Bats in the belfry

Ron has gone through several filters shop-vaccing up bat poop from our walk-up attic. We realized these were not passing visitors when talking to fellow Bellevue-ers who've also had bats in the attic. We checked with the pest folks who specialize in bats (yes, there is that much in demand.) Upon hearing Ron's description of a large band of bats wheeling and squealing around the battic at dusk, Tom the bat fellow says we most likely have a mother colony. That sounds darling, doesn't it. Like a day care center in the attic.
Bats are protected so we can't just kill them, though that isn't something we would have done even if we could. Tom told us that we can't do anything about the bats until August, until the baby bats have weaned and can fly on their own. (Who knew.) Then he'll clear the attic of bat/batling pairs and replace all their ingress/egress with egress only doorways. I hope he brings about a million doorways: that's how many openings are likely in the attic. I like bats, but not well enough to go up there at night with a camera. Instead, here is a brown bat purloined from the web at getmycritter.com

Furniture and boxes, endless boxes

Why oh why do we own so much crap? A more important question, why did we haul so much crap 900 miles away to be stored for months on end in our garages while we work on getting the house ready to receive said crap. I was pretty proud of myself at the time of packing, feeling we'd had a decent garage sale and were able to offload lots of books on the used book store and public library. But now, in our new house where we've sacrificed an excellent walk in closet I'd been fantasizing about, I can't find anything I need among all the stuff I don't want. What do you suppose was at the front of the garages where the movers made aisles between our rows of junk? Halloween decorations and winter sweaters. Oh yay.
(Pictured is the pile of stuff being loaded onto the moving van on the Laramie leg of the journey.)

Finally in, sort of

We arrived in Bellevue on Wednesday June 10 and stayed through the following Tuesday at the Stone Street Inn with Sue and Rob Roben. Every day our house got a little closer to being livable on the top floor but we realized we'd be roughing it quite a bit. So we bugged out for a few days to stay with Ron's parents in Indiana. We came back here on Friday and are staying in our home, complete with livable bathroom. So livable, in fact, that it doubles as our kitchen. Our bedroom, now livable, doubles as our dining room. And so on. Getting better every day, just slowly. Joan and Mary have been painting upstairs and it looks beautiful. Ron's doing lots of work too (see photo). And now I have an internet connection. Could a desk be far behind?

End of the Beginning

We're closing the sale of our Laramie house today. A bit nerve wracking, mostly because we're sitting around waiting for the clock to say it is time to head over to the title company. We'll be renting the house back from the buyers until next Tuesday while we finalize our packing and I interrupt the forward flow to head to Casper for a writers conference (don't ask). I don't expect it to feel different after we close - I don't expect to suddenly feel like renters, like it isn't our house. But time will tell. A friend just said to me she was glad they closed and moved on the same day since it was a clean break. This whole process of buying the Setzepfandt House and moving to Bellevue has been slow motion and unconventional. I suppose renting after closing is more of the same.

Destruction Round 3

But who's counting? Ron, Archie & I just got back from a quick run to Bellevue. We emptied the U-Haul trailer full of goodies and pretty much just walked numbly around the destroyed house. Always darker before the dawn and all that. Thank goodness we had our retreat at the corner of Stone & High street. This picture of our downstairs bathroom tells the tale. All you friends, I bet you just can't wait to visit, knowing the luxurious guest bath that awaits!

Happy May Day

It is the first of May and we're celebrating workers rights by keeping half of Bellevue employed this spring. We're narrowing the decisions about a tin ceiling, kitchen cabinets and layout, bathroom layout, and flooring/carpeting. But first the jacking up of the house needs to finish. As you'll see from this picture of our kitchen, we have some work to do.
Next week we're Bellevue-bound, taking out a U-Haul trailer of lightweight, fragile things we can break ourselves without having to pay the movers to do it. Then back to Laramie to finish packing. Closing June 1; movers come June 6. In between I'm spending three days in Casper, Wyoming at the Wyoming Writers conference. I must be insane.

Destruction, Reconstruction and Choices

Nine-hundred miles from my present location, in Bellevue, Iowa a tribe of Sieverdings and their accessories are:
1) digging up the yard to install a cut-off in the sewer line. We all fervently hope they can do so without ripping up the street;
2) trying to estimate costs for ripping out and replacing all electrical wiring without a) knowing where all the new appliances will go, or b) having access to the ceiling and walls, while;
3) ripping out acoustical tile drop ceiling in the kitchen and other spaces while;
4) gutting the upstairs kitchen and alchemizing it into an upstairs spa bathroom.
5) conspiring against the one decent first floor closest, located in the guestroom but about to be appropriated into the bathroom.
And that's just this week. Meanwhile, Ron and I are online shopping for fridge, wall oven, gas cooktop, countertops, tin ceilings, flooring, lighting, and that's just next week.
And oh, packing and boxing and garage sale marking, grading papers, serving on boards, doing design work, walking the dog, falling asleep in front of the TV. Imagine the difference six weeks is going to make!