Spring Has Sprung!

Maybe Spring sprang for most of you weeks ago....but not here. The lovely woods that give us privacy in the back yard and the way that the house is situation in relation the the sun shades our property in such a way that allows feet of snow to linger on our lawn long after the snow has disappeared from everywhere else...even our next door neighbor's lawn...go figure!

Soooo, the snow is finally gone! Yeah! And I have been productive today. I raked the entire back lawn and got all my gardens in order and things are actually growing! These pictures may all look the same to you and be boring as heck, but they intrigue me! Sooo, here's my yard and gardens! Enjoy!


This is all my hard work raking. See all those piles? See how far they go back? Impressive I know!
These are Peonies that I transplanted from the side of the house to the front lawn and I didn't know if they would make it. Yay they lived!
Likewise this is a tiny little rose bush that I transplanted to the front lawn. It's a downright miracle it's budding because the first year we lived at the house Jason hacked it down because he didn't know what kind of plant it was. And last year I asked him to dig it up so I could move it and he hacked the roots all to pieces. I thought for sure it was a goner!
These are orange tiger lilies in flower beds that frame the end of our driveway. It is IMPOSSIBLE to kill these things and they spread like wildfire!

In this flower bed there is flox, lupines that haven't come up yet and some pretty yellow and orangy flowers that my momma gave me.
Here's some more orange tiger lilies and also some pretty stuff my momma gave me that's not up yet.
And these beds that line the back of the garage have purple and yellow irises coming up on each end. The other little green you see is a blue delphinium popping up (my fave) and there is also some echinecia that's not up yet.

I Showered at Work on Friday...

I showered at work on Friday morning because I didn't have any heat or hot water. Do you want to know why? Good, 'cause I want to tell you! While I was at work Thursday, Jason decided to "re-route" a cable wire so that it would not be running across the corner of our living room anymore. So he took a drill and drilled a hole down through the living room floor.

You read correctly. I didn't leave anything out. There were no other steps prior to this drilling that I speak of. There was no planning, no measuring, no marking and sure as heck no checking downstairs to see what was underneath.

So he drilled right down through the floor and right on through a hot water pipe. Awesome! He shop vac'd up the ensuing flood and then called his friend who helped him cut out the damaged piece of pipe and sauder in a new one. He waited until I got home at 9pm to turn the water back on and experience the joy of finding out if it worked or not.

Guess what? It DIDN'T work! He was all, "Stand here and shine this flash light on this pipe and tell me what happens." I was all, "Okay." He turned the water on and I heard a God aweful sound like nails on a chalk board combined with a screeching cat combined with an eerie rumble you would hear just before a large explosion. And then water came shooting out of all the "well saudered" holes with rocket force and started spraying all over the living room walls and floor. I began screaming. There was much screeching very similar to the stove sparking fire incident. However this time there was also feet stomping to get his attention in the basement and yelling, "NO! NO! Turn it off! BAD! NOT GOOD! DIDN'T WORK! FLOOOOD! AHHH!"

I'd been pretty cool about the whole boo-boo...until this point. I got mad. After a 14 hour day I just wanted to come home, watch Grey's for the first time in FOREVER and go to sleep in order to work at 7am the next day. Now, the house smelled horrible, I was nauseous from the smell, I was really cold, mad and looking forward to no shower in the morning.

I woke up the next a.m. to a freezing cold house, threw my stuff together and muddled something really sweet as I left like, "I love you. I'll be back at 7am tomorrow morning. You've got 24 hours!"

He went about his Friday, came home, cut out the pipe, re-saudered in a new piece, turned the water on, cleaned up the ensuing flood and called a repair man who fixed us up for a mere $150. So Awesome! And that's why I showered at work on Friday morning.

Rocky the Rabid Raccoon

Last night I pulled into the driveway, exhausted from work, and the first thing I saw was a cop car, a police man, my husband and my neighbor. Stellar!

I thought my husband had cut down another tree on our property and our neighbor again thought it was on his (there's some history there) and this time called the cops. But no. Here's what went down according to Jason.

Jason got home from class and let Hunter out. Hunter ran over to play with our neighbor dog Champ (a ridiculously young looking 14 yr old German short hair who is very well trained). Soon Jason heard barking and growling and thought the dogs were fighting. He ran over to break it up and found the dogs towering over a raccoon. He quickly shooed Hunter away and the raccoon ran up into a tree and out on a limb. It's hair was raised, back was arched, it was making horrible noises and Jason said it looked like it was going to jump! (A raccoon that is looking to jump down instead of run up...not a good sign.)

Jason got Hunter inside and then what did he do? Did he stay in the house and call someone? Oh no. He grabbed a shovel and went back outside after the little bugger just in time to see it jump down from the tree limb onto Champ and muckle onto Champ's shoulder. Champ began to run frantically in circles trying to shake the deranged Rocky, all the while the little raccoon kept biting down for dear life.

Jason (because who doesn't have the local game warden on your cell phone speed dial?) called the game warden and police on his cell while chasing the raccoon with his shovel so as not to loose the little freak. By the time the authorities arrived Jason had the raccoon cornered in a junk yard up the road and the game warden killed it and sent it off to be tested for rabies. All in a day's work here in Old Town!

Ice Fishing SooOOoo NOT redeemed!

I know I haven't posted in a while. But nothing fun or silly or noteworthy has been going on...that is until last night! Last night I had the extreme pleasure of attending the 2008 IceShanty.com "banquet". Oh, let me tell ya 'bout it!

IceShanty.com is an online forum where people post about ice fishing. At the end of the season they get together to, oh shall we say, celebrate (read-eat lots o food and get hammered). The picture to the right is a general composite of what the majority of the attendees looked like. I shall now detail just a few of the highlights for you.

Just to set the scene for you...It was held in a VFW hall, we paid to get in, but it was a potluck, and the bar tender that looked like my grandmother made drinks that were 95% alcohol and 5% whatever mixer.

The man with the microphone kicked the evening off by saying "F&*#ing A, lets get this thing started! Hell the food's ready so grab some plates and eat some Sh*#!" That man then wandered over toward our table and said this (no exaggeration whatsoever), "Man I did good! I only swore 3 times that time. Last year I swore like a hundred times and I was on the wagon! This year I'm drinkin'!"

The potluck spread consisted mainly of baked beans, meatballs, baked beans, meatballs, mini-weiners, baked bean and meatballs. Oh, and it was topped off with one GIANT thunder thigh of "home-raised" smoked beef that someone was just standing there carving hunks of meat off of. I'm glad I got an outer portion of that big old rump because the middle part was so red and bloody I'm sure it still had a pulse!

Standing in line in the bathroom, where only one flush was working I had an amusing interaction with a very intoxicated older woman wearing a hot pink, skintight tank top. She came out of the stall and stared at me for an awkwardly long amount of time with squinted eyes and a sloppy grin. After realizing she'd probably been staring for a socially inappropriate amount of time she abruptly declared, "I hear the DJ." "Yes," I confirmed, "Yes that is the DJ." The then stumbled a bit toward the paper towels, wiped her hands and, before leaving, stopped and stared at me in the same manner as before for another inordinately long period of time. Then she left. Awesome!

Don't worry folks, it was entertaining and we did have fun at our table with Jason's fishing buddies and all of use wives that came to keep each other company. Let me tell you, I didn't walk away empty handed. They raffled off a bunch of stuff! I got a pillow for my camper (that I don't have) and Jason got a flashlight(to add to our collection of like 10)! Jason also received two small, but glitzy, gold and red fish trophy's. One for the best cusk of the season and one for the best pickerel of the season. Yes sirree! The only problem we're having now is deciding where those beauties will be displayed!