ivman's blague

house wren update…

There are now six eggs in the house wren nest in our bird house. That number has not changed since Saturday, and so I think the female is done laying eggs. Here’s a picture of the six little tan eggs….

I found a picture online of a house wren….

One great thing is to hear the wrens singing at all hours of the day. If you’d like to hear the song of a house wren, click here.

I realize that some people who read my blog are not bird enthusiasts, but there are probably as many readers who are bird enthusiasts. You non-enthusiasts can scroll on down to today’s iv….

Here’s a picture of our bird house - the prime real estate in our subdivision! The lid is on hinges, allowing me to take the pictures I post on my blog.

Below is a picture of the bay window in our kitchen. If you look carefully, you can see the hummingbird feeder on the left, the bird feeder in the middle, and the bird house off in the distance.

Here’s a picture from the outside….

Here’s a close-up of the main bird feeder….

After squirrels have destroyed two “squirrel-proof” feeders from Lowe’s, I decided that we should just spring for the top-of-the-line “Eliminator Squirrel Proof Birdfeeder” from Wild Birds Unlimited. Since it comes with a lifetime guarantee, at the rate we were going, this one will pay for itself in no time.

A former student who lives in Tennessee has sent me several pictures that he’s taken recently of some woodpeckers nesting in a dead tree. He’s been looking for this nest for over a month. He said the nests are easier to find once the red heads start poking out.

Here’s a picture of two babies being fed through the hole in the tree…

He wrote today to say that the last baby fledged. Here’s a picture right before the last baby left the nest….

He said that in the same tree, a different type of woodpecker is nesting at the top. He went on to say, “There was a lot of drumming going on in that tree. Each variety of woodpecker has a different rythym. It seemed to be an annoyance to one variety when the other one was pecking.”

Here’s a picture of the other woodpecker nesting in the same tree….

Last week another reader sent me a link to a neat story about a very smart parrot. You can read it by clicking here.

There are all sorts of things that people say are “for the birds.” One of those things that some would say is for the birds is housecleaning. The piece below even mentions birds in the first item….

Philosophy Of Housecleaning
author - an unknown, but witty woman

1. I don’t do windows because … I love birds and wouldn’t want one to run into a clean window and get hurt. (I am compassionate.)

2. I don’t wax floors because … I am terrified that guests will slip, hurt themselves, and then I’ll feel terrible - and they may sue me! (I am careful and poor.)

3. I don’t mind the dust bunnies because … they are very good company, I have named most of them, and they agree with everything I say. (I am imaginative.)

4. I don’t disturb cobwebs because … I want all creatures to have a home of their own, and my family loves spiders. (I am kind.)

5. I don’t do “Spring Cleaning” because … I love all the seasons and don’t want the others to get jealous. (I am fair minded.)

6. I don’t do yard work because … I don’t want to get in God’s way - He is an excellent designer. (I am courteous.)

7. I don’t put things away because … my family will never be able to find them again. (I am considerate.)

8. I don’t do gourmet meals when I entertain because …. I don’t want my guests to stress out over what to make when they invite me over for dinner. (I am thoughtful of others’ fears.)

9. I don’t iron because … I choose to believe them when they say “Permanent Press”. (I am trusting.)

10. I don’t stress much over anything because … “Type A” personalities die young, and I want to stick around and become a wrinkled up crusty ol’ woman!!! (I am very practical.)

This is Rob again … several bits of irony in our own lives - just this evening while I was watering flowers out front, I hear a huge thud on the neighbor’s house. When I looked over, I saw a brown thrasher falling to the ground below the neighbor’s big picture window. The poor bird’s neck was broken and it died. The irony is that the window is not very clean. Another irony is that in our house, we think that spiders are for the birds! I just killed two black widow spiders in our attached garage when I was sweeping it out this past Saturday! YIKES! I had killed another one a few weeks ago. Being very glad that those black widow spiders are now dead, I do not think that housecleaning is for the birds! How about you?

quotation…

“You cannot keep a bird from landing on your head, but you can keep it from building a nest there!” - Dr. Bob Jones Sr.

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you’re just sitting there, staring at carpeting?

Tags: birds, housecleaning, housing, squirrels

This past weekend Becka and I drove up to Cincinnati, Ohio, for the wedding of our nephew Matt, the son of Becka’s sister Pam and brother-in-law Jim. We left right after my last class on Friday and arrived in Cinti six and a half hours later. The travel conditions were basically perfect, much to our delight. Megan, Jim, and Drew drove down from Detroit on Saturday. While waiting for them to arrive in time for the wedding at 1:00 p.m., Becka and I had Saturday morning to explore a little.

We decided that the hotel where we stayed could be where we’d like to retire to some day. It reminded us of the iv in my archives called no nursing home for me where you learn that it would be cheaper to live in a hotel than to go to a nursing home. That was the case with our hotel, a Comfort Inn very close to Kings Island amusement park. With our discount with the BJU Alumni Association, our room was under $50 a night. This included free cable TV (which we don’t even have at home!), free high speed internet, and a nice continental breakfast. A one-minute walk from the front door is a White Castle hamburger joint. (no thanks!) But also within easy walking distance are McDonald’s, Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel, Bob Evans, and many, many more.

We had long heard of Cincinnati chili, but we got to experience it for lunch on Saturday at Skyline Chili. We each got a 5-way chili on spaghetti, and WOW! What a treat! The young people working in there told us two of the secret ingredients that they knew of in the chili sauce - cinnamon and chocolate. It sounds potentially ghastly, but it was really good! Becka had actually guessed cinnamon when she tasted it, but the chocolate was a surprise.

We had hoped to try Graeter’s ice cream, another Cincinnati legend and supposedly the best ice cream in the world, while in town, but we didn’t get a chance. Next time….

We really enjoyed getting to be at the wedding and seeing Pam, Jim, and their family. Here’s a shot of all of our nephew Matthew’s side of the family who were at the wedding…

And of course, we thoroughly enjoyed getting to see Jim, Meg, and Drew and get another “grandparent fix.” Though the wedding reception was lively and fun, Drew found it tiring…

Saturday evening the parents of our new niece Katy, Matt’s bride, invited all family members to come to their house for dinner. It was good to get to know some of Katy’s family and to spend some time with our own family too.

Here’s a picture of Becka and her sister Pam with their grandsons…

Here’s a picture of our niece Shannon, our daughter Megan and their sons…

That evening back at the hotel, Becka and I enjoyed giving Drew a bath in our sink. Here’s our little bathing beauty…

After spending Sunday morning together, we had to go our separate ways. Alas! Becka and I drove back to Greenville, and Megan, Jim, and Drew took in Drew’s first baseball game. Here’s a picture of them before rain ended their fun in the 5th inning and sent them on their drive back to Detroit…

Since Cincinnati is on the Ohio River, there are several bridges joining the Ohio and Kentucky parts of the city. This weekend I received an e-mail about a bridge incident that seemed like the perfect thing to share in this blog post about our weekend in Cincinnati.

Engineering Question of the Day

Q: How much does a house weigh?

A: Just a tad more than a rural two-lane bridge can hold, apparently.

So would this be accident be covered by house insurance, car insurance, or would it fall under roadside assistance?

And how in the world would you get the house picked up without ruining it?

Carolina chickadee update…

Here’s a picture of the babies this afternoon, five days after the last picture I posted…

quotation…

“Be a good commercial for God with your body.” - Dr. Daniel Borkert

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?

Tags: birds, bridges, Cincinnati, engineers, housing, travel

I don’t have much Thanksgiving stuff in my files that is not already posted on my website. My wife was exploring the pre-blog archives the other day (one of the tabs at the top of the blog takes you there), and ran across an iv she thought I should re-post. What I’ll do is put a link to that iv here - Martha Stewart will not be dining with us this Thanksgiving

I’ve been hearing the “doom-and-gloomers” (a.k.a. the “drive-by media”) going on a lot lately about the housing situation here in the USA. (I suspect it’s in an effort to remind us how desperately we need Hillary). Anyway, it made my mind go to an e-mail I received a while back about how various people view your house.

your house as seen by…

yourself…

as seen by a potential buyer…

as seen by the lending institution…

as seen by the buyer’s appraiser…

as seen by a general contractor…

as seen by the local Historical Preservation Society…

as seen by a nosy neighbor…

as seen by the tax assessor…

quotation…

“The certainty of future events should drive us to testify.” - Dr. Drew Conley

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

Tags: funny pix, housing, Martha Stewart, society

As I promised, here is an entry about our housing this summer. If you go back into history in the Asian blog entries, you will see that our apartments this summer were a definite up-grade from last year’s and that we are far from suffering. Our apartment last year was one of the ones where they house their foreign teachers. It is in one of those that our friend Ruth lives. Apparently none of those was available this year, so they found Chinese staff members who would be traveling on their summer break and subleased their apartments for us. My wife and I have been staying in the apartment of a married couple who teach here. He has a doctorate, and so their apartment is quite nice. Below are two shots of the living room in our apartment, one from each direction.

The kitchen is also very nice. Below are two shots of the kitchen. The first one shows the counter on which is sitting the bottled water we must drink since tap water isn’t safe.

This picture shows the one side of the kitchen where we have a microwave, dish sterilizer, and refrigerator. (We don’t know how to use the dish sterilizer, so it is just for dish storage. It helps keep the resident ants and roaches off the clean dishes.

Our bedroom is quite comfortable and beautiful with a bed larger than ours at home.

The bathroom is quite nice too, as you’ll see below.

There’s an office with one wall completely lined with books. On the other side of the office is “IV Central.”

Becka has especially enjoyed the laundry facilities this year. Below are two pictures - one of our washer and another of our “dryer.” And it’s all on a screened-in balcony.

From that balcony, we feel like we’re in a real-life version of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller “Rear Window.” We can observe and hear the goings-on of the 18 apartments across from ours. We hear piano practice, singing, arguments, and you name it. Last Saturday we were awakened for the first time to a rooster crowing. We didn’t hear it the next morning. Now, where could that rooster have gone??? Here’s a view from our “rear window.”

In addition to the roaches and two kinds of ants, others share our apartment with us. Most notably are several geckos. It’s really weird and scary when they scream for no apparent reason! Below are two pictures - one near the ceiling and the other silhouetted on a window.

Jean and Yvonne stayed in our apartment for the first four nights until a dean left on vacation. They insisted that Becka and I take the bedroom and they would sleep in the living room. Below is a picture of our living room where Yvonne slept in mosquito netting on foam on the floor and Jean slept on our couch. This shot is Yvonne trying to get the fitted sheet onto the foam.

So when they moved into the dean’s apartment, they were *really* upgraded! However, since the dean’s forte does not seem to be housekeeping, we are not able to show as many pictures of their place. Below you will several rooms of that apartment so you can see how beautiful it is. First the living room, complete with a huge plasma TV.

Here’s a peek into the kitchen….

Here’s a view down the hall leading to the three bedrooms….

Here’s a shot of the master bedroom….

I will probably not be able to add an entry about our classes until after we’re back home and I have internet access again. Tomorrow is our last day here, and I will not have time to do any blogging. Fortunately, there will *always* be time for blaguing.

Tags: animals, China, housing

We did better last night - we managed to stay up till 8:40 p.m. and didn’t get up till 4:30 a.m. We figure that if we can keep shifting the times an hour a day, we should be pretty well adjusted soon.

We were met at the airport by two men from the university who drove us to our apartment. I’ll try to describe our little apartment for you. It’s on the second floor of a building on campus in which foreign faculty are housed. In the apartment immediately above ours is our friend Ruth. Upon entering the door of our apartment, you’re in our living room. This room contains a low buffet on which sit the drinking water dispenser (drinking water? Yes, tap water is not safe for drinking) and the TV. There’s also a fridge with a freezer in the one corner and a matching wooden chair, love seat, and coffee table. The bedroom is off the living room. It contains a wardrobe with several drawers (the wardrobe easily holds the clothes we brought in our luggage, all of which made it here on our flight - Ruth reminds us we had lots of “ground support”), a vanity with a mirror, a small night stand, and the bed. Ruth strongly urged us to bring an eggshell mattress, and we’re soooo glad we did! She also purchased for us a mosquito netting “pup tent” to go over our bed, which we’re soooo glad she did! After crawling into the tent last night and killing the two mosquitos who had gotten into it earlier, we slept bug-free all night. We were thankful too for a bedroom with AC. When I walked out into the living room this morning, my glasses actually fogged up! Believe me, it’s humid here!

We share the apartment with a number of mosquitos, and we cannot imagine how many mosquitos we’d have if the windows didn’t have screens! Fortunately we also share the apartment with some little lizards - hope they eat mosquitos! < -- tongue sticking out.... On to the dining room... that's where I'm writing this update. The computer in the dining room has Windows XP (in Chinese! - this has made things interesting). There's a large hutch in which we've stored our teaching materials, a wooden table and chairs. At the end of the apartment where the plumbing is located are the kitchen, bathroom, and a little space with a washing machine and a shelf above it with a microwave.

The kitchen is tiny, but in the wall there's a little cupboard with screen doors. Under the window there's a gas hot plate with two burners, and the sink and counter area are quite small. The "sink" is actually like a box with no lid, sunken down in the counter, completely made of tile, with a faucet and a drain. The bathroom consists of a western-style toilet (not the Turkish kind like we used at the restaurant yesterday), a shower hose, and a drain in the corner. You just stand in the corner and get yourself wet first, turn off the water, soap up, and then rinse off. Our first "shower" last night felt so good after the heat of the day! The washing machine is just outside the bathroom door, and the drainage pipe for it is interesting - it goes through the wall into the bathroom and drains onto the floor. The floor has enough of a slope that the water must all flow to the drain in the corner (see shower info above). We've not done any laundry yet, but with this arrangement, it seems as if we won't have to mop the bathroom. That could be a real time saver!

Off of the dining room is a small balcony. Beside our building are coconut trees with coconuts on them. Pretty cool, huh?! (see picture below)

Today (Friday) we’re scheduled to have lunch with the couple from Lyon, France who have been teaching French here this past school year. Then tonight we’re having dinner with the dean and other dignitaries at the university. Breakfast this morning was yogurt, banana and some sort of Asian melon (tasted like something between watermelon and cantaloup), and grits. (You can take the boy out of the South, but….) We brought them with us since we were pretty sure they weren’t local fare.

Well, this update has gone long, but I thought it would fill you in on how things look from half way around the world. We know we’re in the thoughts of many.

Below are several pictures from our apartment (worth a thousand words)

our kitchen and sink…

the inside of the sink (sunk?)…

v

our bed, complete with mosquito netting…

Tags: China, housing