Thursday, September 9, 2021

Well, Well And An East Texas Update And Scorpions!

Hi, Friends,
How are you? I hope you are well. 

It's been almost a year since we signed all the documents to put our East Texas house under contract. 
Can you believe it's been a year already?


The house and property has come a long way. 


We got out to the house on the first weekend in August and the zinnias looked almost dead. I have the sprinkler on a timer so they should have had plenty of water. I did some investigation and the well just didn't seem to be pumping enough water. Bill had already replaced a pressure gauge a few before.
Bill called the well company and we needed a new bladder. 
Thank heavens it wasn't the pump. 
The garden was getting watered again and the flowers began to recover. 


Part of the five year plan was some sort of boat storage and trailer storage. 
In July, our next door neighbor poured a concrete apron in front of our carport. 
Their company also poured the foundation for the metal carport that would house the boat and the trailer. 


We can now load and unload the truck without having to deal with the sand. 



In the photo above, Bill is overseeing the building of the metal cover. 
They didn't even arrive until 5:30 or so. They finished at 9:00 that evening. We still had to drive home so that Bill could work the next day. We got home around midnight. It was exhausting.


The boat and trailer are safely stowed away. The green roof disappears into the landscape. 


While we were installing the countertops at the end of July, we saw one scorpion. I assumed it came from the Home Depot warehouse. 
If I could do it over again, I'd have called the pest control company immediately. 
The next weekend we saw one live one in the house. 
Bill killed it. I thought that we must have stirred up a nest with the concrete work. 
I stayed home the weekend after that to putter in my yard. Bill went out alone. 
He saw no evidence of scorpions. 
Two weeks ago, I found two dead but one live one in the house. 
We did what we could with Boric acid around the front door. It's where we thought they were getting in. 
I put a question out to my East Texas garden group on Facebook. They said they were normal for the hot and dry season but the resounding advice was to call the professionals.  
I called pest control and they treated the outside.

We were looking forward to a long Labor Day weekend. I was relieved that pest control had been out. I expected that we might find some dead around the house.
We decided to sleep at home Friday night and head out on Saturday morning. Bill was going to swing by my brother's house to pick up some family pieces that he no longer wants. My brother just bought a new house and they are going a little more transitional in style. The family antiques are just a little too primitive for their taste.  
I followed about an hour later but arrived at the house before Bill. There was a dead scorpion on the driveway but there were none in the house that I could find.  Yippee. 
As we moved the secretary to put the primitive dry sink in its place, there was a live scorpion underneath.  I searched the house again and found nothing. 


We started repairing the doors and I cleaned and started styling the piece. The doors had come unglued over the years. 


We were in the kitchen getting ready to clamp a door and I started running my hands over the countertop. I'd given them a light sanding the week before and it was time for one final coat of the Watco Oil. I moved the toaster and there was a scorpion on the counter. 
I told Bill that I would probably leave the next morning. Our relaxing and happy place wasn't going to be happy or relaxing. It was so hot and humid that we were going to be house bound anyway. Stuck in a house with scorpions was not on the agenda. 
Bill said to pack it up, we were leaving. 


I said good-bye to the darling new to me piece and we loaded up the cars. 
The cat was very confused because she'd just settled in for a long cozy nap. 
Ain't nobody cozy with scorpions. 


I'm so excited about this dry sink. I've always loved it but it went to two other siblings before it came to me. The green paint we believe is original. My mom painted the red during the 60's when "antiquing" furniture was all the rage. 
I want to keep the top doors open so I'll probably try to match the green interior or strip these back down. 
At one point my mom flipped the panels so that the red was showing. 
There is also a cute rocker for the front porch. 


Bill is headed out alone this weekend. The pest control company is going by today. 
They have the code to get into the house. They will treat the house quarterly. 
I told them to kill anything that is going to freak me out! 
The guy told Bill that quadruple the number of pests that we find in the city. 
Oh joy. 
Bill has bought a black light and is going on a bug hunt. He is going to seal up any cracks that he finds. 
He's been in this mode before when he was a rat in our first rent house. 
I was pregnant so he didn't tell me about it until after we'd moved. 
I don't do mice either. That is enough of that. 

I'm in the process of choosing the back splash. 
Faux brick is a strong contender. We had some leftover from a project so cut it to size. 


I love how it adds a bit of color and interest. 

I was supposed to stay out a few extra days to receive the sleeper loveseat we'd ordered. I left a message for Haverty's Furniture to call me that we had scorpions and there was no way I was sleeping out there by myself with two animals in order to meet the delivery people. I bet you wish you were a fly on the wall of the break room as he talked about that to his associates.  



The Lord reminded me on the way home that ultimately East Texas isn't my happy place. 
My contentment comes from Him. I would like Him to drive the scorpions out of the house though. 
 
We are bummed about the scorpions but we were okay about coming home for the rest of the three day weekend. Since we've been out there almost every weekend for 10 months, it really was time to work on a few things at our house in town.
I'll  update you on those projects in future posts. 
As always, thanks for stopping by to see what I'm up to.
What do you think of the dry sink? 
I'm going to have the best time styling the dry sink when I can get back out there.
Katie 

5 comments :

  1. Ugh! We had scorpians in Phoenix and it was just the worst. Luckily our dachshund Franz must have been able to smell them or something because whenever there was one on the house he would do a distinctive growl in the area that they were. I used a baseball bat to kill them. It was long enough for me to keep a distance but could crack through their skeleton. I don't miss those days for anything. I hope it gets resolved.

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  2. Love the dry sink, hate the scorpians. We lived in San Antonio when our second daughter was born. Highway work not far away had stirred them up and they were everywhere. Hanging on the wall next to her crib. After that I was coming back to Missouri no matter what. (Missouri has it's own set of weirdness, including people) I hope they can take care of them. It's too creepy. Stay safe.

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  3. so happy the pest control will get the place safe for you. i agree - NO WAY you can be around scorpions. I'm a city girl and decades ago, when i first visited in-laws out in the country, i almost died. any creepy crawler freaks me out ! Stay safe and stay well ! I'm just catching up and love your new pieces.

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  4. I hate scorpions! When we moved into our new house about 50 years ago we were always finding scorpions inside. I suppose it was because of the soil being stirred up during the building of the house. One time when I was in bed I was stung multiple times by a scorpion under the sheets with me. For a long, long time I scrupulously checked under my bed, under the sheets, under my pillow - everywhere for scorpions.

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  5. I'm with you. I would not do well with scorpions. Mice I can deal with. Spiders. Scorpions would send me over the edge. But it looks fabulous, Katie. I love the dry sink, the kitchen, everything!

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