Our New Neighbor

Several of you have asked me to tell  you more about our new home and to post some pictures. That’s a good idea. But, first I thought I’d introduce you to our newest neighbor.

He’s a bit rude, comes over uninvited, and does not clean up after himself at all. In fact, that’s how we knew he was here – he started using our front porch as his bathroom.

I was able to snap a picture of him, however. He doesn’t seem the least bit camera shy.

My kids think he’s cute, but I’ve told my husband, either the bat goes or I’m selling the house.

Wordless Wednesday

‘Cuz I really don’t have that much to say today…

Happy Summer!

Our Move to Colorado in Pictures

Trying to put words to the whole experience of moving across the country from New Jersey to Colorado would not only be a very long post, but a very boring one as well. Instead, here are some pictures I took along the way to remember the experience by.

Our kitchen in NJ all boxed up.

The movers padded the doorway and protected the floors as they moved everything out.

Off they go to start the long trip from NJ to CO

Getting ready for our very long trip from NJ to CO

We passed St. Louis at around 6:30 am. Little did I know at this point that in a few short hours, I would get a speeding ticket in Kansas City. Thanks for the memories, Missouri!

Windmills in Kansas (almost to Colorado!)

And finally- the Rocky Mountains in Colorado (this is the view I see of Pikes Peak when I drive out of my new neighborhood)

Here’s Kobi – the only member of the family to get car sick on this trip and it was a lovely experience. He is actually the reason we drove from NJ to CO instead of flying. We didn’t want to put him under the plane after hearing too many horror stories from friends who have flown with their dogs.

Obviously, we all made it safe and sound. Most of the boxes are unpacked, pictures are hung on the walls (thanks to my husband’s brother and sister-in-law!), the kids have made a few friends, and I am trying to learn my way around a new town and a new grocery store.

Today while dropping some clothes off at the cleaners for the first time, the woman who worked there saw my New Jersey license plates and asked me about them. It turns out she is from Philadelphia and was tickled to meet someone from her neck of the woods.

I want to say that tomorrow I will tell you how it really is a small world after all, but we all know that lately my “tomorrow” means two to three days from now.

(But I really will try for tomorrow.)

(Thanks for your patience.)

Wordless Wednesday

Mama Deer came back for her baby just a little while after this was taken. But I was getting ready to do an internet search on caring for fawns “just in case”.

Peonies, Peonies, Peonies, and Tequila

All over Bloggsville, I see pictures of peonies. It’s that wonderful time of year when peonies are blooming all across the country and folks are more than happy to share them on the internet.

So, what kind of blogger would I be if I, too, did not share my peonies with you? I only wish I could share their scent with you.

Heavenly.

These peonies live in our backyard on the opposite side from where our new septic system was installed. It’s like a whole separate world on the peony side of the backyard. Things are actually still green and colorful. Not brown and dead.

I like the peony side of the yard the best.

We have light pink peonies.

And dark pink peonies.

And today, I picked a little of each.

No, this is not a giant toothbrush holder. This is a vase from Southern Living at Home.

It helps decorating-challenged people like me be able to make beautiful flower arrangements. See that hole-y piece on my counter? It is called a “frog”. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone does. Despite its very strange name, I love it.

Here’s why I love that frog. It makes me look like Martha Stewart.

Darling Daughter made a peony arrangement of her own. Only she didn’t use a frog for hers.

She used an empty tequila bottle.

I promise, she didn’t drink it.

But, I know who did.

A Duck’s Tale

I was so busy posting about all the meyhem and mess in our backyard, that I never got to tell you about the polar opposite, the peace and serenity, that was happening in our front yard.

One day about two weeks ago, I was out front watering the planters of geraniums on our porch. As I was pulling the hose around to water the far planter (since I was too lazy to walk allll the waaayy to the back yard to get the watering can), a giant bird flew out of the azalea bush right by the stairs to the front door nearly giving me a heart attack.

As soon as I realized that I was not being ambushed by aliens or any other strange creature, I composed myself and took a look in the azalea bush. You have no idea how much I wish I had a picture of what I saw.  I actually did run into the house to grab my camera (who knew watering the geraniums would be a picture-worthy event?) and my camera’s battery chose that exact moment to let me know it needed to be recharged NOW.

Don’t you think it would be nice if a camera would say, “ok, just one or two more pictures and then I really need to be recharged, please”?

But, no. Those cameras are so temperamental and demanding.

Anyway, if my camera had worked, right now you would be looking at a picture of a perfectly formed duck’s nest, lined with the mommy duck’s own downy-soft feathers filled with at least 11 eggs. I tried to count them all, but I didn’t want to get too close and permanently scare the mama duck away.

By the time my demanding camera’s battery was recharged, Mama Duck was back and I was able to get this shot:

Isn’t she the sweetest Mama Duck? You probably can’t see her feathers that she used for the nest in this shot because I had to zoom in from far away. So like a mother -  to literally give of herself for her babies.

Here’s the azalea bush she picked to place her nest under:

This bush is right by the front door. We usually just enter the house from the garage. If I hadn’t been too lazy to go get my watering can that day, we never would have known she was there.

The lesson: laziness has its rewards.

Darling Daughter looked up the incubation time for duckling eggs on the internet. It is 28 days. Since we had no idea how long she was there before we found her, we really wanted to make sure we did not miss the hatching. We wondered where Mama and all her ducklings would go after they hatched. Would they stay in our yard, perhaps taking a swim in the pool? Or would they take off for the much larger and duck friendlier pond just outside our neighborhood?

Checking on the Mama Duck became part of my daily routine and I proudly but quietly made everyone who came to our house take a peek at her, too.

I was so anxious to see her babies. Each day I would go out front to make sure she was still there (I was actually hoping she had left for food or a potty break so I could get a pic of her eggs for you), but every single time I went to check on her she was there.

But not today.

Today when I went out to check on Mama Duck and her eggs, this is what I found:

An empty nest.

No Mama Duck.

No eggs.

No egg shells.

And no baby ducks. (I know, ducklings, but they ARE babies, aren’t they?)

And I also saw this:

It looks like something ripped apart her nest. The strange thing is that there is not one single egg or shell left. I don’t know what to make of it. Whatever got to the eggs was very meticulous. You would think that if a fox or other wild animal ate them, there would be some shell fragments left.

Do you think they could have hatched during the night and Mama Duck cleaned up after herself?

Or is that just wishful thinking, while I’m in denial that my ducklings are gone?

All Done!

As of Friday, all that was left to do to finish our brand spankin’ new septic system was to run a line connecting the new septic tanks near our house to the new septic field way out back in the Promised Land.

See that tall, reddish bush in the back of the picture? The Promised Land is behind that, way in the back of our yard. It is so far back that they had to install a pump with the new tanks to keep things moving along.

Speaking of the Promised Land, here it is now. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but it is now a 24″ mound that is also 42 feet long and 24 feet wide. We were lucky. Depending on the soil tests, some folks have to have a 4 FOOT mound as their septic field.

So, by the end of the day on Friday, all that was left for the guys to do was to put a few bushes back in place and take their big toys home.

Neither of which they did.

Which left Hubby feeling like he might want to help the guys out a bit with the bushes and all.

Much to my chagrin.

Why wait until Tuesday to let the professionals re-plant the bushes when you can do it yourself?

If his day job doesn’t work out, he might have a future in landscaping.

Getting a little direction from our visiting bro-in-law.

And before we knew it, the bushes were back. It was as if they never left. That night, God provided a deluge of rain to give the traveling plants a nice big drink of water – just what they needed.

And the old septic field?

As good as new.

Sans grass.

This morning the guys finally came and took the heavy equipment away – thank you, Jesus! Now I get to go down to their office and write the final check.

Sure hope Dear Daughter didn’t plan on going to college immediately after graduating high school next year. Sigh.

Septic System Update

I warned you, these posts would be riveting. What’s better than news about a new septic system being installed?

American Idol?

Ho Hum.

Dancing With the Stars?

Bo-ring.

Ah, but septic systems – where else can a girl get her fill of dirt, heavy equipment, men working hard, and grossness all in one location.

That’s right – here at I Throw Like a Girl. My devotion to you knows no bounds.

So let’s get right to it. The last time we visited the Promised Land, it looked like this:

The next day after the guys drove in and out of our yard all day long with their big trucks, the Promised Land looked like this:

Now, don’t be fooled. That may look like everyday ordinary sand. But let me tell you – it’s not. It is very special sand from Atlantic City, New Jersey.

If you are not familiar with NJ geography, here’s a quick lesson. NJ’s entire eastern side bumps right up against the Atlantic Ocean. Also, NJ is a very narrow state, that runs north to south, or south to north depending on how you want to look at it.

We live pretty much smack dab in the middle of the state of NJ. If we head due east, we will hit the Atlantic Ocean. The beach we would probably run into first would be Belmar, or maybe Point Pleasant.  It would take us just a little over an hour to get there.

You know what beach we would not run into by driving one hour straight east?

Atlantic City beach.

The Atlantic City beach is approximately 3 hours southeast of us.  Then, one might ask, why do we have to pay for truckload after truckload of Atlantic City beach sand, when we have several choices of perfectly good NJ beach sand a little over an hour from us?  No one seems able to tell us the answer to that question.

Assuming part of the cost of this septic system is for the transportation of all the materials to us, I would be very happy with Belmar sand or Point Pleasant sand.

I think only Tony Soprano knows the reason why they get the sand from where they do.

Anyway, after a full day of delivering Atlantic City sand to our back yard, the next day was spent topping it off with this…

I have no idea where this gravel came from and frankly, I don’t want to know.

But that’s not all they got done in the last few days.  They also installed yet another tank closer to the house.

I have asked our Real Estate agent to make sure that our buyers don’t come anywhere near our house until all this septic system stuff is done. They were very nervous when they made the offer on our house about what the septic system installation would do to the yard.

I thought they were being silly to worry so much. But little did I know that our yard would go from this:

To this:

in under one week.

Yeah. I think we need to keep the buyers away until all the big toys go home.

I think they dug all the way to China

Yesterday, on the septic system front, the guys didn’t accomplish much.

All they did was connect this old septic tank to the new one below.

See, that’s all they did.

I probably should show you how the new tank got there in the first place.

That is the new septic tank all shiny and clean. Poor thing. It has no idea what its future job will be. See the guy in the orange Broncos cap? That’s Dear Hubby. He just wants to help. All this heavy equipment is like giant Tonka toys to him. He is beside himself with testosterone.

Guiding the new tank safely to its home.

Tank in place with its cover on.

That brings us to yesterday. Other than connect those two tanks, the only other thing they did all day long, was dig.

And dig.

And dig.

And dig.

And then dig some more.

I don’t think they found Jimmy Hoffa, though.

But they came pretty close to finding China, I think.

The dump truck was in and out of here all day long and I didn’t want to risk getting run over trying to get a picture. I do have my limits. But after they left for the evening, I ventured outside and this is what I found in the Promised Land.

This picture does not do the hole justice at all. It is 8-10 feet deep and 47 feet long. I could just picture myself falling in  while trying to get the shot and then not being found until morning when the guys came back to work. On the bright side, it would have given me something to write about.

To try to put the size of the hole in perspective, those trees behind it are 30-40 feet tall.

Tomorrow, the guys will be bringing truckloads of rocks and sand to put back into the hole they just spent the whole day digging.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “Adventures in Septic Systems”.

Blog writing at its finest, I tell ya!

Let the Digging Begin

Do you remember the Promised Land that I showed you in yesterday’s post, Adventures in Septic Systems?

Here, let me refresh your memory:

This is the chosen location for the new septic field. Little did I know how much digging is required to make a new septic field. This is just the beginning of all the digging:

By the time they are ready to get down to business, this will be an 8 foot deep hole. The picture really does not do it justice. It is 47 feet long by 25 feet wide. It is going to be quite the large hole. Maybe they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa down there. This is New Jersey after all!

Right now they have just removed the grass and top soil. Once they really get going deep, I will be right there taking pictures for your enjoyment. The guys already think I’m crazy, so I’ll just be reinforcing that idea.

The new septic field is not the only place that needs digging.  They also have to put in two new septic tanks closer to the house. My husband just informed me that one is for solids, ahem, and the other is for liquids. How each knows where to go, I don’t want to know.

Here’s our current septic tank. It is safely and very non-threatenly underground. Just the way I like it.

But, they couldn’t leave well enough alone. See all that lovely pachysandra around it. Well, say goodbye to at least half of it.  The guys had to dig a trench to connect this old tank to the new tanks.

The beginning of the end of my pachysandra and a few other bushes. Sigh.

The guys actually don’t mind me taking their pictures. They want me to show them to their boss to prove they are working. All he’d really have to do is look around a little bit and see the evidence of their handywork.

See the black shoe in the lower right corner? That’s my husband’s foot. He can hardly stand it with all the digging and heavy equipment around. You’ll see more of him in later episodes.

Oh, Look! We struck….

Oil? No.

Gold? No.

Diamonds? No.

Oh, never mind.

But this guy is paid handsomely (at least I hope he is) to take care of such messes.

Let’s end this post on a high note and focus on what little beauty is left in our yard.

More septic system pictures to come. Don’t worry, I think the worst is behind us (as far as grossness goes).