Trees be poppin’!

.

A few warm days was all it took for our apple trees to pop out in riotous bloom. I’ll spare you the pictures of the rest, but this beauty by the road deserves a shout out.

.

.

It’s so large now it obscures the man cave/Barn Mahal and part of the shed.

.

.

I wish WordPress had smell-o-vision because it’s heavenly in person.

.

.

But it’s also filled with bees so be careful where you sniff.

.

.

The pictures don’t really do it justice, but trust me. It’s lovely.

.

.

And I have to say I wasn’t holding out much hope for our flowering cherry trees. The deer destroyed the other three we planted but this one held on…

.

.

It’s much smaller and not as full as it should be with a big empty hole on the right side…

.

.

But it’s still alive and blooming.

.

.

So I’m calling that a win.

.

.

😊

.

News you can’t use.

.

Useless is a state of mind.

.

.

Please don’t tell my husband. We have enough useless junk around here as it is.

.

.

Whaaaaat?

.

.

Nope. Uh uh.

That’s a number I do not need to know.

.

.

Because no one… or thing… can resist an epic selfie background.

.

.

Oh goodie. Maybe I don’t really have a damaged knee.

.

.

And speaking of AI….

.

.

So humans think AI is evil.

AI trains by reading human text saying it’s evil.

And AI becomes evil.

That’s a self fulfilling prophecy if ever I saw one.

😳

.

Remember when…

.

We always think of the past as the good old days, but were they?

.

.

How did we not slam our heads into the windshield on a daily basis in the 60’s and 70’s?

I grew up riding in the front seat of a 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon.

.

.

And yes, my mother still had it after my husband I got married…. when we were dressed head to toe in stonewashed denim. ( In our defense… it was the 80’s. Denim ruled. 🤣)

It had vacuum wipers, a manual choke, the dimmer switch on the floor…. and no seat belts.

But mothers must have had quicker reaction times and more serious arm strength back then because mine drove me in and out of New Jersey and NYC with my cranium still intact. Impressive feat of parenting, that.

.

.

To this day I don’t know the first names of my parents friends from back then. I was trotted out to shake hands with guests upon their arrival and taught to say how do you do Mr. and Mrs. Whoever before disappearing to my room never to be seen or heard from again. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to interrupt adults. Nope. Never.

Very different from today’s parenting where the world seems to revolve around a five year old’s desires.

.

.

Ain’t that the truth? Run nonstop all day and fight going to sleep at night. Now I can’t get up off the couch without creaking and as soon as it gets dark? My pajamas are calling.

Maybe they were the good old days after all….

😉

.

Random nonsense.

.

This first one is slightly exaggerated, but not by much.

.

.

And by the looks of things in the backyard?

.

.

I think there are baby woodchucks in our future.

.

.

Remember the days of mixed tapes?

I stumbled across a few of my old ones and had a flashback of sitting on the floor by the stereo manically timing the recording sessions.

.

.

Some of the songs are questionable, (Richard Marx? 😳) but I’ll stand by the Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young.

.

.

A lesson I learned early in childhood that still holds true today.

.

.

Worst. Coffee. Advertisement.

Ever.

🥴

.

Project part three… in which I find a yellow submarine.

.

Because he loves me.

Or maybe because he doesn’t want to hear me bitch…

.

.

My husband rented a deck sander for a few hours and went to town on the barn porch.

.

.

In the rain.

.

.

Granted it wasn’t the best weather for sanding, but I wasn’t going to complain.

.

.

He thought it might make a difference and help the boards he replaced blend a little better with the existing planks.

It didn’t, but it certainly smoothed things out and prepared the surface for sealant.

I admit I was a little surprised to walk inside the barn and find a previously unknown dining table being used as a work top.

.

.

Clearly someone had been to the recycle center without me.

🥴

.

.

I also found this.

.

.

Shame it was in such bad shape.

.

.

A 1969 Yellow Submarine, complete with pop up Beatles.

.

.

Ringo.

.

.

And a very unhappy John.

.

Atlas shrugged. And so will you….

.

I call foul on this first one.

.

.

Half the state of Maine does not call them blinky butts. Trust me on this.

.

.

Why doesn’t this surprise me?

.

.

A lot of these have me scratching my head, but Turkey?

Wow.

🤣

.

.

Cheese beat lobster.

But just barely.

.

.

That’s a question I’ve never asked.

.

.

Nope. Not buying it.

People move to Maine for the isolation, we don’t complain about it.

.

Don’t forget the filters!

.

It’s going to be hot in Maine today and tomorrow.

.

.

Weirdly out of season hot as you can see when our temps drop back to normal on Thursday. And even though it will only be two days of humid high temps, I talked my husband into installing our window air conditioning units this morning because yours truly has hot flashes… and a hot flashing wife is a cranky wife and a cranky wife doesn’t cook. If my guy wants a hot meal? He needs a cooled spouse.

Anyway, as we struggled to seat them …. I swear they get heavier every year!…. I looked through the grate and realized I hadn’t cleaned the filters.

.

.

Apparently for quite some time.

😳

.

.

Holy Hell!

.

.

The amount of dirt, dust, pollen, fuzz balls, cat hair, spider webs, skin cells, fish scales or whatever else the hell that is… was disgusting.

How the machines managed to work with that amount of clogged air intake last year I don’t know. But they’ll be breathing a sigh of relief this summer.

.

,

So remember …

Clean your filters!

.

The project, and a woodchuck kleptomaniac.

.

The barn porch rotted wood replacement project continues.

.

.

Or rather, it continued without me noticing and is now complete.

.

.

(Yes, the left hand post still dips… but that’s a frost heaving, ever shifting Maine ground problem.)

And while my husband used similarly weathered boards…

.

.

They still don’t match the existing and stick out like a sore thumb because he refused to replace the entire length of the boards like I suggested.

.

.

This anomaly doesn’t bother my husband, but will drive me nuts for years to come.

And did you happen to notice anything else amiss on the porch?

.

.

Perhaps the furniture that I had recovered a few years back at a rather large expense?

.

.

A cushion is missing.

As in… gone.

We noticed the other chair cushion had been torn, or more precisely… chewed. And there was stuffing blowing here and there around the bottom of the barn so as crazy as it sounds, we think it was stolen.

By the critters.

Most likely the by Momma chuck who nests and has babies under there every year.

Ordinarily this would piss me off to no end, but I’ve been wanting to replace this set for some time so now seems as good a time as any.

😊

.