Projects Bring Rewards

Oooooh! Look what Bob did! He's been so industrious this late summer/early fall. Bob made a brand new sill for our (sort of) front door. The old one was beyond rotten and there were some serious gaps for the cold to seep in... Yes! It is becoming that time of year that the cold wants entrance to the house- just like us after being out of doors for a while.We're going to repaint this door soon, probably a delightful shade of blue. It will be cheerful, but also keep the evil spooks away.

Bob also spent time constructing nifty metal handles to not only make lifting our capricious and quirky windows easier, but to prevent them from falling apart. The bottom edge of the window (not sure of the technical name) is almost gone on quite a few of our windows, so Bob devised clever metal plates that screwed in and gave structure and strength where there was none. Not only are they easier to lift, they just make the house feel so much more secure. (I confess that I had an old purple sock shoved into the bottom of this window last year. How's that for stop gap?) Additionally, Bob replaced the actual sill in several really compromised windows. It's my job to sand the spackle and paint them. I need a couple of warmer sunny days; not this weekend.

(This is a rude plant, apparently giving us the finger. You've got to appreciate it's cheekiness!)
I don't have a picture of the truck but it's pretty much the same color as our rude plant friend so that's a stand-in. Bob also found time to have friends come and tune up the truck by installing new spark plugs as it had been running rough. After the plugs were changed, it still ran badly so Bob went and got a new distributor and installed it himself! I was very proud of him and the truck is now running great. There's no stopping him; he also weed whacked the fence line and bought himself (as a well-deserved reward) a brand new chain saw.

This was a real treat because Bob's old saw (also as Stihl) was purchased when Bob was 18. I can't even do the math: that's something like 45 years ago?!?!? Is that possible? He had the same chain saw for so long that it probably belongs in a museum. But this is just in time for the colder weather as we need to start gathering fire wood. Maybe it'll be a warm winter. We can only hope!

A Day at the Beach

Bob and I are not beach goers. I believe we set a record for sheer number of years not going to the beach; it was something like 25 years. Last year, we out did ourselves by (shockingly) going three times, all within the space of three weeks. We rested easy, thinking we would probably not go again for another twenty years or so. But then we attended my sister Cathy's birthday party and it was... at the beach!
I actually brought the camera and in a fit of late summer, salt water inspired enthusiasm, I took pictures to prove that under duress, we actually do the whole beach thing.

That's me, shadowed on a boardwalk, still wearing socks and shoes. I never did remove them (an aversion to sticky, sandy feet? Unlike my reckless sibling pictured above!), but we did have a remarkably good time. It was a nice break from work, studio work, gardening, household projects etc, etc. We all know how that goes: Winter ends, spring happens and then poof! the summer is gone and you never did get to do all those fun and exotic day trips you had planned.

(Is it me or all beaches look sort of the same?) But it was nice and the weather agreed with us and Cathy got to open gifts and we all ate sandwiches and pie.

And after eating and walking up the beach for just long enough, we visited a Nature Center that was entertaining and informative. (For example, after viewing a (safely glass tank enclosed) copperhead snake, we learned that said snake is venomous, not poisonous. Who knew?! And here s/he is to tell us all about it:

(Confession: this is a different snake as the copperhead was just sort of laying there and this was one was much more animated. But it's a snake!) And then there was this delightful flat fish that kept putting his head above the water in the tank, as if trying to escape.

So the day was a success. Who knows, maybe next year we'll go for broke and destroy our record and go back to the beach again!

By Popular Demand...

I have been urged- due to popular demand- to post pictures of the completed closet in use. Yes, it is a stunner; from the bottom of the stairs, it looks like... a destination! Hello! It could be the doorway to a very exciting venue.

And it is! Organized clothing, resettled shoes... a real closet achievement, resulting in the ability to find and put on items from a wardrobe previously unhappily separated from it's user.
(Weird sentence, that!) But you get the idea. And my amazement that this has come to pass.

Look! Clothing on hangers and shoes on the floor and only a few feet from where I get dressed in the morning. Oh, happy day!

Bob did such a good job with these shoji screen doors... I feel like I'm getting dressed in Osaka or Tokyo. It's inspiring! The big plus here is all that extravagant storage space above my closet. There's room for hats and luggage and travel bags and winter blankets. I could go on but I'm already overheating and raving; I love my closet!

End of Driveway Excitement

We now have this at the end of our driveway. Such progress! For the past six months, we realized the inevitability of construction lapping at the end of our driveway as the town crew moved slowly up Jeremy Swamp Road. They seem to be hopping all over the place: first one end, then a centerish (disconnected piece) and then our end- skipping the middle... Promptly at 6:30 every morning, the booming and beeping and pinging and LOUD GUY TALK would filter up the driveway from the street. We're fortunate that our house is set back from the road! (We hear it anyway.)
This greeted me when I attempted to leave the driveway yesterday morning:

I could barely squeeze past, and this was in addition to both of our next door neighbor's cars (waiting for the school bus) and a large dump truck and the aforementioned bus. Quite the busy intersection! I had remembered to bring my camera along so I snapped these pictures. As I said to the amused town crew guys, "How often do I have this much activity at the end of the driveway?" Everyone seemed busy staring into the big hole...

(That's the police officer bending over. Nice shorts.)
In any event, I don't know that we needed a wider road or so many attractive drains and pipes added to our lives, and as a friend suggested, it will only permit more traffic and people and their cars to attain higher speeds. It's already dangerous walking up our road to the dirt road where I walk most mornings. Here are the drain basins:

This was the right side of the driveway. It was like this for the entire Labor Day weekend. I guess the chains were there to discourage us from stealing the cement forms.
The weird upshot of all this construction was that I chose to take lil' Robin the Good on an alternative walk. I bundled her into the car (good practice for her auto-phobia!) and drove her three minutes up the road to the State Bridle Trail, where we've been walking every day since. And it's beautiful! Wide and quiet and winding through some amazing properties. Robin seems to enjoy this walk more than the dirt road, so it's our new routine.
One last shot. Y'know, this equipment is really big!

Labor Day, Minus the Hurricane

It was hard to capture the light that was pouring through this particular stretch of woods: almost "Thomas Kincaide Bizarrely Highlighted by a Master Highlighter". I don't think I achieved the hallucinatory quality (drat!) but the scene is certainly still pretty! All the wild asters are crazily in bloom and you can't top them for flowering in dry shade, competing with poison ivy. Tough little bastards. This path is right behind my newish shade garden...
A rambling post! Bob and I entertained our good friends Don and Elizabeth for two days. They left early this morning, trying to stay ahead of Hurricane Hermine who doesn't seem ultimately destined to make much of an appearance. We ate and drank and hung out for two days; taking a long walk, going to a flea market, playing with Robin the Good. It was restful but we're still tired and I have to go back to work tomorrow! (Bummer!)

Here's a shot of the Clematis arbor that Bob made me for my birthday. The Clematis paniculata is just coming into bloom: also white and close by another large drift of those woodland asters... quite the nice, effortless spectacle! This arbor looked amazing even before the flowers started to erupt, but now it's really beautiful. Bob painted all those little silver dots on the web so they resemble dew. It's hard to photograph but so detailed and delicate. It surpassed my initial request (a couple of years back) for "some sort of structure; maybe like a spider's web". I had imagined a pretty basic bit of metal work, but Bob imagined a lovely piece. This photograph doesn't do it justice.

I'll try again in a few of days when more flowers come out. But in the meantime, here's abigger picture to show how it embraces the tree trunk:

Not much better, I'm afraid. But the shadow underneath was nice...