Tag Archives: barn

Random snippets.

October 25, 2023 Rivergirl 28 Comments

Some of you have been wondering if Lord Dudley Mountcatten has been inconvenienced by our latest round of home renovations. The short answer is yes.

1. With our contractor working outside during daylight hours, His Lordship’s walkabouts have been put on hold.

2. Blinds have been drawn so His Highness doesn’t get scared by the contractor going in and out the bedroom door and that means bird watching restrictions are in place as well.

But the major upheaval?

3. Litter box placement. While the royal toilet used to be in the master bedroom alcove… it is now residing in the foyer by the front door.

And trust me, this is inconveniencing everyone.

🤢

Are you like my husband? A man who saves every extra screw, nail, nut, bolt, washer and fastener from completed projects?

Is your utility closet like ours… filled with jars that look like this?

If so, I have a meme for you.

It’s October 25th, and our daisies are still crazy.

At this rate they’ll probably be blooming when the snow flies.

But the bees are happy…

So I’m happy.

This is a picture from our farming neighbor across the street. His crew is still busy harvesting veggies and I always get a kick out of seeing our property from his farm’s perspective. The arrow is our man cave/Barn Mahal. Amazing how tiny it looks from back there.

I have not yet sampled a donut from the Holy Donut… though I’m told they’re nothing short of amazing.

For $39 a dozen? They’d better be.

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Is nothing sacred?

August 5, 2023 Rivergirl 18 Comments

Wild critters.

We love them, but damn.

This is our little kitchen porch, which is really just a covered landing.

In the corner there’s a stand on which I place potted plants every year. It’s usually well balanced with one begonia on the top and one begonia on the bottom. Until the woodchucks discovered the bottom flower and started nibbling…

Bottom flower was then moved to the middle shelf and middle shelf decorations were moved to the bottom.

Which was fine…

Until a chipmunk found the bird’s nest and decided he needed to deconstruct it.

And if that’s not bad enough?

Something has started using our man cave/Barn Mahal porch as a toilet.

WTH?

😳

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Drinking, with woodchucks.

July 31, 2023 Rivergirl 11 Comments

It was a relatively cool evening…. and even though I won’t be comfortably perspiration free until the mercury drops and the snow falls…. the husband and I headed out to the Barn Mahal porch for an adult beverage.

I chose one of the local Wisconsin beers our neighbor brought back from her trip. And while the can was artfully decorated with birds in flight, the Central Waters brewing company’s mango wheat tasted nothing like mangoes and was a tad disappointing.

But the baby chuckers were on the move and we enjoyed their evening antics.

I believe there were five in this year’s litter…

Though it could be six because they’re everywhere you look.

With some of them head and shoulders above their siblings.

😊

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In which His Lordship finally walks on the driveway.

July 30, 2023 Rivergirl 20 Comments

Though we have not yet driven on our beautiful new driveway, we are walking on it.

Or rather, we humans are walking on it. Lord Dudley Mountcatten remains skeptical.

Taking him out for a walk has meant strolling around the house on the grass and then watching him plant himself on the kitchen landing.

Where he sits and stares.

Until yesterday…

When he finally decided to investigate.

Momma chuck was watching from the barn porch…

As his Royal highness took to the tar.

Not yet a fan of the new black expanse, His Lordship returned to the backyard and his favorite woodchuck burrow.

This is a tunnel that runs under our bedroom bay window and I wish I was quicker with the camera because a baby chuck stuck his head out, spotted Dudley and let out a true whistle pig screech.

As far as kitty entertainment goes, squealing woodchuck beats new driveway any old day.

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The BCB.… and Camden.

July 29, 2023 Rivergirl 6 Comments

In case you hadn’t guessed our recent scenic drive up the coast wasn’t random, it had a particular destination in mind.

The often heard of, always praised… BCB.

It didn’t fail to impress.

The place is huge.

As advertised… it’s a giant chicken barn with the bottom floor devoted to a multi dealer antique store and the top floor home to over 200,000 books which sounded like pure heaven to me .

We entered the building and turned left, happily strolling in and out of treasure filled booths. Husband is obsessed with old glass water jugs, but he already had this one and reluctantly put it back.

I saw Benjamin Franklin… complete with kite.

And the type of vintage crank phone I’ve been wanting for the man cave/Barn Mahal… though this one was in terrible shape… so there it stayed.

The downstairs seemed to go on forever but when we were through with the left side of the barn and returned to the middle entrance to peruse the right side, the temperature started rising. ( Husband is seen here examining a wooden egg crate, but we already have 3… so I said no ) This old building has no air conditioning and it being the middle of summer… things were starting to get downright uncomfortable. For some reason the farther right you went the hotter it got so I was basically speed walking through the stalls trying to work my way back to a cooler section.

And because I don’t need any more vintage wooden crates for my vinyl record collection?

A veritable mountain of vintage wooden crates for my vinyl record collection.

And this … because a big chicken barn needs a randomly placed big chicken.

I’m ashamed to report I did not have the stamina to peruse the books. I climbed the large staircase, reached the top and literally couldn’t breathe for the heat. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say the temperature rivaled the surface of the sun. Okay, maybe that’s extreme… but honestly, it was unbearable and everyone who ascended to the second floor came right back down. I wish I’d known this before we came, I would have planned a fall or winter visit.