And what do my eyes see.......

I was looking out the window on Wednesday and I couldn't believe what I saw...... A blue jay! I was truly amazed. Now I'm really happy.

Other than that, I decided to step away from house organizing and look for videos. These would be used for my various classes and wow, I hit the jackpot. Over 100 clips will be rolled into powerpoints for my various classes. Most of these are between 3 and 5 minutes.

Whoopeeeee!

A fun little surprise while looking out the window

Before I begin this posting, I want to ask everyone to begin to look out their window. Nature is one amazing thing. Here's the latest reason......

Lightning Bugs! Those of you who are not in a state/part of the world that does not have these little insects, I am sorry. While looking out the window this evening, I see a spec of yellow. A second later, I see another. I only counted three unique dots of yellow, but I was brought back to Kansas City as a kid. In the evenings, the lightning bugs would come out and I would try to catch them. Occasionally, I would capture on in a jar and after putting some grass in the bottom, the jar would go inside the home. There, I'd watch the blinking for about 30 minutes, then it would be time to go to bed.

The next morning, the lightning bug would be mysteriously gone, but the grass would be there. Where did it go? As a kid I wasn't sure. As an adult, I'm pretty sure my parents released the bug back to the backyard.

I know there's a scientific reason behind why the lightning bugs blink, but I do not want to know. I'm just happy to see these bugs blink around during the late evening.

Another thing is I put up a few bird feeders about a month ago and the birds have been showing up. I was really surprised when I saw a male and female cardinal chilling on my fence. The bird feeders are working and my backyard is beginning to be a small estuary. (BTW, I'm kidding about the estuary.) Now all I need to see is a Blue Jay in central Texas. Highly unlikely as my home is a bit too far South. :(

Over the past few days....

Here's where I am with the home improvements over the past few days:
1. I've gotten rid of 3 bags of misc mailers that have been sent to me. And there's more. I can't believe all the paper mail that just gets sent out.
2. The bees found a new way in. Hello expandable foam.
3. The back porch now has a floor. Okay, to be honest, it always had a floor but it was covered with a quarter to half an inch of leaves.
4. 32 pounds of aluminum cans netted me a little more than $17.00. I bought pizza with that!
5. Organization in the garage. The glass tubing I received for free last year got moved into the glass shop. Extension cords on the floor got placed on the wall. And, the last shelving unit that was in pieces is now built and put into place. Unfortunately for me, there were two small parts missing. The top shelf will now need some strapping to keep it together. There is beginning to be room in there.
6. My grass is beginning to grow in the dead patch in the front yard. This is a good thing.
7. My front window is about to be replaced. The guy is coming by on Tuesday to take measurements and then 4 weeks later, new window. This is a fairly big deal as the front room is about 5-10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house due to heat coming through my single pane old 30+ year window.
8. I also decided it was time to replace the front door. I chose the design. (Here's a picture.) I'm tired of the 1-2 inches of rot on the bottom of the frame. The door has never been replaced, so I'll do it.

This is what I can remember, there was more.

This past weekend -> Bees, Trimming and Allergies

Central Texas is a hot bed for allergies in the Spring and Fall. Unfortunately, I am extremely susceptible to allergies.

Saturday, I was just feeling bad. The foam appeared not to work from mid last week. I did more research on removing honey bees from inside a wall. I found there was an insecticide that had honey bees listed as one of the bugs. It's brand name is "Sevin". I found it at the local Lowe's. I spend most of Saturday up at work as I had 2 finals to give.

Sunday, after waking up feeling under the weather, I decided that the lawn and other plants needed some maintenance. A mower, an electric pruner, a hand pruner and a weed eater are the tools I brought out. Less than two hours later, my lawn looked great and the bushes where either cut down or trimmed. The yard looks a lot better.

I also have a portion of the lawn that will not grow. I seeded and watered a few weeks ago and that led to a few sprigs of grass. This weekend, I laid down a ton of seed. We'll wait and see.

The bees......

I finally went outside in the backyard. I still see some bees, but they look confused by the expandable foam. Not sure how they out (or they might be going home). I'll find out tonight.

If there are a number of bees swarming, it looks like I might be "insulating" an entire 24 inch rail along my back wall.

Sorry bees.......

Bah, it's a sick day :(

This morning I woke up not feeling well. So, the pond rebuilding will need to wait for another day. Unfortunately, my attacking the bee hive last night only did a bit. This evening the "Great Stuff" expanding insulation will come into play. Taps will play as the bees are sealed into their tomb.

This weekend

I'm going to start writing about what I'm up to around the house. One, it will get me writing. Two, it will show people that a "fixer-upper" is more than what it appears. Three, maybe this will get my friends to begin to update they're blogs.

This weekend, I decided it was going to be pond and bees weekend. The pond is a little 150 gallon water feature in my backyard. It stopped pumping water this past week and that made me very sad. Sadly, it has slowly been dying a sad death.

I bought myself a pump to empty the pond. That pump was cranking through the water quickly, then I read a little bit in the instruction leaflet. "Pump will not work if water is 1 foot deeper than the inlet." About 5 minutes later, the pump began to have issues. The water just reached that 1 foot mark and I had about 4 inches of water left. I tried and tried to get the pump to work. Nothing.

In that time, I found out something else very interesting. My pond/water feature has a water filter. That really surprised me. Off to Home Depot to buy a new filter. (Note to readers - The pond had been running for almost 2 years without a filter change.) When I arrived, the water feature isle was around the corner. Amazingly enough, there was not a replacement filter for my set-up. (I sometimes hate when you can't get something a few years old.) I grabbed and purchased a new filter and a few of the filter clothes so I don't get caught for awhile.

Back at home, I check to see if the filter fit. Check! I then place the entire pump assembly in and turn it on, Churg, churg, churg. I see water coming from the top fountain portion but not the waterfall. I drain the pond to the last 4 inches again. I pull apart the spigot and associated other pieces. They got a good scrub down, get placed into the water and turned on. Churg, churg, churg. Water is coming from both the fountain spigot and the waterfall. Viola, it lives. I point the spigot out of the pond form and it spits out another 2 inches. Only two inches left.

Now onto the bees. I have had a bee hive in my wall since I moved in. Last year, it appeared to be small. This year, the bees returned and multiplied. They didn't bother me, so I let them live. They don't appear to be Africanized. They are just the standard honey bee. Well, a neighbor came over to my home and complained about the bees. He was worried that the "mean" bees that live in my wall might sting his chihuahuas. As a home owner, I must now do something about them.

Now, I've seen "Billy the Exterminator" on TV and I've done my research online. I've tried a number of sprays, had part of the bee hive empty out in my kitchen and they appear to use the spray as a sort of bath. They don't like it, but they keep coming back. I'm almost to the part of the bee hunt when I need to open my wall and see what's going on. If I do this, I'll empty out the hive and spray everything down. Oh yea, my outside wall is brick. Yep, I'm going to make the bees very angry inside my home.

Tomorrow, I'll try to get the pond back in functioning order.