Welcome To The Jungle

The other evening we met our fears and ventured into the dense marshes local to our house. We got a cool picture of this toad and the sunset was stunning.

LOL just kidding. I won't go anywhere near marshes this time of year. The sunset was taken on the opposite side of our home and the toad lives in a old pool pipe in our backyard. This toad is very cool. We have owned this house for exactly four years today. Every summer I hear him down at the bottom of the pipe croaking. We have never seen him in person though. The other evening Caitlin spotted his eyes in the dusk of evening. We got this shot of him peaking out of his pipe. I assume it is the same frog because it is such a great and safe spot to make your home. Now for a Science project I will have the kids look up the kind of frog, or toad that it is, and learn all about it.

The flooding in my hometown in upstate NY is slowly receding. My sister's home was spared, but so many others have lost everything. Even the hospital I used to work at had to be evacuated. I worked there for many years and this never happened. My little hometown is not even recognizable.

Last night, just after midnight, a pipe under the hose exploded. Thank goodness my husband was still up and quickly turned off the water to the house. You don't realize how much you appreciate flushing the toilet until you can't. I feel your pain Anne. Luckily we have the pool and could scoop the water out of there to flush the toilets, which my husband didn't think of. He was able to fix the pipe himself, saving us a boat load of money.

I Am Sad

We basically were unscathed from Hurricane Irene. And even though NYC didn't get hit as hard as they feared, upstate NY, VT, and CT have been hammered and massive flooding has occurred. My hometown, where I spent all of my childhood, is experiencing extreme flooding. My sister still owns a home there, and even had to be evacuated, from an area that is not usual for evacuation. The water has not yet entered her home, but it is sneaking closer. There has been major flooding in Prattsville and Schoharie, NY. Homes wiped out, people stranded, yet the big news channels have moved on to business as usual with regular political BS and so on. It irritates me. To all our friends and family suffering with power outages and flooding, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Last Week Of Summer Vacation

This is our last week of Summer Vacation. It doesn't seem possible already. We have a quiet, yet fun summer. We had a nasty storm blow through last night and ripped to shreds some of the porch screen and pool canopy. It was a band from Irene, that is how big that thing is. My husband starts firefighter classes Tues and we will probably be having a quiet next six months as far as activities go. That is OK though, I am ready for a break from the money spending. I hope everyone is staying safe and dry through Hurricane Irene.

Dog Slobber and the Post Office

Those two things sound like they go together, right? LOL! That is Biscuit. I love Biscuit dearly. She is an awesome dog. Biscuit loves to sniff, drool and lick my windows. She also breathes on them when she is excited because someone or something is in her yard. This leaves my window a big mess of dog slobber all combined in one gross mess. Lucky would also love to slobber on the windows, but she is too small. She has to settle with barking at herself in the fireplace door. So yesterday I spent the morning taking down and washing curtains and windows. I love clean windows, they look so awesome. Now if I could encourage Biscuit to not slobber on them, it would be perfect.

I have complained before about our local post office. Since we are a rural community, I really don't have any other options for shipping packages. This morning I heard on the news that the post office, not just mine but all of them, want to save money by making the mail slower. Are you kidding me? Not only slower but you know those packages you pay a lot of extra money for, so they get their faster? Those are the packages they specifically want to make slower. Really, then why do I want to pay that kind of money? This is so frustrating, it makes me see red. Apparently there is a lot of money to be made by making Priority and Express mail slower. Well duh of course there is when you charge what you charge to get it there faster. Ugh!!!!!!!!