With the hope that it will rain on our property sometime in this decade, my husband purchased gutters for our baby barn/shed and I attempted to help with the installation.
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Since the project was my husband’s idea and he was in charge of purchasing supplies, this meant 3 forty minute round trips to Lowes and half the day wasted because he thinks making a list is a waste of time.
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Did he buy the right size screws?
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He did not.
Did he buy the correct downspout brackets?
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He did not.
Did he buy a new section of downspout because the piece he had leftover from a previous project was too short?
Not finding any vintage beer or whisky crates on our shopping trip to the lakes region, we headed to the mid coast for a different batch of stores.
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We hit the Wiscasset antique mall first. This is my favorite place to shop for treasure. Three floors, numerous dealers and a whole lot of everything under the sun.
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They had boxes galore. Biscuits, seafood, soda pop, ammunition, fruit… everything but what I was looking for.
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Classic!
The next store we tried had a vintage husband attitude corrector…
There’s always something that needs to be repaired at Casa River, and sometimes that something is the Barn Mahal porch.
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For some reason ( read – crazy Maine weather, massive frost heaves and lack of gutters ) one section of the porch lifted over the years with the result being smashed and then rotted wood under the corner post.
A cousin was called to assist… as there was heavy lifting required and yours truly sucks at that.
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I also suck at not exclaiming WTF! when I go outside to check on the repair progress.
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I doubt that set up was OSHA approved… but it did the job and supported the roof while the post was removed.
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Rotted wood.
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Please note I am not standing on the porch to take pictures.
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Rotted wood replaced….
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Corner post cut and reseated.
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With a hammer, because fine tuning was required.
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And yes, it’s a bit crooked now.
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But my bat was rehung and the roof is still over our heads… so I’m calling it good.
A beautiful Maine summer day demands a road trip to the lakes…
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Long Lake, pictured here, is in the Sebago Lakes region of our state with the western mountains rising in the distance. The lakeside village of Naples is charming, and perfect for leisurely strolling with random stops to enjoy the views… unless you’re my husband who drove straight through on his way to a store in Windham called the Den of Antiquities.
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This is the view he prefers.
It was a great store with a converted pre Civil War era barn. Treasure was abundant.
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Like this fabulous old slot machine. Please note at $3,950 the price was not even close to fabulous.
Vintage white enamel bed pan used as a display container? Now that’s fabulous.
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I’m still hunting for vintage wooden beer or whisky crates to house my vinyl collection and thought I’d hit the motherload here..
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But in all those boxes, there wasn’t one alcohol related piece of wood in the bunch. Oh sure, I could have bought this …
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But who wants their records stashed in a giant box of rubbers?
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This crate had promise… it said it housed a dozen quarts which denotes liquid, but for the life of me I couldn’t make out the name. Google search came up empty as did all the other customers I asked. Even the owner didn’t have a clue. We shifted it every which way trying to decipher the lettering to no avail. I was struggling to understand what the hell ‘Caitus Guhs’ was when the owner had a eureka moment and figured it out.
The husband disappeared for a few hours yesterday and since him being quiet is usually dangerous, I investigated.
After searching the house, grounds and barn to no avail, I found him in the garage… where he’d pulled out one of our motorcycles.
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It’s a Kawasaki 1500 Vulcan which we used to ride all the time. Or rather, as much as Maine weather would allow. We bought our first bike back in the 90’s when we lived in North Carolina. Much longer riding season there, though I did hate wearing a helmet.
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We’ve had a parade of different bikes over the years, like this custom Harley the husband just had to buy …
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You know, the one that’s currently covered, buried in the back of the garage and collecting cobwebs.
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We’ve enjoyed them all and have toured New England from the mountains to the coast.
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We’ve taken scenic day trips and hit the annual rallies. Down south it was Myrtle Beach, up here it was Laconia.
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Where parking can be a wee bit tight.
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We’ve done countless charity rides and poker runs.
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And supported the Toys for Tots Run every September.
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Hundreds of big bad bikers…
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Coming together to make Christmas morning a little brighter for underprivileged children.
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Yes, that’s Senator Angus King. He was Maine’s Governor for years and rode with us quite often.
We’ve loved our bikes and enjoyed riding for decades.
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But in 2017 my husband had triple bypass surgery and things changed. It’s a dramatic as well as life altering procedure which I don’t recommend. Not one little bit. The recovery was a long emotional roller coaster and though he eventually came through it, physically he wasn’t the same man. He lost a lot of weight, which was good…. but a lot of muscle mass went with it. Motorcycles be heavy. So the bikes were covered and garaged.
Oh, we took them out now and then… but just for short cruises. And in the past 2 years? Nothing. Nada. Not one single ride. To be honest my knee injury makes it uncomfortable, but mostly it’s just getting to be too much. My husband is 75 and I’m fine with him hanging up the leather. Last year I suggested selling the two we have left and buying a sweet little convertible…. but he’s having a hard time letting go.
Aging is hard. And admitting you might have physical limitations for a retired Marine? Even harder. I understand, and don’t push. But when I went out to the garage and found him washing and polishing the Kawi I was hopeful.
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He asked about the registration sticker not being current and said we’d have to renew it if we planned on selling her.
I’m happy to report it was a dull and uneventful day of stone installation.
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Probably because I stayed in the house. Oh, I was out there bright and early ready to work, but my help was neither needed nor desired.. so I left him to it.
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The border looks great, though it really is a lot smaller than I wanted.
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The perennial bed I had envisioned will have to be dramatically downsized.
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But something is better than nothing and he certainly is doing a good job.
Work is slowly progressing on my soon to be fabulous backyard perennial garden border.
Whether my marriage will survive it is another matter entirely.
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I’m not sure why my husband has chosen to take every single little thing I say about this endeavor as a slight, an insult or God forbid…. a question of his manly ability, but he has.
I go out and try to help, but somehow everything I do just ends up pissing him off. He’s sucking the joy out of the process with his attitude and moodiness, but I will not let him ruin it.
I will not.
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If you remember, I advised we buy at least two pallets of stone back at the start. I knew we would need at least two full pallets, but no. My husband knew better and we bought one.
So when he reached the end of pallet number one and wasn’t anywhere near finished?
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He was less than pleased to admit we needed the second pallet I had wanted since the beginning and grumbled that I was gloating.
Me?
No. That would never happen.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 