Three New Developments on the Home Front

One

A couple of weeks ago, youngest son adopted a puppy from the animal shelter, and since youngest son lives here with me, so does his pup. Since he’s all black, he’s not all that easy to photograph, but here he is having some fun in the back yard on his first day at our home.

The little dog’s name is David, which is the name they gave him in the shelter. Son thought of changing it, but he’d known him as David for a week by the time the adoption was completed, so he decided to keep his original shelter name. My apologies to you if your name is David or you’ve given one of your sons that name. Keep in mind that he’s a very gentle and polite young dog and maybe that’ll help you feel less insulted.

He’s seven months old, and before he came here, he’d spent his whole life at the shelter. Everything is new to him, but he’s adjusting very well and learning to do his business outdoors, walk on a leash, and leave the cats alone. That last lesson is the most difficult for him.

He and Taffy have become great friends. Taffy didn’t care for him much at first, but he copies everything she does and she knows that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so she’s decided he’s alright in her book. Taffy is eight years old, but she’s never outgrown her love of rough and tumble play, and she’s happy to have a companion who will wrestle and play fight with her in the back yard.

The papers we got from the shelter say David is Husky X, but his big ears and quick intelligence make me suspect he’s more German Shepherd.

Would you say he’s become comfortable in his new home?

Two
Oldest son has started his own business which he’s running out of my home, mostly out of my garage. His company is called Stark Window Solutions, and he’s installing windows, focusing especially on doing the indoor trim.

He makes his own trim using a fancy-dancy machine he had shipped from Nova Scotia. Fortunately for him, his dad left a garage/shop filled with good woodworking machines and tools, so he’s only needed to spring for that one machine and the electrical work needed to run it—work which is being done as I write—making his start up costs much less than they would have been otherwise.

Three
Youngest daughter is moving back home on the first of July. Since she moved out I’ve made her old bedroom into my sewing room and I didn’t want to give that up, so she’ll be taking over what used to be oldest son’s bedroom in the basement. Since he moved out, I’ve been using it as a general storage room, which means I must get down there soon and sort through all that stuff and decide what to keep, what to throw out, and what to give away.

It promises to be a big job—a job made even bigger when I let oldest son take a set of work cupboards from the basement to mount in his garage/shop and told him to just put everything in the cupboards in his old bedroom/storage room.

It’s a rainy day today and the internet connection is dreadful, so I think I’ll head down there to get started sorting as soon as I post this.

My Destop Photo 57: Lesser Yellowlegs

Photo by Andrew Stark
(click on photo for larger view)

My birding friend Judy said this about the lesser yellowlegs in a post at my old blog:

It’s a shore bird but enjoys making a lot of noise while teetering at the top of trees. It is one of the prime food sources for the peregine falcon which, after a thrilling come-back, are somewhat on the decline. One theory [on the decline of the peregine falcon] is that the yellowlegs are being poisoned by insecticides from farmers clearing coffee fields in Central America.

The old post linked above includes a picture of a lesser yellowlegs doing a bit of tree-top teetering. If you want the whole lesser yellowlegs experience, look at the lesser yellowlegs in the tree-top photo while listening to the lesser yellowlegs call.

And while we’re talking about her, let me tell you a little about Judy’s latest adventures. Right now, she’s in South Africa, where she is doing some volunteering for the same organization my daughter volunteered with a little over a year ago. She’s a retired teacher and she’ll be working in an elementary school, doing a little training of the school staff and working with the children as well. She will, of course, fit a little birding into her schedule, too, and hopes to see many wonderful South African birds.

On the Sunday before she left, Judy told me that not only did the idea for this trip come from my blog, but also the means to do it. She sold an original painting she bought for $35.00 through the gallery I linked to in the post on Canadian artist Jim Logan and made enough to finance her entire trip.

The Door

Or what I’ve been up to.

I’ve been spiffing up the kitchen. Yesterday I put two coats of paint on the walls and today I’ve been putting everything back where it belongs. I’m not done yet because I have a couple of things to hang on the wall that will require two people.

The project on the right was done by my sons. When we moved into this house, there was a solid door between the kitchen and the back entry. I hated it—hated not being able to see the back door from the kitchen without opening the door—so we took it off and stored it in a back corner of the basement.

Recently, oldest son replaced some doors for a client at work. The old doors had lovely wood framed and grilled glass inserts which my son salvaged and inserted in my old kitchen door. Youngest son painted the whole thing. I lost count of how many coats it took to cover the dark brown paint of the old door, but when he was done and the door was hung, this is what we had.

As you can probably see, I still have to paint the baseboards and trim in the kitchen before the project is all done.

The bag hanging on the door knob is one of Carla’s tote bags. It is promoting one of my favorite causes, the Save the Hymnal campaign.

I’m thinking of putting the other glass insert in my office door so I can see but not hear what’s going on in the rest of the house.