Labor Day Weekend in the Country

It was a gorgeous Sunday of Labor Day weekend. The last hurrah of summer. Clear blue skies. 80 degrees. A light breeze. Perhaps the most beautiful weekend of weather we've had since we bought the house.

So what did the Country Weekenders do?

Saw the 1:20pm showing of Hamlet 2, of course.

Shockingly, we were the only ones in the theater...

-- Posted by Evan and Lindsey

Fun with Danielle and Steve

We had houseguests!

Last weekend, our good friends Danielle and Steve joined us for a Sharon weekend extravaganza. Festivities included a day trip to Kent, plenty of grilling, a hike, a visit to the lake, a few bottles of wine (including Tocai from Rick's, of course) and watching/critiquing the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Meet Steve and Danielle. Aren't they a cute couple?




This is Evan grilling and Lindsey supervising:




This is how we made s'mores by roasting marshmallows over a candle. As Evan will tell you, this is because we don't have a fire pit.




Thanks to Dani and Steve for a great weekend!

Posted by Lindsey

New Developments

Okay, so it's been a LONG time since our last post.  We've had a lot of non-house related stuff going on.  Lindsey has been super busy with deadlines on a number of projects and Evan got a new job at Ideal Bite, a web site that offers tips about "light green living."  Shameless plug: check out the site and sign up for the daily tips!

But we do have a very special house-related development: we got a dishwasher!

It has been WONDERFUL not doing dishes.

Oh, and this morning a deer walked around our yard and then had a staring contest with Evan.

--Posted by Evan & Lindsey

Historic Connection: Meeting Our Home's Former Owners

It's been quite a week for us: the bat, violent weather (worst thunderstorm in Sharon in over 22 years -- still no phone or Internet five days later!) and lots of home projects still to be done.

But the week started with a wonderful new connection for us: meeting the Holst-Grubbes.  The Holst-Grubbe family owned and lived in our house for 22 years.  They sold it to another owner, who sold it to us.  They found our blog via Rick from our favorite local liquor store.  (Thanks, Rick!)

George, Michelle and their daughter Allison visited us last Saturday and it was amazing to hear about the history of our house.  George built and installed many of our favorite features.  Michelle walked us through each room and gave us a detailed history. They told us about trees they had planted, secret storage spaces we'd never noticed and fun gossip about the local area. 

We have a deeper connection to the house now and feel that as much as we love the house, we're also taking care of it for the people who will own it after us.

--Posted by Evan & Lindsey

Batgirl

Over the weekend we enjoyed a lovely visit from the Holst-Grubbe family, who owned our house for 22 years. We will blog about that visit soon.

During the visit, George Holst-Grubbe asked a seemingly innocent question:

"So, have you had any bats in the house yet?"

"No," we said, chuckling. Of course we wouldn't have bats in the house. We have an ADT security system, a caretaker and a cleaning person, for goodness sake!

Well.

Today at approximately 11:00am, I decided to bring my laptop out to the porch for a change of scenery from the dining room table, where I've been working a few days this week to avoid the brutal heat wave in Manhattan.

I sat down in my chair with my laptop, power cord, cordless phone, headset, Diet A&W root beer, highlighter pen and a stack of papers. As I plugged in, I noticed something moving in the corner of the porch.

It looked like a frog.

A very dark, creepy, ugly, beady-eyed, evil-looking frog.

I opened the outside porch door and tried to use a chair to nudge the little critter outside. The froglike thing hissed at me and... shot out a wing. A definite, no-doubt-about-it bat wing.

(Cue Batman theme song.)

I immediately closed all the doors, ran inside and put a towel under the porch door to keep the bat from getting inside the house.

Then I took a nap. (Hey, it's really hot and I woke up early this morning.)

After my nap, Evan called and I told him about the bat. While I was telling the story, I looked up and there was the bat himself (or herself, who knows?), climbing up the exposed brick in our dining room.

Country lesson: Towels are not an effective tool to keep bats out of one's house.

With Evan on the phone, I grabbed my laptop and cord and barricaded myself in the mud room.

"Do you have enough water?" Evan asked, in full emergency mode.

I did.

While Evan called Country Caretaker, I then proceeded to do exactly what one should never do in a situation like this: I Googled "bats and rabies."

Here is the first piece of information I found: Rabies can be confirmed only in a laboratory. However, any bat that is active by day (like, say, at 11:00am?), is found in a place where bats are not usually seen (for example, in a room in your home or on the lawn) (or, perhaps, your porch and dining room?), or is unable to fly (and, therefore, is crawling around behind a chair?), is far more likely than others to be rabid. Such bats are often the most easily approached. Therefore, it is best never to handle any bat.

I decided to leave the house and go outside.

About 10 minutes later, Adam from Country Caretaker arrived. I have never been so happy to see that big burgundy truck. Adam heroically went into the house. I heard some commotion and then he came out with the bat caught in his hands between two baseball caps.

You will be pleased to know that he asked if I wanted to take a picture of the bat for our blog.

I said no. Sorry to disappoint our loyal readers, but I just couldn't do it. Instead, I thanked Adam, called Evan to report the good news, went back into the house and poured myself a very large glass of Tocai from Rick's Wine & Spirits.

So, that is the story of Lindsey and the bat.

The End. (I hope.)

Posted by Lindsey

One For The Road...

One of our favorite local businesses is Rick's Wine & Spirits.  Located a mere mile and a half from our house, Rick and his staff have helped us keep the good times rolling.

They also carry a nice selection of local wine, like the four bottles of 2007 Tocai Friulano by the Millbrook Vineyards & Winery we picked up this evening.  It went very well with the grilled Halibut I made tonight.

I urge all of our visitors to stop by Rick's and pick up a few bottles on your way to see us.

--Posted by Evan

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Last night, just after we went to sleep, at around 12:45am, we heard a loud crash. We were both half asleep, so we heard it but didn't know what it was. I turned on the light and grabbed the ADT Security Alert remote that I keep next to my side of the bed.

Lindsey asked me if I was going to go downstairs to check it out. In this situation it's really hard to tell your new wife that you want her to come with you to check out the loud noise. But I did. I figured if it was an intruder, two against one gave us the upper hand. So we went downstairs (side note: I grabbed a pillow as a weapon. In retrospect this was not the best choice. But I was half asleep). We saw nothing, everything was as it was when we went to bed and the alarm was working fine.

So we went back upstairs and went back to bed. Of course we ended up lying there for about an hour, scrutinizing any and all sounds. There is a fine line between the pitter-patter of a Chipmunk out for a late-night snack and a chainsaw wielding homicidal maniac. At least to me there is. We fell asleep around 2am.

At 4:30am I heard Lindsey say "What is that?" at the same moment I heard what she was referring to: the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw. "So this is it" I thought. I survived 33 years in New York City without a scratch, only to be ripped limb-from-limb by a deranged killer in the quiet little town of Sharon, CT. As I contemplated the irony, Lindsey told me to go check it out. Well, one of us had to go first. So I went to the upstairs landing (sans pillow) and immediately saw a very bright light out of the window. Every recent Hollywood horror movie flashed through my head ("Saw XVII: Death at the Farmer's Market").

And then I saw the answer to the whole evening. There was a massive thunderstorm on Saturday. It must have damaged one of the trees on the periphery of our property because part of it broke off and crashed to the ground. That explained the noise we heard. And now the guy who owns the house next to us was out there cutting up the part of the tree that fell onto his driveway with his chainsaw (our property is next to his very long driveway, but we can't actually see his house).

My only question is why was he doing this at 4:30am? Why not wait until morning?

With the mystery solved, we went back to bed. But we kept the light on downstairs, just in case.

--Posted by Evan

Cool Britannia!

One of my closest and dearest friends, Duncan, came from London to our wedding party.  As an extra bonus, he and his partner David spent 10 days at the house.  It was the first time we had guests in the house while we stayed in the city.

They were terrific house guests--and it was so fun to be picked up at the train station for the first time!  They also gave us a WONDERFUL wedding gift...this amazing picnic basket that they carried with them all the way from London:

We can't wait to use it!

--Posted by Evan

Signs of Spring (Finally!)

It's been a long winter.  Not a terribly cold winter, just LONG.  But it looks like relief is finally in sight.  Here are some pictures we took this weekend:

--Posted by Evan & Lindsey

The Country Weekenders Get Hitched!

Well it's official...we are now Mr. & Mrs. Country Weekender!

Click here for the New York Times announcement.

See you in a few weeks!

--Posted by Evan & Lindsey

Animal House

Last night as we were watching TV we saw a tiny mouse scamper around the dining room.  It ran around, checked out Lindsey's computer bag, then fled into the guest room (we hope he liked the new sheet set we bought).

Being city folk, we are trained to view mice as very, very bad.  They are dirty, carry disease and being from the city, they are just as likely to rob you as bite you.  But our country mouse did not really bother us that much.  After the Ladybug attack the night before, we're ready for anything.

We both remained very calm through throughout the entire episode, although Lindsey did arm herself with a small broom to "help shoo him outside."  Once it ducked into the guest room I poked around looking for him but we did not see him again.

The fact that we were able to remain so calm is testament to what the house has done to us. If this happened in the city, we would have called the super and immediately bought $400 in traps, poison and various anti-mouse paraphernalia.

But here we just watched it run around, got up to look for it, then went back to watching TV.  We have a more defined "live and let live" attitude towards nature when we're up at the house.  That being said, I think we're done with uninvited house guests for this weekend.

--Posted by Evan

Invasion of the Ladybugs

Our house has been invaded by Ladybugs.  And we have no idea why.  We feel like Ladybugs are the quintessential summer insect, yet they are here--in force--and it's March 22nd and still very cold.

They love to hang out on the skylight in our bedroom.  Last night as we were going to bed a different Ladybug fell on each of us.  We think it was a coordinated attack.  But they don't bite, so we think they just want attention.

They also seem to love the power cords for our computers:

--Posted by Evan & Lindsey

This Weekend...

Will be our final weekend at the house before our wedding and honeymoon. We are getting married on 4/5/08 and will not be able to visit the house for over a month!

This makes buying the Premium ADT security system (and all of the ribbing I got for doing so) totally worthwhile!

And as much as we love the house, we also love to travel...which is my subtle way of segueing into a pitch. One of my good friends just started an AMAZING new travel company offering trips to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique. Here is the link:

http://www.nativeescapes.com/

Check them out!!!

We'll do one more post from the house this weekend and then we'll be off for a month!

--Posted by Evan

Ga$ and Heating Oil Price$

Being a city dweller for 32 1/2 years before we bought a country home, oil and gas prices really meant nothing to me.  Once in a while prices would go up, the TV news folks would air those "shocked at the pump" pieces featuring angry people complaining about what it takes to fill their tank, and I would happily go put another $25 on my MetroCard (more than enough for a full week of commuting) with a profound sense of urban pride: "I don't need a car!  Gas prices have no bearing on MY life."

Flash forward to today, and things are very different.  We bought the house and a car (a 2007 Toyota RAV4 that we LOVE) within two weeks of each other and our days of not caring about gas and oil prices are over.

It costs us about $50 for a full tank of gas for the car and about $600 to fill our heating oil tank at the house.  It's crazy.  I know I'm a little late in getting to this issue what with the possibility of $4 a tank gas by this summer, but this is just when it hit us.

I really don't have anything else to say, I just felt like complaining.  I'm not sure what can be done to fix this.  My guess is that even with a new administration in Washington next year, prices are still going to rise.  This is an economic issue that will not easily be solved.  As much as it pains me to say this, I think the only solution might be the one advocated by Thomas L. Friedman: a national gas tax.  This will foster energy innovation and help the environment; it will also make Americans and American businesses fundamentally change their habits.  And yes, it will be painful...but maybe a little short-term pain is needed for our long-term stability.

--Posted by Evan

A Wonderful New Connection!

We love writing this blog. In addition to being a great way to keep our family and friends (including one person who reads us from Russia!) informed about what we are doing, it's been a great way for us to maintain a record about our house.

And now we have a new reason to love our blog. The couple who sold the house to the woman who sold it to us found our blog and sent us an email! And so did their daughter! They told us so much about the house and its history in just a few short emails, and we plan to meet in May to learn even more about the house and the community of Sharon.

There is a real sense of history and narrative now connected to the house. And we look forward to adding our own history.

--Posted by Evan & Lindsey

Evan's Spot

We are so happy to be back at the house after a few weeks away. We arrived to a snowstorm last night and are housebound today, still in PJs at 3:15pm and having a perfectly relaxing Saturday. It's still snowing on and off -- gorgeous and peaceful.

I've just woken up from a blissful nap (one of my favorite Sharon activities) and found Evan in his favorite spot: the porch.

Evan loves his comfort, so note the space heater in the corner, set to a tropical 70 degrees. Gladys, the goose lamp from his childhood, sits watching over him, and he is enjoying wi-fi on his laptop, along with his iPhone and Diet Coke nearby. It's Evan Heaven.

After I write this post I might go out there and join him. Or, I might not. Since we live in a pretty small apartment in the city, it's exciting for us to be in separate rooms.

Posted by Lindsey

"House Hunters" = The Real America

We are addicted to HGTV’s show House Hunters. We started watching HGTV after we bought the house, and House Hunters quickly became our favorite show. If you don’t know it, it’s a reality show where people are shown three different houses and they have to buy one by the end of the episode.

You learn about their lives, why they are moving, what they are looking for in a new home and what their budget is. It is a lot of fun, and extremely addictive. We have 15 episodes in our DVR right now, and we tape four a day (we get a lot of repeats).

The best part, of course, is when the buyers must make their selection. We find ourselves yelling at the TV, “number one, number one…are they nuts???” And, “well, number two did have the hardwood floors she wanted, but not the finished basement he was hoping for. They should go with number three.” Inevitably, people make their choices based on budget, but sometimes there are surprises and decisions are made based on location, yard size, dog-friendly condos, etc. These are the most satisfying episodes.

One of the things we love about the show is its diversity of buyers and locations: House Hunters features married couples, gay couples, single-moms, single-dads, young people, old people, white people, black people, Asian people, Latinos…pretty much everyone. Budgets range from $100,000 to $2,000,000. And the locations are from all corners of the US: from New York to Portland, from the deep south to the Rockies, from a hippie community in Sante Fe to the oil-rich suburbs of Dallas.

Recently we noticed something: all of the buyers on the show want the same thing (in addition to more closet space): they want to raise their kids, wake up next to someone they love, carve out a little piece of the world for themselves and maybe leave a little something behind for those who come next.

From the gay couple in Boston buying their first home together with their two dogs and two cats to the military family in North Carolina looking for that perfect three-bedroom house in anticipation of new addition to their family, everyone is pretty much the same. And they all say the same things.

Which got me thinking. This country is much more alike than the politicians and media would have us believe. I know it’s a popular thing to say right now, but this really is a Purple nation. I think our elected representatives and media organizations have done us all a great disservice over the past 16 years. By trying to retrofit us all into a “red” or a “blue” state of mind they have distracted us from what we should really be focusing on.

While we have spent the last 16 years debating frivolous ideas from the fringes of both political parties, we have not been able to focus on what really matters: our families, our neighbors and our communities.

House Hunters gets to the core of what really matters in life. It epitomizes our collective hopes, dreams and fears. And it is one of the best examples of what it means to be from the United States of America.

--Posted by Evan

Second Crisis...

Lindsey really wanted to see the movie "Once."  She's been talking about it for a few months now.  I heard it was about musicians in Dublin, that it was a love story and that it had a lot of singing.  So not really my kinda thing.  But she REALLY wanted to see it so we Netflixed it and watched it tonight.

Worst.  Movie.  Ever.

I found myself hoping for the basement to flood again so I would have an excuse to go do something else.  Anything else.

But it's over now and we're back to watching election coverage on CNN.  Go Obama!

--Posted by Evan

Kevin Saves the Day...

So Kevin from Country Caretaker came by and fixed everything.  Turns out a cinder block (brick?) fell on our Sump-Pump (say that five times fast) and flicked the switch to "off."  And this caused a back-up of water and hence the flooding.  Anyway, Kevin fixed everything and now all is well in the basement.

So thank you to ADT and Kevin!!!

First Crisis...

So we arrived at the house this morning (in much need of some R&R after a particularly long week for both of us) and the basement is flooded.  We would not have even known it was flooded if not for our trusty ADT House Monitoring System (this is how often we go into the basement).

I'm kinda handy (for a Jew from the Upper West Side) but three inches of standing water is out of my league.  We called our Country Caretaker people, and they are on their way.

Stay tuned...