Blogger Magic I

Somehow Blogger erased my oldest post which also included a photo of our tree-house. Henceforth, I will call these occurrences "magic". Luckily, most of that post was an intro that is summarized in the paragraph above my picture at right. While I'm at it I will share the story of that mini-portrait. When we were in Japan in the mid-90's there were photo booths which produced a page of tiny stickers, about the size of a stamp.  There was a choice  of animated backgrounds, so of course, as a gardening fan I chose flowers. I will post another photo of the tree-house again below:

Sculptures waving are Junior (inside) and George (on deck).

Animals Among Us I

If you look up animal control outfits, all sorts of cute names will be found. However, the experience of fauna residing in one's home is, for the most part, not cute. Due to the sheer number and magnitude of tales in this category, I'll use multiple posts with bite-size entries. I will also begin with a relatively benign example to "break in" the reader prior to the more harrowing tales.
While installing a new roof on our first home, I noticed an animal-made opening between the original roof line and the '70's era dormer addition. My assisting friend and I came to the consensus that it was a raccoon or skunk sized entrance. He had a friend with a Havahart trap and I had a can of sardines. So I carefully placed the trap and open can of sardines on the roof near the opening at dusk.  After a critical misstep and another sardine purchase, I did  eventually catch a huge raccoon. However, on the first night I naively left the ladder  leaning on the back of the house. Due to this, in the morning I discovered I had captured the neighbor's cat!

Landscaping Experiments I

I attempt interesting landscape design projects in my garden which I call "experiments". Not meant to offend, these are an outgrowth of my teen years spent as a groundskeeper on an estate on the east coast. Though only about 4 acres in size it included a rose garden, animal shaped topiaries, long hedges, arbors, etc. About ten years ago I planted a Forsythia on either side of the sidewalk out front. My "experiment" was to grow and shape them into a single archway for pedestrians. Over time it began to come along fairly nicely. One day, on arriving home, I noticed a ticket shaped paper attached to our screen door. We often have errant painters and such leaving trash attached to our house, so I almost discarded it. Lo and behold!  It was a threat, caused by some ninny who complained, from the city's "Community Standards" folks. Remove this "Danger" or face $75 a day fines!

 Gutters Demystified

Many assume that gutter installation is child's play, but I can assure you it is not. The pros reel off any length from an extruder-type gizmo and then have two pairs of hands to secure it. The schmos, like me, have to buy unwieldy 10 foot lengths, strap them on the roof of their ride and juggle them alone! Older systems use 7 inch spikes, which are giant aluminum nails- strange at best, lethal at worst. Gutter seams have to be caulked, the sections overlapped in the proper order and the entire length of each "run" needs an accurate slope to drain correctly. I did OK on our first house- I was in my 20's and more on the ball. However, when I discovered the (detached) garage of our present house had no gutter, I was over-confident and ten years more absent minded. So, while I successfully assembled and attached the "buggers", I completely spaced out the concept of slope. I must now add the fact that this gutter is directly below very large Mulberry tree (see tree-house picture- that's it). Following a big summer thunderstorm, I went up on the garage roof to deal with some dead branches. There seemed to be an awful lot of insect activity over by the back edge. I thought- what the heck is that  about? Looking over the edge I saw a plethora of yellow jacket wasps alighting on a a gutter filled with Mulberry soup!

Blog Name Changes

So many posers had my original blog name ( Hapless Homeowner) that google would alter "Owner" to "Oner" when I would try to send folks the link .... pretty onerous right? Then I tried "Hopeless" but that's a drag and untrue. I've settled on "Happily Hapless" and  hope no-body horns in on this one. It may send my (soaring) stats back to 0, but I have to be the one and only, right? I also dropped the previous subtitle, "DIY Disaster" which I enjoyed and dreamed would garner me more search its due to the DIY, but it started to be cumbersome ( even to me).  All this also helps to prove how hapless I really am anyway!