The throne room. With a new throne!

Well, it isn't pretty.  The potty in my bathroom was working, sort of.  It was not nice, even after scrubbing, and even pumice stones (!), I couldn't get it to look 'clean'.  Less dirty, perhaps, but it was a mess.  And it would tend to plug up, and try to run over, if you weren't paying attention.  This made potty business a very attentive activity.  You do NOT flush and walk off.

And the sad part is, Husband's toilet was worse.  I would clean, and it looked like I'd done... nothing.  And his would run, continually.  He finally figured out a way to flush and get it to stop, but I didn't have the magic touch, so would have to let him know if I used his toilet. Otherwise whatever time elapsed, we'd hear the sound of running water in the toilet.  Thank goodness we don't have city water, or we'd owe a king's ransom by this point!

But it was not pleasant, it was not good, and it did nothing for the pump, or the house.  So, Husband got the thought that we should get new toilets. 

Okay. Cool.

We trotted off to Orange Hardware, and after losing him, (ironically because I needed to use the bathroom), I found the right aisle for toilets.  He was looking at many, many toilets.  I stood and knit a hat nearby, amusing many shoppers.  (Someone made a comment about a toilet cover. Uh. Nooo... 😄)

We finally agreed on a toilet, and after scaring up some help for him to get it in the pickup, off we went home. 

He started removing my old toilet, which led to Ding getting 50 kinds of curious.  She wanted to be there.  It worked out all right, as he put her over on the mat. (Her 'place', as it were, and she was able to watch, and for the most part, not be in the way.)  He had all out, then we locked Ding in the bedroom for a minute, as he shuttled old toilet parts out, and brought new toilet parts in.  Amazingly, she didn't try playing the bongos on the door during all this!

He was worried about the toilet being not the right size, as the spot for it in my bathroom is narrow, and the pluming is right near the wall.  Well, it worked!  So, he put all the parts together, and  we buttoned everything up, the next morning he checked for any leaks or drips.

NONE!!!  :)

So he put caulking around the base, and I now have a new throne!

God Bless the Queen?

The one and only drawback so far, is the sound.  Remember I said the old one would try and run over?  The new one, when it flushes... Sounds like the old one when it runs over!  This has made me pay attention. 

I will get used to it... But heck, it works!!!!

The Turkey Bombers!

We have several flocks of turkeys that wander around here.  I don't really pay them much mind anymore, they do the "OOOOH, APPLES" or "OOOH, ACORNS" and I try not to bother them much.

Some of the rafters are more easily spooked than others, however...

This I found out when I went out earlier than usual to open the chicken house.  It wasn't dark, but it was that odd gloom between night and sunrise, which was accentuated by heavy, dark rain clouds. I walked out under the oak tree by our door, and heard some odd noises.  Kept walking, it's not unusual to have any kind of critter making noise early like that.  It's more normal for the quiet of the night to hear crickets, frogs, occasional owls, but animal sounds are no big deal.

As I was walking, I noticed the pathway was strewn with poo.  Oh, terrific.  I skipped around the land mines, needing to finish what I was doing so I could go to work.  I walked out, opened the chicken house, and fed.

Then I walked back to the house.

Whereupon, someone spooked! 

FLAFF FLAP FLAP CRASH, (Tink, crunch, rattle), SMUNK, SKRICK! SKRICK! SKRICK!

Basically, the first one dove off the branch, which then hit another branch, startling the next bird, who also took off, giving off an alarm call, whereupon they ALL took off, in different directions.  If that wasn't exciting enough, the tree is loaded with acorns, and as each one launched, they let down a hail of acorns, and it sounded much like a typewriter on meth! I wasn't under the tree, so I saw this explosion of birds coming out of the leaves in every direction, and a rainfall of acorns below...  This all happened in about 5 to ten seconds, then they all landed, turned around, looked at me, and then almost looked disappointed, like "We got out of bed for this?" 

I walked back to the house, and the rafter re-formed, in our back yard, but I have a sneaking suspicion I might need to do some cleaning of the front walk. 

Again...

Those crazy Victorians...

Husband and I just celebrated our anniversary.  We decided to go see flowers we like.  We drove through a forest area, to look at bear grass blooms and rhododendrons.   It's a nice area, and we went through right at the primo time for blooms, which made for some nice photos.  (Including a sneaky one I took of Husband, taking pictures!)  We arrived at the area we were going to, and realized it was very early in the day, so we chatted for a bit, and decided to drive to Sisters, where we would have lunch. 

We were driving by a bathroom area.  Um.

Husband saw them first, and commented, "Are those... vultures?"

There must have been... A dozen? More?  A lot, at any rate.  Whoever is supposed to clean up the trash... Didn't.  For a LONG time.  As in, there were several bags, probably 6 or 7,  some open, some not, and loose trash all around the bathrooms.  This is what the vultures were congregating on and around. 

The vultures were picking up bits and scraps from the trash, and some were just sitting, wings out, being an avian solar collector. 

I wondered what a group of vultures was.  I looked it up. Vultures in a group are a wake.  I guess the Victorians had way too much time on their hands, leading to various groups like,

A wake of vultures, a parliament of owls (or rooks), a murder of crows, a stench of skunks, a crash of rhinos, and a kindle of kittens.

So now I have an image of all these little kittens sitting on a flat screen...