Starting to hate the wildlife here

In today's more excitement than I really needed category, I'm sitting on the couch and there's this loud scrabbling sound from the laundry room. Both myself and the beagles head into the room to check it out. The beagles very quickly identify a)where the sound is coming from and b)that they cannot get to whatever it is and give up and go back to sleep. As it turns out the sound is coming from the dryer hose. It's a bird. There's a fucking bird in my dryer hose. So now what?

I go away to think about it for a bit and try to decide if I need to deal with this or if it should wait for Jason to come home. In the end the sound drives me nuts and I decide to deal.

Notes to anyone else who has to "deal" with this sort of shit:

1) Remove everything from the room. It's all going to get pooped on, so the more you take out, the less you will have to clean.
2) Open the window BEFORE you unhook the dryer hose. You might think it sounds like a flightless baby, but let me assure you, it is not. You will not be picking this thing up off the floor and dealing with it on your own terms. It's going to come bursting out and whack you in the head a bunch of times before throwing itself repeatedly against the window. And then while you try to open the window it's going to whack you a few more times for good measure.

Anyway, the starling is out, the dryer hose needs to be replaced, the nest needs to be removed from the vent and a bird screen of some sort needs to be installed. Jason has been told to come home early to deal with this. I expect he'll roll in just after sunset so he doesn't have to. I might get up on a ladder and pull the nest out, I'm not decided yet. At the very least I need to clean the room up - sigh. So that's my day all wasted on shit I'd rather not do.

Getting stuff done

We've accomplished a bit in the last few days and the house is starting to feel more like home. It's interesting how an empty room has potential, so when we toured the house I could see how it could feel like home, but if you fill it with shit, and I mean the kind of clutter that isn't a working room, it ceases to feel like a home. Our game room was filled with bookshelves, benches, exercise equipment and looms, but nothing that made you want to sit down and hang out there for any time at all. It was clean and tidy most of the time, but awkward, so I usually just walked past it. Now that it has the futon it feels like part of the house again and I occasionally sit there. It's like when I'm not comfy in a room it simply ceases to exist for me. Am I the only one who compartmentalizes the house into rooms I live in and rooms I've abandoned based on how comfortable they are? We're just a few rooms away from getting all the boxes and clutter out and having them all be livable. I look forward to being able to enjoy all our space.

Made some real progress this weekend. The couches arrived on Friday afternoon right on time as promised and I LOVE them. The living room is finally nice to sit in and the act of sitting on the couch doesn't throw my back out. So far we've decided that beagles are not allowed on the couch. Lizzy's got the message, Anna sneaks up when we aren't looking. I will miss their fuzzy company, but it will be nice to have a couch that isn't smelly and that I can feel comfortable about inviting guests to sit on without ending up covered in dog fur. They've mostly adapted and sleep in their numerous doggie beds all over the room now. I'll take pictures when I've had the time to clean the rest of the room up. The chaise in my bedroom is awesome comfy. Jason and I are both enjoying lounging in it and chatting while the other is getting ready in the morning. Anna has not tried sneaking into that chair yet that I know of.

Saturday we bought a tree. Sunday I put in my new bottlebrush. It's a neat plant, native to Australia, can be pruned into either bush or tree form and flowers all summer long. Jason's not overly keen on the look of it, but when I crushed a leaf and he smelled the eucalyptus he was won over and let me have it. They're also non-toxic, so next year we might put some in the back. They also happen to be cheap to purchase and cheap to maintain as they need little water. Our new Monterey Oak was planted this morning by a crew of 4 guys (no way I could have done that myself) and looks great. Still need to finish edging the front bed, but it's coming along. Also haven't planted my lemons or my Ixoras yet. Still need to decide where to put the Ixoras, but I have no excuse for the lemons. Also, one of the bushes that the builder put in has started blooming. It attracts bees and butterflies and smells a bit like lilacs, so I'm pleased with it.

Today, since I had to empty everything out of the laundry room anyway, I decided to hang the closet rod, shelves and a mop/broom hanger thing. I'm quite happy with how it looks now. Just need to get Jason to evict our winged, unwanted guests and put in a new dryer hose and that will be all ready to go.

( pics of flowers and trees behind the cut )