Spring!

Spring has arrived! Although it can't decide whether it's going to be a super warm spring, or a way too cold to be outside spring, but it's here. The trees have buds, dandelions are poking through, a couple of tulips are blooming, the grass is green and incredibly long (especially where the dogs do their business). And the surest sign? My allergies are out of control.

We decided to trim the apple trees this year so I could "harvest the fruit." Urban Foresters came highly recommended, so we called them out. The trees have been dwarfed, and the first signs of flower buds are appearing. In fact, we have so many fruit trees, that in another week, 8 trees in our yard will be in full bloom. And now that the  siding is complete, our house will look amazing!.

We are also in the process of getting numerous geothermal estimates to get our heating and cooling taken care of this year.  So landscaping the back yard is out for the time being, seeing that most of it will be excavated. The good news is that we will get rid of the giant lump in the middle of the yard with this project.

We are having someone come out and do a "master plan" for our front yard. we love our brick wall, but it's bowing out and really needs to come down. There are a lot of really cool ideas flying around; cobblestone path, double brick accent walls, eliminating the steps, lots of demo and the wine table and chairs that Nikki thought was a great idea since the beginning.

Our other big project for the year is moving the basement stairs over. There may be a good chance that we'll hire out the moving of the stairs and do the demo of the old stairs ourselves. Stay tuned for that.

Of course it wouldn't be spring if the dogs weren't getting sick. Mr. Scamp was the first to take a turn at the vet. As soon as the weather got nicer, he began limping again (he limped last year) and started getting a rash on his belly. This confirmed our suspicion that Scamp is allergic to grass. Yes. We have a dog that is allergic to grass. So we headed over to HSHV to see Stacey and get some x-rays and meds. His x-rays were clear, but since he has a history of limping, we're taking him over to MSU to see an orthopedic vet. He's also back on his seasonal allergy pills.

Not to be outdone, a week later Pepper began throwing up. I didn't think much of it because it's spring and they're eating grass like crazy. But I became concerned when it didn't stop. Now instead of jumping to conclusions and taking her to the vet right away, I tried to see if we could get her back to healthy on our own. We withheld food, and started a bland diet, little bites at a time. We had no success. So back we went to vet. The sad thing is, I called them and they recognized my voice! Sigh. I have become that crazy dog person that is always there. But they were great and got Pepper in right away to be seen. Over the next two days a series of x-rays and barium were taken and it was decided that Pepper needed surgery. By this point she had not held down food for 6 days and had lost 4 pounds. So we let them take her in. Pepper was pretty pathetic on the first night and really worried me, but she's been getting better and better every day and is finally holding down the food.

So the excitement of last week is winding down and the dogs this morning were just chilling in the yard. In the picture below you can see how far they shaved Pepper's belly.

Happy spring to all!

Nothing is ever easy...

A few years ago, we bought a  filtered water dispenser for our fridge. It's slightly bigger than a pitcher, but you still have to fill it with water from the sink. When we bought the dispenser we got a great deal on filters and bought a bunch. Fast forward to last March 2009 when we moved into our house. Everything was packed up for the move. Fast forward to today, we can't find any of the filters. We refuse to buy new ones, because we know we own like 3 of them!! So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally hook up the water dispenser on the fridge. Easy, no problem, right?

Well the first sign of trouble was the empty filter cartridge that looked like it was broken on the end. Suspicious?  Yes, but it did not stop us from moving forward! The plumbing was done fairly quickly and then we decided to shoot over to Sears to get a new filter. That when we realized we had a problem. The filter had burst inside the fridge and we had to pull it out piece by piece. This was the hard part. On the left you'll see the cartridge housing, on the right the guts. Taking these pieces out almost took 4 hours. 

Once they were out, we were excited to hook up the water and experience filtered water at its greatest. Well, not only did we, but our entire kitchen floor enjoy the water. Not only had the filter burst, but much of the plumbing in the back of the fridge. It was time to call in the professionals (Blue Crew). Yet another project at the Pitt that was way harder than it needed to be.

So when I was a wee youth back in Owosso, MI. Elizabeth and I always used to dream of the day when we would have a fridge with a dispenser on the door. Because a fridge with a dispenser was classy.

Well Elizabeth as I look at my fridge with the dispenser now intact, in the Pitt, the first thought that comes to mind is always, classy.

The Deck Part 3: Putting it Back Together

This actually happened back in November, but Bob's lazy and didn't bother writing about it until now. Bob's excuse is that Orsi already hijacked the blog, so why didn't she update it?

As described previously, the deck was attached to the house (right through the siding) which caused leaking and rotting problems. So we removed some boards against the house, dug new postholes, attached the deck to the new posts, and cut it away from the house. Thus, the deck was now freestanding. The next step was to put in the new sliding door and the siding over the deck. With that done, we could finally put the deck back together.

To put things back together, we put a new board across the end against the house. This was positioned very close to the house. This was a little tricky since there was no way to get a hammer or screwdriver between the house and the board to attach it to the ends of the boards. The solution was simple: we used some short scrap boards to attach to the end of the boards perpendicular to the house, and then attached to the parallel board through those, so the screws were going towards the house instead of away:

The upper part of the deck (shown above) has boards that run parallel to the house, so putting those boards back in was simple (although we ended up replacing one of them). The lower part of the deck has boards at an angle. To avoid pulling the entire deck apart, we made a cut parallel to the house, resulting in several short diagonal pieces that had to be put back. To reattach them, we put short pieces parallel to the house in between the perpendicular pieces. These were positioned halfway out of the ends that were still there, and then the old pieces were replaced. Thus, the ends of the boards where they were cut is supported and nothing is just hanging in the air:

We ended up replacing a couple of these pieces, too. Here's what the deck looks like now (the replaced pieces are clearly visible):

 

The next steps are to power wash the deck to remove the existing paint and stain it. Also, the railing is in really bad shape, so we'll replace that, too. Ultimately we'd like to replace the deck entirely, but that's going to be a big expensive project, so I expect that to be many years away (we'd be happy if we could get 10 more years out of this deck).