Regular readers of the New House Blog will have noticed that for the past couple of years we have only posted one Episode per year. It it not because we are finished with, or have lost interest in, the New House Blog; rather, it is because the pace of projects has slowed considerably in the past couple of years. We have some regular projects we attend to, such as spring planting, and cute cat maintenance, but larger projects are fewer and farther between. Our Texas House is in really good shape, and things rarely break. But rarely is not never, and in this Episode we will look at four such breakages, see some wildlife, glimpse some interesting automobiles, and maybe admire a cute cat or two. Note that these are being presented in non-chronological order.
Breakage #1
Recall in this Episode that we installed a new hose reel near our garage (to replace the original, wall-mounted hose reel that was broken by the weight of said hose), then proceeded to reel it with the heaviest garden hose we could find. What could go wrong?
It turns out that this (see photo) could go wrong. After a couple of years of good service, our poor, overworked hose reel collapsed.
It seems that our poor, overladen hose reel just could not take the strain anymore, and it sheered off at the pivot point. At this point we had options - get an identical hose reel and replace the hose with something lighter (and more prone to kinking); get a better hose reel.
We went with the second option: we got a heavy-duty hose reel, made from mostly aluminium, or as some say, aluminum. Not only is it sturdier, but the reeling action is much smoother.
Snow
It seems to be not a strange thing to get at least one small snowfall sometime in the winter. This past winter we got (if I recall correctly) exactly one small snowfall.
It didn't exactly produce snow blindness, but I appreciate it just the same.
Truck Painting
Yes, we got Becky's truck painted this year.
Here you see the the truck in its former white paint, at the very out-of-the-way body shop (cash only) that didn't even have a proper street address.
Despite the ordeal of trying to find the place, they did good work, and you see here the result. The official Ford colour code is - LJ, which Ford calls Darkened Bronze. Becky calls it Dark Chocolate. Note also the new seat covers, provided by a thoughtful husband.
Breakage #2
My 2018 Tiguan, Tig for short, has good enough fuel economy, but its windshield washer economy is terrible. It just drinks the stuff up, like cats slurp up milk in cartoons. We can easily go through a few gallons of the stuff every year. One day Tig stopped consuming washer fluid, and I knew something was wrong.
My 2018 Tiguan, Tig for short, has good enough fuel economy, but its windshield washer economy is terrible. It just drinks the stuff up, like cats slurp up milk in cartoons. We can easily go through a few gallons of the stuff every year. One day Tig stopped consuming washer fluid, and I knew something was wrong.
It turns out Tig's washer fluid pump had failed. It is located at the back of the front passenger wheel well. Here you can see said wheel well after I removed the wheel and inner fender liner (and about 1700 little screws).
After putting everything (including the 1700 fender liner screws) together again, Tig was consuming washer fluid again. I have seemed to notice an improvement in Tig's washer fluid economy, so it could be that the old pump was at fault for Tig's heavy consumption of washer fluid.
Cute Cat Interlude #1
Twylla (left) and Oscar (right) at the vet. The did not want to come out of their carriers, but they behaved very well.
Daisy, who never leaves the upstairs, actually came downstairs one evening, possibly after we had been out of town for several days. I don't remember the actual timing. This was quite unusual for her, so I wanted to be sure to document the occurrence.
Wildlife #1
You will recall that in the previous Episode, and in this Episode, we recorded the presence of a coral snake (presumably a different snake in each Episode).
You will recall that in the previous Episode, and in this Episode, we recorded the presence of a coral snake (presumably a different snake in each Episode).
Recently, relative to the posting of this Episode, we spotted a juvenile coral snake on our driveway. You can read all about coral snakes, and potentially helpful rhymes on the interwebs.
After he realized he had been spotted, this shy creature fled into the safety of the river rocks on one side of our front door. We chose not to pursue, or try to capture him.
We spotted this rhino less than an hour from our Texas House.
Plant Updates
Our papaya experiment continued last year, and it continues to this day.
Our papaya experiment continued last year, and it continues to this day.
These were doing so well, and getting so big that we moved them from the white pots into the ground. They throve (thrived?) all during the spring, hot summer, hot autumn, and right up until the short time of freezing temperatures in the winter.
Despite Becky putting hot water bottles by the roots overnight, and our covering them with insulating materials, they succumbed. But the experiment continues, with new seedlings growing right now in pots. No pictures of them are included here.
The sunburst cactus that we brought from our California House was throve (thrave?) for a while after being transplanted, but it disappeared mysteriously one day, so we were without any sunburst for a while. But we recently spotted a couple at a local nursery deparment, and we brought them home and planted them in an unoccupied corner of the garden. They survived the freezes of winter, and there is new growth.
One tree that did not survive the freezes was our blenheim apricot (Prunus Armeniaca 'Blenheim') tree. It was never a strong tree, and it did not grow nearly as much as the two plum trees that we planted at the same time. We replaced it with this peach tree of unknown variety. It has new growth since planting.
This is said lemonade blueberry, shortly before being divided roughly in half and consumed by us. So far, it is not looking promising for harvesting any fruit in AD 2025.
This little agave shoot is grouwing completely underneath, and in the midst of, one of our rosemary plants.
This young agave grew from a shoot of its large parent agave, and it was thriving in its original spot - until a stupid deer (presumably) chewed on it and pulled it up out of the ground. Fortunately, we discovered it soon after, and we were able to re-plant it in a spot that should be safer from the stupid deer. The roots are mostly intact, and so far it is still alive after a couple of weeks.
Breakage #3
Rain Gutters
We have rain gutters on our Texas House, and one area in front, right beneath some trees, kept getting clogged with leaves and debris, which meant one of us had to clean it once or twice a year (guess which one of us).
We have rain gutters on our Texas House, and one area in front, right beneath some trees, kept getting clogged with leaves and debris, which meant one of us had to clean it once or twice a year (guess which one of us).
Interesting Vehicles
Here are two interesting vehicles spotted at what used to be the world's largest convenience store.
I believe this is Jim Jet Neilson's jet car, with a new paint job. His name is clearly visible near the cockpit. This was spotted at the local Harley Davidson dealership.
Wildlife #2
Grossness alert: There are two highly blurred pictures of real, dead animals ahead. Proceed at your own risk. If you don't want to see, or read about them, scroll down past this section.
One day we spotted this dead, headless chicken in front of our house. There was no blood, and no obvious clues. We tried to seal it up in garbage bags, but the smell got out anyway.
A few days later, we discovered this dead, headless chicken in the front yard. As with the first, there was no blood, and no obvious clues. Neighbors say that racoons are known to leave headless chickens around, and we have seen those critters in the area, and cleaned up after them on our roof.
This is a large stick insect on the anti-deer cage around one of our plum trees. Stick insects prey on vermin, so we leave them alone and let them do their thing.
And finally, FINALLY, I was able to see a Texas gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) in person, live, and not on video or from a photo!!! Oh happy day!! Anyway, this dude was crossing our front yard as I watered a tree one night in August, 2024.
Wait!! Another fox sighting??!! Yessss!!! For a few weeks we had occasional sightings of single foxes, and sometimes two or three gray foxes at the same time, wandering through our back yard.
If you look closely you can see a gray fox in the center of some bushes in our back yard. One day before work I spotted four of them frolicking in one of our backyard trees. They were going up and down the tree and playing in the tree. Sadly, I didn't have time to take a good photo on that occasion. We have not seen the foxes yet this year.
Cute Cat Interlude #2
We now come to the final breakage of this Episode. One fine day not too long ago, I noticed something amiss as I entered the upstairs bathroom.
Well, there's our problem. The PVC pipe and 2x4 immediately behind the sheetrock prevented the installer from using a full-sized junction box, so he sawed off the back end of a full-sized junction box, and he used just the blue plastic ring to support the heavy light fixture. Said blue plastic ring eventually broke from the strain.
He should have used one of these nifty metal pancake boxes. Yes, that is what they are really called. Thanks to electrician brother Mike for directing me to the right part.
Here you see everything reconnected and reinstalled. The all metal pancake box is a definite improvement. Yes, we checked the other light fixture in this bathroom, and it was installed correctly, using the correct junction box.
Further investigation revealed that the installer simply cut the back off of a regular blue plastic junction box as a shortcut. Possibly he didn't have the proper pancake box handy, or possibly he thought this would be good enough. This is the second light fixture to break because the installer used the wrong parts (see this Episode for the first such incident). How many more junction box time bombs are waiting in our Texas House?
Solar Eclipse
We witnessed a solar eclipse in 2024. Unfortunately, our Texas House is located as close as it could be path of totality without being inside of it, so we got to see most of the eclipse, but not all of it.
Of course, the clouds didn't help. This is what we saw at our Texas House. We were able to safely look straight up at the eclipse area of the sky without eye protection.
This is about as dark as it got at our Texas House. You will notice that the automated garage lighting turned itself on. You will also notice that this was before Becky's truck was painted.
New Beaver
Behold the new, updated Buc-ee's beaver! He is much slimmer, more proportionally like a real beaver, better looking, and his clothing has distinctive colouring.
Fire!
We close out this Episode with a fire from this past winter.
We close out this Episode with a fire from this past winter.
We had several fires this past winter, and we used up more wood than in past years. However, I am mostly confident that our current wood pile will see us through at least one more cold season.
And that, as they say, is
bIsh
