Summer Tasks

We aren't doing too much to start our summer, i.e. Memorial Day weekend. No camping or canoeing anyway. A visit to Sioux Falls for a backyard picnic maybe. So we started last night on our main summer project-painting. That is, painting the garages and house. Oh, and we are cleaning and sealing the deck. We borrowed a pressure cleaner and had at it. I must say, for something called a 'cleaner' it sure made a mess. While the deck boards look amazingly clean, the paint chips all over them are pretty messy. I am excited to see the changes, hopefully the improvements! Pictures later. But for the rest of you-enjoy the long weekend!

This Body of Death

We got some first hand experience with the stench of death this week. Rotting corpses are not pleasant- to view or to have their wretched smell fill up your living room either. Oh goodness it was awful. We had not just 1 poor squirrel starve to death in our fireplace chimney, but four of them. So if you can imagine the smell that we had on Saturday when at least one of them was at its ripest, you will understand that by today, Thursday, my stomach gets a bit queasy at just the thought of it. Not only that, but we had some good friends that we haven't seen in awhile stop by for a visit on Saturday afternoon. They were kind enough not to say word about the wretched smell. I sat there wondering what in the world they must be thinking- it truly was awful.
Last night Ron got down on his back in the fireplace, with a shop vac and his hands and pulled out body parts for the better part of three hours. He had a pile in the corner of the largest pieces, some of them filled with maggots. (no wonder I had flies coming out of the woodwork). Every few minutes he would have to stop because the vac hose was plugged and I would take it outside and empty it out-bones, a piece of tail, soot... Then finally, at 10 pm he shut that vaccuum off, went to the top of the chimney, put a piece of plywood and cement block on top and came in to clean off the stench.
Phew, that is the end of that I hope. Though while we were sitting in that room, a candle burning to get rid of the last of the smell, we heard animal noises coming from the chimney......