various updates, somehow related

1.  We're getting a new washing machine. Should be delivered Friday.  Fingers crossed.  Until then, our clothes are kinda dirty.  Sorry if we smell.

2.  Also Friday: Lucy's class field trip to the Swan Boats in Boston!  She's very excited.  I'm serving as a chaperone.  Any advice?

3.  Alice has an ear infection. We have a new regime of 10 day of ear washes and ear drops twice a day.  FUN!  Not really. She's mostly compliant, and given her motivation re: treats, it's going pretty well so far.  You may recall that Lucy had a lot of ear infections.  So frequent, in fact, that we began to document them, like with this fabulous video: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakeb/3026867905/in/photolist-5BAD4m-5BtunF
Alice also seems to be in good spirits and does not seem to be affected much by the situation.

4. I took Alice on a walk today.  We were walking along at the Reservoir.  She ran for some birds.  I attempted to run, too. I am not sure exactly what happened, but I ended up on the ground.  I held onto the leash, but hurt my left ankle.  I laid there for a while, with Alice coming up to lick me.  I got some assistance from a neighborhood lady.  A man tried to help, too, but Alice's bark kept him away.  We got a ride home and I've been doing the ice/elevate thing.  So far, I think it's just a bit twisted.  We'll see how it's doing in the morning.  Hopefully it won't affect my ability to go to the swan boats!

5.  Further Reservoir update: for the past little while, we've been marveling at a charming family of ducks who have made their home at the Res (as we call it).  There was mama, a papa, and 11 duckings!  Totally adorable!  Over a couple of weeks, they were whittled down to 9 ducklings (not sure what happened to those other two,  but apparently this is a pretty good survival rate).  We stop in almost once a day on our regular dog walks to see them.  They've been growing up, getting more and more adorable, doing awesome diving tricks and following their mom about.

On Monday, we took Lucy for a brief walk after school (it had been raining all day and we were glad to have a moment of merely misting to get out and about).  We were AMAZED to see the ducklings following their mom, not around the pond, but walking down the street.  In fact, we followed at a safe distance, watching them cross streets and get from the Reservoir, then cruising down Bennett street, hopping into some backyards and popping out on Vernon street, and then just walking across Third Street, around the gazebo park.  We were so excited.  We tried to continue following, but somehow they gave us the slip (likely into a backyard?) so we gave up and came home.

BUT a few hours later, Jake drove downtown to pick up Alice from the Social Pup, and he spotted the duck family again!  It was awesome!  They made it all the way down to First Street and ended up in a parking lot of a business there.  They even got traffic to stop so that they could cross the VFW Highway so that they could get to what we presume was their intended destination: the mighty Merrimack River!  Here's their path (roughly, as google doesn't have a "duck path" option):

I hope to be able to add some video from Jake soon, because it is ridiculously adorable.  Make way for duckings, indeed!  And hey, on Friday, Lucy's class will be visiting the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture!  Serendipity indeed!

Plumbing Project #3

Once again, we let the professionals do their thing. It seemed wise, given that this job involved a new hook-up to the drain system as well as soldering. Open sewers and open flames are two things I really don't think we want to try working on without proper supervision & heavy-duty "do-it-yourself" insurance.

The problem: the washer hookup


Our nice new washer was hooked up in a rather Rube Goldberg contraption sorta way. Check it out:

The series of hoses seemed ripe for bursting, and the drain into the sink was less than ideal.

WIth the expertise and kindness of My Reliable Plumber (that's really their name), we now have this:

I'm very pleased. The washer now sits in what was once the floor of a shower. It makes for a backup drain system, and also a much more stable floor (hence less vibrating) than where it was before.

"I can't imagine why we'd need those screws."

The laundry room saga continues. On Monday, I discovered a small leak on the floor by the new washing machine (see previous post). Said washing machine was only at its ONE MONTH anniversary, so I was totally freaked out by this development. A call to Dracut appliance informed us that we're still completely under warranty, and we were quickly set up with a very nice repair guy for today. The leak was a bit of a fluke; we haven't been able to replicate it. Repair guy re-balanced the machine and we think all is well.

Meanwhile, while repair guy was in the laundry room, I turned off the dryer by opening the door. The load was done anyway, so I didn't think anything of it. A few minutes ago, I went downstairs to dry the latest load, and discovered that I had broken the dryer while the repair guy was here looking at the washer. The little latch in the door was broken, thus the dryer would not turn on because the door wouldn't stay closed. I called my in-house repair guy, also known as Jake. We unscrewed the door, and discovered that no, I did not break the latch -- someone else had broken it and repaired it with duct tape. So we did the same, and put the door back together again. Figuring we may well have to dis-assemble and re-assemble the door again at some point, Jake pushed the two pieces back together, and uttered the immortal line: "I can't imagine why we'd need those screws."

So they're sitting there on the window sill, while we wait to see if the dryer notices. So far, so good. Stay tuned.

Meet Our New Washing Machine

Last week, the washing machine (left by the previous owners, and probably about 15 years old) started leaking. This happened the morning after I had a dream in which our house started flooding. So now I'm psychic, which is pretty handy. Anyway, we've been searching for the right washer. We got this one at Dracut Appliance, a local business about 2 miles from here. They were very nice folks. Today they delivered and installed the washer, and right now, at this very minute, I am doing the first load of laundry. So far, so good. Fingers crossed.




Someday, we will get a plumber here to set up some supply lines and extend this drain pipe so that we can put the washer on this drain area. It looks like the previous owners started this project but didn't finish it. It's not high on the priority list at the moment, as projects go.

Plumbing Project #2

After our first bad experience with a plumbing project ("shower head melee" as I like to call it), you'd think we would have learned. A few days after we moved in, we discovered that the washing machine hoses were put on wrong -- the hot water input was cold and the cold was hot. This wasn't a huge deal, since we could just set the dial to the opposite of the water temperature we wanted, but it meant there was no cold water rinse (since the machine didn't have a setting for hot water rinse).

So we've been talking about doing this for a while. Today, I decided to LOOK at the washer and see what this might involve. I noticed that the connectors at the point of the washer were kinda old, so I put the slightest bit of pressure on them, just to see how they were connected....and a trickle of water appeared. ARGH!

Jake found the wrench and worked the connectors back into place. Then he went back to the other end of the hoses, where they hook up to the water, and switched them at that point. He is a bit wet after this, but thankfully, he caught most of the water with his shirt. And lo and behold, it works! No plumber needed (so far, fingers crossed) and I just completed a successful load with the new set-up.

Hooray for Jake!