The Junque man Cometh

 

Or go-eth! Poor Bob! He lived for almost twelve years with this ridiculous hot tub outside of his studio door. Not only was it an eyesore but it is/was big, heavy and well... an eyesore. When we first looked at the house- lo! these many years ago, the hot tub was on the rotting back deck, off the living room. When we came to inspect the house for our closing walk-through, it was gone. Somehow, the previous owner had hauled this monstrosity down to most recent location, by Bob's studio door. 

To be honest, I never entertained the idea of taking pictures of the hot tub in situ because it wasn't exactly photogenic. I knew how badly Bob wanted to get rid of it, though. He entertained several options- none easy- because this thing was massive and made of all manner of nastiness, including fiberglass and spray insulation. He debated making a "heat grabber" for his studio but the size and shape were unworkable. Friends suggested simply dragging it off into the woods, where it probably would have resided for eternity.

(Don't ask: I was simply photographing "hose arabesques".) Bob decided his best course of action was to haul that sucker away to the dump. Bob spent several days deconstructing the monstrosity and revealing all sorts of weird insulation, pipes, wood frame complete with nails... just awful stuff. Our good friend Joe agreed to come over and assist Bob in the heroic undertaking of getting it up onto the truck and help get it to the dump. It proved to be no small task as the unwieldy shape of the tub resisted being loaded and kept sliding back off the truck, and there was no way to lift it up as it was too heavy. (I wisely missed observing all of this fun,leaving it to the men folk to figure the logistics out.) Bob and Joe finally resorted to sawing the fiberglass body in half and then loading it on. 

Off to the dump it (finally!) went. A loud cheer was heard through out the land as Bob was free of the burden of the accursed hot tub. Additionally, Bob discovered he had a whole new area of open space beside his back door. Victory was his!

Things to be Thankful For

I don't know about you, but I'm plenty thankful for lovely mushrooms like the ones above that are growing on a stump in our back yard. They look like constellations. Here's the whole group of them:

I think they're as nice as anything I could have planted.
So here's a bulleted list of reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving season:

• For Bob! He's a great guy and a good cook. Plus, he and our good friend Joe finished my studio ceiling the other day. Yaaayyy!!!
• Jule the Dog; the perfect dog who's only psychotic like .09% of the time.
• Maggie the Mexican Pony who may have soundness issues of late, but is a very nice horse.
• My studio- with new ceiling or not, one of my absolute favorite places to spend my time.
• Good friends and family members. They don't vote republican and they're not total weasels.
• A car that got me home yesterday. Although it threatened to leave me screaming at the side of the road, it came through and made it into the yard.
• For Stop and Shop being open today, although it is Thanksgiving. Bob and I sort of didn't really plan ahead as our family wasn't celebrating until later in the week. So we didn't consider that maybe other people (like the ones that work at stores) should be with their families. We were able to purchase ingredients to make Quesadillas and pumpkin pie for tonight. (Frozen, on sale pumpkin but pie none the less!)

So there! That's my 2015 list. Happy Thanksgiving!