Tag Archives: garage

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Worms do not like bleach.

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Yesterday I started a chore I’ve been putting off for two years. After a month of (not so) subtly hinting the husband could help me, I gave up and did it myself. Armed with a spray bottle of bleach, multiple scrubby sponges and a pressure hose attachment I attacked the shady sides of our vinyl sided garage.

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Naturally I forgot to take a before photo…

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But this is what I was battling, and trust me it’s a workout. Green, moldy algae discoloration that didn’t want to let go.

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It’s the result of kicked up ground water, stuck grass clippings from my husband’s giant lawn tractor and a lack of direct sunlight drying the rain.

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The woodchucks tunnel under this door and have ruined the surrounding lawn… but patches of loose dirt that became muddy with bleach soaked water yielded an interesting result.

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Worms.

Here a worm, there a worm. Worms everywhere … wriggling out of the ground in protest. Clearly they did not enjoy a bleach bath.

Sorry worms. It had to be done.

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*Following photo for Boo who wanted to see my pressure washing attachment. *

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Incentive

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I’m trying to see the bright side of my husband’s latest purchase. It’s not easy, but when he brought it home last week and attempted to park it in the garage?

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I saw a glimmer of hope that he might actually throw some things out to make room. You know, like the old broken gutters, the yard sale fake oil painting and the air conditioner that hasn’t worked since 1999?

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But we’re talking about my husband … so things just got stacked in higher piles.

I told him there was too much junk. Repeatedly.

Did he listen?

I think you know the answer to that.

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He did not… and ran into the broken air conditioner instead.

🥴

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We did it!

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Success was hard won, but after another full of month of fruitless used car shopping, we finally found one for our niece.

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A 2012 Subaru Impreza hatchback which cost a lot more money than I planned on spending for a 19 year old’s first car…. but welcome to pandemic era shopping.

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The economy is iffy and people aren’t buying new, which means they aren’t trading old, which means a complete lack of decent inventory on the lots. The pickings are extremely slim in Maine and unless you’re willing to spend $11,000 plus (I wasn’t) or buy something with 225,000 miles (also a no) good frickin’ luck.

Thankfully the dealership where she fell in love with this one allowed us to drive it an hour away to have our trusty mechanics/old friends give it a thorough once over.

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They found a few minor things it needed,  while this fellow looked on…

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Hey, our friends run a high class garage…. and can apparently fix anything. Including the tin man.

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Okay, as evidenced by their Hooter calendar…. maybe not that high class.

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But they’re experienced and kind enough to examine the car for free, so I’ll excuse a few scantily clad bimbos.

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The car won their seal of approval… after telling us it needed new tires… and our niece let out an audible sigh of relief.

Time to celebrate.

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At the closest restaurant to the dealership while they got the paperwork together.

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Cheers to a young girl’s first car!

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And a hearty home style lunch. Corn and bacon chowder with a hot turkey sandwich for me. That damn thing was so big I ate off it for 3 days.

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Signing her own paperwork. With a man who needs serious instruction on mask protocol.

Big smiles and key in hand.

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A final hug for the best aunt and uncle on earth.

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A thumbs up behind the wheel…. and off she went back to college.

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One extremely happy camper.

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He tried.

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Yes, he tried… and I’m going to give him points for that.

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The other day during the miraculous (and possibly orchestrated by aliens) garage clean out…. the husband tried to sell some tires.

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No, he didn’t put a price on the sign.

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And bless his heart, the pile got bigger as the day wore on because he kept finding more tires.

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He even went out and artfully arranged all the mismatched, unwanted, never fit any vehicle we owned, tires.

But alas, at the end of the day….

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They ended up in our cellar… where they’ll probably die a slow death because no one else wants our unwanted tires either.

But damn it, he tried.

And I appreciate the effort.

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Who is this man and what have you done with my husband?

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It’s beginning to feel like Invasion of the Body Snatchers up at Casa River.

There’s a pod here somewhere…. I know it.

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It’s the only possible explanation for why you can currently see the floor… and walls!…. of our garage.

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The look alike alien husband removed the rattle trap archaic blower which was here when we moved in.

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He even *gasp* hung things up. Look, little shelves with neatly coiled tie down straps! Be still my heart.

And then? Excuse me while I reach for my smelling salts… he took his prized 400 lb antique potato planter out of the big barn.

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He loaded it on his truck.

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And gave it to our town’s historical society!

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(I think I may have passed out at this point.)

And just when I was sure my husband had been replaced by an otherworldly facsimile…

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I found him back in the garage knee deep in this.

Delicate apparatus?

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Well, not quite.

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Box full of rusty old tools that haven’t worked since Christ was a Corporal?

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There he is!

Welcome back honey. I missed you…

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The rodent revolution can’t be far behind.

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I didn’t pray for this miracle, but I’ll take it.

Day two of the husband cleaning out the garage.

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Things were going well until he hit this corner…

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And found mouse nesting material covering whatever the hell was stored there.

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When he pulled off the filthy blanket?

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Yes. Those are corn cobs.

WTH?

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Sweeping off the pounds of nasty mess revealed this:

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Old, rusty and doesn’t work?

A keeper.

But the sweeping also revealed this:

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A tiny, squeaking baby mouse.

And when there’s a tiny, squeaking baby mouse?

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There’s a crazed mother mouse searching for it close behind.

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We spent the next half hour reuniting the little bastards, but the damage was done.

Their home had been destroyed…. like the chipmunks in the baby barn and the red squirrels in the house eaves.

Three rodent families displaced in the course of a summer.

I fear for our safety this winter.

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The miracle continues…

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Out of nowhere the husband decided to clean the garage.

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And there was lots to sort through and clean believe me.

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Did I crochet that?

I once superglued the straps of my bathing suit together, so… no.

Like hundreds of other items that show up in our out buildings, I have no clue how it came to be there. But the point is, the husband was willing to get rid of some things and that had to be celebrated.

Applauded.

And crowed about on a blog.

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Okay, so he wasn’t willing to part with everything. This was old, rusted and didn’t work.

In other words, a keeper!

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Halfway though the day he stumbled on that motorcycle dolly he just had to have. You know the one… I bought it for his birthday 10 years ago, almost broke my back getting it into the house and wrapped? The one he not only didn’t use, but never even opened?

Yeah, that one.

Problem was it had been stuck in the back of the garage for all that time and a mouse family had moved in. So when he picked it up?

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The bottom of the box gave way.

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And pounds of mouse shavings, clippings and poo fell out.

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But one side of the building revealed it did indeed have a (seriously cracked) floor and the truck was filling up for a dump run.

Cue the brass band.

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Naturally if I put anything in there, it had to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Which by the way, I found three of.

None with a full set of teeth.

Good times.

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Another project?

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My husband surprised me the other day with new gutters.

 

 

Yes…. some women get diamonds, I get downspouts.

But these had been a long time coming and after nearly being bludgeoned by icicles from water running off the garage last winter?

 

 

It was time.

 

 

I had other things to do that day but husband asked me to help for 30 minutes because he said that’s all it would take.

Silly, silly man.

 

 

The first section went up easily.

Too easily as it turns out….

 

 

 

Which the hose test proved.

It leaked.

 

 

I was then directed to a different spot, which also leaked.

Vowing to fix it later, the husband moved on, installed 2 more sections and then needed an end cap.

 

 

Which I now believe are the work of the devil.

 

 

One of these should have fit on the end of that piece to block the water.

Please note my use of the word should.

 

 

Adjustments were made.

 

 

Then larger adjustments.

 

 

Some of them not at all subtle.

 

 

But it worked.

Of course we were still left with the leaking problem on the first section. And after much discussion, it was decided the shingles on the non leaking end…

 

 

Over hung the roof a fraction of an inch further…

 

 

Than the shingles on the leaking end. And there’s not much you can do about that.

My solution?

Caulk it!

But the husband hates caulk so we spent the next 3 hours, yes… 3 hours….. trying to find a solution.

 

 

Little pieces of white plastic were cut to sit on the top of the clips and divert the flow.

 

 

But it didn’t work.

 

 

Long pieces of clear plastic were sought.

 

 

And carefully cut into strips to tuck under the flashing.

 

 

But still, it leaked.

 

 

Numerous ladder safety warnings were ignored during this process.

 

 

And still, it leaked.

Late in the afternoon, after spending way too much time on a half hour project….

The husband surrendered.

 

 

It’s raining as I write this…. and guess what?

No leaks.

 

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Things my husband does that make me say WTH?

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So I went out to the garage a while ago and saw he had moved the snow blower.

And while that in itself isn’t strange…

This was.

 

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Huh?

 

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Yes, that’s a bungee cord with one end hooked to the mirror…..

 

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And the other end hooked to the blower chute.

It took me a minute to realize he did this due to the limited space on his side of the building.

How limited?

Here’s a shot of the back end.

 

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Yeah.

 

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I’d say he had backed up as far as he could.

 

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The more logical solution of throwing out all that crap treasure not withstanding.

 

 

 

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And speaking of ice….

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Oh, we weren’t talking about ice? Well, I am now.

We had ice this year.

Lots and lots of ice.

The shovel the snow off the driveway, watch your feet slide out from under you and land smack on your ass kind of ice.

Everything was covered in sheets of ice for weeks on end.

Of course this made for some pretty fabulous icicles.

 

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On the garage, they started out small.

 

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But then they grew.

 

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Which made getting in and out of the garage rather perilous.

 

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Did I mention this was the section of the garage I was nagging the husband to put a new gutter on all last summer and fall?

 

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Maybe now he knows why.