Land$caping

By now it should be apparent to our readers that we became homeowners with very little knowledge about what it means to be a homeowner. And I think we've done a pretty good job. We got the septic tank cleaned (lesson here: never look into the tank), we figured out how to put in storm windows, we learned what everything in the basement does...we take pride in the fact that two life-long renters figured out how to run the house pretty quickly.

But there is one thing that neither of us anticipated: the outside. We have a big lawn, trees, bushes, flowers (and flower boxes), more trees, a raspberry patch (well, not anymore), an herb garden and some large plants that just look like bigger bushes. And all this stuff needs to be taken care of or it will grow out of control and take over.

In the past two months we have spent a small fortune on landscaping. Maybe we were spoiled because the house was in perfect move-in condition when we bought it. We thought we could just show up and bang, enjoy life in the country. Well all that "country" around the house needs to be managed, and it is not cheap.

I guess the point of this post is that if you've never owned a house, and you're thinking of buying one, and there is some land, set aside some additional money...especially in the fall and spring.

Posted by Evan

PlayStation 2

Yes, I am playing "Transformers" on my new PlayStation 2. But that's because PlayStation 2 was $89.99 at Wal-Mart yesterday. And we don't have an HD TV here, so I needed something to do that was not in HD.

And it was 13 DEGREES here yesterday, and 24 degrees today. There is absolutely no good reason to be outside.

Posted by Evan

I made fire!

We have a beautiful woodburning stove, and today I made a fire. I'm very good at arranging the logs in a diagonal, stacked layout so that air is flowing and the flames are pretty and bright. It smells wonderful and makes cozy crackling sounds.

While I am making fire, Evan is playing "Transformers" on his new PlayStation 2.

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Posted by Lindsey

Our Other Weekend Visitors

It's been a VERY busy week for both of us, so we're just now getting to this post. Evan's parents visited us last weekend (before the deer). We picked them up at the train station and had a fun day showing them around Sharon and the surrounding towns.

They gave us a quilt that used to hang in their old country house. We hung it up that day. So it's now a weekend house hand-me-down.

Weekend Visitor

You should be reading a post about the lovely visit we had from Evan's parents this weekend. But yesterday we had an unexpected visitor, so the parental visit post will have to wait until later this week.

We were upstairs winterizing the house (more on this later as well) and a deer walked into our yard and started grazing. We were shocked. It's the closest we've been to wildlife since our last trip to the zoo (Evan, 6th grade, Lindsey about 10 years ago). We were able to get some great pictures, and even a video (thanks Sony digital camera w/video!):

We also took some still shots:

My Kingdom for a Cappuccino

As far as we know, this is the only cappuccino machine within 20 miles of our house. Except it's never working. It's in a small diner-esque restaurant called the "Wandering Moose" about five miles from our house. Every Saturday we would wake up and drive to the "Moose" (that's what the locals call it) in hopes of a cappuccino or latte, and each time the owner told us it was out of order. He always seems angry when we ask, so now we just get regular coffee. It's not very good, but given the lack of options, it's the best we have. Lindsey is working up the courage to ask him for Splenda.