hahaha, that is not the healthy skin glow commercials talk about.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard has been itching to nuke something, anything for years now. How about the Central Park Five?
mrmoshpotato
Since Dump was dragged into this by Cole, I feel fine saying that I found out tonight that my Michigan aunt didn’t vote for president.
Why not? Because Bill and Hillary apparently did all of their charity work because it made them money. And her sources were people who had worked for the Clintons.
I had no immediate info to refute this unfortunately.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Hulloooo.
Yarrow
The pupsters! Look at sweet Lily. Aww…. House looks so good, John.
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in NC: Weren’t the Central Park Five executed? Oh wait….
Someone needs to convince the Soviet shitpile that an atomic bomb dropped on himself will make him thin, handsome, and not the Kremlin’s bitch. Please convince him in a spot surrounded by water, big water, the bigliest ocean water. And take Bible-humper Dense with you.
Amir Khalid
@hells littlest angel:
The hurricanes ignored his letter summoning them to an Oval Office meeting.
frosty
John, you have a beautiful house. I love the photo of the crew who helped make it happen.
frosty
@J R in WV: Nice work! …. today I pulled weeds. But there were a lot of them! And the patio and pond look much better now.
ETA Tiny pond 10×14 it is to laugh. Ours is maybe 5×8 with a little waterfall and hydrology supplied by pump. But it’s a water feature and it’s attracted birds and frogs. A little bit of the natural world in the back yard.
frosty
@dmsilev: OK that made me laugh.
J R in WV
@frosty:
I want a waterfall, pump and filter. The landscape guy who bid the job wanted $2500 for a waterfall. I think I can do it a lot cheaper, with filter and all.
Learned that I will have to drain everything for winter, sad. But I can do it for several more years, at least.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Or Dump calling both hurricanes total losers, at which time, both hurricanes bomb the shit out of his fat, orange, fascist ass.
See my previous comment.
frosty
@J R in WV: We paid more than that. He gave us a “bog pond” at the top for natural filtration so we wouldn’t have to keep changing filter media. It works!
Sometimes I figure I just have to write checks. :-(
ETA We don’t drain it in the winter, we drop a heater in it. The goldfish and koi survive. Better than the heaters, actually, I think we’re on our third.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: This is Art Robinson’s position.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Villago Delenda Est: Well, that and collecting pee.
Rob Massing
Why is anyone ever “astonished”? Trump’s madness is not a secret.
Villago Delenda Est
@Rob Massing: The MSM must continue to express shock, even though this was obvious to anyone not obsessed with ratings four years ago.
ola azul
@J R in WV:
Hadda hunnerd-year-old Victorian in Tragic City, Mich. that hadda modest waterfall in the equally modest backyard that tumbled to lil’ footbridge traversing a koi pond. Gets purty cold in northern Mich.
What I’m saying is long’s you got continuous circulatory water flow *and* a source of aeration in the pond proper, it’ll ice atop but won’t freeze solid thru.
(Least that was my experience, fwiw.)
mrmoshpotato
@Villago Delenda Est: @Rob Massing: Agreed Villago. It was obvious when Dump sucked Russia’s ass down the escalator, then called Mexican immigrants criminals, drug dealers and rapists. All the while paying people to be at his campaign announcement.
Ken
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was going to say Trump’s never going to live down the “hereby ordering” line, but let’s face it, by this time
next weekTuesday some new idiocy will have replaced it.Cathie Fonz (formerly Cathie from Canada)
According to teh twitter, Trump is now getting his ideas from Sharknado 3.
Hope he never sees Canadian Bacon.
M. Bouffant
I hope that young worker has grown into his ears.
James E Powell
@mrmoshpotato:
Allegations against the Clintons can never be refuted. The lack of evidence or witnesses to support the charges is proof that the Clintons are diabolical and ruthless.
piratedan
@James E Powell: and speaks to the efficiency of the Holy Order of Assassins that have HRC as their Mother Superior
SectonH
@ola azul: “Tragic City” – lol! Not sure I’ve ever been there, but still funny.
@frosty: I wish you and your fish well. Heating the pond, or at least having the ability to do that, sounds the better part of valor to me.
Jackie
John, you and Steve… ??
lahke
Looking for a cat mind reader here: why is my cat going into the laundry hamper and hauling my used socks out into the middle of the floor, or onto the bed? This used to be an occasional thing, but she’s stepped up her game– there were two tonight.
It’s the same cat who’s peeing on the carpet, but not clear that these behaviors are linked.
SectonH
@lahke: Take her to the vet. She’s in some kind of distress.
If you don’t have another cat suddenly, or your domestic situation hasn’t changed significantly, have her checked out.
eta: if she’s normally using her litter box, and now she’s peeing on the carpet? Get her to your vet.
lahke
@SectonH: Did the vet visit last week, no biological issues. I’ve replaced the litter boxes and keep them clean, gone back to the high-fat treats after having switched to the Greenies, plugged in one of those soothing scent dispensers–just out of ideas here.
sm*t cl*de
@lahke:
Why not?
piratedan
@lahke: I would ask if there have been any major changes in the household, i.e. guests, new furniture, new appliances, people working different hours, a change in diet (you did mention greenies)… sometimes things/events that we simply take in stride have unexpected repercussions for cats. I would reach out to WereBear or pose the question on her Way Of Cats blog out there.
laura
Wither Thurston?
Amir Khalid
@laura:
Ahem: Whither Thurston. And yes, where has that mischievous lad got to?
Anne Laurie
@J R in WV: Take some pics, and email them to me for next Sunday’s garden chat!
You *know* people will be fascinated!
Anne Laurie
@lahke:
They smell like you, they’re soft & cuddly… stressed cats use them as teddy bears. No idea why she’s so stressed, but this would be an escalation from the inappropriate-peeing routine. She wants you to KNOW she’s being stressed out, but her ability to tell you WHY is inadequate!
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
If he’s like our household’s Thurston, he’s managed to climb into the cedar chest & is now wondering if he should bark to be let out, or just pee in Cole’s shoes.
We have lived with seven different dogs (all papillons, more or less) in the last thirty years. Sydney — our Thurston — is the only one I have never been able to convince myself, not even for a few hours over the ten years he’s been here, wasn’t a mistake for both him and us.
The Spousal Unit, OTOH, adores him. And will be very, very sad when he finally dies, assuming the little bastid doesn’t outlive us.
Sydney is the exemplar for the phrase But he meant only the best!
SectionH
@lahke: @lahke: Outside cat looking in? I’m grasping… basically I think I was almost hoping you hadn’t already have done all the obvious stuff. Wish I had Magic-something-else to suggest. Please let us know it’s going.
MattF
Expert offers reasons for not nuking hurricanes. Reasons using knowledge, numbers, physics.
PaulWartenberg
You know, Adam and a few more of us are down here too.
(begins beating up on the radioactive mutant flying sharks) DAMN YOU SHARKNADO MOVIE SERIES.
zhena gogolia
@lahke:
I don’t see the socks thing as a big red flag. Cats can be weird.
Strange peeing, though, is cause for concern.
Heidi Mom
The house looks great, John! Almost missed Steve at the bottom of the stairs–what a handsome boy he is.
noname
@lahke: The socks sound like a comfort thing…she wants more attention from you or is stressed for some reason, or is reacting to your stress over the pee issue. Give her extra love and attention; if these behaviors continue I would consider a 2nd vet opinion. And yes, reach out to WereBear at Way of Cats blog! She’s a kitty mind reader.
Zinsky
@RepubAnon: It would be like throwing a dirty bomb into a planet-sized mixing bowl. The radiation would like be spread around the planet by the whirling of the winds. Stupid and pointless. Like Trump himself….