News From Our House

We need something cheering to focus on today, and that thing is:  Mexican sunflower seeds!  This summer's crop never came up, beaten as they were by the rudbeckia that took over the entire yard and all the gardens and actually cracks in the driveway.  But today I found a dead Mexican sunflower plant on the sidewalk in Montford when I was walking downtown, and I was able to gnaw and twist  off a dry seed head and carry it home to add to my growing supply of these seeds for next spring.

It was good to find a Mexican sunflower seed head, because here are the other house-related things that happened today:
1.  We discovered an ominous damp spot on the ceiling of one of the studio rooms.
2.  The hungry ground hog has returned and is again chewing on the doorsill of the back porch in spite of the pepper spray.
3.  We have faced the fact that ivy has damaged most of the exterior walls of our house, and we are going to have to scrape off the dry leavings and re-stain it come fall.
4.  The humidifier is broken.
5.  Our hemlocks have wooly adelgids again, this after the $800 treatment three years ago.  We knew it would probably happen, but still.
6.  The driveway needs sealing, and even though my proposal is to let it revert to dirt, P vetoes that idea.
7.  The washer is on its last legs and ditto the refrigerator.
8.  There are at least twenty ground hogs living in our backyard just beyond the little wooded area.  Their holes are like something you might find on the moon.