New York Renovator

…not a very good combination.

Do you hear that tinkling sound, the sounds of shards of glass falling to the cold, concrete floor? That’s my heart, busted into little bitty pieces. A beautiful barn owl died in my chimney’s water tank duct last week.

It started late in the evening. I was upstairs, and the kids were eating dinner downstairs. Suddenly, a huge crash was heard in the first floor, or in the basement. The kids called me down to investigate.

We figured the sound was coming from the basement. This has been ONE heck of a winter, I tell ya. Deer eating everything, possums and raccoons are squirrels nesting in the house walls, the basement… ice dams the size of Goliath dripping down into the garage and inside the walls… *sigh* It’s not a happy year for home ownership.

So I expected the intruder to be a squirrel. We have a lot of squirrels, and they all seem determined to make my life as miserable as possible. They nest in the walls, loudly scratching and squeaking all night…

I had no idea if this squirrel was rabid. I was a little afraid of the what-ever-it-is in the ducting.

I took a stick and banged on the duct. The thing squirmed and scratched. We wondered if it was a bird or a squirrel. It scratched like a squirrel, but it wasn’t as rough. Those of you lucky folks who have had squirrels nesting in the walls, you know what I mean when I say “sounds like a squirrel.” They have this unmistakable (read: ANNOYING) sound. But if it was a bird, why didn’t it fly back up through the chimney?And it was 10pm, what bird in its right mind would be flapping around the roof this late??

OK, I admit, NO, we DON’T have a chimney cap. Oh I know we should. The previous owners did us the honor of fixing the chimney (complete with lightning rod, the old pastor who lived her was deathly afraid if lightning), but never installed a cap, and never lined the chimney. So it’s a wide-open gaping hole for nasty squirrels and their riffraff.We haven’t had any problems with the chimney (that I know of) until now.

Anyway, the thing wouldn’t come out. I rapped on the duct a few times, but couldn’t drive the critter out. I tried to lift the ducting just a little, and when I did, I felt something furry at the end. EEK!!! I was now too terrified of lifting the ducting and having a live squirrel jumping out at me. I did what any respectable wife would do in such a circumstance: I’d wait for the husband to get home.

By the time he got home from work, it was very late and he was exhausted. I supposed the critter would have to wait until morning. Hopefully, he’d come out by then. The critter. Oh, and the husband, yeah.

Well, we went down next day, and I rapped on the pipe, hoping the scratching would cease. No scratching! The critter must have escaped! But the pipe made a dull *thud*. Oh no. It’s probably dead. Ugh. The Hubs geared up in his special superduperheavtyduty latex gloves (squirrels have sharp teeth, you know), and he lifted the ducting.

I thought it was a squirrel.

He pulled it out and we both stared for a minute. I didn’t see the little squirrely ears. What happened to its head?!??!!?

Then it hit me. It’s a bird. Oh, Lord. I thought maybe it was an osprey, as we have some around here. The Hubs exclaimed, “It’s an owl!”

I almost cried. That poor, poor owl. A squirrel would have deserved such a fate, but an owl?! Owls are good, gentle creatures. They don’t bare their sharp little teeth and maniacally chatter at me from the trees. Owls don’t steal the bird seed that I leave for the cardinals. That poor, poor owl! I was crushed. I regretted rapping on the duct. Maybe I killed him!! But then, maybe the fumes from the hot water tank overcame him.Wah!!!

So, a poor owl is dead. Wah. And we have to cap our chimney, pronto.

It will be a busy spring for me. The ice dams in the house are causing terrible leaks. We may need to repair the roof and do some interior repair work. What a winter. I can’t wait til it’s over!

Rain barrels are DIFFICULT to find!!! Well, they were. I recently discovered a site that has rain barrels for sale. Finally!

Rain barrels collect, well YEAH, rain! Although we have had no scarcity of excessive rain here in Upstate New York for the past ten years or so, I do not like all the rain that falls from my roof and into the ground by my home’s foundation. I had installed a French drain/dry well kind of contraption (the kids dug a trench 4 feet deep by 24 feet long!), and that has helped immensely. But there’s still a lot of water coming down from that roof, and my home cannot support gutters until we re-do the siding.

A rain barrel is predominantly for rain harvesting. It’s great for areas that have little rainfall. The rain barrel has a small spigot at the bottom, so you can hook up your garden hose and utilize the water elsewhere in the garden (say, for watering plants or filling the watering can). It is a TERRIFIC way to conserve water from your municipal water supply or well. Most rain barrels have a slot or hole at the top of them, to receive water from your gutter system and downspout. Me, I’d just place the rain water barrel under one of my roof eaves, where the rain comes shooting down the valley and into my stone foundation.

Anyway, you can find rain water barrels online in a variety of styles and sizes. Some are very elegant! It’s a good idea to conserve water– good for your wallet, good for your neighborhood.

High oil prices are affecting roofing materials. Unfortunately, when a house needs a roof, a house needs a roof. Be prepared to pay through the nose. A news story from Syracuse quoted a roofing contractor as saying that roof prices have gone up fifteen times in the past two years. What was once an expensive $43 a square foot for basic asphalt shingles is now about $60! Ouch! I’m glad we got our new roof installed when we moved here, but that was eleven years ago. Depending on the environment (heat, ice, the absence or presence of trees), the average lifespan of a new asphalt roof is 20 years.

By the way, you should never install two roofs– you know, a new roof on top of an old one. When we moved here, one roofing contractor said we could do that to save money; he said there was only one roof layer on and adding another on top might be a good idea. It would also be cheaper, because there is nothing to tear off and dispose of (which is very expensive to do). But we decided to swallow the price of a more expensive tear-off.(And we hired a different roofer who wouldn’t try to sell us something we didn’t want to do). BOY was THAT a great decision! Because there was not one, not two, but already THREE layers of roofing on the roof of the house. And the wood beneath it was moldy and cracked. We have to pay extra to replace the bad boards. But I don’t care. If we had just slapped on another layer, I doubt the rafters would have held the weight. And the old roofing was leaky and rotted. I shake my head at the folks who owned the house before us, because they were the Methodist Church, and this house was their parsonage. They took such crappy care of this place that I am amazed they’d even lift their heads to greet their pastor. How can anyone let a young family live in such deplorable conditions? This house was a disaster!

Well, anyway… slapping a new roof on top of an old one is inadvisable and you’re asking for trouble. If you are nubile enough, you can always strap on some cabling and rip the old stuff off yourself, saving money. Gee, the old days of musing over expensive frivolities like espresso machines is over, I think. We’re being squeezed over the basic necessities, now!