New York Renovator

No, I’m not talking about a photo of your favorite celebrity! I’m talking about taxidermy, people, taxidermy!

My fellow blogger, Michelle at Scribbit, recently bewailed her husband’s new mantelpiece conversation piece: a whale vertebra given to him as a “gift.”

Uh huh. Men.

The vertebra is a pale gray color. The man intends to whiten the bone with bleach (and a toothbrush, no doubt). It made me snicker, because I had recently visited my dad’s home, and in his office were three proudly displayed deer skulls. The skulls were as white as snow. Beautiful, in a weird and unusual sort of way.

He had told my sons (listening so intently with that deer-skull fascination inherent to the male gender) the gory stories about his hunting expedition. When he bagged these big buck babies, he shipped the deer heads to a company in Oklahoma, for mounting. (Yes! Fed Ex ships beheaded deer!) (The heads had been frozen solid and drained of “fluids.” Ick ick ick!)

This company in Oklahoma, Skulls Unlimited, uses dermestid beetles. The beetles eat the flesh and leave the skull pearly white. They get into every crevice, too, not wasting a single bite of raw meat. Mmm. You can visit the website and view quite a collection of ghoulish skeletons made white by these carnivorous beetles. There’s a whale skeleton, too! I’m tickled that they have an “education” section for the kids.

I don’t know if it’s too late for Michelle’s unbleached whale bone to go under the eating-beetles therapy. I suspect it is. Well, now you’re all the wiser for next time!

You probably know that you should never dump grease down your drains. At least, I hope you know. I knew people who used to flush leftovers down their toilet. To this day, my eyes grow wide with terror when I remember it. Cabbage, turkey bones, potato skins…. down the john. Unbelievable. Of course, these drains didn’t belong to them– they belonged to the landlords who were completely oblivious to such reckless tenants.

Grease down the drains isn’t much better. Grease will collect in grimy pools in your pipes, and clog the passageways. Older plumbing sometimes can’t handle the pressure, and, well… you know. Not fun.

When I cook my ground beef or bacon or other greasy meats, I drain the fat into an cleaned out tin can or an old coffee container. I set the container aside until the grease congeals. On a winter’s day in New York, this usually takes a few hours (in my house, anyway). I scrape off the congealed grease that has risen to the top and put it in a small shopping bag, tie it up tightly, and throw it in the trash. Sometimes I save the gelatinous broth and give it to the dog or the cat, who love it, and the protein is good for them. If I am feeling particularly industrious, I use a few tablespoons of the broth in a soup or stew for flavor.

I’m kicking myself in the pants (again). Over the summer, when I had the circuit panel open and was “into” electric, I considered getting a whole house surge protector, but I didn’t. For various reasons (costs and running out of time), I thought I’d do it “later.” Yeah, right.

I am in constant need of those power strip surge protectors, because I don’t have a whole house protector. I think I have spent more money on those protector power strips than if I had just paid the $80 for the circuit panel attachment.

We homeschool, and the computers in the house are absolutely necessary. It’s amazing that ten years ago, I didn’t even know about personal computers. Now, we have half a dozen and it’s growing (although some are old geezers that I’m ripping apart for curiosity’s sake; what’s in there?). My daughter’s recent acquisition of a computer for her personal use has us running around in circles, because I don’t dare plug it in yet. All our computers must be plugged in to a surge protection device! I just haven’t had the time to make another trip to WalMart and shell out another $25 for another power strip protector! Ugh!

A whole house power surge protector is a small piece of circuitry that you wire into your circuit breaker box. It protects the entire house. Now, nothing is foolproof, because electricity surges– be they from lightning or the power company– are tricky things. But a whole house protector with the additional surge protector power strips at your outlets should protect your electronics under all but the freakiest events.

A good articles on this subject is at This Old House. There’s also a very succinct document here (PDF alert) that I found useful.

From what I’ve read, if you have experience with wiring and working in your own circuit panel, installing one of these small boxes is a piece of cake. Needless to say, if you are terrified of electricity, get a pro to put one in.

Well, we’ve been using our new laminate flooring for a good several months now. The installation was OK, for us first-timers. The temperature fluctuations typical of New York State have caused the flooring to shift quite a bit. I am still very pleased with the flooring, although the shifting makes me uneasy.

I am happy to announce that it looks like the shifting as ceased (until spring, at least?). For a while there, I thought maybe we were experiencing a new kind of Andreas Fault or something… but so far, so good. We’ll see how it goes when we go through the turgid humidity of July and August…

One does not really need to go through a flooring information guide to figure out the type of flooring he prefers. If a person has a distaste for rubber flooring, nothing can change that. Similarly those who have always preferred a carpet tile to carpet runners, will stick to the tile, no matter what. One should be cautious with a laminate floor though because it has a lesser life than its counterparts. On the other hand, linoleum and bamboo flooring is quite in these days.

The kids and I were reminiscing about our plaster removal jobs over the summer. I asked them if they could offer a Quick Tip, what would it be?

They took a quick vote, and the result was unanimous:

Well! Out of the mouths of babes, huh? (Although they are not babes anymore, lol). The consensus is in: the spade is the most useful tool in removing plaster from lathe.

Removing plaster is a technique. Never remove the plaster and lathe at the same time. You’ll wind up with a disaster, and a dangerous one at that, with rusty old nails everywhere.

We placed two large garbage cans (the 30 gallon rubber kind) underneath where we were working. We took our spade and “shaved” the plaster off the wall, aiming for the garbage can. Once an entire wall was shaved, we then ripped the lathe off with a crowbar. The lathe and nails were cleared before we went to the next wall.

Safety is just as important as efficiency and money. Be safe!

My tip is about removing stains from clothing. Don’t leave the blog yet! It’s not that boring! Really! This can be interesting! I promise I’ll make it brief!

Boys + Jeans + Outside = Grass stains

Husband + Newspaper Delivery = Ink Stains

Daughter + Hot Dogs + Mustard = Mustard Stains

I’ve said before I am no fan of the reams and reams of fancy cleaning agents that fill my supermarket shelves. I was given advice many years ago that dish detergent, like Dawn, will remove stains. You apply a light coat of Dawn over the stain, and scrub. If it’s a stubborn stain, scrub the detergent in. Be careful over over-zealotry with some fabrics, as they may fray if your scrub too hard. I use a toothbrush with jeans. After you’ve applied the detergent, toss the clothing in with the regular wash. This works for most stains.

See, now that wasn’t too bad, was it?

I don’t have any pictures for this Quick Tip, but after reading this, you’ll thank me.

Boys and girls, I’d like to talk today about clogged drains! We have three ladies in our home, all of whom have very long, beautiful hair. It is our habit to brush our hair in front of the mirror, over the sink. This is not a good habit, but I really don’t think it will change any time soon.

Needless to say, our bathroom sink drain gets completely clogged with hair every few months. It is usually at a most inconvenient time, like when dinner is cooking, when the relatives are visiting, or when I’m sick. Last night, it was the latter. I was about ready to crawl into bed, when someone hollered that the sink was clogged again and the water was rising. Being the astute mother that I am, I digressed from my path and promptly shut off the faucet– giving my child the look for allowing the water to continue to pour into the basin.

We have no Draino in the house. I won’t have it. I once kept it on my shelf, but after a few uses, it killed my pipes. Yep, totally ate through them. That was not fun, let me tell you.

So for the past few months, I’ve been using a narrow comb. Yep. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I would spend half an hour over that stupid sink, plunging the comb as far down as it could go and digging the hair and ikky gunk out. Not fun, either. But it worked, and didn’t kill my pipes. I’ve been thinking all this time that there has got to be a better way. I even threw away the comb to prevent me from using it and to force me to think up something better (necessity being the mother of all invention and all that).

Last night, right in the middle of digging into the sink with a coat hanger, it hit me! My plumber auger! I’d bought a small one over the summer for a toilet job. It was small enough to insert into the sink drain and, with some effort, could loop into the P-trap. It worked! I have no idea why I didn’t think of this months before. But.. all I care about is I’ll never have to use a comb or coat hanger again!

By the way, a plumber’s auger (or snake, as they are sometimes called) are found at any home improvement store, usually in the $15 to $25 dollar range. Every homeowner should have one, in my opinion. And never, never, never use Draino in old house plumbing!

For my birthday (a few months ago now), my kids bought me a Quikrete concrete walkway form, and three bags of concrete. I’ve been wanting to make a walkway into my “secret garden” through my arbor for a long time. A few years ago, I had laid stones in the pathway. These were very large stones that had been dug up around the yard. New York State gets severe frost heave, so in a few years they were all over the path. Plus, most of the stones are slate, and became very slippery when lichen started to grow over them. It was also a royal pain to mow the path, because grass still grew between the stones. So, I’d been wanting something easier to care for to put in the stones’ places.

So far, so good. Now, my expectations aren’t sky high– I’m resigned to frost heave. And my pathway is not anywhere near done. My husband and I only had time to get a four-foot section done this past autumn, before freezing temperatures hit. I didn’t surround the concrete with soil (which I plan on doing) to keep the sections in place better. I also didn’t fill the gaps with sand (which I plan on doing). I will also put in small creeping thyme between the gaps, eventually.

I was going to get a photo of how the walkway looked so far, but it snowed and I haven’t the energy to shovel it off! I’ll be posting more about our process and from time to time give updates.

I love the funny papers…. except I no longer read the papers. I read the funnies online. Speed Bump is one of my favorites. Check out these cute ones!

I’m adding a poll about the recent unusual weather we’ve had around here. Please try to take the time and vote, would you?

This “January Thaw” as I call it is unprecedented. It was near 70 degrees a weeks ago, and all our snow is gone. Our winter has hardly had a chance to begin, too!

I read a news story that says winters in the Northeast are 2.5 degrees warmer now than 40 years ago.

A study of weather station data from across the Northeast from 1965 through 2005 found December-March temperatures increased by 2.5 degrees. Snowfall totals dropped by an average of 8.8 inches across the region over the same period, and the number of days with at least 1 inch of snow on the ground decreased by nine days on average.

What do you think? In your own experience, are winters getting warmer? I tend to think not. I actually think winters– and all seasons– are becoming more extreme. We’ve had several winters of severe, below-zero weather and unusual days of extremely heavy snow and then the temperatures would pop back up again.

What strikes you, about this weather?

Plus, it is just me, or do all our snowstorms now appear sometime on Sunday or Sunday nights now? What is this?!