Spring Thaw

In January, I heard our house make a strange noise and it took me a little while to realize that it was our sump pump, doing what it was supposed to do and draining unseen water out from under the foundation of our house. Our sump pump is a very treasured object because of all the bad things we had heard from our more experienced home-owning friends and family about flooded basements. Also it was a feature sorely lacking on most of the homes that we considered buying. But our house has one and we can only assume it is doing its job, since we can't see any water in the basement. For that matter, we can't even see our sump pump:

For a reason that must have seemed logical at the time, the previous owners completely carpeted over the sump pump. There is no slit in the carpet, no little space without staples or tacks. No no, just a completely solidly nailed-in carpet. I'm sure at some point we will have to rip up at least the corner; and I haven't been able to figure out exactly where everything drains...So for now we just take it on faith that the sump pump is doing what it should be doing.

Which is good, since the ground has been slowly absorbing the several feet of snow that we got last month. And so the sound that seemed odd in January now can be heard every day and has become a regular contributor to the sounds of the house. Which is good, because there is a fair amount of standing water and, as the picture shows, more snow that needs to melt:

Close up of the puddles lining our mulchy patches (stay tuned for our feeble attempts at gardening said mulchy patches):

The sump pump is actually on the correct side of the house, where all that water seems to be collecting (it's just out of the frame at the bottom where the mulch turns to grass), so I guess the previous owners knew a thing or two about basement flooding.

The nice thing about the spring thaw? We're actually starting to see life! The garden is a big mystery to us, since we didn't move in until September when most of the spring and summer foliage was gone:

At least for now that life seems limited to flowers, but soon I'm sure we will see the more unpleasant side of it--the creepy crawlies.

And while it might not be alive, here is a picture of our new door wreath. I decided to show my excitement for spring by creating an artificial flower arrangement for the door. It turned out to be much cheaper to buy a $4 olive wreath branch and a couple of $1-2 fake flowers than a $35 fully assembled wreath. I just wove the wiry stems into the branches, no glue or extra wiring required.

Also we are discovering that even in March, black doors heat up to a pretty uncomfortable degree. Something we may have to deal with later.