Hurricane Sandy...Waters Rising...

This is the night of the storm, after we ran up and down trying to save as much as we could. The waters still rising, but before we lost power.

Looking down to the lower floor, that's a 5 gallon bucket of paint floating around.

Leaning over the bannister...our bed is on the move....

And out back. 

The Queen Mary

Todd just happened to notice that someone dumped a load of sand down at the end of our street..and hey! And we needed sand...sooooo....

Between the cruise ship, abandoned sand, and the necessity to bag yourselves in during a storm...Red Hook is quite an experience.

Today while I was parked at Lowes...

Garrrrr.
Well, at least they left a note....

Reassembled!

The siding and painting was finished this past Monday. I was waiting for a sunny day to take the photo...but lost patience. The color is a much nicer grey...

The sills are now NORMAL and actually attached with more than one nail apiece

And the gobs of caulk have been removed from the cornice and it no longer has black stains all over it!

yay!
Done by Long Island Siding Systems...If anyone needs their info, just let me know!

And So It Begins

Feral Cat Rescue #1
We've seen Momma and Shrimpy around the neighborhood-- Shrimpy was one of 5...now down to....one. We're worried that the raccoons got the rest of them, and watched Momma drag him by the scruff at full gallop to our end of the block and eventually into our backyard. The raccoons are vicious, and after 2 nights of having to chase them away, we finally caught the cats and brought them to the emergency vet. They're both FIV and Leukemia negative thank goodness, but Shrimpy is very malnourished and had to be de-wormed.
Right now they are living in an upstairs room, quarantined from our other cats. We plan to get Momma neutered and release her, and hopefully Shrimpy can get well and be adopted...
Any takers???

We're going to try to join the trap-neuter-release group because the cat population here is out of control.
Then at least they can lend us cages and we'll have a place to take them to be fixed.....

Getting ready for winter

All the original wood siding is being taken off, tons of insulation shoved in the walls, plywood sheets put up, then tyvek....and eventually...new siding!
It seems that these guys really know what they're doing. Isn't that refreshing?

Moonflower

We have...one.

Why now, and why just one...I have no idea.