New House Blog: Episode V - V For Ventdetta

I know, I know - it's a lousy play on words.  And for those of you who don't understand, don't worry about it - you're not missing much.

On to the venting.  But first, a brief word about formatting.  This blog is composed and previewed in the Chrome browser.  I make sure it looks ok before I publish.  There have been reports, however, that when viewing this blog in the IE browser the formatting is a bit off.  I apologize for this, and my only advice is to use a different browser.  And now a look at our new keys.  With new locks come new keys.  Below is a picture of our new house keys.  Becky is especially proud of her new MonKey.

Venting

Venting.  The venting we're talking about is foundation venting.  Our new old house came with some damaged foundation vent screens, and we have replaced them.  One of them was in the garage, and thus we had access to both sides of it, and one was in another part of the house where we have access only to the outside of it (unless we want to crawl around under the house).  Below you can view some before and after pictures.

The original garage vent, seen from the outside

The new garage vent, seen from the outside

The new garage vent, seen from the inside

The other new vent, seen from the outside

We used a silicone caulk to seal up and secure the vents to the house.  I guess "seal up" is a relative term here, as air can (and sometimes does) pass through the screen material, but varmints will have a harder go of it.

Vendetta?

For the edification of those who have requested and/or complained about not seeing a picture of a black widow in the previous post, we here present a new encounter with a latrodectus mactans, and a picture of said critter only seconds before her swift demise.

As on the previous occasion when the spider appeared, Becky was not with me at our house (Do you notice that they only appear when she is not there?), but our friend, Dave, was there helping with some of the work.  Right by the front door I discovered some wood planks partly buried in the dirt (always a good idea to leave wood planks in the dirt right by wood siding in an area where termites are pandemic), and I commenced with removing said wood planks.  Upon turning one of the wood planks over on the paved walkway, a 'widow appeared.  She was obviously confused by the sudden exposure to direct sunlight and she frantically scurried to and fro in a futile attempt to find shade and darkness.  Immediately I sprang into action and delayed the creature's demise for a few seconds while I whipped out my handy phone and took a couple of pictures (isn't it odd how we no longer consider it strange to take pictures with our phones?).  That was enough of a stay of execution for the fiend, so I quickly and forcefully stepped on it and ended its search for the shade.

l. mactans shortly before death

Keep in mind that this 'widow was smaller than the one that foolishly attempted to intimidate me by being on my neck.  Apparently she had not heard of the death of her evil queen, for she made no attempts to wreak vengeance on me.

Coming soon: the glorious tale of the valorous battle with the tree stump, and daring deeds of the team of three (plus one acting teammate).

Fight we all, for honor and
  bIsh