Never thought retirement would be like this

Just think of the leaves you won't have to rake! Those tree guys sure earn their living! We have had trees taken out where they did not use a "bucket"...one guy just climbed the tree like a power pole guy with those spikes on their shoes and cut the tree down from the top. Kinda gave me the creeps! Any idea who your new neighbors are going to be? Hope not a Frat House....that could get noisy! But then again, maybe your new neighbors are going to put a pool in? You might want to get real neighborly with them! LOL
 

Just think of the leaves you won't have to rake! Those tree guys sure earn their living! We have had trees taken out where they did not use a "bucket"...one guy just climbed the tree like a power pole guy with those spikes on their shoes and cut the tree down from the top. Kinda gave me the creeps! Any idea who your new neighbors are going to be? Hope not a Frat House....that could get noisy! But then again, maybe your new neighbors are going to put a pool in? You might want to get real neighborly with them! LOL
Yes, the wind blows from that direction. :) I thought he was just going to rent out my neighbor's house. He needs parking for her house and the one next to it off the street, so I assumed he'd make a parking lot. I don't think he could get a permit to build another residence back there, unless he tears her house down, but people with "pull" can get zoning laws changed if they want to.

When I first joined this forum, I posted pictures of two pines my neighbor and I had taken down the previous spring. I think the pictures were on Photobucket :)mad:), so I'll post them again. They had a tree climber, like you did. It was really amazing to watch him. You would have to be in such good shape. Not a job for a "mature" person.

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Zooming in at the top....

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The dumpster next door has been sitting full since Monday. Company didn't pick it up, so nothing happening over there. It looks so good now. At night there is a lot more light from town in the backyard.

After probably too much thinking, I decided to attach some 2x4's alongside the existing old frame, only make these new ones all at the same angle, or closer anyway. Will probably add them on both sides, 2x4's are cheap.

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On up, the horizontal part of the ceiling sits a half inch higher on the house side, so I may do the same up there. I also want to block between all these. Not too confident about putting up even paneling unless there are plenty of places to attach it, let alone attempt drywall.

This is how far out of square the inside left wall is.

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There is at least a vision of how to do this all the way through to the end now (knock on wood). Whether it's the best way or not, IDK. That's where experience counts and I don't have any. It could be March before I get this part finished, but this is the most important part, imo. Just talking it out to myself. ;)
 

Meanderer, just wait 'til I post pictures of the *other* three walls. That will really be depressing! But the walls and I have gotten more comfortable with each other, now that the soot has cleared out. :)
 
...today, everyone's eyes are on the shotgun over the mantle! Yikes!
There has been a shotgun in this closet with me at all times.

:coffeelaugh:

[It's in a big homemade wooden footlocker type thing that came with the house. Too big to even try moving it out.]
 
The dumpster got picked up, but not replaced yet. They are back, but trimming trees at the rental house on the *other* side, with just a chipper.

My nose has started twitching. :confused: Need to go back to decaf.

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Ingenuity. :) Wanted to bring the new self-propelled lawn mower (heavy) in town to see how it does with leaves. It has a mulching blade and rear discharge.

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"Ready to roll.... "

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The problem now is getting it unloaded. It is always easier to move things down, because of gravity, but... Should have brought that heavy duty ladder back too. Hmmm.... :confused:
 
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"Want to lie in your hammock and mow the lawn in repose? The Homko Robot mower can be maneuvered by a remote control panel, one lever for forward, stop and reverse, and another for right and left. Since the cord that attaches this brain to the mower is 40 feet long, you can mow 40 feet in any direction without getting up. You get exercise just the same—mental-from trying to keep the thing from cutting its own cord".
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Update: Unloading...piece of cake once I found the proper junk (and a 2"x10"x10' :)). Never throw anything away. The trick was to sit on the boards and slide down behind it.

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The thing even started up on only 2 pulls. Mowed through some leaves and they just disappeared. :eek: Not believing this, I jacked it up to see if they were stuck underneath somewhere---nothing!

I love this lawnmower! :love_heart:

Too much dew on the grass to continue mowing right now.

Forget a walk-in closet, next house I buy is going to have a loading dock. :playful:

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Update 4:45pm: St. Augustine grass in town is really thick and a little too high in places for this mower set on "mulch." If you set it to cut really high, it's fine for picking up leaves that aren't buried.

Didn't bring the bag in town. Doesn't matter, 'cause if I did, I think it would have to be emptied too often. Not my cup of tea. Will try to figure out a way to prop up the big cover over the back just a bit to let the stuff blow on through. There's almost always a way...if you want there to be one. :)
 
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Coincidence. Driving home, I got behind an SUV with a bumper sticker that said...

..........I Brake for Lichen

An hour or so later, noticed my wild azalea bush was coming out in bloom. :( Weather has been unusually warm here. That scrubby looking stuff on some of the branches ... are ... lichens! :)

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"A lichen is a 'sandwich' made of algae in the center and fungus on the outside. ... Lichens are almost always found on weak plants. They are totally harmless and in no way responsible for the poor health of any tree or shrub..."

The Story of Alice Algae and Freddy Fungi

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UPDATE (November 20th): First frost of the season this morning---so heavy it almost looks like it snowed overnight. That should slow down the wild azalea bush from blooming, make the grass turn brown, and wilt the kudzu vines. :)
 
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"A new species of lichen from the Ecuadorian rainforest has been found to contain the hallucinogen psilocybin, which is also found in magic mushrooms. After DNA analysis in 2014 confirmed it was indeed a new species, it was named Dictyonema Huaroni, after a native tribe, and is the first and only lichen known to contain this trippy compound."

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I just can't leave Google Streetview alone!!! :rolleyes: It is such a time waster.

This is a picture of the school in the town my grandmother lived in, taken in 1973, in WV. Don't know when it was built. Never saw it, ever, and this was just a teeny tiny little town! :confused:

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But there is one side road I was never on, so I just took a drive up that road and found it less than a mile off the main road! Abandoned. Creepy looking. (Image captured from Streetview, taken in 2007)

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I remember my cousin, who grew up there, saying recently, "They tore the old school down."

I've been driving around all over the place lately. Need a more fuel efficient vehicle if I'm going to keep doing this. :playful:
 
Several of my old azalea bushes that were planted almost 30 years ago have been blooming. And they are not the new "Encore" variety. I guess they have got their seasons mixed up! Floor update...well got half down but pulled a muscle in my arm while cutting up the old boards with a skill saw in smaller pieces to go in the garbage. Got to let it "rest" for a few days. Also have the two grandkids here this week while school if out for Thanksgiving. And now Christmas is right around the corner. I'm beginning to think it may be Spring before this project gets finished! It is starting to get on my last nerve!

Isn't that Honda Mower a little horse? We have got so many leaves on the ground here it looks awful! And we have already blown them off two times already! Gotta get them off the grass or they will kill the grass through the winter. "Poof", I am tired!

If I'm not on here much the next couple of days....Have a Happy Thanksgiving! Got a Thanksgiving meal to cook! Oh joy!
 
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...Floor update...well got half down but pulled a muscle in my arm while cutting up the old boards with a skill saw in smaller pieces to go in the garbage. Got to let it "rest" for a few days. Also have the two grandkids here this week while school if out for Thanksgiving. And now Christmas is right around the corner. I'm beginning to think it may be Spring before this project gets finished! It is starting to get on my last nerve!

If I'm not on here much the next couple of days....Have a Happy Thanksgiving! Got a Thanksgiving meal to cook! Oh joy!

You do seem to be having some bad luck with the floor project. Some projects are like that. Giving it a rest will help, hopefully your enthusiasm will come back.

I'm debating about the Christmas lights this year. I'd like to get them up before the students leave town, and that's pretty soon I think. We had our first frost last night. It's starting to feel like winter.

If I don't talk to you again, you have a great Thanksgiving too, maggiemae. Enjoy your grandkids.
 
Closet...A change in plans already

The little bit of old framing remaining on this wall is now gone! Too much trouble to try to modify it, and there was no bottom plate. Easier to take out than I thought it would be. The top two boards won't come into play at all. One is a brace.

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Re-purposed those two old over-sized vertical 2x4's to make a base that will (almost) match that on the back wall. Now it will be easier to get square. The longer you think about something, the better it seems to always turn out. The worst decisions I ever made were when I got in a hurry. :playful:

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I've wondered why I like old photographs so much. Do you suppose it's for the same reason some people like to read books, or watch movies, or read poetry? I can almost get lost in a good old photograph. I place myself there and try to imagine what the people are doing and thinking, what is the occasion, what their day-to-day lives might be like.

Not many books would write more than a few pages about the drudgery of daily survival in an average household---it would be too boring. I certainly have no desire to go back and live the times. Life looks difficult, to say the least, and makes me appreciate now. Time must have seemed to pass by even more rapidly than it seems to now, because a big part of it must have been just keeping up with daily chores.

I don't usually like posed photos, but according to the writing on this one, this is the House and Family of J. M. Ash, in the same town, with the school house, where my grandmother lived, so it has more significance. The house surely was torn down by the time I was aware of anything, so no need to drive around and search. But I can imagine where it might have been. I know there were lots of Ashes still in town when I visited there. I heard the gossip. Don't remember the gossip, but remember many of the names.

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I love old photographs, too, Nancy. I know what you mean about getting lost in them; imagining what the people thought, ate, loved, reacted to etc....
 


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