Home Sweet Home

He was a hairy bear, he was a scary bear.

(Ha! Did you see what I just did?  I described him with adjectives!)

The children and I had been at the park across the street and on our way home I saw that bear investigating our neighbor’s tree.  He was three houses from ours, so he wasn’t exactly between us and safety. Still, he was cause for concern.

We stayed on the park side of the street and as we came directly across from him, I waved and said, “Hi!”.  I was hoping to install a “friends, not food” attitude in him.  Well, he took one look at us and took off behind the house.  Before we reached home, we saw him re-emerge from behind another house about two doors down from ours on the other side.  He crossed the street and disappeared behind those houses.

Once  home, I did a little bear safety research.  Turns out that I did the exact right thing in waving my arms and making noise.  That’s when I found out that bears can open lever-handled doors and get in windows.  But generally, they’ll only do that if they smell food, but not humans.

Tami Nomad asked me what to do if a hairy, scary bear is lurking around your door. Beats me!  There are lots of things to do to make your home less inviting to bears, mainly keeping your garbage out of reach, keeping pet food inside, and cleaning your grill clean.  If they don’t smell it, they won’t bother you.

At least in theory.

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We’ve been living in Colorado for one year now, can you believe it?  It’s a little different, living  in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, especially for someone who grew up near the ocean.

Here are some of the things we’ve learned this year:

1.  Do not leave your trash cans out on the curb the night before pick-up or bears will get into them.

2.  Only mountain newbies forget to drag the trashcans back to the house after trash pick-up and leave them out over night.  Bears will check to make sure they are really empty.

3.  Don’t forget to close your garage door at night, especially if you have a chest freezer full of deer meat.  Bears will get at your freezer and steal your meat.  This happened to a neighbor.

4.  The police are very reluctant to come and assist with the removal of a bear eating deer meat in your tree.

5.  That lovely rubbed-oil lever-handled door knob you just installed in your back door?  Bears can open it to get at the kitty treats inside.  And by kitty treats, I mean the actual cats.  Keep yer backdoor locked, ya flatlander!

6.  The dry creek behind the house is not actually dry and is a great attractor of wildlife.  Like a spotted fawn and it’s mother…

and a raccoon out late at dawn and needing a nap.

7.  Where there are deer, there are mountain lions.

8.  Did I mention the bears? Here’s one at our neighbor’s house a couple of months ago.

9.  The dogs we hear howling at night sometimes are not dogs.  They are coyotes.  They live in the bluff across the street.  This one:

All these wildlife spottings have sparked this daily conversation in our house:

Boo: I’m going to get the mail.

Pumpkin Girl and Bip, without hint of irony, sarcasm or emotion: Don’t get eaten by bears!

That’s love, right there.

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This post was brought to you by Mittens the Cat, who wants to remind you to keep your lever-handled doors locked.

Cats are friends, not food.

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I recently got one of these Butter Bell things. You load the lid with butter and put a little cold water in the base and the butter stays fresh, soft and spreadable. Change the water every couple of days and all is well. Mmms, soft butter on homemade bread.  Bliss!
I got this idea from my friend Tami.  She puts her dishwashing liquid in an oil carafe thing.  The name completely escapes me at the moment.  Anyway, it looks so much better sitting near the kitchen sink than that bottle of soap.  I happen to have a window behind my sink so the light shines through and makes it even prettier.  Tami has good taste and I copy her as often as I can.

Ok, so this isn’t in my kitchen, it’s on my front porch.  But what  you find inside it does end up in the kitchen.

See?  This is the best milk ever, at least according to my children.  The first day they tried it, they declared they like it better than our regular stuff.  It’s hormone and antibiotic free, not raw but not ultra-pasteurized either AND it’s cheaper than the milk at the commissary. Bonus points because the empty bottles go back in the box to be sterilized and reused.  (Does that make it green milk? Ha, Ha!  I crack myself up!) Plus, it is so much fun having a milk man, even if his truck does sometimes wake me up by idling in front of my house at 4 am.

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We’re a little crazy for Disney around here.  That’s putting it mildly.

It seems that everywhere you look in our house, you can find that iconic Mouse in red, black and yellow.

On the floor near the boys’ room.

Waiting to play.

In the kitchen.

On my wrist.

So that after awhile, we start seeing Mickey everywhere!

Doesn’t this car look suspiciously familiar?  Go ahead, scroll up to my watch…and back to the car.  You see it, too!

I’d say we need help, but we refuse to admit that we have a problem.

But if you’d like to stage an intervention, may I suggest holding it at the Disneyland Hotel?

(And let’s not even mention what’s going on in the bathroom…)

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A  squad of snow soldiers keep silent vigil over  the entrance to our house.

These guys claim the foyer for the USA.

LTC Freeze’s battalion has seized the high ground in defense against the children that are rumored to be in the area.  Freeze is the 3rd guy from the right, with the red hat and green scarf.

(hmm, next time I’ll close the cabinet door for  a better picture)

Snowman Army all present, sir!

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…

In with the new…

When we first moved in we knew that the side-by-side refrigerator that came with the house was going to be too small.  It wasn’t a pressing issue, but we did research and figured out which fridge we wanted when the time came.  Then Thanksgiving week we found an ad from Home Depot and we were able to save $700 on a new fridge!  We’re loving the extra room, especially in the freezer.  There was a brief moment of panic when I realized that we forgot to measure the space between the kitchen island and the counter.  I made Philip get up (we were already in bed) and come with me to confirm that the new fridge would actually be able to be maneuvered in.  No worries, it had a couple of inches to spare.

The rest of the appliances in the kitchen are black, but we decided to go with the stainless for the fridge.  I’m glad we did, since we’ll be getting a gas range in the next few years and so will slowly go completely stainless.

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