Humpty nest

24 hours 'till moving day, but no empty nest in sight. In fact, the creatures are moving in before the new tenants do. There's a little bird building a home for his lady right under their awning-- he works tirelessly to not much of an avail. Each time Beaver and Sir Domo walk out the front door, the slamming causes him to drop a branch out of his beak. Beaver, with her extensive knowledge of woodworking, would like to help the little thing get on with his project, but she's been told that beavers shouldn't touch the branches of birds.

There is also a tiny mouse on the premises. It seems he can't decide where to set up his dwelling. He scurries to and fro between the bedroom and the guest room, sizing up the options. Personally, Beaver would suggest the guest room. The view is much better- but it is a little large and can get cold in the wintertime. Hopefully, Mouseman will have made a decision by this evening. Beaver and Domo need a good sleep.

We all live in a yellow frigidaire

The color yellow has taken the responsibility of promoting optimism throughout the little red house. It started with the bathroom cabinet; a horribly outdated little thing that had been built for a very short beaver and adorned with 1970's motel wood. The sink that sat upon it, albeit a charming shade of blue, looked washed out atop its ancient cousin. So Lady B gave it a nice hit of "Cowardly Custard" which turned out to be quite mighty next to the blue and very uber Swedish, which egales spectacular to Beaver, who very much likes that far off Northern place.

The next victim to fall under the brush was the vintage General Electric Frigidaire. Pull up a chair, lady and gents, and inspect your own refrigerators because this paint job was the best one yet. The yellow fridge has become something of a piece de resistance in the kitchen, bringing glory, hope and pride to a house under siege.

Raindrops keep falling on my bed

It was Bachelard, a nice little scribe hailing from Franche, who once said in "The Poetics of Space" that a house only comes into its own in bad weather, when the poetry of shelter receives its fullest expression. Well then, the little red house has come into its own. Just about as gracefully as a competitor in a potato sack race.

It rained on Saturday night. It rained hard. It melted three months worth of snow and sent a host of little creatures crawling towards the light of the little red house. They approached the hearth with high hopes, only to be daunted by a strange site in the living room. It was raining outside of the house, and inside as well. Disheartened, they crept back outside into the muddy night to spend the evening awash in rain and stars.

Beaver and Domo should have done so as well. The Building Inspector told them their roof was in grand shape. But the Building Inspector didn't visit during a rainstorm.

Immortar beloved

Domo and Beaver have a big fat hole in their chimney. En fait, they have two. Today Domo tried to seal them up with mortar, bricks and stones just like the unfortunate republicans at the T-Bone Depot told him to.

The bricks stayed put, the pebbles fell, and the mortar leaked all over the beautiful stone chimney. Domo felt sad. He isn't a professional contracting beaver, he's just a little guy, with lots of bushy fur. He stood in the middle of the living room and watched as the soppy, grey mess dripped onto the floor.

Beaver went and fetched him some sasafrass tea. Try, try again, little Domo! Even the highest tree will fall with enough earnest chewing.

And you thought acoustic ceiling tile was treacherous...

Beaver and Sir Domo have finally met their match in the form of wall-to-wall linoleum. As if the acoustic ceiling tile in the original log cabin living room wasn't enough of an aesthetic obstacle, the kitchen, bathroom and the entirety of the guest cottage is adorned with blue and grey industrial strength lino.

After 40 straight hours of work, Beaver and Domo succeeded in removing a mere 6" x 4" section in the kitchen. Lady B cried a bit, who wouldn't? If the previous owner had simply put down some plywood, she could have chewed it all up in no time flat and gone for a swim in the river.

Fear has taken hold- short of knocking down the kitchen all together, the lino might be here to stay. Only too late, they learn the cruelty of their error; they could have put down flooring right over the hell-raising linoleum. They didn't, though, and now it's too late. In order for their lovely, white-washed Scandinavian flooring to lie flat and never buckle, every single piece of the lino must go.

Why, former owner from North Carolina, why such ill-made choices? Had you never heard of cork?

New Kid on the Block

On Saturday, as they were driving up to their little red house from Brooklynland, a piece of Beaver's tooth came off. Just like that. A little one. She nudged the ridged space with her Beaver tongue the entire drive long. It felt like an invader. Like someone sitting next to you on the subway with their Ipod far too loud. Had this really happened? She could do nothing but accept it. Just like that- on a sunny Saturday morning. And chip- chip- she was getting old.

Sometimes Beaver can't help but stand back and stare at the direction her life is taking as if it were a stranger filling up her doorway. A handsome stranger, and a mysterious one at that, but a stranger all the same. After the long journey from her home in Franche, she thought things would be different. In her heart of hearts, she thought that her book would be out and gently feted in small, well-wishing circles of farm animals and deer. She thought there would be parties and punch bowls and fetching, peep-toe shoes. She thought there would be inspiration and steady light that said: Come this way. Come now.
She thought her days would be filled with that perfect concoction of frivoltry and ambition that constitutes the life of a young artist in New York.

This isn't the way things worked out for La Beav. Her book sits unnoticed somewhere, a surplus object like a booster seat in a restaurant, and she can't help but feel that things aren't going correctly. It's like that part in a book or a movie that starts heading off-kilter, leaving you to wonder- where is the story I first started out with? Where is the ending that I thought was pre-written?

In exactly one month, Beaver and Sir Domo will be moving to the most rural town in the Berkshires with no job offers, no Internet, no friends and no postal delivery. Gone are the girlish ponderings of a Beaver in Manhattan, trying to make it through the well-pawed streets of the city. Enter the immediacy of finding the proper gift for ones neighbors in a town of 664. Beaver can't bake. Is stone-cut Irish oatmeal too humdrum? Or is simplicity the way to make a sound impression?

Adventures, challenges, life lessons to be learned- certainly all these things lie in the path that's now in front of these Beavers. But what if they are making a mistake? We assume that we have taken the right road because we need to. But what if their destiny waits on the other path?

Tastes like Team Spirit

To aid them in their efforts to renovate their dwelling, Beaver and Sir Domo bought a bright, lovely chariot with gigantic spokes to take them to and fro from the quarry. The previous owners seemed a nice couple indeed, even if they were ferretts and kept a rumpled house.

Alas, the great big chariot turned out to be a lemon. What in the world will they do with it now? Pebbles are tight at the moment and they certainly regret spending so many of them on a big, juicy lemon. Sigh, little Beaver. Sigh, little Domo. You'll get over the error or your youthful ways! You've got a little red house now to see you through the bad times. On a frozen river!