Imagine then if you can that after a quick dinner and a bottle of wine, all I really wanted to do was jump in the shower and go to sleep.  Except when I turned on the hot water in the new bathroom, the water was barely luke warm. Ditto for the kitchen, the guest bathroom and the downstairs bathroom. I sucked it up to “old” pipes and figured we would deal with it in the morning. (Except most of the pipes have been replaced and therefore not “old.” )

In the morning, Lynn and I went down to the scary basement where we proceeded to stand and stare at the old water heater. Yep, there it stood.  Ironically, this is the first hot water heater we’ve ever had in any home we’ve lived in (not that it made an iota of difference in this situation) but the fact that there was this gizmo that made hot water like magic was impressive considering our history of being hot water heater-less for over 30 years.

After a suitable amount of time staring at the darn thing, we went upstairs and I started to call plumbers. Plumber #1 was on vacation. Plumber #2 was retired. Plumber #3 had to go to a wedding and a funeral in the same day and didn’t think he could swing by the house.  I called our contractor who said he would come out and “take a look,” but he had to cook a birthday/graduation meal for like 300 people (well maybe 30 but you get the idea) so could we just shower cold until Monday?

Since the sole purpose of visiting the Red House that weekend was to deal with all the  weeds and the vines that were growing around and up the side of the house (meaning we had to cut them down), in order to prepare for the siding installation, we figured lots of hot sweaty work outdoors would be just fine when faced with our cold shower conundrum.

We had lots of vines growing up one side of the house in particular that had the Red House been a stone cottage somewhere in the south of France or even Tuscany it might have been particularly pretty but here it just didn’t work.

So we pulled and we tugged until we noticed a big part of the vines had attached themselves semi-permanently to a heavy black electrical wire going out to the street. Deciding that we didn’t want to risk electrocution or take down the power lines for the entire neighborhood with a too hard tug to try and dislodge the feisty plant, we left it as is.

Then we moved onto the weeds. There were weeds that were nearly as tall as I am (that would be 5 foot 8 inches). Some were easy to simply pull out of the ground, others needed to be cut down with a knife and some really stubborn ones needed the weed wacker.

This was an incredible amount of hard work on a really HOT DAY which is exactly what we needed given our hot water situation.  It took us about 5 hours (who says Upstate isn’t fun?) but we did get it all done and while I did take a cold shower, I will admit that I washed my hair in the sink (less traumatic that way.)

Meanwhile a quick garden update. The tomatoes are bountiful this year, but the zucchini is just revealing blossoms no fruit.  But I’m excited we have our first ever acorn squash! I haven’t seen the evil bunny in a while, so I’m hoping he/she has left the property!

TEN DAYS LATER

We arrived Wednesday night (8:30! No traffic!) to find our new hot water heater installed AND WORKING.  Look how pretty it looks!

Yes, the water is sufficiently hot although it does take a while to get up to the second floor from the basement. (I’m not complaining.)

In the morning, the first of many boxes of siding and insulation and wood appeared in our driveway – the start of a very difficult and large job.

So far so good. The siding is nearly a perfect match for the exact color red we wanted. After all, the Red House couldn’t suddenly become yellow or green or grey!

Stay tuned.

Ironically, this was the first long weekend since we bought the Red House (yes, that would be seven years) that both kids and their respective girlfriend and boyfriend were coming to visit. That means that when they arrived right around cocktail hour when we should have been toasting the start of the weekend, we were actually scrambling for flip flops and rubber boots for everyone to wear and a wet/dry shop vac we could plug in without getting someone electrocuted. Did I mention we needed at least 3 brooms so we could take turns pushing the rising water towards the sump pump that while going was simply not keeping up with the insane amount of water?

After a good hour of trying to keep up with the water flow, we decided to stop and luckily  at this point the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I was able to show them the garden and the FINALLY FINISHED MASTER BATHROOM.

We have lots of gorgeous looking lettuce.

And the biggest sage leaves I’ve ever seen.

Coupled with so many beautiful flowers…

As well as celery and some very green tomatoes.

Meanwhile after the garden tour, they got to see the newly finished master shower and the dining room table Lynn and I put together the night before although the dining room itself has quite a ways to go.

We picked up those green chairs at a garage sale on Long Island ($15 for 4!) and like the color so much that when we buy “real” dining room chairs they obviously have to be this exact shade of green. (I know, I know, this will be difficult but the “tastemaker,” aka Lynn says it is possible.)

But back to the flood. Even though the Red House sits fairly high up on a hill and when the bamboo dies in the winter we actually have a pretty view of the houses in the valley below. The problem is the house is also directly in the path of nearly 4 acres of sloping fields. So when the water runs down the field, we get a flooded basement and this time a “lake” on the side of the house.  Looking at all the water, we suddenly remembered a pipe that had been buried in the grass that we decided to dig out – thinking we could channel some of the water to the pipe.

This resulted in a ditch being dug the length of the property and more water than I’ve seen in our backyard. Luckily, the guys helped dig out the ditch which was a dirty muddy mess. (The girls decided to put up a volleyball net since after all it was 4th of July weekend!)

The theory was if we could divert the water away from the house, we hoped we wouldn’t be spending another 4th of July making sandbags. While we did manage to eventually stop the flow of water, we were worried that there weren’t enough sandbags around the new furnace and hot water heater. So after the kids left, I ordered sandbags online and we drove down to the Big Box store to buy sand. This time however, we carried the 50 lb bags of sand into the basement and made the sandbags there instead of stupidly making them in the driveway.

We also tried to shore up the basement window by putting a large metal window well in front of it but then got side tracked cutting down all the beautiful vines that were growing on the side of the house. (We rarely go on that side of the house so weren’t even aware how incredibly tall they had grown!)

Meanwhile, we finally have guest bedrooms for people to stay in, comfortably I think, as well as two finished bathrooms with one to go. Lynn also put back the railing leading up to the second floor and even spray painted the hardware! Whoops, this close-up reveals a spot he missed.

I also did some baking (blueberry muffins and zucchini bread) which as everyone knows I loathe (not the goodies but the act itself). And put out lots of good cheese from Jones Family Farm for everyone to nosh on before dinner.

Meanwhile, we started to clean out the TV room, dragging boxes of stuff up to the attic on the hottest day of the year (of course) a few weeks ago, but are still left with the church pews that we thought we could use in the kitchen but that didn’t quite work. (Anyone who wants them kindly message me – they’re free!)

Meanwhile, all this bad weather at the Red House has made us a bit paranoid about rain which is annoying only in that rain has never deterred us from doing any activity or road trip in the past.

Since we are still waiting for a date for our siding to be installed, we probably need to spend a day or two outside patching up holes in the foundation and maybe learning how to re-grade the slope around the house. Why do I already know this absolutely won’t be any fun at all. At least if we are working outside, I can look at the sumac that’s slowly turning red, just in time to (hopefully) match the new Red House siding.

Happy Summer!

1. Sleeping
2. Making ice cream with my new ice cream maker.
3. Sleeping some more.
4. Having a pitcher of Mojitos.
5. Grilling outside rather than trying to “cook” inside.
6. Sleeping.
7. Going to a lake (any lake).
8. Going to a winery (any winery).
9. Sleeping some more.
10. Weeding the garden.

This, however is what I did instead.  I spent a lot of time in a cold smelly basement trying to figure out with Lynn where exactly all the water was seeping in from.

See the weekend after we got our hot water back, we had a serious rain storm.  So severe in fact, that the water started pouring in from the walls like one of those crazy fountains you sometimes see in Italy (but minus the cute little angels or quirky gargoyles). The water simply shot forth from every nook and cranny, small fracture in the cement or hole in the foundation that wasn’t visible to even corrected eyesight.

Then there was the floor.  We saw water leaking not only from the walls but pouring in from the floor, too. We knew we were in big big trouble. As it kept raining, the water kept pouring in; I put on a pair of boots and grabbed a couple of buckets. Lynn grabbed a broom, and we tried to capture the water – first with the buckets, then with the broom pushing the water into the sump pump.  This took us nearly 2.5 hours when finally it stopped raining and the water stopped coming in.

The next morning we got up early (the day we were supposed to tackle #7 on my list (that would be going to a lake, any lake) and instead went to the big box hardware store to try and buy cement or something that we could use to shore up not only the walls but the foundation, too.  Problem was that the big box store RAN OUT OF ANYTHING that you could use to do such a task because apparently everyone else in the county I’m currently residing in had the same exact problem.

We got in the car and kept driving until we found a mom and pop store that had the last two buckets of “leak stopper” cement and a couple of brushes.  Oh yeah, we bought extra brushes, masks and a really big container of stuff you wipe on the walls after you’ve patched all the visible holes.

We also wanted to buy some work lights since we had none (which the big box store had) and sand bags (which they didn’t have.)  So, I ended up ordering the sandbags online and had them sent Fedex, then picked up some play sand that the big box store had in stock.

Meanwhile, it hadn’t rained in nearly 24 hours so we decided to try and do some patching. Let’s just say it was an experience, and when we were finished nearly 12 hours later, I SIMPLY TOOK OFF MY CLOTHES IN THE LIVING ROOM AND THREW THEM AWAY. This is what the basement (patched and supposedly waterproofed) then looked like.

Problem was the floor was still wet and actually with the mess we made trying to stop up all the holes and waterproof the walls, there was more paint on the floor than on the walls. This proved to be a good thing.  Why? Because suddenly we had a little river of paint that was running where it always collected (under the staircase) and hence, we were able to detect a few leaks in the corners that we had missed.

Even though the smell of all this surely cancer-causing stuff was making me sick, I was actually thinking about food.  What I had wanted to make (peas from the garden with gnocchi) was not to be because this little guy ate all my peas!

I still, however, had all the scapes I had cut from the garlic a few days prior, and decided to make a scape pesto.

Now, while the scape pesto looked gorgeous, when I tasted it, it was vile.  I mean, really garlicky and bitter.  I did something I never ever do.  I actually threw the entire batch out.  Yet, now that I’m looking at the consistency, kind of like the cement we had been using to patch the basement, I wondered if perhaps it could have been used for that instead!

I did, however, leave just a tiny smidgen of scape pesto on the food processor blade (to give it a slight garlic flavor), went out to the garden to pick some fresh basil, and made “real” pesto that I then tossed with some linguine instead.

And then I went to sleep! (At least I’m doing some of the things I wanted to do on my list!)

The next morning it was around 120 degrees, okay it was really 86 degrees, but the humidity was right up there and I was thinking if I had to do a still-life of what my summer should look like it would resemble this:

I wanted a pitcher of Mojitos, buffalo chicken wings, and crunchy celery sticks with blue cheese. And geez, yes, I was able to make all of these good things although I did substitute blue cheese for Roquefort since that’s what was on sale at the supermarket.

I also wanted ice cream.  Meaning I wanted to make my own.  See, we have a really great Goodwill store in the town next to ours (that’s the town with the only supermarket, too!) and the last time I was there I picked up not just an “ice cream maker” but a La Glaciere for a mere $4.50!

Yes, I did read the article that was floating around recently about how much the CEO of Goodwill makes (millions) versus how much he pays his disabled workers (22 cents an hour) but the fact is if I didn’t buy the La Glaciere someone else would have beaten me to it. So I did and I brought it home and washed it out and realized I had nothing to make ice cream with (ingredient-wise) but I did have store-bought vanilla ice cream, walnuts and a jar of hot fudge (hidden between the rum and the hot wing sauce in the picture.)

But first we had to make the sandbags. Now, if you’ll remember I paid extra to have them sent Fedex, so they would arrive in two days.  And while they did arrive in two days, in our town you have to go down to the post office to pick up any Fedex packages!  I didn’t ask why this was, I was just glad the post office was actually open, and that I was able to get my box of sandbags and take them home.  Once home we attempted to cut the bags of play sand open and dump them into the white bags.  Now play sand is for kids, right?  What would possess any manufacturer to put that much sand in a bag (50 lbs) so that mom or dad could easily break their backs trying to transform an old plastic tub or baby swimming pool into a sandlot for junior?  Really, I never knew these bags would be so frigging heavy!

Anyway, we managed to not spill half as much sand on the driveway as I thought we would, but poor Lynn, he’s a really strong guy but was just struggling with the weight of this sand.  We eventually filled all the bags and then had to carry them down into the basement.

Lynn managed to carry two at a time, I was struggling carrying one. We laid them flat, like sausages, trying to make a barrier in front of the furnace, hoping that if we get 3-4 inches or more of water in the basement again, at least the furnace will be protected.  I don’t know if this will work out not, but at this point I was running out of ideas and it was the only thing I could think of.

So back to the list.

#1,3,6,9 – We did sleep a lot. (Fitfully however, because of the day and night noise of all the county trucks going past our house carrying large loads of rocks that they were dumping in the creek north of us to try and stop the flow of water onto people’s properties.)

#4 – We did have a pitcher of Mojitos (and a couple of pitchers of vodka martinis (no vermouth!) too.

#5 – We did grill (mostly steak and the occasional hamburger).

# 7 – We did get to a lake (twice).

#10 – We did attempt to weed the garden but said screw it, there are too many weeds and it’s just too damn hot.

So, while I didn’t get to try out my new ice cream maker, I did learn how to make sandbags. And yes, gussied up store-bought ice cream with fresh strawberries, hot fudge sauce and walnuts was the perfect sweet ending to yet another Red House “adventure.”