We bought a new Kenmore stove shortly after moving into the house and we’re really happy with it for the most part. The only downside is the smell. I expected that we’d smell something the first couple of times we used it, but it’s now three months later and it still reeks every time I turn the oven on. Even the sweet smell of Christmas cookies wasn’t enough to cover it up. Not sure what the deal is.

Has anyone else had anything like this happen? Any idea how long we can expect to continue “enjoying” the smell of our new stove or what we could do to get it to stop?

Since moving in to our new house, we’ve had a couple of encounters with various creatures wanting to enjoy our home with us (see post: Things That Go “Bump” in the Night). The week before Christmas, the saga continued when we found a bat swooping around in the stair well while we were getting ready for work one morning.

Our first attempt to catch him involved putting a laundry basket over him while he was laying on the hallway floor. Unfortunately, by the time we came up with the idea of using a laundry basket and located an empty one, he was on the go. When we found him again, he was laying on the corner of the crown molding in our dining room. So, we opened all of the doors and started poking him with the end of a broom hoping he would take flight so we could shoo him outside. Unfortunately, all of the poking caused him to squeak a few times, but we couldn’t get him to move. Based on his lack of activity, we think he must of been sick. We finally got him out by climbing on a step stool, picking him up (wearing gloves, of course), putting him in an empty coffee can, and releasing him far away from our house.

I just hope he didn’t leave behind too many friends that think it will be a good idea to try to move in with us. Looks like we might have to consider bat-proofing our house …

So, it’s not all that unusual to see deer in town … and it’s not completely unlikely to find them in your own yard, but over the last few days, we discovered that we have what appears to be a family of deer living in our neighborhood and they’ve been spending a lot of time hanging out in our back yard.

Here’s a photo of the first time we saw them … they were bedded down in the ravine area to the side of our house:

We saw them again the following night, sleeping in our back yard. The photo didn’t turn out very good, but here it is:

And the following day, we came home from work to find them snacking right outside our living room windows:

Here’s a link to the rest of the photos we took.

I’m sure it’ll be annoying in the spring when all of our plants are getting eaten, but right now, we think it’s pretty cool to be sharing our yard with so many of them.