Potato harvest

The kids were thrilled to find the three tiny potatoes they planted gave them quite a bit of return on investment.

A man of many talents

My most memorable line from the movie "The Sound of Music" is when Captain von Trapp sarcastically refers to himself as "a man of many talents". I don't really know about Austria, but recently I realized that home-ownership in the US provides plenty of trainings for me to move toward that goal.

When we bought our first house a couple of years ago, I started with some simple woodworking and gradually moved up to making furniture, replacing windows and doors, fixing toilets, replacing faucets, and today, advanced to mixing mortar and setting tiles. I never thought that I will learn all these, more or less all by myself (with a bit of help from the For Dummies books and Google) when I grow up in Taiwan (where people hire professionals for almost everything). I wonder what will be the next in my curriculum.

A strange visitor

A young man showed up at our house this evening and offered to do some yard works or other thing around the house. Initially I thought it's just another person who was looking for some extra cash (been a couple ones recently), but surprisingly, he is not here for money. Instead, the reason he asked was:

"I set that saguaro in your front yard on fire about 15 years ago when I was a kid. I feel bad about that and want to do something to make it right."

I told him not to worry about it, since the saguaro is doing quite well now (except for the scars, now I know why they are there). I thought the whole thing was quite bizarre and deserves an entry here.

Olivia got a new house

Olivia (Alyssa came up with this name), the baby finch that Ann brought back about 2 weeks ago, finally learned to fly. While I'm happy about the fact that Ann's rescue effects are working, this does create some headaches for me.

Eventually we want her to be a free bird again but apparently she is not ready yet. I certainly don't want to push her out and see a premature death. That said, having a finch flying around in the house is just beyond my comfort zone. I know the easy solution is to put her in a cage but I worry that will have some negative effects for her future release. Today I finally broke down and bought a cage for her. As sweet as she is, insisting on standing on my mouse/keyboard when I write my blog is just over the line.

One more mouth to feed

Ann went out to shop for new curtains today, but instead of curtains, she brought back a baby finch!



I wonder what was wrong with the birds in Tucson, they seem to be dropping their babies left and right. This is the 3rd incidents over the last few weeks. The first two were from the dove family that lives in our front porch. Both times the babies stayed inside the house for a couple days and we released them after they learned to fly. This one looks quite young and may take some more time before it is ready to go.

Needless to say, kids are all very excited to have another baby bird in the house.

Skeleton in the closet

Well, actually not exactly skeleton and not in the closet either, but it is quite close.

Two days after moving into our new house here, we found that the previous owner has left the cremains of their pet in the kitchen cabinet (while cleaning the cabinet in the middle of night!). Needless to say, it was not a pleasant surprise and we asked them to pick it up the next day. This got to be one of the weirdest thing one can find when moving into a new house.

The joy of having your home on the market

Have dinner ready,
get the kids sit down at the table,
hear the phone ring,
pick up the phone,
know a potential buyer will stop by in 5 min,
get the kids off the table,
get the leash on the dog,
get the kids ready,
go out for a walk,

walk, walk, walk,

get the kids and dog back home,
get dinner ready again,
get the kids sit down at the table again,
and finally,
have dinner.

A nice house anyone?

Our house went on the market today. Seeing that "For Sale" sign in the front yard gives me a really strange feeling when I come home, it almost feels like I am entering someone else's home.

After Ann's hard work over the past few weeks, the house looks really nice and clean. The interior is so empty that we can hear lots of echo again, just like when we first moving in and had next to nothing.

Unlicensed and uninsured contractor

Our fridge broke down a couple days ago and our life has been kind of miserable because of that. The only good thing is that it is still covered by the 1-year warranty so hopefully we won't have to pay for the repair. However, the warranty seems to be the cheapo kind and I have to play the role of an unlicensed and uninsured contractor to fix the fridge by myself while their customer service representative teach me how to do things on the phone.
Two days ago, after a interesting series of "telediagnosis" (no, not the high-tech kind), they decided that the problem was caused by a fan motor failure. So they sent me a replacement motor and ask me to install the new motor. Unfortunately that didn't solve the problem so it looks like this is going to take a couple more days. I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and pay for a better and faster service. Will find out about this tomorrow.

Busy time

So we are going back to Taiwan in less than 10 days, and our to-do list of things that need to be done before we go just keeps growing. Some are expected, and many more are unexpected.

The good thing is that the main concern, my proposal for a NSF postdoc fellowship, is almost done so I will definitely get it in with time to spare. I still have two manuscripts that need revision before I can send them off. Maybe I'll have to bring some serious work on the trip after all.

Things at home are not going so well. Our not-even-one-year-old-yet fridge just stopped working and it'll take at least a couple days to get it fixed. In the mean time our quality of life is greatly impacted, but that doesn't seemed to be covered by any warranty. The car may need a new battery otherwise we face the possibility of a dead battery when we get back, which is a situation that I definitely want to avoid. Nina has been seen by the vet and has all her vaccinations up to date, but she is not happy about not getting enough attention and is becoming more and more annoying (hence getting less and less attention, *sigh*).

Plumbing fun

I replaced the faucet in kids' bathroom today. Alyssa and Vivian are very helpful to get me tools and hold the flashlight for me. David had a lot of fun digging through my tool box. They all like the new one a lot, I picked a single handle faucet with a long handle so it is much easier for them to use. Ann took the chance to clean the sink out throughly so it is all new and shiny now. We all feel very good about this.

I am pretty amazed by how much I've changed over the years since we moved to the US and then owned a house. Back when we are back in Taiwan (and I was still a young kid), doing house repair was something that unimaginable in our family. I still remember when we bought the house a couple years ago I've this feeling of being a little boy and got an over-sized toy that I don't now how to deal with. Yet now I are comfortable with most of the repairs in the house (even having some fun with doing all these). Guess my parents will be surprised if they know about this.

The second batch of the year

The second bird family that moved in on top of our motion detector have their chicks hatched. They got two hatchlings and we are very happy to see them.

Watch out with that remodeling!

After the first bird family moved out of their nest on top of the motion detector in our front porch, a second family moved in. Apparently these are different species (some sort of swallows this time) and have different preference about how to build a nest. The original one was made from moss and dirt. The new comers decided to do some remodeling and build something out of twigs and grass on top of the original nest. Unfortunately they are not very good at this, the whole added part fell off today. The good thing is that this failure did not seem to bother them, they just stay in the old nest and get on with their life.

"Baby" tomotos

Upon Alyssa's request, we started a small vegetable garden in the front yard last week. We got the plants from Lisa, We got squash, cucumbers, and two kinds of tomatos. Today is the first time we see two little tomatos hanging on the branch. Alyssa and Vivian are so excited about the "baby tomatos" and just couldn't resist to see them again and again.

Yes, they can fly now

As it turned out, the birds that live in our front porch have 3 hatchlings this year. The young birds learned how to fly today and left their nest right when I come back from work. They still hang around on the big oak tree in our front yard but don't go back to their nest.

A tragic loss

The birds that live in our front porch lost one of their hatchlings this morning. I found the little bird dead on the ground at lunch time. It probably fall out of the nest and die from the impact. We are very sad about this and buried the bird in our front yard.