New House Blog: Episode LXXXV - Three C's

In this Episode we revisit the Parents' House, first seen in this exciting, action-packed Episode, then again in this mystery-filled Episode, and also in this thrilling Episode.

Caulking And Painting

I came over to the Parents' House initially to caulk and paint a newly-installed window sill in the master bedroom.  When I arrived, however, I discovered that I would have to completely re-caulk the window before I could caulk and paint the window sill.  This is because someone, for reasons unknown to me, removed some of the window caulk and used a sharp blade to cut through all of the remaining caulk, all the way around the entire window frame.  My dad is sure that the window was not taken out, but I can't think of another reason for cutting all of the caulk around the entire window frame, and I can't think of a reason why the person who cut it would not repair it.

Note the missing caulk, and the cut in the remaining caulk.  Finding this unfinished work annoyed me a bit.  Scraping out the remaining caulk so that I could put in fresh caulk annoyed me a bit more.

This is another section of the same window frame.

Here is the window frame and new window sill after the new caulk has set, and before painting.

And after painting. There's no post-paint picture with the masking and plastic sheeting removed, so you'll just have to imagine how it looks now.





Carpenter Bees

Around these parts we have big, black bees that I have been calling bumble bees for a many years.  Recently, however, I have discovered (in part due to Becky's research, and in part due to a random overheard comment mentioning carpenter bees) that I have been mistaken for many years, and that the all-black bees are carpenter bees, and that bumble bees always have some yellow on them.  While I was at the Parents' House my dad mentioned that he thought there was a bee's nest in a small dead tree stump in their neighbor's yard.  I was intrigued, so he took me to look at said nest, and he showed me the stump and the two circular entry holes where he had seen large, black bees entering said stump.  At the base of said stump there was what appeared to be sawdust.

In the picture you can see, next to the blue arrows, the two round holses in the dead stump.  It turns out that these are two separate carpenter bees nests, and not two entrances to the same nest. Carpenter bees are mostly solitary, and their nests have only one entrance.  They are good pollinators, and the males of the species don't have stingers.  In short, they are our friends.  Sadly, the neighbor didn't see these bees as friends, and he had them forcibly evicted and cut the stump down to the ground.

We also have a carpenter bees nest at our New House, but instead of being located in a dead stump (good luck finding a dead tree stump at our New House), this nest is located in a piece wood that is part of our back yard patio shade.  We have decided to wait until fall before we evict the bees and fill in the hole.  This will allow the bees to pollinate all summer, and the bees' offspring to grow up and  leave the nest and fly away.


Cactus

Once again the time had come to expand the ever-expanding cactus garden.  Over the winter one of our zig zag cactus completely died, and the other just barely clung to life.  The barely-surviving zig zag is showing some signs of new growth, and the dead one is turning into compost.  The dead cactus left a hole in our cactus garden, so we got two to replace it and expand the ever-expanding.

First up is the evilly-named, but not really evil, Devil's Tongue Cactus (ferocactus latispinus). Alternate names include Crow's Claw Cactus and Fishook Cactus.  We chose this one based on its looks and not its name (which we had to look up because the pot was just labelled "cactus").

Next up is the Road Kill Cactus (Opuntia Rubescens). We chose this one based both on its name and on its looks.  It is flat like roadkill, and Becky thinks it looks like ghosts.

Here you can see the new cactus in the broader context of the cactus garden (ever-expanding).  The barely-surviving zig zag is way over on the left, near the rock.




And that, I believe, is that.
     bIsh