JUMANJI

I was excited to see how the plants might grow and change while we were gone. The back garden is a little Jumanji-- especially the sunflowers, which are SO nice and bright and lovely. Fortunately they had a great headstart when it was warm and sunny earlier this year, as it has been primarily rainy and gross since we got back. One of our cacti is also blooming, which is a real treat

The house has been having plumbing issues since our return. We have no hot water-- apparently when we were gone our neighbors found a leak in their basement (sort of more of a dug-out root cellar than a finished basement, by that I mean he literally dug it out himself) and traced it to our radiator. So, as they have a spare key they turned off our hot water to stop the leak. It is driving Mike nuts that he is so far away and cannot just simply solve this problem. Our neighbor has tried to help, but of course they are busy with their own things. Anyway-- after getting some help here and there over the last days, I made an executive decision yesterday to just go with the plumber. So, I will be calling one today-- which should be interesting to say the least. I am not sure the average plumber will speak much English. Will update here after what is sure to be an adventure...