katydid trap and release

Saturday night we were awakened by a strange sound coming from the air conditioner in the office. Fernando jumped up and realizing there was something trapped inside of the AC, started to thump on the side. He saw something huge fly out but it was so fast he lost sight of it.
The next day he walked into the office to find this on his computer screen:

I grabbed two plastic cups and Fernando swiftly trapped her between them.

When we released her outside, she seemed to not want to leave the cup. Her pause gave us the opportunity to examine her leaf-like wings.

Then she quickly flew away and landed near the living room window.

I'm glad we found her before the cats did.

island living

amazing bug...

planning its attack on Curtis High School...

Horton's Row: for sale!

I love passing by this brick row of houses on Westervelt Avenue, close to Victory Boulevard:

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission
I think this area is usually considered part of Tompkinsville but it so close to St. George who really knows? The lines between neighborhoods in NYC are so blurry.

photo via SI Treasure Blog
The row, known as "Horton's Row," was built from 1880 - 1882 by prominent New York City banker and broker Harry L. Horton. Originally, the row had twelve identical attached rowhouses that were built as affordable rental houses for middle-class families. While rowhouse are common in all of the other boroughs of NYC, this housing style is rare for Staten Island where mostly freestanding, single-family frame houses were built at that time.

Horton's Row, front view, circa 1885:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
Horton's Row, Park (Rear) View, circa 1885:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
View of Tompkinsville from Pavillion Hill, circa 1885:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
View from Brighton Heights, circa 1888:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
Today, only four of the nine remaining houses remain intact and they received landmark status in 2009.

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission

photo via Staten Island Advance

photo via Staten Island Advance
I discovered today that two of the rowhouses are currently for sale and listed here and here. I really wish they had some interior photos!

More about Horton's Row can be found here, here, here and here.

watch the hairpiece!

A few weeks back, over a long weekend, my Dad and Fernando finally pulled apart and rebuilt our front porch steps.

The decking was rotted in a few areas:

So new boards were added:

Finished steps:

They are still in their primed state since the weather has been too hot for painting. They (and the deck) will eventually be painted Sherwin-Williams, "Summit Gray."

They don't creak one bit.

We've also had our eaves painted!

It was a scary process... I'm glad we didn't have to get involved.

This area needed patching:

Before:

And after (a toupee in Sherwin-Williams, "Black Magic"):

Next up in exterior painting: the bay window. If this heat wave ever ends...

Year #2!

Fernando found and sent me this photo last month:

The photograph, entitled "Invisible House in Staten Island," is by filmmaker Lynn Sachs and can be found on her website here.
Yes, that is our house.
Happy 2nd Re-Birthday House! I'm glad you no longer look like a giant bush with roof.

shutters for the day!

We luckily inherited most of our original storm windows for the house when we bought it. They were stacked in the basement:

And some of the original shutters too!

There are signs that they were once mounted outside:

If you look closely, you can see the dirty outline where they once were:

We had our local handyman take the best shutters to prime for us - we had 4 still in good condition. He brought them over today and gave them a preliminary hanging before Fernando paints them.

We purchased some of the hardware we were missing many months ago - it's a perfect fit. We'll be painting the hardware black and we will need to order more. We bought everything that was available in stock at the time from Reiman's Hardware.

I'll have to hunt around for the outer hardware too.

Temporarily in place! Now I'm thinking I might need wider window boxes...

I really can't wait to start working on the exterior trim paint. It will be nice to not have to look at that peeling yellow paint when I come home from work... too bad, we're still quite a ways off from that reality.

Do these things happen to you too?

Sometimes things just don't go our way. We'll start a project and realize we've forgotten something and then spend two hours running back and forth to Home Depot. Or the weather doesn't cooperate. Or we have to work most of weekend and we end up too exhausted for anything else.

We planned to re-build our front steps over Memorial Day weekend. We ripped out the hideous metal pipe railing:

We were excited to find stepping in the extra long length (12 feet!) we needed over at Garber's. We bought it ahead of time and ordered the wood for the risers. Did you know that wood doesn't standardly come in whole inches? They call them 2X4's but they're more like 1.5X 3.5's!
We had to have the riser wood ripped down and slightly trimmed to length. The guy that was supposed to be working in the mill decided to take off for the long weekend early (right after we placed our order) and they called us the next day and said our wood wouldn't be ready until the following Tuesday. Bye bye re-building front steps over Memorial Day weekend plan.
I really want this project to be over - our front steps really suck.
Lots of wear and tear:

General Scuzziness reporting to duty:

Chunks missing:

The new steps were longer than our car:


Can you take a photo with one hand while carrying steps with the other?

Fresh primer:

Long risers:

Now we're all primed and ready to go but we're waiting on my Dad to have a free weekend to help out.

On a positive note, the decaying front porch isn't stopping our new jackmanii clematis: