Finally Bought Some Land

[rwsaunders]

^ barn cat wanted...inquire within.

[maunahaole]

Jorn, you’re welcome to ping me about a house swap for a week or so sometime. Our place isn’t nearly as nice, we have no climate control of any kind...but we are about 3 miles from any number of nice beaches and nice hikes in the mountains. If you ride a 60+ bike, I got you covered there, otherwise we may have to hit up my neighbor.

[Mabouya]

Okay so it is mice not flying squirrels. I’ve trapped 8 in the last 2-3 days. Cold nights are bringing them in. Exterminator is coming first of the week.

Swing by the local rescue and pick up two young cats that get along well.

Mouse problem permanently solved, and as a bonus you'll get lots of entertainment and affection.

Win-win for everyone (except the mice)

[j44ke]

So far, they are not in the house. Just the mechanical room and the wall on the opposite side of the house. I think we’ve got some work to do on entry points with hardware mesh and conduit putty. Plus some baited box traps.

Cat would be nice. But my wife is allergic. She swells up like a balloon. Not optimal.

[gt6267a]

office looks like a nice environment. its hard to tell from the photo if the hands are above the elbow? lots of variables there but hands above elbow and/or a high hand position might lead to wrist soreness and/or shoulder / neck pain. if its not happening. awesome. maybe don't bother with the following comments. anyway, if there is some pain happening, you might consider a keyboard tray. 3m makes nice ones. they take about 15 mins to install. i have the same chair w/wheels. wheels might be nice with a long table. not certain if you can get the wheels later, i assume yes. if you go down that road, watch the eye position and monitor height. you might need to shim the monitor up the wheel height. probably a 3" cook book would do it. going a totally different route, i would think the office is a good environment to walk around a little. a standing desk could be interesting.

[72gmc]

So far, they are not in the house. Just the mechanical room and the wall on the opposite side of the house. I think we’ve got some work to do on entry points with hardware mesh and conduit putty. Plus some baited box traps.

Cat would be nice. But my wife is allergic. She swells up like a balloon. Not optimal.

Will rat terriers go after mice? Maybe you want that fox to feel welcome.

[Mabouya]

Will rat terriers go after mice? Maybe you want that fox to feel welcome.

Or snakes - they're famously great mousers.

[j44ke]

A black rat snake would be great. And the mechanical room is nice and warm. But all we’ve seen so far are garter snakes and a very small milk snake.

A jack russell would be good too, but probably would create a bit of damage getting at the nice.

Edit: Just had a red fox trot past the bedroom window sniffing around the outside edges of the house. They are pretty good mousers evidently too.

[guido]

We also had barred owls on the house last night so perhaps my work has already been done for me.

How cool is that! We hear them in the woods behind our house, but perching on it, swoon...

[j44ke]

How cool is that! We hear them in the woods behind our house, but perching on it, swoon...

Yes sounds like they like the house for its resonating qualities.

Empty traps this morning so perhaps first wave of the cold season has been repelled. Most were gray house/field mice but a couple were white footed mice. The latter is the primary vector for Lyme disease. I am sure there are more out there though, drilling the ranks and sharpening their teeth.

[j44ke]

So we decided this was finished, at least for the time being. Basically anything the guys were doing at this point was averaging 2 smudges for every wipe. Sent 'em home, paid the GC and now we are (sort of) on our own. Storm hit yesterday at 5PM while I was walking up from the garage, and I could hear trees breaking one after another along the road (literally the storm HIT) and the leaves all around me lifted up from the ground as the air pressure went nuts. I went into the house and told my wife to come down from the popup room NOW and she disappeared. What are you doing? I am shutting off my computer and my monitor and getting my phone - stop rushing me! Uhm, that was sort of the point? Anyway, after the wall of air bashed through, a little rain, some more wind, no tornado. Welcome to Hillsdale.

We did lose two more cherry trees, but these went onto our neighbors property. I told him that I would pay for the work if he hired the guy and got him to cut the trunks into sections our cabinet maker friend could use. I pole-sawed a bunch of dangling limbs that were hanging over the wall and dragged them and a couple spindly dead ash trees back across onto our property. So we were lucky this time.

And then this evening...









There will be professional photos published at some point. Some taken this month and others taken in winter and then spring. The architects have a pro photographer doing the series, so I won't be able to post them here but will add a link once they are up elsewhere.

We are done but there are some finesse things that we'll work on over the next year. Some paint finishes, cabinet designs, floor treatments, other things. But these are projects for later after we've recovered from the whole process and had some time to live in the house and make rational decisions. Plus the gardeners are killing it on the landscape. Every week the land looks better. I've been doing nothing, so I need to up my game and get out the butchering tools on some bittersweet vine and barberry bush. And make trails. That I am looking forward to.

Thanks all for watching. Every one of the suggestions has been helpful. And some of them made me look like a total genius on-site, which was good because most of the time I was a complete idiot. Unavoidable I guess. I get it. That was my role. But now I get to live in this thing!

[rwsaunders]

Jorn...let's call your sojourn to date Part 1 and we are anxiously awaiting Part 2!

[EDS]

What a journey. Congratulations and enjoy the new home.

[bironi]

Jorn,
Your pics reminded me of this song.

Thanks
By

[davids]

Mazel Tov! And thanks for sharing, really really really!

And that storm? It felt the same here in Boston. Nothing, then a rush of dark skies and roaring wind. Then torrential rain, filling the sky. Then it was gone, quiet, cool and damp.

[Mabouya]

Sharp-shinned hawk chased a flicker into a window. I found it where the hawk left it. Too heavy to carry.

Jorn, if i remember properly you were going to put some "bird warning devices" on your windows to try to minimize this sort of thing.

Is that still in the job jar, or has it been done but at least in this case not proven to be 100% effective?

[j44ke]

Jorn, if i remember properly you were going to put some "bird warning devices" on your windows to try to minimize this sort of thing.

Is that still in the job jar, or has it been done but at least in this case not proven to be 100% effective?

We have a feeding flock that is made up of birds that will be around all winter. Chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, and several different woodpeckers, including the flickers. The hawk went right through the middle of them and put the flicker into the window. Then he must have picked it up and dragged it towards the woods when we came out of the house. We saw the hawk leave but didn’t find the flicker until the next day. Normally he would have sat down and had his lunch, but we showed up and the flicker was too heavy to carry so he just left.

Cooper’s hawks and sharp-shinned hawks are known for bouncing birds off glass windows. I don’t know who taught them that but they seem to have the skill down.

I think when the hawk comes through, there’s not a lot that can be done. Sheer terror ensues. If we have a sharp-shinned who decides to make a career of it, we’ll close the (white opaque) curtains in the bedroom to see if that helps. The bedroom is where all the birds (1 yellow-rumped warbler last year, 1 this year, 1 titmouse this year, and then the flicker chased by the hawk) have hit the glass. Half of each window (which are really sliding doors so the screens slide too) is screened already so if they hit that, they just bounce off but I’ve never seen one hit the screens or found any feathers (I look.) And if the curtains don’t do it, I’ll probably try the static stickers and then the string lines.

But even with the hawk’s help, the numbers are very low - much lower than I expected. We’re keeping tabs though.

[j44ke]

Oh right - there was a yellow-rumped warbler that hit the window when the flicker did. That’s what got us outside. But that bird recovered pretty quickly. I put it in a dark box and within a few minutes it was ready to go.

Birds have quite a bit of feather dust/dander and oils, so when they hit the window you can see the mark made by the dander and oils coming off the bird on impact. I check the windows periodically.

[Mabouya]

Hopefully you don't loose too many to the glass. If you do end up trying something that works well let us know. At my place it seems to go in cycles. It's been well over a year since I've found any "window kill" victims, but in the past it's typically been a few a year. Since it seems to have tapered off I haven't bother to put up the paracord I got for the string devices - we'll see if the rate stays low.

[Tom]

Eagerly looking forward to some updated images after last night. 23 inches in my driveway in Schenectady and still big cat paw aggregates pouring out of the sky. It must be spectacular in the woods.