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Momma Chuck is bringing her young ones out from under the barn on daily foraging trips.
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So naturally I sit on the barn porch and entice them with apple chunks.
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One brave little fella gets closer than the rest.
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He’s so sweet!
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Yes, they’re flower munching machines…
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But they’re also too cute to stay angry at for long.
💕
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The wheel barrow dumping of fill continues…
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With an extremely unsecured ramp of random wood pieces.
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And as you can see,
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Hedges and rhododendron have been butchered to allow access.
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Sigh.
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The fill is heavy, the boards are narrow.
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And the noise ?
Like fingernails on a chalkboard all day long.
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😳
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My first baby chucker count was off by two. There are five baby chuckers and my flower gardens are doomed.
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I try to make friends by sitting on the barn porch and giving them apples.
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I do this so they’ll leave my carefully tended blooms alone.
Sometimes it works, other times I’m left with a bed of bare twigs.
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It seems there’s always one brave little fella in every litter… the one who edges closer and checks me out more thoroughly.
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Yes, they munch my flowers.
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But damn, they’re cute.
❤️
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My husband had 4 yards of pea gravel delivered. And because he didn’t want to ruin the lawn or the new driveway, it was dropped at the outer reaches of our property.
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Good for the lawn, but bad for his back.
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He built a little ramp.
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And proceeded to haul small loads back and forth…
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All day long.
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Dumping them under the torn off porch…
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To try and level things out.
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It may not look like a long way, but when you’re his age? Trust me, it feels like a mile.
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Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow.
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Dumped and spread.
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It’s hard to tell in the pictures but the difference in land height from right to left is a foot.
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Here, left to right.
And filling in 12 inches of a 30 foot span?
Is more than a one day job.
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The husband and I planted three flowering cherry trees last year.
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Two of them were eaten and absolutely destroyed by deer over the winter.
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This one, planted closer to our house survived… even if it is looking a little spindly.
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🥴
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We had our first baby woodchuck sighting of the season the other day.
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Momma gives birth under the Man Cave/Barn Mahal every year and this summer it looks like three.
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They really are adorable.
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Scampering around trying to convince mom to share her apples.
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I know my flower gardens will suffer.
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But damn, they’re cute.
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😊
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It’s been slow going but the tear down of our old front porch is fully underway.
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All the decking has been removed and even though the posts are not load bearing my husband propped up a temporary support .
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In his typical professional fashion.
Sigh.
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Sure.
That looks stable…
🥴
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Lots of rotted wood had to be removed because there was no j channel under the door, or under any of the porch siding.
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He’s trying to keep as much of the old frame as he can. Even if it is a wee bit crooked. Those cement posts are buried 3 feet down and there’s no way we’re moving them.
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Does my husband know what he’s doing?
Not really. Just enough to be dangerous.
That’s what makes it blog worthy.
🥺
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Never let it be said my husband doesn’t keep life interesting.
The other day was picture perfect. Clear skies, bright sunshine and fabulously moderate temperatures in the low 70’s. The kind of day that lends itself to outdoor adventures.
So when my spouse told me to get dressed because we were taking a ride up the coast, I was thrilled.
But I should have known better.
Oh, we drove up the coast…
But not to a scenic coastal village.
No…
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My husband took me to the dump.
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But not just any dump.. the huge, drive your truck in and throw absolutely anything under the sun away dump… which for him consisted of the old front porch he’d just torn down.
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Lucky me.
The place recently implemented a hard hat rule so I had to stay in the truck and missed being narrowly hit by flying trash.
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As you’re dumping, they’re pushing the refuse back with bulldozers … which can get a little hairy.
And oh…
Did I mention the smell?
Let’s just say it wasn’t the beach rose and crisp ocean air I was expecting.
😳
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Lilacs.
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From a scent perspective they’re hard to beat.
We have two giant bushes on the edge of our property that were planted by the original owners in the mid seventies.
One is dark purple.
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One is white.
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So of course my favorite color is the pale lavender that we didn’t have.
But my girlfriend did and about ten years ago she gave me some of hers.
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That’s it in the foreground next to our old ones.
Alive, but not in any hurry to grow.
At this rate I’ll be dead before it blooms…
🥴
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It’s been a long time coming but my favorite apple tree by the road is in full bloom.
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Technically it’s a weird variety of crabapple that doesn’t fruit.
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But who needs bitter fruit when you have this preponderance of fragrant blooms?
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The scent is pure heaven.
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But be careful sniffing..
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The bees love it as well.
🐝
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River's world..... 