Walldren's World

It's been a while since I've written in this blog and with good reason. We're eagerly awaiting the arrival of our third child. We know it's a boy. We know he'll be a large baby. And we know he will be loved. Our kids have been staying with their maternal grandparents for a full week now. Missing them is heart breaking for both the Mrs. and myself. But we know that it's for the best that they are with two people who love them, and most importantly can actively pay attention to them. I've been doing a mixture of PTO and working remotely over the last week as we get ready. I've joked with my closest relatives that, "Hey, I could really get used to this whole working 4 hours a day and not commuting thing." I've helped to clean the house from top to bottom. I've scrubbed tubs and toilets. I've vacuumed. I've mowed the lawn (and the weeds). I've build infant furniture and installed the car seat. I've continued listening ...

In our last installment I mused over the discovery of carpenter bees living some support beams under our deck. In this installment I shall put forward a question to the general public: Just what is causing an almost perfectly rectangular segment of mulch to disappear from the back of our house? Actual photo of the missing mulch (last seen several weeks ago). This is the second time the mulch has disappeared on its own without any clear sign as to why. My wife and I are understandably concerned. Not so much as to go around putting up Missing Mulch posters, but truly baffled by what could be causing it. One possible culprit may be a hot water exhaust that's about 20 feet or so above the spot. A possible explanation may include recent heavy rains channeled downward at rapid speed due to that fixture. Does anyone out there have ideas? Even conspiracy theories are welcomed at this point.

Imagine if you will that you saw a pile of fine sawdust near the support beam of the stairs leading down from your deck. Next, imagine that you heard faint, pained singing coming from the direction of that pile. The closer you approached the pile, the louder the song became. Until you finally recognized the melody was this: Drawn closer to the song, you realized that it came from a perfectly circular hole carved into in the support beam. It's as if an itinerant handyman with a circle cutter stopped by to make a hobo sign on part of your house. Well, if you take out all of the stuff I've written up to this point involving Tim Hardin 's classic song, that's what we discovered this weekend at our house. We have carpenter bees ! Actual photo of the circular hole made by the bees Despite this beam being treated with stain, the bees made themselves right at home. According to the ever useful about.com, the next step to take to avoid structural damage is to a...