Mr. Troutbend, as you know, is in Las Vegas. Today he sent a picture of a new faucet he installed in the kitchen sink. He knows if I was there I would not have bought such a cheap, uninspired faucet and sprayer. I like the ones where the sprayer is part of the part where the water comes out. I know he is chuckling to himself that he's gotten away with something.



I told him that it's nice, and thanks for picking out a new one, but I really like the one that's here, which is very similar to the one he replaced in Las Vegas, so if I'm ever not around, please don't replace it without asking me for some feedback.

We just got news via our neighborhood Facebook group that one of the houses next to the Chapel in Drake burned to the ground tonight. If it is the house I think it is, it was severely damaged in the 2013 flood and the owner walked away from his mortgage. The bank foreclosed on it, but they didn't appear to intend to do anything with it, and it was a blight on the neighborhood. The latest word was that bears were living in there, which probably made the neighbors nervous, hibernating or not. I have a feeling one of the neighbors got fed up and torched the place. It could have been the total whack job guy who lives next door.

You can barely see it in the picture - see the white pickup? go right a little bit, and back there in the trees is a light green structure, and you can see one of the crooked walls.



Now that it has burned, if the county can't get the owner to properly dispose of the wreckage, they have the legal power to tear it down and put a lien on the property so they will get reimbursed when the parcel sells.

There are some other flood-ruined homes that the county claims it can do nothing about, and the neighbors are all upset. Both of them are buried to the eaves in rocks and dirt moved by the flood, and are also bank owned. It wouldn't do much good to torch them, only the roofs would burn.