While I’ve been known to enjoy some oddly flavored beer …
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That’s a hearty no from me. Pretzels belong in a bowl on the bar… to make you thirsty for more beer… not in the bottle you’re drinking. Blech!
For the first time in over a year, I lost a game of Scrabble to my husband. But in my defense?
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Even Noah Webster would have a hard time with those letters.
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We had a nice rain storm pass through recently so the husband and I took to the barn porch with adult beverages. He was interested to see if his leaky gutter repair worked ( it did ) and if his strategically placed rock ( which I told him was too small ) would protect the lawn from a rain induced pothole. ( it partially did )
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And in case you’re wanting a piece of jewelry to commemorate the shit show of the last year?
And because no project ever goes smoothly at Casa River…. when they reached the end, something went wrong and piles of rocks had to be removed and replaced.
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And right after I filmed that utterly riveting video (that WordPress decided to cut and only load half, for which you should be grateful)? They disturbed a mouse nest and were attacked by one royally pissed off mother rodent. But finally… late that afternoon, it was declared finished.
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Okay, so it looks a little pregnant in the middle due to a slight bump out.
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But at that point I don’t think their aching backs cared.
Before:
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And though I do miss the curved corner, after:
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Before:
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After:
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Before:
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After:
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To be honest, he dug this one down too far as well… and I still wish it was taller on the high end of the grass. I’m not complaining just to complain…. but I’m the one who has to pull all the grass and weeds that blow in there from the mower because it’s too low.
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But it looks a lot better than it did…. and in 10-15 years when Maine’s notorious frost heaving and shifting earth crumbles this one? We’ll probably hire someone to rebuild it again because we’ll be too old and decrepit. Maybe then I can have a high wall.
This is one of our stone walls. It’s the smallest and has been falling in on itself for years.
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Mainly because when my husband built it 19 years ago, he didn’t listen to me and dug it level to the higher edge of lawn.
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You can’t tell but there’s over a two foot difference in height there.
Anyway… on July 2nd, the start of the holiday weekend, I came home from the grocery store and found this.
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Because the husband decided July 4th was the perfect time to redo the corner of the wall where stones were starting to slip into the ditch. He enlisted a friend, dug a trench and figured this jerry rigged engineering marvel would work.
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A slab of untreated wood, a line of black stakes and yes, God help me… roofing shingles to hold back the dirt. Not what I would call aesthetically pleasing.
There was a discussion. Followed by a heated debate. Which turned into the beginning of an argument. I offered multiple solutions and they did not go over well. Naturally the husband wanted to do as little lifting as possible because, you know… rocks = heavy. But if you’re going to rebuild a wall? You can’t just do one section, and after some (not so) gentle persuading, he finally saw it my way. Since the slipping stones were his main concern I conceded defeat on that point and we eliminated the corner.
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Filling it in with dirt which we will then seed or sod.
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And then the real work began.
If you’ve never built a rock wall? (And I mean a real New England cement free rock wall, with rocks of all different shapes and sizes and weights… not the nice flat ones you buy at a landscapers) Trust me, it’s work!
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Which is undoubtedly why my husband only wanted to do a corner.
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Silly man, he really should have known better.
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Day one? It went something like this:
Move rocks, install barrier, argue with wife, remove barrier, curse wife under your breath, fill hole with dirt, move rocks, curse wife again, start rebuilding entire wall when all you wanted to do was one corner, move rocks, curse wife under breath one more time because you can and she’s too far away to hear you.
River's world..... 