MAY 29 UPDATE: A little at a time

I was able to get out to work a little bit more on the house yesterday — I got in a couple of hours of taping and mudding. I wouldn't have been able to do this without the help of a local girl I hired to help watch the kids. She seems to be having a good time with them. And I am really appreciating the help. I don't know why every mother doesn't have a helper like this! It's really saving my sanity to be able to get out and do a little work.

Of course, there's still tons of taping and mudding to do. And there's a lot of drywall yet to hang, too. At least I'm seeing some progress, even if it is snail-speed.

... Sofia, Erik and I went out for a lilac appreciation walk this afternoon. They are in peak bloom! That's later than they have been for a few years -- they were in peak bloom in 2001, for example, right for our wedding, on May 19. This year it was right on for my birthday, May 28. (I feel honored in any case.)

We went out for a birthday supper last night, and we were planning for a round of mini-golf to follow (a birthday tradition -- it's a sport I don't at all mind being bad at) but that was rained out. We'll have to try again some other day. We did enjoy a plate of chocolates from the new restaurant/chocolate shop in town ... wow, were they good! Absolutely divine.

... The latest plague is in full rage: Mosquitoes. Last night as we were driving home, it was as if we were driving through snow, as the headlights lit up the bugs as we drove through a mosquito cloud. Stepping outside in the evening I could hear the high-pitched whine of a million blood-thirsty mosquitoes, buzzing from all sides. I haven't been out enough to get too bit up, and they weren't bad this afternoon when the kids and I were out, as long as we stayed away from the long grass.

We are in the top West Nile Virus county in South Dakota, which is the biggest worry. We didn't worry about such things when I was a kid, when I'd be peppered with mosquito bites all summer long. They looked horrible -- I couldn't help scratching them -- but I didn't worry about getting sick from them! Well, the really bad mosquito time here doesn't last too long. Sometime in June they'll calm down a bit -- though that's when the West Nile cases start showing up.

There is one reason we're all happy when winter comes -- the mosquitoes freeze!

... We are all celebrating: Dave's uncle Walt is coming to help for a few days again! We told Walt he is welcome ANY time. He'll be here on Sunday ... not sure what we'll have him help with. Drywalling and taping and mudding are what we'd be working on otherwise, but we should put his talents to better use. Never fear, we'll come up with something!

Welcome to the world, Briella Melodi!

I'm a proud aunt again! Briella Melodi was born in the wee hours of May 26. She weighed 6 pounds, 4 ounces -- holding her feels like holding nothing at all. My babies were never that little, and of course they are much bigger now, so putting down Erik and picking up little Brie is quite a difference.

I stayed at my sister's when Mari and Doug went to the hospital, watching all five kids for two nights. It was slightly chaotic at all times, but the only really tough part was when Erik and 22-month-old Amara both needed to go to sleep, and I only had one lap. That was tricky. Finally Amara just gave in, or gave me a break, and settled down without much help from me, since Erik was fussing in my other arm!

... We had been home from our trip to Iowa for less than 24 hours when Mari called and said the baby was on its way. A few pictures from that trip:

Erik is attracted to all things that make noise, whether it's the loud vibration a metal shelf makes at the library (sigh) or his daddy's banjo. He also proved himself a natural on his sister's bongo drums.

Sofia's attention span is getting long enough to sit through a fairly lengthy book. She had several readers on our Iowa trip, including Great Aunt Mary. (Or just Aunt Mary, since we all know she's great and don't need to focus on it.)

... The weather this evening was just glorious! Even a few mosquitoes to swat couldn't ruin the evening. Dave did the real work in the garden, but Erik and Sofia both needed tools as well. Sofia hoed all sorts of dried grass into a pile, and even Erik kept working with that shovel from his perch on the stroller!

MAY 16 UPDATE: May, sweet May

It's nearly lilac time! This photo was taken at Living History Farms in Iowa a few years ago.

Oh, I do so love this time of year! Not just because it's awash with birthdays (mine, Dave's, Dave's mom's, Dave's grandpa's) and our anniversary, though that it is nice to have so many excuses for cake and company. There are so many things to lift my mood in May -- the weather is nicer, flowers are blooming, we leave coats in the car most of the time, and it's light late into the evening so we have time to take it all in.

Of course, with all these new things to enjoy comes less time to enjoy them, as there is a lot of work to do once the weather warms. The garden cries out for attention, and all sorts of little projects that I could put off without a guilty conscience because the weather was too poor to do them are starting to niggle again. Oh, and the house still isn't finished. There's that.

At least we've been getting some things accomplished lately. Dave's mom, Mary, was here for a week, and I got all sorts of taping and mudding done while I had full-time childcare! Check out my progress:

The utility room ...

... Sofia and Erik's room ...

... the west bedroom upstairs ...

... and the east bedroom upstairs. As well as a few closets and the upstairs hallway. It was so fun to get something accomplished! Thanks, Mary!

But this looks like more than it is, since only the first coat is done on all of this. I got out today to do a second coat in two closets, and I'm prepared to label them ready for sanding, even if the books say three and even four coats are needed. No one is going to examine the closets that closely.

But the rest of the rooms are going to take a lot of work yet before they are ready for painting. And that's of the places where the drywall is hung. The kitchen, bathroom, our bedroom downstairs, and the dining room still need drywall. (Though the dining room hardly counts, since there's not much wall at all in it -- the high part of the room was already finished by the Prairie Builders crew.)

The drywall in the living room is nearly finished, including the insulation in the ceiling, which was a pain -- Dave used what he had left from his floor insulating, meaning it was way too thick and had to be cut down to fit. But I think it will be worth it in keeping peace and harmony in the family when heavy-footed teenagers start living upstairs. We'll also put insulation above the kitchen ceiling, but not in the bathroom ceiling or the ceiling to Sofi and Erik's room, as they are for the most part under closets. Our bedroom ceiling will be under the hallway ... might be a good idea to insulate that, too.

... My tin ceiling idea is getting shot down from all sides, but I am still doggedly hanging on to it for the kitchen ceiling. I just think it would be one of those features that will add an authentic touch and be worth the effort in the long run. I've got a little more negotiating to do, though.

... The breaker box is back in working order! We had an electrician do the work this time. Not fun to have all the work that Dave and Don did go to waste, but now it's done and we don't have to worry about it anymore.

... We got a bike trailer! My friend Sheila's neighbor was getting rid of one, and we benefited from their garage cleaning. We took it out for a spin the other night, and it worked quite well -- Sofia really seemed to enjoy it, and Erik fell asleep. It's not hard to pull, Dave says, except that going into the wind he's got a sail behind him. We've yet to try it on my bike. (Biking weather -- yet another reason to love May!)

MAY 3 UPDATE: Lightning

So, we've had floods. Blizzards. Now ... a lightning strike. Kinda makes you feel like re-reading Exodus to check the weather report for the summer. (Will the plague of locusts or frogs come first, do you suppose?)

The story: Wednesday night, I was getting Erik to sleep and saw some lightning start out the window. I remembered the computer was plugged in, and I thought about going to unplug it, but I thought I'd let Erik finish nursing first -- the lightning seemed far off yet, and I couldn't hear any thunder.

I took Erik upstairs a few minutes later and heard one rumble of thunder. Uh-oh, I thought, and hurried back down to unplug my computer. I unplugged it, then shut it down (since the battery would last a while), then headed back upstairs to help get Sofi to sleep. I hadn't even sat down when I heard a BOOM and saw a flash -- I gasped, and then all was quiet for a moment, and then Sofi whimpered and started to cry. I stayed with her (Erik slept through the whole thing) while Dave went to assess the damage.

The lights in Sofi's room were still on, but the flash had been the bulb in the hallway burning out. That circuit's fuse had blown, as had another -- the top two in the box. Mom had heard a bit of thunder but hadn't thought to unplug her computer, or the DSL router or wireless router (which were all in a different part of the house from my computer). Her computer and the DSL router were shot -- no flicker of life whatsoever. The surge protector was shot, too -- it's apparently no match for lightning. The TV got some level of charge, and now has a funny-colored line through the top half of the screen.

But that was all in this old farmhouse. The new house was affected, too, though at first we didn't realize it. Dave went out and saw that every circuit that had been on was tripped, but he flipped them back again and they seemed to work OK. But he was working with a flashlight that night. The next day, he went out and checked again. Then he saw the damage to the stovepipe.

Around nearly every screw on the stovepipe is a blackened ring like this one. Some of the screw holes were made bigger, so that the screws are just sitting loose in the holes.

Then he saw the damage to the tile below the stove.

The charge had followed along the metal trim around the base of the tile and blew out at the corner, damaging the tile.

This was all bad enough. We are hopeful that we won't have to replace the stovepipe, but we don't know for sure yet. Hopefully all we'll have to do is get bigger screws to fill the screw holes.

Then, this weekend, we found problems in the wiring.

The yellow wire in this photo had been held in place by those little white staples; the power of the charge yanked it out of those staples and blew out the back of the junction box.

Three junction boxes were damaged, but this was the worst one.

Don came up with a hypothesis that seemed plausible to the rest of us: The electricity came into the house through the wires, through those three junction boxes, then arced over from the last junction box, with its wires exposed ...

... over to the metal scaffolding. You can see how close the scaffolding was to the junction box in the picture below.

You can tell the scaffolding got some current because of the scorch marks on it:

And from the scaffolding, the arc must have jumped over to the chimney, and the metal around the tile. The stove, by the way, has no damage at all, even though it is mostly iron and could have carried a charge, too.

All of this damage is a pain, but it can be fixed. We were pretty sure the damage was contained to those junction boxes, since the next box on that circuit had no damage (the scaffolding, serving as an indoor lightning rod, was between the two). Which is good, since if it had traveled much farther on that circuit, the wires are already covered with drywall.

Unfortunately, Dave and Don hadn't yet taken the cover off the electrical box. What they found was discouraging:

And there were some charred wire pieces that I didn't bother to get a picture of.

We do have insurance on the house already, but we have a $1,000 deductible -- we probably won't hit that figure, unless the fixing the wiring in the box is more expensive than we imagine, or the stovepipe and chimney both have more damage than we can see at this point. (Mom and Dad, with the old farmhouse, are on a different policy, with a $500 deductible, and I don't think we'll hit that figure either.) I do count my blessings that I got my computer unplugged, as that, with all my software on it, as well as all my, Mom's, and Betty's Etsy pictures on it, along with all sorts of other files, would have been thousands of dollars (and hours) lost. (I'm very motivated to find an online storage system now!)

Dave was holding up quite well with all this until he saw that breaker box. Then he decided he'd had enough of the house for the day and headed out to fix fence for a while. The next step was calling an electrician, anyway, and there was no point in hanging more drywall in case the electrictian wanted to check some more wiring.

... So we've been having a discussion about lightning rods. Gary of Prairie Builders said no one puts them on new houses anymore. Dale, our neighbor, stopped by after church and said his farm house was hit by lightning when he was a kid ("Just like a bomb going off," he said) and that house did have lightning rods. He questions their effectiveness.

Online sources are contradictory. Some say they help; others say they don't. The lightning rods on the farmhouse were taken off last summer when the roof was reshingled; I do know that our phones have been knocked out twice in my memory from lightning strikes, even with the lightning rods, though that could have traveled on the lines from some distance, I suppose.

I have half a mind to try to do a freelance article about lightning and call some experts. Then the other half of my mind (which has a voice a lot like Dave's, oddly) tells me we've got enough to do already.