Rat-i-fied
G'day all!
Some of you may remember that before Christmas, we at Casa Shandley were a little weirded out by the smells erupting from the bathroom. Eau de dead rat. YUM!
Since then we have had little rat activity around the house. Until last Sunday, when I was gardening. I heard a rustle, looked down and not 30cm from my foot was a young rat. hmm. It was moving rather slowly for a rat that is outside in daylight but I still couldn't grab it.
Later that day, a similarly sized rat (?the same one?) played pinball with my feet - it bounced off one foot, then the other on its way to the garage.
Dang! Our place was ratified again!
Three days later a SMELL erupted from under the bathroom again.
Maybe it is DE-ratified now!
I got a double yolker egg yesterday!
No knitty pics at present. I have almost finished two items - I have to do seaming and one button band for the blue cardi and the seams on the poncho weird thing with butterflies. No pics and no progress for the last day because we hired a floor sander (without beefy guy to do the sanding) and spent yesterday moving all our crap out of the bedroom we moved it into so that we could sand the back floors, then Nathan Got Ideas (tm) so we sanded the front bedroom and ripped the carpet up in the hallway too.
Can I just say that it is surprisingly hard walking the sander up and down a room? It seems to weigh a tonne and does not like going backwards (naturellement since it has a spinning wheel that spins in a forwards direction). I am truly surprised that I got a good night's sleep cos I over-did the shoulder thang and Mr Whingy Shoulder usually carries on if I aggravate it. As it was, I woke up this morning (at 7:30 on a Sunday! Ack!) with Mr Whingy Shoulder and arm hyperextended over my head, and he didn't whinge a bit! Odd!
Not much chance of knitting or spinning today either - we have to finish the last bit of sanding (the hallway, or maybe we will leave that until when we do the loungeroom) and start tung oiling the floors. Nathan has promised to pick up a keybaord from MILL PARK! Egads, that is on the other side of Melbourne, at least an hour's drive away (this is when I hate living in a big city). I have to drive him because I am not game to let him drive my car across town - the manual gear stuff is nto one of nathan's fortes. If I am really lucky I'll get to the knitty meeting in Caulfield at a cafe there - maybe we can set the time up for the Mill Park pick-up and have arvo tea at the knitty cafe.
Hmm, while I think of it, our place has always been quite cold during winter. We can have the gas central heater (not like a boiler, just a gas burner that heats air which is blown by a fan through tubes and ducts in the floor) going full bore and never get the temperatures to 20 degrees C. Yesterday we think we found out why.
Yep, those are honking great gaps between the skirting boards and the floorboards. (Note that the floors were sanded and estapoled or something previously). The gaps are between 1 and 2.5cm wide. My first thought upon seeing those gaps was "Imagine what horrible hariy spiders could crawl thorough those gaps!" But that was a terribly girly thought for someone who has been watching the black house spider (two links there) set up home in the kitchen window. My next thought was "Argh, MICE could get through those gaps quite easily!" Considering the mouse problems we've had, I think this is a somewhat more reasonable call :-)
The skirting boards appear to have been set up so's to line up with the carpet. Weird, eh? We are going to get some gap filler. Not pretty but effective. And maybe, just maybe, even though we've taken away the insulating underlay and carpet, we'll have a warmer house this winter!
anon!
Some of you may remember that before Christmas, we at Casa Shandley were a little weirded out by the smells erupting from the bathroom. Eau de dead rat. YUM!
Since then we have had little rat activity around the house. Until last Sunday, when I was gardening. I heard a rustle, looked down and not 30cm from my foot was a young rat. hmm. It was moving rather slowly for a rat that is outside in daylight but I still couldn't grab it.
Later that day, a similarly sized rat (?the same one?) played pinball with my feet - it bounced off one foot, then the other on its way to the garage.
Dang! Our place was ratified again!
Three days later a SMELL erupted from under the bathroom again.
Maybe it is DE-ratified now!
I got a double yolker egg yesterday!
No knitty pics at present. I have almost finished two items - I have to do seaming and one button band for the blue cardi and the seams on the poncho weird thing with butterflies. No pics and no progress for the last day because we hired a floor sander (without beefy guy to do the sanding) and spent yesterday moving all our crap out of the bedroom we moved it into so that we could sand the back floors, then Nathan Got Ideas (tm) so we sanded the front bedroom and ripped the carpet up in the hallway too.
Can I just say that it is surprisingly hard walking the sander up and down a room? It seems to weigh a tonne and does not like going backwards (naturellement since it has a spinning wheel that spins in a forwards direction). I am truly surprised that I got a good night's sleep cos I over-did the shoulder thang and Mr Whingy Shoulder usually carries on if I aggravate it. As it was, I woke up this morning (at 7:30 on a Sunday! Ack!) with Mr Whingy Shoulder and arm hyperextended over my head, and he didn't whinge a bit! Odd!
Not much chance of knitting or spinning today either - we have to finish the last bit of sanding (the hallway, or maybe we will leave that until when we do the loungeroom) and start tung oiling the floors. Nathan has promised to pick up a keybaord from MILL PARK! Egads, that is on the other side of Melbourne, at least an hour's drive away (this is when I hate living in a big city). I have to drive him because I am not game to let him drive my car across town - the manual gear stuff is nto one of nathan's fortes. If I am really lucky I'll get to the knitty meeting in Caulfield at a cafe there - maybe we can set the time up for the Mill Park pick-up and have arvo tea at the knitty cafe.
Hmm, while I think of it, our place has always been quite cold during winter. We can have the gas central heater (not like a boiler, just a gas burner that heats air which is blown by a fan through tubes and ducts in the floor) going full bore and never get the temperatures to 20 degrees C. Yesterday we think we found out why.
Yep, those are honking great gaps between the skirting boards and the floorboards. (Note that the floors were sanded and estapoled or something previously). The gaps are between 1 and 2.5cm wide. My first thought upon seeing those gaps was "Imagine what horrible hariy spiders could crawl thorough those gaps!" But that was a terribly girly thought for someone who has been watching the black house spider (two links there) set up home in the kitchen window. My next thought was "Argh, MICE could get through those gaps quite easily!" Considering the mouse problems we've had, I think this is a somewhat more reasonable call :-)
The skirting boards appear to have been set up so's to line up with the carpet. Weird, eh? We are going to get some gap filler. Not pretty but effective. And maybe, just maybe, even though we've taken away the insulating underlay and carpet, we'll have a warmer house this winter!
anon!
Ooooooh I wonder if double yoker is good luck? Maybe not..Mmmmmm...
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