Freddy the Fox

My favorite little guy has to be Freddy – the red fox that hangs out around our house. We noticed him in January this year. I was cooking dinner and thought I saw something run past our front porch. I grabbed the camera and headed towards the office – that’s when we spotted him.

In the months following, we’ve spotted him down the road and around our property. Today, he was less that 20 feet from the house trying to find something he must have buried previously. I snuck out onto the front porch, camera in hand, via the office side door.

He looked up and saw me. Nonplussed he continued his search for his buried treasure.

Where did I bury that?

He is such a beautiful animal! His appearance during daylight hours indicates that he’s well fed and confident to out run any potential predator he might encounter.

Once he found his target, he yipped with joy and began the digging and retrieval process. Looking at the hole he left, the dead “thing” had been buried about 3-4 inches deep. I’m amazed we didn’t uncover it a few weeks ago when John was spreading more gravel on the driveway!

Found it!

Dead “thing” in mouth, he sauntered back down our driveway. I yelled, “Hey, Freddie turn around so I can get a picture!” He ignored me stopping only at the edge of the driveway where the gravel meets the road to deposit a “calling card.”

Now whether that was done in spite, as the cat did once John moved in post-wedding, or to mark our driveway is beyond me.

Our complete Wildlife Album, on Picasa, is open for your viewing pleasure.

We moved in right before Thanksgiving and had a few projects that needed completion.  Since then, the flooring has been completed, closets have shelving, baseboards installed (quarter round is still needed), door and window trim installed (except for the two oval windows), tiling has been finished, towel bars and toilet paper holders installed, and what seems like and endless number of those odds and ends jobs that all take longer than expected.

The geothermal heating systems are now operating very well.  There were some minor installation problems that once resolved allowed the systems to keep us cozy when it was ~6F outside without using any of the back-up resistive ($$) heat.  The HVAC company also hooked up the geothermal units to pre-heat the hot water heaters.  When it was cold outside, the preheated water temperature was just above 110F.  This will come in very handy when I get the radiant floor heating hooked up (expected to be completed for next year).

Since we are coming into the homestretch with the interior of the living portion of the house, there are not too many projects to complete.  The major projects include: installation fo the shoe and quarter round trim where there is laminate or vinyl flooring, applying polyurethane to the doors and handrail, make the curved trim for the oval windows and making the finished railing on the second floor.  The basement needs to have shelving made to store all of the extra construction materials in addition to those things that would typically be stored in the attic (i.e. Christmas decorations).  We need to plan the outside landscaping, so that once the warm weather arrives we are ready to plant.  The other big outside job is to smooth the graded soil so that grass can be planed, although having a permanent brown lawn requires less time to mow!

Enjoy the pictures (finally!).

Electric Range – WFE371LVS

This range has some great features like a hidden bake element. That means no smoke alarm testing for food running over! Plus, it has a steam cleaning feature for the oven.

Refrigerator – ED5FVGXWS

We ended up choosing this refrigerator for several reasons: the gallon door bins, electronic ice/water controls, inline water filtration, and the large wire freezer shelves.

Microwave #1 – WMH1162XVS

This particular microwave is mounted over the range. Oh, and I did say microwave #1 – we have two. Why? It’s great for candy making, chocolate tempering, etc.

Microwave #2 – MT4155SPS

This is a higher power microwave than the over-the-range model. This will definitely come in handy!

Dishwasher – DU1055XTVS

Dare I say this will be my favorite appliance? Some of the features we like include – silverware basket can be placed anywhere, sanitary rinse, and integrated food grinder.

We chose a line of carpet called Bliss by Beaulieu. It’s designed for a healthy home – that means little or no off-gassing; made from environmentally-friendly materials; and contains silver and zinc to inhibit microbial growth. We purchased it from Lowes as it was made for them by Beaulieu. The color is called “Tranquility.” I’ll upload pictures soon!

As for the house, a lot has taken place… the electrical finish was complete (it is nice not to need extension cords to do everything), plumbing is complete (the port-a-pot went bye-bye and one porcelain pot was installed in the house), the underside of the back porch was completed, enough trim was added to get ready for the carpet installation, railing were installed and many other odds and ends.

On Friday we had the county final inspection – there are 3 minor items that need to be remedied before we can move in!

1. Add a light fixture to illuminate the basement stairs and move the switch to the very bottom of the stairs
2. Add porch railing on the deck off of the laundry room- because the ground settled, it is 31″ from the deck to grade and code requires a railing if it is greater then 30″. The railing at the master bedroom needed to be extended 2 feet so that no one would come around and take the 10 foot step down.
3. Shorten the length of the overflow on one of the hot water heater.

The fixes are:

1. Add a fixture and move the switch
2. Add railing and steps across both the deck and the covered porch – DONE!
3. Cut the tube – DONE!

I will add the light fixture this week and get everything wrapped up so that we can start moving in! We had not decided on what railing to add and had planned on waiting until spring to make some decisions, but it was easier to get it done.

More recent projects have included painting the top edge of the stair well (this was a feat after erecting a temporary wall on the stairs to support a walk plank), tiled the master bath and the full bath on the first floor, carpeted the two bonus rooms using 2 X 2 carpet tiles, putting polyurethane on all the doors and frames and a bunch of odds and ends.

It has been nice to complete some projects that have a large visual impact. More pictures to follow.

Up next: carpet in the bedrooms gets installed on Friday, the laminate floor is in the house and ready to be installed, tile the 2nd floor bath, grout all of the tiled areas, install door and window casings, install the closet bars/shelves (wire), the last garage door openers.