We did two road trips this summer. The first was to Cleveland, Chicago, Ann Arbor and Jordan, Ontario. Since I LOVE TO DRIVE, road tripping is a great way to see the USA without the added expense of airfare. It’s also amazing that we rarely run out of things to say to each other (yes, even after 39 years). Granted, we do occasionally have long stretches of silence, blasting the radio when warranted, but mostly we talk about stuff we’ve just seen, are going to see, and most importantly what we are going to eat!

Since we have adopted the motto that you are never ever too old to have fun, one of the first things we did on our first stop is play pinball at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

And yes, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones are the greatest rock band that ever existed.

We also went to see a Frank Gehry building at Case Western University in Cleveland, and when we were snapping a few photographs, a professor-type walked by us and said hello. Perhaps he was just being friendly or maybe he was actually impressed that we knew this building was architecturally significant.

When we got to Chicago, we took the Architectural Foundation’s River Cruise and even though the weather was really crappy and all my pictures came out really dark, we saw lots of interesting buildings and I don’t know, you just feel a little bit smarter afterwards with a tour guide who bombards you with a whole bunch of history and fun facts.

I also paid a visit to my Uncle John who lives outside the city and he gave me two very special gifts. The first was a rolling pin that belonged to his grandmother, so my great-grandmother. We decided to hang it in the kitchen right above the sink as an objet d’art. I think it looks quite pretty there.The second gift he gave me was a painting I had always coveted. It was a simple oil painting of a lemon tree he did when he was a teenager. I remember it hanging in my grandmother’s house and when I asked him if I could have it, he simply said, “it belongs to you.” I was very touched.

While we were in Chicago, we did a quick detour up to Racine, Wisconsin. Why Racine you might ask? Well, see, if you are a HUGE Frank Lloyd Wright buff like Lynn is, and you had studied his work, notably the SC Johnson Wax building in Racine, and you were given the opportunity to visit it, well that’s what you do. Unfortunately, we were only allowed to take pictures outside the building since the structure is still used today (housing the accounting department if I remember correctly). I don’t have a degree in architecture but all I can say when I walked inside the space was WOW, WOW, WOW.

While traveling this summer, we also had the opportunity to see what chefs outside of New York City and State are doing. I know for “real” New Yorker’s this is mind-boggling that there are even restaurants worthy outside of NYC but the fact is there are amazing chefs doing lots of interesting things all across the country.

Frozen and shaved foie gras? Yes, please.

An endive and green leaf salad with a poached egg on top of a crispy “potato basket?” Yummy.

What about a thick cut of house-cured salmon with purple potato pancakes, Greek yogurt with salmon roe AND caviar? Yes, pretty please!

Hungry yet?

Did I mention the haddock we had one night, the octopus, and the cheese plate with balsamic marinated strawberries?

Okay, in fairness we split almost all of these dishes and usually only order one entree. Plus even if the restaurant is a half hour from where we are staying, we never take a cab, preferring to walk to and from the establishment.

Our second (albeit shorter) road trip started in Vermont and took us to Quebec City and Ottawa.  There, too, we ate and walked and walked and ate some more. It was all really good.

We saw some cool art installations, the famous Chateau Frontenac, and lots of buildings and courtyards that reminded me of being in Europe. Perhaps that’s why I love Canada so much!

Dare I mention the donuts that are made to order at a restaurant in Ottawa?

Or the pastries you can get at the Byward Market, also in Ottawa?

Remember we are STILL WALKING and even though I took a picture of the pastries, I DID NOT PURCHASE A SINGLE ONE.

Obviously we love to travel and eat! But let’s get back to the Red House.

The first order of business this summer was to make the house seem like a home. We ordered some new furniture and tried to incorporate the old furniture and miscellaneous items we had at our house on Long Island. This included a knock-off Achille Castiglioni Arco lamp that took us nearly 5 hours (I kid not) to figure out how to put back together. It had been lying on the floor in the den for over two years and Lynn simply couldn’t remember how to put the shade on. When we finally figured it out and plugged it in, it sparked and blew out the power. (Our daughter Rachel told me she used to call this lamp the “Alien Hairdryer” so perhaps it was apropos for the fixture to blow the fuses.)

We tried a new bulb. Same problem. We took out the electrical thingy part and took the suspect looking piece to the Big Box Store where we were lucky enough to find a retired electrician who worked there. When we handed him the part, he looked at it for quite some time and then said, “Well, gee, these two metal pieces are never, ever supposed  to touch.” He bent the metal pieces back away from each other, we went home, put the electrical thingy back in the light, and it worked for about 2 seconds (no sparks either) but then fizzled.

In the meantime, it is just an outstanding copy cat light fixture that looks good until Lynn figures out how to replace the entire electrical thingy piece inside. (I say to him, Good Luck! And please don’t electrocute yourself!)

Besides the light, we also had two shag rugs that cost us an arm and a leg and half a torso, too, that we bought nearly two decades ago but didn’t want to get rid of. Problem was they were really dirty. So, we got out the metal sawhorses that Lynn uses to paint things on from the garage, flung the rugs over the sawhorses, and beat them with a tennis racket. That kind of worked. (Not.)

Then we went down to the Big Box Store and rented one of those rug cleaner machines for 24 hours. We laid the rugs on some leftover rubber tiles we have and Lynn slowly but methodically went over each rug a couple of times. I want to say it was easy peasy, but watching him struggle to push this machine over the thick wool was akin to using the bitch-heavy snow blower (as in it wasn’t any fun).

Believe it or not, the rugs came out pretty clean but we ended up only using one of them and wrapping the other one back up.

While we initially thought about redoing the garden fence this summer, it didn’t make it on our top 5 must-do projects this summer. Lynn did put some extra “rabbit proof fencing” around the existing fence which means all summer long I’ve had an abundance of good things growing. And when the gardener said, “Let there be peas and beans and tomatoes and asparagus,” there were and then some.

Our own produce coupled with what we brought back from the Byward Market in Ottawa means vegetable-wise we are pretty well stocked.  Aren’t these baby zucchini and green onions amazing looking? I think so.

And while I did see one bunny in the garden who quickly bolted when I spotted him, the bigger issue has been the deer eating all the roses and the hydrangeas on the side of the house. Therefore, we had to put the roses “in prison” so to speak by shaping more of that rabbit proof fencing into cylinders. While it doesn’t look particularly attractive, it has at least given the roses a chance to not only grow (the deer were literally biting off the rose stems, thorns at all) but bloom.

Besides the flowers on the side of the house, drum roll please, we finally got not only two whole steps (!) to the front door but landscaping as well. While it was kind of expensive, it’s done, and I’m pleased with the way it turned out. (So far the deer have tried to nibble on these new plants, too, but we’ve put in some of those dried blood infused spikes that supposedly keep deer away and used a spray-on dried blood product as well.)

Here are the before and after shots just to give you an idea.

We’ve had to set up a soaker-type hose to keep the plants watered and even though it’s been very hot in Upstate New York, my roses in the boxes on the deck seem to love the hot humid weather.

Doesn’t Mr. Gnome look happy too?

One strange thing I found in the back of the field though late yesterday afternoon (before cocktails I might add) was the way the trees and vines kind of fell on top of each other and created (at least to me from a distance) what looked like a “secret cave.” When I put on a pair of sneakers and walked to the back of the property, the “secret cave” looked less “secret” and more overgrown, but I photographed it anyway.

The final project Lynn has been working on (since I’ve been writing which is such a luxury for me these days) has been to lay down a laminate wood floor in the hallway between the laundry room and the basement. Yes, everything still needs to be rocked and painted and a pantry-type closet needs to be built but I give him credit for tackling this project on a very hot day. Plus he had to drag his table saw in and out of the house whenever a sudden rain shower would annoyingly pop up. (I know the farmers desperately need rain, so I’m only complaining on his behalf.)

The floor looked like this (with a couple of pieces of sample flooring thrown down to give us a general idea of how this would turn out.).

And so far looks like this.

I love how everything just looks so much cleaner whenever we finally tackle a project that’s been begging to be finished for the last 8 years!

On a final note, I would like to say a few things about some personal goals I accomplished this summer. I promised myself I would meet as many people (writers and artists and bakers and chefs and restaurant managers and most importantly farmers) as I could. I am happy to report that when I contacted someone I had been “following” on Instagram or FB, and asked if we could meet, they were invariably receptive to the idea and thankfully didn’t think I was a crazy person (well, maybe they did but they didn’t tell me.) I invited a few of them to see the Red House and was happy that I have finally found people that I can talk to who share similar interests (that would be art, food, farming, cooking and travel, too.) I have found new neighbors to talk to and appreciate the kind words everyone has shared with Lynn and I about the progress of the Red House and how incredibly beautiful the house looks. We have even noticed people who drive by the house who actually slow down to look. How cool is that?

I was also interviewed this summer by two Hamilton College students who are working on a research project involving farming and CSA’s in our county among others. I have to say it was insightful and fun to talk at length with these two smart women about food and farmers and what that entails.  I was so tickled when they wanted to take a photograph of me in my garden!

We also met a lot of very kind people when we were traveling this summer – not just front desk hotel staff and servers who are paid to be nice, but people on the street who bothered to stop when we asked for quick directions, or fellow drivers who let me cut ahead of them when I was in the wrong turning lane in a city we had never been to.

I will leave you with this thought and a final picture. I was in the supermarket a few weeks back and saw a farmer I know out of the corner of my eye.  He seemed not to see me so I jokingly called out to him that once again he was ignoring me. He looked at me and laughed, briefly stopped to say “hi,” but then kept on running because after all he said, he has to bring the goats inside in 40 minutes!

That is definitely not a conversation I would have had on Long Island.

Enjoy the rest of the summer. I know we will since we still have a few long weekends left up at the house.

P.S. In case you haven’t noticed, I love it here.

Since my last story (with its laundry list of “things still to do”), we have managed to finish at least a few of the projects.

But let us start with what happened in the spring. A really tall tree suddenly snapped and fell on our garage. Even though we want the garage to eventually go away, we weren’t planning on having it “go away” that way without a plan in place to replace it. Luckily, the way the tree fell, ever so lightly across the roof of the garage, and with a somewhat artistic flourish too (it was hanging off the side of the garage which gave a little piece of the property a sudden Italian trellis look), it caused no damage what so ever.

What prompted me to remember the tree falling on the house back in mid-April was the fact that now that 85% of the house is finished, we have had a slew of visitors (including Mom and Dad) which gives me lots of people with big ears (McCoys’ have big ears) to listen to “Red House” stories.

Apparently, I had never told them about “Bowling Bob.” But first let me get back to the tree.  The tree fell down in mid-April. In mid-May (yes, four weeks later), I finally got my “Tree Guy” to remove the tree from the garage and also cut down a bigger tree that we thought could possibly fall on the house (the kitchen, of course) which would be devastating.  I hate cutting down trees but we really had no choice.

The fact that it took the “Tree Guy” four weeks from my initial phone call to him removing the tree from the garage, is well, in my world, UNACCEPTABLE.

So let me now tell you the story of “Bowling Bob.” Back in 2011 when we didn’t have a furnace yet, we ordered one from Sears (I know, I know but they had a great financing plan). When the furnace was installed (incorrectly I may add) and water was pouring out of EVERY SINGLE PIPE IN THE BASEMENT, we called the guy, Bob, who had put in the new furnace (AKA “Sears Furnace Guy”) to apprise him of the problem. “Sears Furnace Guy” when told of our dilemma says he absolutely cannot come deal with our flood that weekend because his middle school age son was in a bowling tournament and that took precedence over our flood.  What????

Hence the moniker “Bowling Bob.” “Bowling Bob” has also come to represent many of the contractors we have been forced, cough, cough, I mean had the pleasure of working with in the Mohawk Valley.

Our current contractor Ron (who I do like a lot), understood that I wanted bathroom #3 renovated before Memorial Day weekend. He and I met early February to go over all the specifications and by April I was texting and calling him weekly asking for an estimate. When Memorial Day weekend rolled around, with still no estimate or bathroom renovation on the horizon, I started to get seriously pissed.  Since I mentioned that I had people visiting all summer, coupled with Lynn and I doing some much needed traveling, if it couldn’t be done by early June, it wouldn’t happen until mid-September since I didn’t want any of our guests to not have a bathroom. (Yes, I do want to make sure everyone has a place to pee, poop and even shower!) .

Guess what, he really didn’t care.

Back to our “Tree Guy.” When he did remove the tree from the garage roof and had a “Stump Guy” come and grind down all the stumps, he also promised us he would dig out a deeper trench in the back to deal with any possible flooding this summer might bring.  We had the conversation in May and after at least 10 text messages (maybe more) about when this could be accomplished, we set a Saturday date.

Saturday morning after assuming incorrectly he would be at the Red House at the crack of dawn, I finally texted him around 9:30. An hour later this was his response: “Who is this?”

I reminded him we had set up a “trench digging appointment” that morning which apparently he forgot about. Long story short, he showed up a day later with a back hoe and less than an hour later I had a trench.

It’s definitely not pretty, but we bought some of that landscape fabric that’s supposed to prevent weeds and new grass growth and once we line the trench with it we hope to throw in a couple of bags of rocks. In a funky color of course.

Before I move on to my current “Bowling Bob” story, let me show you what we have accomplished.

Escutcheons are up! Yes, I buckled and paid nearly $100 (!) for a box of them. And guess what they are not even real metal but plastic that’s been spray painted silver!  But in fairness, it does complete the look of the hot water pipes running through the house.

We bought the last four windows we needed for the attic and had them installed.

We painted the Bentwood chairs (and even a rocker) that had been lying around for some time in the bright colors we had wanted. I think they look pretty cool.

Notice how we somehow missed putting on a baseboard since it had been “hidden” by a really big picture we simply plopped there. (Big picture has been moved to another room, not yet hung up either.)

Luckily, we have been dealing with a heat wave with no chance of rain which has made perfect spray painting weather in the driveway with quick drying times to boot.

We also did some waterproofing of the foundation on a really hot day back in June (boy was that fun!). We decided to do the front of the house first primarily because we thought by now we would have a couple of stairs and some simple landscaping and didn’t want to worry about a foundation that wasn’t “waterproofed” when everything had been planted.

However, while our contractor Ron thought he could tackle this project too, he simply was swamped with work and gave us the name of yet another “Bowling Bob.” In fairness, this landscaper who also builds things was quick to meet with us, but then his father took ill and he simply couldn’t put an estimate together or commit to an install date. (Update: we now have an estimate, which I had to negotiate down, but the install date is still pending.) Which is why the front of the house still looks like this.

Meanwhile back on the farm, I mean the garden, we were proactive this year in putting up at least 1/2 of some rabbit-proof fencing material in hopes that “evil bunny” wouldn’t be able to get into the garden and eat all the veggies we had planted.

That’s when we discovered the fox. We have to assume the fox has “taken care” of the bunny so to speak since we have vegetables that are finally growing. We have peas and more beans than I know what to do with. Our tomatoes are starting and the lettuce is absolutely amazing. (It really is.)

I’m having the same problem I had with the zucchini as last year (all blossoms and no bodies, even after trying to help fertilize) but my beets are growing strong and I planted radishes that remind me of the spicy ones we would eat at many a Munich beer garden.

And we have the flowers, the day lilies and Stella D’Oro are particularly pretty this time of year.

We also discovered tiny clusters of raspberries that we had never seen growing before (thank you birds for dropping berry seeds there), and the sumac which had been golden yellow has finally turned red.

Meanwhile, we have definitely started to make the Red House a “real” home and threw out most of our old furniture (most of which we “appropriated” for free from the streets of Long Island). Thank you neighbors for hauling away all the furniture we put on the curb (including the church pews) within two hours, we love you! We bought some new stuff and even added some artwork from a local artist in Syracuse.

To say we have made tremendous progress this year is an understatement. So, even with all the “Bowling Bobs” out there who give me “agita” when it comes to trying to finish the Red House in a timely manner, I know eventually they do show up and do a pretty good job.

We are thankful for them.

And so begins the season. Enjoy the summer. I know we will.

The goal this past fall was to have contractor #3 do “indoor” work during the cold snowy winter months. It wasn’t like there was a huge amount of work that needed to be done in the kitchen but it was the annoying little projects (many of which required a very large ladder) that Lynn and I were simply not capable of doing. (#1 we don’t have a ladder that long and #2, I hate heights. More than that I hate being the girl that holds the ladder for the boy to go up and hope he doesn’t fall.)

So we had a “stop sign” window that had been installed roughly 6 years ago that was never finished or painted.

It was annoying to look at and even more so since no one could reach it!

Because we couldn’t just have one annoyance in the kitchen, on the other side of the wall, same height but different shape, we had another window that was also unfinished! This we named the “Juliet window” because technically if you stood in that room (a bedroom that will hopefully morph into a closet), one could lean out and look down into the kitchen.  No one knows why we named it the “Juliet window” other than it kind of reminded us of Juliet’s balcony in Verona.

Consequently, a few weeks ago, both these windows had proper moulding installed around them and were painted as well.

We also had the proper high hats finally installed in the ceiling (you can see one above the stop sign window).

Last but not least, we had a range hood installed above the stove which required yet another trip to Ikea to get one last kitchen cabinet. The range hood we originally bought was high end with a fancy glass top which our contractor told us would need to be ducted outside thus costing millions of dollars to put up (well not millions but you get the idea). It’s sitting somewhere in the garage if anyone wants it.

We also bizarrely now have a light above the kitchen stove. I know that’s not strange but truthfully it’s taking me longer than I expected to acclimate to actually being able to see the food I’m cooking!

Besides the kitchen, the other major project this winter was to paint the “pink” staircase.  I’m assuming the previous owner was trying to match a pink bedroom that was on the second floor because the color was exactly the same. One summer, I attempted to paint some of the aforementioned staircase.  This resulted in a staircase that basically looked like this for nearly 7 years because neither Lynn nor I wanted to tackle it.  Yep, it was pretty ugly.

I particularly like the couple of pieces of duct tape I must have stuck on many years ago trying to cover the holes in the wall.

Besides the pink staircase, the walls were also a mess as was the ceiling on the landing.

OK, so apparently we have a problem with lead paint in an old house. Really? Our contractor was hemming and hawing about it but I went into denial mode even though I understood EXACTLY what our contractor was telling us. This resulted in an up-charge for all new sheetrock and special paint that would somehow magically “contain” the lead.

Let me just say, it cost me as much to paint this one frigging staircase as it does for me to pay the landscaper to mow our back 4 acres FOR THE ENTIRE SUMMER SEASON.

Yes, thank you I will take a deep breath.

So, in the end the staircase came out quite nice and contractor #3 did in fact even paint the doors.

Really now that I look at the before and after, it turned out very nice!

Right now that both staircases are done we need to figure out what to do with the steps. These stairs, like the stairs we had when we owned a house on Long Island, are in pretty bad shape and were simply painted over and over again.  A few weeks ago we tried to sand one of them. 20 minutes later we gave up realizing it was a project that A) wasn’t the worth the time and B) would come out crappy whether we painted or sanded. So, basically a lose-lose scenario.

Because we’re trying to save some money (we still need the guest bathroom totally renovated by next summer and hope to expand the deck), we thought we’d try putting down some vinyl floor planks ourselves over the existing treads and see how that looks.

Truthfully I can’t tell the difference between the vinyl and the “real” floor below. Between both staircases (14 stairs each), I’m thinking this might be an affordable alternative.

On the weather front, we drove up to the Red House Friday night in 59 degree weather, hit some rain and a 20 degree drop in temperature, only to wake up to about 6 inches of snow (if not more). Luckily, our neighbors across the street and next door were extremely kind and snow plowed the sidewalk and lower part of our driveway so we could get out. And yes, come the spring, we’re finally going to buy our own snowblower and hope to snag a discount for an end-of season sale. (Thank you guys, you know who you are!)

Finally, we are still winding down after a whirlwind Christmas holiday with our kids and family and a week-long FOODIE road trip to SC and NC. (Note to young chefs we met, we appreciated everything you cooked for us but NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE GRILLED.)

I’m hoping 2018 will be a good year for us and the Red House. So to my readers I send  best wishes for good health, much happiness and love, no parking or speeding tickets, great wine, real farm to table food and lots and lots of money.

PS Our daughter Rachel, gave us this cutting board for Christmas and we LOVE it!

The lettuce grew so high it looked like I threw some really bad non-organic fertilizer (think: toxic) to make it grow. I didn’t. My mother says the leaves are bitter when they are that big but I don’t mind the taste at all.

Unfortunately the carrots and beets were mangled by a bunny rabbit or two or three or four. No worries, since we are surrounded by lots of farmer’s markets and quite a few Amish farm stands too which resulted in some very picturesque carrots! Perhaps it was the way the Amish farm wife wrapped the carrot tops in pretty red yarn.

Because when I unwrapped the carrots to prepare them for dinner, one of them decided to have some fun with me and “pose” for their fall carrot-themed jean line.

Since our first summer at the Red House Lynn has tried a couple of times to do pizza on the grill. The first time we simply threw the dough on the grill rack (big mistake), then scraped off the burnt but still raw (never could quite figure out how that could be) dough and threw it away.

I think we tried at least one other time, too but ended up using dough that wasn’t 100% and the pizza itself wasn’t worth writing home about let alone photographing.

When we moved out of the house on Long Island and into an apartment, I chucked a lot of stuff that I didn’t think we would ever use – a French coffee press and not one but THREE Italian espresso pots, ramekins of every shape and size and chipped dishes, cake pans, and pie plates, etc., etc.  Apparently I also threw out our stone pizza board, a wooden pizza paddle and an extra large spatula — all of course which I needed now even if we wanted to make pizza on the grill again.

I went to Walmart (I know, I know) but they had pizza “pans” for a mere 99 cents and I figured I would rather waste a buck than 10 bucks if the “pans” melted on top of the grill.

Lynn loves to roll out dough. My reaction to this is: BE MY GUEST. He also loves to hand grate cheese. My reaction to this is: GRATE AWAY. (Although for this pizza he just sliced up the mozzarella). I managed to open a container of pizza “sauce” that we picked up at the “fancy” supermarket in Syracuse even though I could have made my own for about $3.00 less. As you may have deduced by now I’m really big on making things myself rather than buying them. But suddenly I’ve changed. (Don’t believe those who say people can’t change, they can and do.)

He rolled out the dough on the new pans and this time  decided to “cook” the dough a bit on the grill first.

About 10 minutes later, he put on the sauce, the cheese and some fresh basil from the garden.

They did take a bit longer to cook on the grill than I expected but they turned out pretty darn good – thin crust that I like with blobs of fresh mozzarella and basil from the garden.

Back to the garden, I found a zucchini hiding underneath the leaves that was a monster!

Even when I cut him in half and filled the “boats” with tomatoes from the garden, I still had to figure out what to do with the rest. (Half went into a pasta dish and the other half was grated and made into zucchini pancakes!)

Unfortunately by the end of August when we came back up to the Red House, nearly all our tomatoes were gone, the weeds took up most of our garden and something is growing in one corner that may be squash or pumpkins or both.

In the meantime, I have to fight my way through the weeds and dig up the garlic. Yes, it’s that time again.

Here’s a couple of photos from my visit to Munich’s “Markt”in July 2014!

When we bought our first condo on Long Island, I reluctantly planted some tomatoes on our balcony in pots that didn’t grow and basically didn’t think about any true gardening until we bought our first house in 2001. There I had a sizeable yard – enough to grow rose bushes that bloomed without me having to do anything at all, hostas that would come up even if a certain husband ran over them with the lawn mower and herbs (sage, parsley, chives, and rosemary) that would come back year after year even after the coldest of winters.

Now I have 4 acres – a lot of it forest – along with some bamboo and sumac trees. When we planted the first garden a few years ago, we first had someone rip up the sod so we could throw down some gardening soil, cow manure and peat moss.  Basically anything that came in a bag that said “organic” on it and bragged that it could help grow crops as tall as the Empire State building and cause flowers to burst into bloom and be worthy of an appearance in Macy’s annual flower show, I would use to get my garden “ready.”

I know about crop rotation and about not planting certain plants next to each other. What I didn’t have in my Long Island garden that I have Upstate New York are 1) deer, 2) many many rabbits and 3) groundhogs. This meant that even with the fence Lynn put up, the deer managed to nibble on any large flowers that sprouted above the fence and both the rabbits and groundhogs dug holes or simply wiggled their way through openings in the fence.

See? Here is Mr. Bunny waiting to get into the garden after lounging around all day in the grass!

Consequently, much of what I planted was eaten before it even had a chance to grow! This year, unlike last year, it seemed I would have a bumper crop of zucchini! I had never seen so many blossoms and even made some fried zucchini blossoms for dinner one night that I stuffed with goat cheese from a nearby farm.

Problem was all I had were blossoms, there was no actual zucchini attached.

After a little bit of research, I found theveggielady.com who walked me through the process of hand pollinating female zucchini blossoms with male ones to result hopefully in baby zucchini!  Although I was skeptical that this Australian lady could help me, she also had really great pictures that made it seem easy and doable.

Since anything science-related was not my strong point (when we had to dissect a frog in 10th grade bio I decided skipping school and risk being expelled from the National Honor Society was a better option than having to deal with a frog), I decided to try and focus on what I was doing and maybe it would in fact work.

How difficult could this hand pollinating thing be? Strangely, I can handle blood and cutting things up and dealt with many a messy poopy diaper from both children but I absolutely cannot deal with vomit. Case in point: my son Nicholas threw up in his car seat one morning, the vomit rolling down his winter jacket and literally enveloping the entire jacket zipper. I was so grossed out about touching the vomit-laden zipper that I simply cut the jacket off of him!!  (Nicholas, I don’t think that traumatized you that much did it?)

So, last week I did what theveggielady told me to do, although I must admit that the inside of a female zucchini blossom didn’t look much different than the male ones! (I was never good at doing those stupid tests where you have to find 3 of the same or figure out which one is different than the other.) I gently snipped off the male stamen (sorry, Mr. Zucchini Blossom) and gently rubbed the stamen onto what looked like a Ms. Zucchini Blossom.

Afterwards, I decided that this experiment is the true meaning of “food porn!” Okay, foodie/chef friends, you should really be laughing and not groaning at that statement right now.

Like any “Mom” who wants to have a baby, I waited and waited and suddenly yesterday, I saw a tiny little zucchini actually growing from a blossom. Holy shit!

Okay, so I’ll never get an honorary Horticulture degree from a college for this revelation but it did work and was kind of neat.

First and foremost, although we did spend an enormous amount of time and some money planting a variety of vegetables and flowers in the spring, in the end only the flowers seemed to do well this year. Maybe it was the lack of rain even though we did have the sprinkler on a timer running every other day. Or perhaps it was the rabbits or the squirrels or even the occasional neighborhood cat that got into the garden and ate everything in sight. When we would arrive on a Thursday night for long weekends up at the Red House, we were initially very happy with what was growing in the garden. There were zucchini blossoms, cauliflower, broccoli and beets.

Most Friday or Saturday mornings I could be found weeding the garden, admiring the veggies that were growing as well as noting how pretty the flowers and sumac trees looked. But I was also worrying about how very dry the back meadow seemed.

However, as the days of summer grew longer and hotter (especially if we missed a weekend or two up at the Red House), we would come back to find that the lack of rain coupled with the heat had literally “roasted” the cauliflower on the stalk. And while some of the green beans grew, most of my tomatoes did not.

With very few vegetables to pick, we started visiting more farmer’s markets around the area to make up for our own feeble growing results. What’s even more disappointing this growing season is that this year not only did we till the soil first and both fertilize and try to water, we were also spending an enormous amount of time weeding the garden. (The weeds won.)

Speaking of winning (and losing, too), I had been thinking of getting a ping pong table for the Red House for a while. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Munich playing ping pong on a fairly regular basis coupled with the fact that my parents still have a ping pong table in their basement and many a grandchild was raised playing a game or two before a family meal. I researched buying tables online (too expensive!) and then started scouring Craigslist ads for garage sales. Low and behold, one Friday morning I saw an ad for a garage sale listing the exact ping pong table I was looking for up the road from the Red House!

It was in four pieces with a stand and a complete set of paddles and balls. I won’t mention how long it took Lynn to put it together (hint: nearly two days) but finally when it was assembled, we had a ping pong table to play on! (Eventually, it will be moved into our attic but for now it’s in the room next to the TV.)

Little did I know that Lynn grew up playing ping pong, too, and was EXTREMELY competitive playing ball with me. Even though I was usually the one who had to coax him into playing a game or two after dinner, inevitably he won. Here’s our scorecard to date – LOL.

Since our ping pong table also looks out onto the back meadow, I realized we had a dead tree in the backyard, in addition to two very large dead trees in the front of the house. I was seriously worried that one if not both trees in the front could possibly fall on someone driving or walking by the house so we had to get an estimate to have the trees taken down ASAP.

Another reason to have the trees taken down right away was that we were also in the process of getting estimates to have the main roof of the house redone.  I’m not one to cut down trees ever but unfortunately these two had to go.

So the day before the tree guys were going to take down the trees, they parked their “toys” in the driveway.

Let’s just say when they came to do the work Friday morning shortly after 7 a.m., they started up both the truck and the Bobcat at the same time in addition to revving up their chainsaws. Regardless of the incredible noise they were making, they did manage to get all three trees down in under 3 hours.

Trees down, we are trying to get the money together to get a new roof before the winter sets in, followed by much needed siding in the spring.

In the meantime, even the little projects are coming along. For example, Lynn put up some solar stair lights so now that it’s getting darker earlier, we are not fumbling in the dark to walk up the Red House steps.

Granted, they don’t shed a lot of light, but enough so I’m not tripping in the dark carrying bags and trying to find the house key. (A problem we wanted to rectify before going into the winter especially since I broke my wrist last March slipping on some ice in my driveway on Long Island after taking out the trash!)

Lynn has also taped around some of the ceiling light fixtures in anticipation of someday spray painting them.

Wow, Lynn what’s up with all that blue painter’s tape? Just kidding!

And even though some may be confused about labeling the purchase of a grill cover as a “project,” the fact is we have been grilling in the driveway for 5+ years. This may not be a big deal to some but our driveway (like everything else on the property) slopes which means when we want to grill we have to lift up the grill (which is pretty heavy) and place it on a part of the driveway that’s fairly even. This past weekend, I decided the purchase of a grill cover in addition to a grill “mat,” would enable us to place the grill on the deck and leave it there permanently.

Other projects include Lynn buying a bunch of clamps to try and get our kitchen cabinets to hang properly which is a really big problem since the kitchen walls and floor (like our driveway) lean more than slightly to one side.

Meanwhile, even though our kitchen is slowly coming together, we keep making more and more work for ourselves! While we originally were going to buy more cabinets to fit next to the stove, Ikea discontinued the cabinets we already had and the replacement cabinets were an entirely different size. So we talked about putting an eating area near the stove, a “Stube” as the Germans like to say, but had to build it first.

So back to Ikea we went after seeing a picture of someone who had built such a “Stube” by using a couple of kids benches. Lynn put the benches together in an “L” shape but then realized there was still space between the two so he used a piece of wood from an old desk to bring the whole thing together.

And here’s how it’s going to look with cushions although I’m going to recover the cushions at some point with a different fabric. And, of course, we need a table, too.

The biggest news at the end of this Red House summer is that nearly 13 months after thinking about getting a kitchen counter – we finally have one. Here are the before and after shots!

It came out pretty nice – a sturdy black laminate with a grain pattern that actually gives the counter a wood look. We also were finally able to put the remaining drawers into the cabinets and Lynn spent nearly an afternoon attaching the handles, too.

Unfortunately, to make room for the counter installation we had to move everything out of the kitchen into the dining room.

So while one project is seemingly done in one room, we often create a bigger project in another room.

And even though it’s nearly the end of September, the flowers are still blooming and we are still putting shrimp on the grill with lots and lots of homemade pesto with basil and garlic we grew here.

We always enjoy these last few days before the leaves turn and the cold weather sets in. There will be more projects to do inside since everyone knows an old house renovation is never ever done.

On a final note, two weekends ago we spent a few days in Manhattan celebrating Lynn’s birthday and our anniversary. We had lunch at Bouley (!) and one of the dishes was fresh asparagus. I was bewildered since normally asparagus herald in the start of spring. Up at the Red House however, I realized that we, too, had a second crop growing and we weren’t here to reap the benefits of one of my favorite vegetables.

Here’s a shot of one of my many asparagus plants! So in addition to an overabundance of asparagus (which we’ll definitely be looking forward to when spring arrives once again), the fall will bring us a ton of brussels sprouts to eat with many holiday meals.

But for now, it’s the bees that grabbed my attention as we were about to leave the Red House this weekend. They are still drawing the sweet nectar from the flowers in the garden – enjoying every last minute of this very lovely summer.

So when all was said and done, or picked to be more precise, I was left with barely enough strawberries to fill a ramekin. (Truthfully, there were many more out in the garden but it was difficult to get to them.)

Besides the strawberries, everything else in the garden this year appears to be growing nicely. Last year we were lazy and didn’t properly till the garden or even set up a sprinkler to keep things adequately watered. This year we did both and used new top soil and fertilizer because I was determined that everything I planted would grow. So the zucchini is doing nicely as well as the spinach and basil, too.

I’ve also been picking asparagus since the end of May and have managed to get at least 4-5 stalks to eat with nearly every Red House meal. Like the strawberries, they are perennials which are exactly the kind of vegetables I like to nurture. You buy them once, plant them and they just keep giving you food year after year.

This asparagus obviously grew way too high but the dill-like fronds when the asparagus is trimmed down will make their way into the soil for more asparagus to sprout next year.

On the home front, I’ve been remiss in writing about the Red House renovation because right now we’re in a holding pattern. Our current contractor has been trying to put in an upstairs master bathroom for nearly a year. Why this has taken so long can only be attributed to his working infrequently on the project coupled with him undergoing some major surgery in the past few months. Unfortunately, a lot of what we want to do (finish the master bedroom and build a huge walk-in closet) can’t happen until he finishes the bathroom.

I am, however, encouraged when I see things he has labeled indicating at least there is the possibility of a shower and lights, too!

I also like the fact that he randomly leaves “boy toys” lying around which also gives me hope that eventually the bathroom will be done and we will have one more room finished.

In November this is how the shower looked.

And as of June, this is where we are now. (In other words, we’ve got a long way to go.)

Since we spend a lot of time outside in the summer at the Red House, I can’t complain about what’s not being done inside the house. The rabbits living on the property have been gracious enough to not eat everything (so far) I’ve planted which means the lettuce (usually their food of choice) is amazing and the flowers are absolutely gorgeous.

The deer, too, seem content to nibble only at the grass and wildflowers around the property. Isn’t he/she adorable?

Going into the start of the summer season which is my favorite time up at the Red House, I’m trying not to fret about how things have crawled to a halt on the Red House renovation because of time and money. It’s no good worrying if the very old roof on the main part of the house will make it through another Upstate New York winter or the fact that we really need to get new siding! Since we’re half way through our anticipated completion of the project (yes, we’ve been here five years!), I have to take a step back and be happy for all we have accomplished.

I know there are quite a few people who think their dream home has to have a water view. With the meadow that we have and all the peacefulness it inspires, we can only be very, very thankful for the Red House.

Oh yeah, and hope the tree that’s dead in the foreground doesn’t fall on top of the kitchen roof that is new! Happy First Day Of Summer!

And the deer, who love to walk down from the waterfall and roam the property, also still had plenty to nibble on.

So imagine our surprise a mere 2 weeks later when we drove up to the Red House after Thanksgiving to find icicles hanging from the roof and the back meadow covered in snow!

So, even though our intentions last time had been good by leaving our shovel “ready for action” on the deck by the side of the house, we had to get through the snow to get up to the deck in order to get to the shovel!

Luckily, our contractor had driven his truck over our driveway enough times that there was a path (albeit icy) for us to follow so we managed to pull the car in just far enough to unload everything.

But as we were walking through the snow I couldn’t help but think of the vegetables I had just picked from the garden. Hadn’t I just made a big batch of tomato sauce from the last of the season’s tomatoes? Washing them and chopping them up until they boiled down to a rich goodness?

While I was still contemplating that activity, Lynn managed to reach the shovel and shoveled some of the driveway and the sidewalk. I went inside and pondered lunch and thought about our last visit to the house.

Two weeks prior, he decided that the project on my list that was nearly dead last (that would be replacing all the door handles) became his #1 priority!

Remember the photo of my bag of handles from (gulp!) the spring of 2013! Yep, here it is again. Well, suddenly he was reaching into this bag and pulling out handle after handle.

So while my #1 priority was to WORK ON THE MASTER BEDROOM…

Lynn’s priority was to do this:

I won’t even go into how long it takes to cut a round circle in a door to put a new handle a couple of inches above the old one but let’s just say it takes a lot longer than you think it should!

In fairness, he did build a new entry way into what will one day be my office.

And since neither the opening or the wall existed prior to this, I have to say he did a really nice job. (Thank you Lynn, it’s okay you spent 2 days doing 3 door handles – only 300 more to go – just kidding!)

Meanwhile, I guess the snow surprised me because just two weeks ago we had put away all the outdoor furniture (which means we carry it inside and put it in an empty room).

Notice the leftover pieces of sheetrock placed on the table so the metal chairs don’t crack the glass? Really, if you are ever in need of tablepads for a dinner party, this works just as well!

We also picked out additional tile for our bathroom (please don’t ask how the bathroom is coming – it’s just coming) – choosing a simple white “subway” tile for the inside of the shower floor and walls.

And while we still have yet to get a countertop for the kitchen, I’m just really happy that none of the upper cabinets have fallen down (even though Lynn assured me they wouldn’t.) Truthfully, finding things in one of the lower kitchen cabinets is a lot simpler without a countertop because I can just reach into a cabinet and pull out the pan I need! (Getting a countertop will hopefully happen early in 2015.)

Meanwhile, the town itself has gone into full blown Christmas mode and seems to have made an effort to decorate the downtown by hanging up festive kissing balls and angels tooting horns from the light posts. My reaction? At least there’s no awful Christmas music blaring, too!

A few blocks from the town’s main drag, the gazebo in the park was also decorated with lights. When I saw it and looked at all the pretty houses nearby, I almost expected George Bailey to come running out of one them on his way to save the Bailey Building and Loan Association! (Yes, there is a certain It’s A Wonderful Life quality to living here.)

Dinner at the Red House (and lunches, too) this post-Thanksgiving weekend consisted of  generous slices of turkey with nearly every side dish you can think of, omelets filled with pieces of the leftover Thanksgiving ham, and finally overstuffed turkey sandwiches topped with lettuce and tomato.

I was a bit concerned for the deer on the back meadow, especially since I saw one trying  to push away the snow with a hoof, hoping I guess for a couple of inches of grass that he or she could eat.

But here’s the thing, the first snow regardless of where Lynn and I have lived is still kind of exciting. There were tons of kids sledding on the hill next to our house (even though it was a brisk 28 degrees outside) and even our crappy old Colonial lamp post that’s in the driveway managed to transform itself into something quite pretty.

So even though winter has come a bit early to the Red House, it will not conquer us (we hope).

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas, too.

P.S. I promised Lynn Santa would bring him a snow blower in 2015. His response: “Make sure it has heated handles!”

I wish I could report that we’ve made progress in renovating the Red House but unfortunately at this stage in the game (meaning the complicated stuff), we’re very dependent on our contractor to finish our upstairs bathroom. This means while most of the plumbing has been installed, the insulation needs to be put in the walls before the sheetrock and then tile are applied. As you can see not much has changed in this room since the last time I photographed it!

Apparently since our contractor has a lot of outdoor jobs that he’s scrambling to get finished before the weather takes a turn for the worse, I do have to give him some slack. He has assured me that I’m #1 on the top of his list when he finishes with everyone else. Being me (frighteningly straightforward and to the point), I also reminded him that last winter he complained that he couldn’t get into the house without shoveling a path to the door because of all the snow. (I don’t have anyone who plows for us and don’t intend to incur that expense either!)  I also suggested since he obviously didn’t want to spend half of his day shoveling when he could be inside working on a room, he may need to speed things up a bit.

I would also love to start working on the dining room. But since all the materials he needs to complete the bathroom are sitting in the dining room, this room, too, has to wait.

While the leaves are turning, the marigolds seems to be thriving in the garden, the weeds even more so and with all the asparagus ferns cropping up, I’m thinking I’ll have a very nice asparagus harvest in the spring indeed. I’ve decided however, after planting two seasons of garlic in the fall, I’m going to wait until the spring to do it this year and see how that turns out. Reason being: Lynn is busy trying to finish our master bedroom (that means even though he took off all the moulding around the room and put everything back up, there is still a lot of patching that needs to be done as well as taping, spackling and finally painting.

To pull him away from this to get out the tiller (I’m afraid of the tiller it kind of drags me across the field) to plant some garlic seemed dumb. So the garlic will wait until the spring to be planted along with whatever else we can manage to grow in hopes that the deer, rabbits, squirrels and even a local cat or two won’t devour everything we’ve planted.

What is particularly nice about living up here especially in the fall are all the farmer’s markets as well as field after field filled with pumpkins in lovely shades of orange.

Last year I was lucky enough to grow a couple of pumpkins. This year I had to buy one.

Since the weather is turning colder (it was barely 55 degrees when we arrived this Columbus Day weekend), I’m also thinking of food that will warm us. That would be soups (pea and lentil), stews (goulash and chicken paprikash in particular) and lots of carbs like mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese! And while I do try to stay away from sweets as much as possible – I have been thinking of making cinnamon rolls (no, not the kind you bang out from those icky cardboard containers in the refrigerated section of the supermarket) but cinnamon rolls made from scratch.

For those readers who have children or other instances where your household size shrinks from 4 to 1 or 2, I can say that I’ve finally mastered cooking for just the two of us without a huge amount of leftovers. And if we do have have leftovers, it’s because I’m usually trying to make sure at least one of us has something to take to work for lunch the next day.  The problem with this cooking for 2 instead of 4 (or more) thing though is that there are simply dishes (particularly desserts) that just don’t get made anymore. Why bake a batch of brownies or oatmeal raisin cookies if there aren’t any teenagers around to eat them all in a single sitting? Did I mention I’ve been craving cinnamon rolls?

In the meantime, I picked the last of the tomatoes (still green) from the Red House garden.

And admired not only the meadow but how pretty the marigolds still looked in the garden.

And since it was rather chilly, I also decided to make some Braciole stuffing the meat with slices of mozzarella and some smokey ham.

I managed to find a few (albeit slightly bruised) leaves of basil still growing in the garden and found a bag of potato gnocchi we buy at a little Italian deli near the Red House for under $3 a bag that was still in the freezer from the summer.

Did I mention even as I was cooking the gnocchi and Braciole I was craving cinnamon rolls?

On a completely different note. We have a neighborhood cat who shows up like clockwork between 5 and 5:30 on the weekends we are here. He or she slowly meanders to the back of the property seemingly looking around for maybe a tasty little mouse or some other morsel to eat. Now, this cat is really the slowest cat I’ve ever seen so it was particularly funny when I tried to take a picture of the cat and suddenly the cat took off at an amazingly fast pace.

I followed the cat as it walked the length of the property and found myself staring at the stainless steel rolling cart we’ve been using in the kitchen as a table/work counter since we still don’t have countertops for the kitchen cabinets. Wouldn’t that surface be just fine for rolling out dough?

Since I also don’t have any cookbooks up at the Red House (I know that’s old school but I still use them!), I dragged out my laptop and followed a recipe from the Pioneer Woman for Cinnamon Rolls 101 online.

And yes, I already did have all the ingredients on hand so this was a really easy recipe.  I mixed everything together and tried to follow the instructions but the dough just seemed a little bit too wet so I added more flour than called for. The dough rose, I rolled it out, layered it with melted butter, sprinkled on some sugar and lots of cinnamon just like the picture online.

Except I wanted to add some apples to my cinnamon rolls so I did just that.

Really, doesn’t this just look yummy?

I rolled the dough into a log shape, cut the log into slices, and arranged them in a pie pan. The dough seemed a bit wetter than it probably should have been but I figured it would “correct” itself when baking.

I’ve always had a problem with every oven I’ve ever owned and this one is no different. I read a recipe and it suggests a cooking time of say 15-18 minutes and when I peek at what I’m baking, 9 times out of 10 I need double the amount of baking time indicated. Since I was convinced that the thermostat in this new oven wasn’t working properly, I actually went out and bought an oven thermometer. I’d like to say the oven was off, but actually the temperature was exactly what it was supposed to be.

So back to the cinnamon rolls. The recipe called for adding “maple flavoring” to make the frosting. Ha Ha Ha. Living in Upstate New York, I don’t need “maple flavoring,” I can use the real stuff. So I did, mixing maple syrup together with some powdered sugar and milk.

The rolls came out of the oven, I frosted them, and here’s what they looked like.

Yes, they looked delicious but when we ate them in the morning for breakfast (after sticking them back in the oven to warm up a bit), they were a tad too gooey inside! So even after following the recipe and adjusting the baking time and having for the first time ever a second thermometer inside my oven to make sure the temperature was correct – these rolls needed to be baked a bit longer. (We ate most of them anyway, no worries!) So like the cat that prowls our property looking for tasty tidbits, I got mine too this weekend.

Finally, knowing that winter is literally around the corner up here, it’s awesome to drive a mere 5 minutes from the Red House and see the leaves changing, some late summer flowers still blooming and the water in the creek flowing so beautifully. What we’ve learned up here the last 4.5 years is to enjoy every minute of it.

And even though Lynn was really cursing the entire time he was putting everything together, in the end he said it was “easy.” Go figure.

I feel I have to share once again how the original kitchen looked in 2010 just to give this story some perspective.

We also have two amazing hardwood floors in Guest Bedroom #1 and Guest Bedroom #2.

Originally I was going to get a laminate floor to save some money but the guy installing the floor (who came to do the initial estimate, too) advised us against it. Also we have hardwood floors throughout our teeny, tiny Long Island house and even 12 years later the floors still look great and are really easy to clean.

So in case you don’t remember what the floors looked like, here’s a shot:

Unfortunately, our master bathroom and bedroom are nowhere near completion…

So right now we are bunking in Guest Bedroom #2 (the larger of the two).

We also finally got some of the electrical work done – so no more fixtures literally dangling over our heads.

Lynn and I always have a problem finding products that we like (ceiling lights and bathroom fixtures are our two biggest challenges) so we decided to try and salvage the existing light fixtures. A can of silver spray paint on one of the bedroom light fixtures and some rewiring on a decorative living room fixture therefore were a good compromise.

And yes, we cheated a bit, too and picked up a really inexpensive Ikea light that looks like a spaceship!

With my kitchen nearly done (I’m having an issue with ordering the countertop I want but more on that in a later blog post), and my parents coming up to visit, I also baked. I know I complain about baking over and over again but not only did I make zucchini bread but I made a cheesecake, too! Originally the plan had been to make zucchini bread using the zucchini that was growing in my garden. Obviously, that didn’t happen but I can say I did get two huge zucchini from the farmer’s market – one went into the cake, the other went into some homemade ratatouille.

Originally I thought when we came up to the Red House our garden would be brimming with vegetables. I had planted zucchini, beans, peas, carrots, tomatoes and tons of basil. Unfortunately, we now have a very large family of bunny rabbits living on the property.

While they did leave me with some basil and a few tomatoes, they ate nearly all the peas and all the zucchini! (The carrots are still in the ground so I’m not sure of their status yet.)

I did start to harvest some of the garlic since this time last summer I had dug it up. I was particularly happy that I managed to grow a crop from some of the cloves I harvested last year. After digging up about 30 garlic heads though, I decided to let them be for another week since some of the heads were rather small.

One interesting side note to our time up at the Red House this summer has to do with a reunion we attended. Most people know I lived in Munich, Germany, for 10 years but some may not realize I graduated from high school there, too.

Since this was my 35th (gulp!) high school reunion and Lynn and I hadn’t been to  Munich since 2007, I decided it was definitely time to go back (especially since I had also somehow missed every single reunion prior to this one as well). Dare I mention that Lynn and I will be celebrating 35 years together, too, this October?

Consequently, while most summers are spent exclusively up at the Red House, this year we spent 10 days in Germany and 5 days in Italy. As usual we did a lot of driving and eating and gushing at all the beautiful architecture, vistas and of course food.  And while I love the Red House even in it’s unfinished state, I do want to share some pictures of the trip.

There were farmer’s markets brimming with fresh radishes, artichokes, beans, tomatoes and lettuce, as well as flowers in nearly every hue imaginable.

There were shots of castles on the Rhine as well as picturesque vineyards (even on a gray day), and too many pictures of Italian art and architecture to share but a handful.

And then there was the food. Bread and cheese, homemade pasta, beer and pretzels the size of basketballs, Apfelstrudel and pizza!

Of course after the Europe trip (particularly with nearly a week in Italy) and with a “real” kitchen, I had no excuse but to make my first Red House pizza in my new oven, too!

Truthfully, the oven could have been hotter since the crust came out soggy. (The leftover pizza that we warmed up and kind of burnt the next day actually tasted better.)

What I realized after this trip however, was how very similar the area around Munich (particularly Garmisch-Partenkirchen) was to upstate New York. Undoubtedly, it’s why I always liked being up here. Granted, the mountains are not as high, but we have very pretty lakes and streams, rolling hills, and gorgeous forests a mere hour’s drive from the Red House.

On a different and not so bucolic note, we came home from our journey to find bats in the Red House. Our contractor has been working diligently to replace all of the plumbing in the house primarily to put a bathroom in the master bedroom and in doing so has unfortunately created a few “holes” in the walls.

This has resulted in at least two bats trying to take up residence inside the house! We noticed this one night when we were watching a DVD. Suddenly one of us saw something fly by out of the corner of one eye with what looked like very dark wings. Lynn and I are not good with bats or any other type of scary monster-like animal for that matter. Consequently, we quickly exited the room, shut the door and ran upstairs.

The next morning, our contractor showed up and found the bat sleeping by the basement door. He put on a pair of gloves and simply picked up the bat and put him inside a plastic supermarket bag. Once in the bag, he took him outside and released him back into the wild! Since the bat slept through the entire experience, I can only conclude it was a “teenage” bat.

We thought the bat episode was over, until the next night we were watching another DVD and sure enough once again there was something dark flying around in the next room. So, we repeated our previous night’s performance by quickly exiting the room, closing the door and going upstairs. This night however, Lynn also decided he was going to “seal” us in the room – so underneath the doors he wadded up some placemats and a kitchen towel.

This didn’t bring me any great amount of comfort and truthfully, I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking I heard and saw something flying around the bedroom. Plus, I was really really hot since the room was probably around 300 degrees since we had put in new windows, insulation and now a new floor! (Okay, it wasn’t really that warm but it felt like it.) Plus, now that I was hot and annoyed, I really had to pee but was afraid to go into the bathroom. Note to self: this is why you’ve never been camping – you hate bugs, creepy crawlies, bats and other things that are generally scary.

Finally it was morning. Our contractor showed up again (in itself always a good thing) and he found the hole in the wall that he thinks the bats were flying through. He grabbed some insulation and filled up the hole. We have not had any bat sightings for about 24 hours now so I’m hoping this method worked.

I was also hoping that similar to Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” our very own “Puck” would emerge from the forest behind the Red House and tell us that the bats were only just a dream! Unfortunately, he did not, they were in fact very, very real!

I will leave you with this thought and image. We started our trip this year in Frankfurt, Germany, a city Lynn and I had never visited. We walked through the old town and came upon a pedestrian bridge called the “Eiserner Steg.” There on the bridge, similar to many bridges we’ve seen in Paris and Florence, were locks that had been affixed not only to the structure but to other locks, too.  As romantic history buffs will know, the padlocks when locked with a key, symbolize a love that can’t be broken especially since the key to that lock is thrown away.

Since I, too, am a hopeless romantic, I spent a lot of time looking at the engravings thinking I would find a couple who had the same initials as we do. Perhaps, instead, I should have been looking for a lock with the initials “RH.” After all, I think our relationship is pretty darn good after 35 years (especially since this is our THIRD house renovation). The Red House still needs a lot of work and love put into it – somehow I know we can do it.