Last weekend, the former owner of our house stopped by to let us know about a burglar alarm we had installed in the house. We were completely unaware of it, and he let us in on a few other tips as long as he was here.

One of the tips was that the plywood beneath our shed was for covering the shrubs in the front of the house to protect them from snow falling off of the roof. This morning, it began snowing pretty heavy with no quick end in sight. After I got done running, I did a quick shovel of the driveway and got the plywood out. Thankfully, I was still wearing my stabilicers, since carrying the plywood up the small hill covered in snow was a little tricky even with spikes coming out the bottom of my feet.

The plywood was actually hinged together from two sheets and in various sizes, so that it was easy to create a tent of sorts over each shrub and bush. A fairly efficient design, and with different sizes it was easy to figure out which bush to put each one over. A couple of them I think have grown a bit wild since I didn’t trim them at all this year, so next year I will have to try taking better care of them.

I have a few lawn care items that I want to address in the spring, so that will just have to go on the list.

Any day that you learn something is a good day. Today, we learned quite a few things about our house that we were previously unaware. Thankfully, we learned them because the previous owner stopped by to say hi rather than through too many things breaking.

The gentleman that we bought the house from got a Christmas letter from our neighbor which mentioned our break-in. He stopped by mostly to let us know that there is in fact a burglar alarm installed in our house. That was a nice thing to learn. He showed us where the controls are and how to operate it.

He also let us know a few tricks like where the water shut off is to the valve in the back (I had already found that) and that there was not one in the front because the shaft was long enough that you could just drain the water with it turned off and be all set. That had been driving me nuts because I could not find a shut off valve inside the house, and had given up.

Shortly after returning my neighbor’s plywood, which he lent us to cover the hole in the back of our house, I discovered that there was some plywood beneath our shed. The gentleman who sold us the house let me know that that is to cover the bushes and small trees in the front of the house from snow falling off of the roof. That’s a good tidbit to learn before we start getting significant snowfall.

It was very sweet of him to stop by and let us know about the burglar alarm and such. He misses his house; he built it with his own hands and lived here for 40 years. Him and his wife are too old to maintain a house themselves, though; she can barely move, and he is at the point where he can not mow the lawn any more.

I gave him one of our wedding beers as a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas.