The Holiday Weekend

It's Sunday evening, and we have had quite the weekend. 

The background noise has been loud... the fans and humidifiers left by the 

restoration crew have provided a constant hum. 

These are only two of the fans, and one of the dehumidifiers...

There are two fans going in the master bedroom... and 

more dehumidifiers and fans in the basement. 

The noise... whew. 

Tomorrow, the restoration company comes to check moisture levels, and 

hopefully, to start the restoration.  I know one thing, I need to do some laundry... and 

I'm facing the laundromat if we don't get a chance here. 

You see where we spent our July 4.... we got to the ball park early. 

Jim, Amy, and the kids joined us for the game. 

The field guys had done a great job with the field... see the beautiful July fourth?  There 

were also flags to either side on the grass. 

Jacob and Jax are the two baseballers in the family.  Jacob's season had 

just ended. 

Jim and Amy and the four kids were our guests, it was their wedding anniversary! 

You see that the stands filled up nicely, the T Bones had over 8,000 people that day. 

Madison was good enough to take this picture of Grandma, a silly Grandpa, and the two boys. 

But Madison and Paiton were there, too. 

(I had to tease them, they all look so sad in this picture!) 

After the game, there was a wedding!  A wedding!  On the pitcher's mound!

The groom had pitched for the T Bones when they first started here, for about 6 years. 

His bride is also from the area. 

Keith and I stayed to watch the short ceremony.

As it finished, the field lights were killed and this started: 

We watched from the parking lot.  It was a great display. 

Keith and I were so glad to get home to our "little girl".  She is so lonely now without her pack... and we knew she was going to be afraid of the noise... luckily, our neighborhood was not bad, and we drew all the curtains and blinds and left the tv on, and that, with the noise of the fans, took care of things. 

This mundane picture is the Leavenworth Country Transfer Station.  Keith and I have become 

avid recyclers, and we are going to set up a proper station soon in our garage. We are currently doing cardboard, paper and plastic bags, and are going to add plastic bottles.  Yes, we're late to the recycle game, but I regularly did paper and magazines in Tongie. 

This is a very common sight all around us now.  

We were back at the stadium yesterday for a double header... The T Bones won both games.  

Another good crowd, and our team leads the league in attendance. 

I forgot to take my camera this morning on the way to church... I went through farmland, and 

saw several interesting things, including a poor dead coyote at the side of the road. 

How sad I feel for the wild things... and how I miss the coyote's howl here. 

This week will bring the restoring of our water damage (we hope) and 

Keith will be back in the hospital for 2 days to have more fluid 

drawn off his abdomen.  Next Saturday, we 

are having a work party at the old house... and we hope to have it ready to rent soon. 

Lots of pictures coming soon... the gardens are looking beautiful, and 

the tomato plants out there are doing very well. 

We are expecting some severe storms tomorrow... so 

we will see what that brings.  

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday! 

More Damage Than We Thought

Ramona, at the Japanese Redneck... you will identify with this post! 

We had more damage from the water than we thought. 

After not hearing from an adjuster yesterday, I began 

to worry that we would go through the holiday weekend with the carpets that 

were getting smellier, and the humidity in the house that was getting heavier. 

The wet drywall downstairs smelled awful, too. 

So, after working in the old place gardens this morning... 

I called the insurance company. 

I have to say... they were totally responsive, and 

within two hours, a restoration specialty company called me and was on our doorstep in another hour. 

The extent of the affected places grew and grew.  Keith told me (he came home 

from work after they had been here an hour) that when one piece of 

drywall was removed, water came raining down on the workers.  Ugh. 

The lower drywall in the two affected rooms downstairs was removed, because 

moisture had started to wick up them.  The pad has been removed at this point, and the rug rolled back down.  The restoration people will replace the pad and drywall. 

I don't know if you can tell... there is a line of moisture in the doorway, and then around the corner into the closet, which is on the other side of the wall from the washer and dryer.  It turned out the carpet was 

all wet in there, too, and they emptied the closet and took the trim off in the hallway. 

The hallway itself is now stripped of linoleum because they could tell there was moisture under it. 

There are fans everywhere, and big humidifiers.  

I was told on the phone that the increased electric bill will also be part of the insurance settlement. 

These fans will run for approximately four days. 

Tomorrow, someone will come from the restoration company to check on the equipment, and 

take readings on their meters. 

We are blessed by the fact that the temperature right now is 68 degrees... I have the patio door screen open, and the windows open here in the tv room. 

The restoration boss told us that if we had waited past the weekend, we would have had a mold problem for sure. 

This is the first time we have ever made a claim for an insurance settlement... and we are 

stunned at the thoroughness that is being done here. 

Yes, the machines are loud and noisy, and Lilly, who was at the vet today for a trim, was bewildered when she came home... but she will settle down, and Keith and I can cope with all this for a few days.  We have a good spare bedroom, with a comfortable bed in it, and we will be fine. 

Before I contacted the insurance company, I went to the old place and worked in that weedy trellis bed. 

The green you see in the bed closest to the camera is the nasty Bristly Greenbrier, that will tear your hands up   It has been in that bed for four years, and I am always careful in it.  This time... it's going.  I mean GOING.  I'm going to put Roundup on it, so that no one will be hurt in the future.  It's nasty. 

Thorns clear up the stems to the ends of the branches... horrible. 

It has an innocuous little flower on the end... which is so deceptive.  It was growing amongst the weeds. 

However... there were rewards, as well as more work... I am going to have to weed the flower beds again, intensively.  

These are tiny little daylillies, and they are going to come over here to the new house to grow in 

one of the half whiskey barrels.  They are such a pretty color. 

These large darker daylillies are growing behind them. 

We have tomatoes on the volunteer plants in the vegetable beds!

And, if you can see it around the weeds, the volunteer tomato plant in the south flower bed is getting HUGE and a branch has grown out into the yard. 

I could not have had a better morning, it was in the high sixties while I worked, but I was 

careful to keep it to two hours, because of getting so sick on Friday. 

See that tree... or... those trees?  They are coming out tomorrow... but what I really wanted you to see

is the faint purple blossoms of the "dead" buddleia.  Friend Jill told me some of it would come back, and it DID.  I'm going to cut away the dead wood so it can be seen. 

I hope everyone is getting ready to have a safe holiday.  We are treating 

son Jim, his wife Amy, and the four kids to the T Bones on Friday night... they are 

going to have a big fireworks display afterwards.  We're really looking forward to it!