Thursday, May 21st, 2009
On Saturday, while driving around Glastonbury with my parents, we accidentally came across a local farm. We love these local farms because we never know what we are going to find in them. Since we were with my parents, I decided to pull in. I thought they would get a kick out of it.
As we started walking around, I got the strange sense that I was going to have to soon pull out my wallet. It’s funny…the same thing always happens. I think we are just going to take a nice stroll through these places, but later on find myself loading up the back of the car with all different types of plants.
This time wasn’t too bad. We bought a few packets of seeds; Cucumber, Squash, Beans and Zucchini. We bought anything that can be planted in late Spring. I really wanted the Peas, but the lady told me that Peas like cool weather and that I was too late to plant this year. Yesterday, I planted what we bought in some 5-gallon buckets on the back porch.
The seeds were exciting, but the real champ of the day was our award winning Everbearing Strawberry Plants. We bought this huge hanging planter with three Everbearing Strawberry Plants planted in it. We currently have the whole thing hanging on the back porch.
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Everbearing Strawberry Plants
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Growing Strawberries and Strawberry flowers
From what I read about Strawberry plants, it’s good to plant three near each other. That way, they can get sufficiently pollinated.
You have to see this thing; it’s huge. There are so many flowers and Strawberries that are beginning to grow. While purchasing this plant, I asked if it was a perennial. The lady told me that it was an annual, but that it’s everbearing, meaning that it produces fruit the entire season. I found that appealing, since we really like Strawberries.
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Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
I am going to tell you a little story. Yeah, I thought you would appreciate that, especially since things have been a little dry around here lately. First, I must apologize for not offering any photos of the occasion. Laura has been swearing to me that she took pictures of the whole thing and that I have them somewhere. I don’t know what she is talking about. I can’t find them and I have no recollection of taking them. The best I can do is to paint a mental picture for you, because trust me, the mental picture I have is very vivid.
Okay, let’s go.
A long, long time ago (about 5 years), we lived in a small lake cottage a few blocks from a small lake in New York. It was a tiny, but cute rental. We lived there for three fairly uneventful years. I can still remember the night we arrived at this particular house. We had just driven 5 hours from all the way up in Naples, NY and were totally beat. About an hour before we arrived at the house, I was forced to stop short in the middle of the road while driving the huge moving truck I had rented. I was sitting there with my eyes wide open, reading the big sign on an overpass in front of me that read, “Maximum Height – 11′9″.” Unfortunately, I was driving a truck that was 12′3″. I guess that wouldn’t have been all too bad if I wasn’t towing my car on one of those two wheeled tow dollies. With all those pivot points, backing up wasn’t an option. Even better, I was facing downhill and it was pitch black outside. Let’s just say that it took a good long time to get that situation squared away and there were some mildly annoyed fellow drivers. It was not one of my best memories. I can only imagine how many times I was called an “idiot” that night.
Anyway, we eventually made it to the house, which was good. We parked the truck on the road and slept the night away, only to unpack the next day. Things were fine for about two years.
It was a beautiful sunny spring day. I was walking out to my car on my way to work when I turned around to check out the house, like I always do. It’s just a habit of mine. Well, on this particular day, everything looked fine, except for that small hole in the corner of an attic vent that was facing the street. It was up near the peak of the roof on the front of the house. I thought to myself that I had never really noticed that hole before, but was pretty sure that it had always been like that. Besides, this was a rental; it wasn’t my place to give daily inspections of the building’s exterior. I went to work and forgot all about it.
Upon returning home that evening, I did my thing inside and then grabbed a beer. I remember having no shirt on and walking to the mailbox to get the mail. Just as I got about half way across the front yard, a pickup truck rolled down the road and stopped right in front of me. The guy opened his passenger side window and starts telling me something in an excited kind of way. “Hey man, you got a raccoon living in your attic,” he said. I replied with a, “What?” “Yeah, I was driving down the road this afternoon and I saw a huge raccoon crawling through the little hole in your vent. I have no idea how she got in there because the hole is so small, but I sat here for a good 10 minutes watching her. She finally got through after a while,” he replied. I said thank you and started devising a plan on how to patch up that hole in the vent. I mean seriously, how hard can it be to keep a giant raccoon out of your attic?
Well, let me just tell you that it is a little trickier than one would think.
Before the kind fellow with the pickup truck even made it to the corner of the street, I already had the mail in my hand and was walking across the backyard looking for a piece of plywood. I was going to cut it to size and screw it to the 2″x4″ beams from inside the attic.
Picture this – standing on a table in your living room to push open a small trap door that leads up to a tiny attic in a tiny lake cottage. That’s really not that bad. Now, picture doing this while thinking that an enormous raccoon is sitting up in that attic just waiting to see the whites of your eyes. It’s a little unnerving. The problem was, I had no idea if the raccoon was up there or not. It was the early evening, so I was hoping she was out gathering some food. You know, just as I began pushing that little trap door open, I remembered that I did hear some strange noises a few nights earlier coming from up above me. I just chalked it up to some branches hitting the roof or something.
Laura was in the living room holding my legs as I jimmied up through the trap door. You should have seen my head whipping around in every direction I could think of. There were no lights up there and I was totally freaking out. As every second passed by, I kept expecting to hear a “whoosh” and have 20 claws and something furry attach to my face. As it turned out, the raccoon wasn’t even up there. She must have been outside doing something. I shined the flashlight that Laura handed me all over the place and saw nothing, so I slipped through the hole in the ceiling to screw the piece of plywood over the vent at the front of the house. I was totally confident that this raccoon wouldn’t get through this rock solid piece of wood and that our little raccoon problem was solved.
That night, around midnight, I heard a “bang, bang.” I woke up and started looking around. I walked to the front of the house and heard, “scratch, bang bang.” I really had no idea what in the world was going on, but my adrenaline was pumping and I was ready for anything. I kept hearing this noise as I was standing at the front door and it was coming from above my head. I walked back into the bedroom to grab the flashlight. I opened the front door and walked out to the front yard. As I shined the flashlight up towards the roof, I immediately saw two beady little eyes staring at me. Apparently, the raccoon was trying to scratch, rip, tear and push her way through the vent to get back inside the attic. I stood there in disbelief.
I went back inside to get some clothes on. I kept wondering why in the world this raccoon wouldn’t let this go. Why was she being so stubborn? I went back outside and started yelling at the raccoon, in an attempt to scare her away. All she did was look at me and continued to try to get through the vent. At this point, I was getting annoyed and wanted to end this adventure. I walked to the back porch, grabbed the garden hose and hooked it up. I turned it on and dragged it to the front yard. Now, Laura was standing there and was manning the flashlight. I started spraying the raccoon with the water and she ran across the roof towards the back of the house. I looked at Laura and gave her a smile. No raccoon was going to ruin my beauty sleep. We went back inside to crawl back under the covers.
About 10 minutes later, I heard the same “bang, bang, bang” and sprung to my feet. I am not even going to tell you what we did, because it’s basically a repetition of what we did just 10 minutes before. This time, I went outside and chased the raccoon all over the place, but she just kept trying to get back in that vent. I had enough. I really didn’t know what to do, so we went back inside and lay awake for the rest of the night.
When it was light out again, I went outside to see what kind of damage the raccoon did to the vent. There were a few more cracks in it, but nothing too drastic. I didn’t see the raccoon anywhere, so I held out hope that what we did to her the night before taught her a lesson. If she didn’t want to experience getting sprayed by a hose again, she would find a new home.
I went back inside, got ready for work and left.
That evening, when I got home from work, I found the house and vent exactly as I had left it. I felt very happy that I beat the raccoon at her own game. Laura and I sat around until it got dark, chatted a bit and decided that I would go out to grab some Chinese food to celebrate. You know, it’s the little things in life.
I will remember this conversation for the rest of my days. As I was getting out of the car in the Chinese food place parking lot down the road, my phone started ringing. The caller ID said, “Home” on it, which surprised me. Laura never called my cell phone from home. I answered the phone and I was greeted by a flustered female voice telling me that something was screaming up in the attic. It was Laura and she was jumping from one thought to the next. She said that either we had 20 birds up in the attic, or there were BABY RACCOONS!!! Holy man oh man. Baby raccoons? No wonder that lady raccoon was trying to get back in the attic so badly. I ran into the Chinese restaurant, paid for the food and ran back out to drive home faster than I was supposed to. I figured I should still get the food, even during a time of crisis.
When I pulled in the driveway and got out of the car, I heard a faint squealing. As I got closer and eventually entered the house, the squealing got louder. When I stood in the middle of the living room, the squealing was really loud and right above my head. I put my hands to my face and wondered what in the world I was going to do. It was dark outside and I was really tired from getting no sleep the night before. One thing was for sure; I wasn’t going to live through another night of that momma raccoon banging on the side of the house. Add the squealing of hungry baby raccoons in the attic, and I was ready to move out.
Within a few minutes, I had devised a plan. I would go outside, climb up on the roof and pull the vent down. Then, I would go up in the attic and unscrew the piece of plywood that was blocking the mother raccoon from getting to her babies. This way, the big raccoon would be able to get in the attic to feed her babies and they would shut up. Also, she wouldn’t need to tear at the vent any longer and I would get a good night’s sleep.
I informed Laura that we were going to be getting into some hairy stuff here, so she better be at her finest. She was going to man the garden hose. I walked around to the back of the house, grabbed the step ladder and the hose and brought both up to the front of the house. I handed Laura the hose. She already had the flashlight in her hand. Her job was to spray the mother raccoon if she showed up while I was pulling off the vent. Her other job was to shine the flashlight at what I was working on, so I could see what I was going. It was quite dark up on that roof.
I climbed up on top of the porch and pointed out what I wanted Laura to shine the light at and she did. I began working the vent off the front of the house, while constantly looking below me to see if the mother raccoon was climbing up the porch beams. If I saw the raccoon climbing up, I was going to throw myself off the roof. I know, I know…not a good plan, but I had limited options. Plus, my heart was beating a mile a minute.
Things were going pretty well. I was tugging on the vent and talking to Laura at the same time. I said, “Do you see any sign of the raccoon?” She replied with a, “No.” I was a bit neurotic that night, so I kept on asking Laura if she saw the raccoon. She kept answering, “No” and I was sensing a little annoyance in her voice. I didn’t care, because she wasn’t the one on the roof who was going to get tackled by a crazy raccoon who was trying to protect her young.
I was almost finished getting the vent off the front of the house and I heard the faintest scratch above my head. I shot a glare down at Laura who was standing there pointing the flashlight at me and holding a garden hose. She looked so cute; poor kid. I said in the quietest voice ever, “Sweet doll, please shine the flashlight above my head.”
She did.
I slowly looked up.
About a foot above my head was the mother of all mother raccoons, staring right into my eyes. She was standing on the peak of the roof above me. “HOLY FREAKING MOTHER,” I screamed. Luckily, I had a bit of wit about me and I ran for the ladder instead of jumping off the roof. I climbed down the ladder at record speed and ran to the front lawn to stand next to Laura. I had to jump up and down to shed some of the shakes and adrenaline off of me. “MAN,” I started saying, as we watched the raccoon climb down to inspect the vent. “I have to get that vent off of there or we are never going to hear the end of this,” I said to Laura.
New plan – Laura would spray the raccoon to keep her away from me as I finished getting the vent down. She did and I did. The vent was off. You should have seen that raccoon trying to get to that vent while I was working on it though. Laura showed her good aim that night.
The next thing I had to do was to go up in the attic and unscrew the plywood I put up the day before. This was going to be a little trickier because now I knew there were going to be animals up in that attic with me, as well as a fully grown raccoon on the other side of that plywood.
I crawled up into the attic again. I had my screw gun and a flashlight and was ready to go to work. I made my way to the front of the house, while constantly looking around for those baby raccoons. I didn’t have any idea how big they were, so I was pretty nervous. When I got all the way up to the plywood, I heard some sounds coming from my left, under the overhang of the roof. I shined the flashlight over there, but didn’t see anything. I grabbed a piece of scrap wood that was laying on the floor and pushed some insulation away from the beams. Right then and there, I saw four of the cutest little raccoon heads pop up and look at me. I don’t think they wanted the light shining in their faces, but seeing them sitting there changed the whole dynamic of what I was doing. I softened up and my mission turned from one of war to one of rescue. They looked so helpless. Since they weren’t about to go anywhere and obviously weren’t any threat to me, I started slowly unscrewing the plywood.
(The above video is not of the actual baby raccoons, but of imposters.)
As I was almost finished with the last screw, I lost my silly little grin. I remembered the beast sitting on the other side of the wall with a very determined mindset. I knew what I had to do.
I held the plywood hard against the beams and finished taking out the screw. I held the screw gun in my hand and picked up the flashlight with the same hand. The plan was to move as far as I could away from the board, while still holding it. Then, I was going to run and jump through the hole in the floor back to the living room. After that, I was going to slide the trap door board back over the hole, so the beast couldn’t follow me down through the ceiling.
If you have never seen a grown man scream like a little girl and run across about 15 beams of an unfinished attic and jump through a hole in the floor, you are a lucky person. If you are that grown man, you’re not so lucky. After I jumped through the hole, I landed on the table and slipped off it to land on the floor (on my back). I had to quickly scurry up to put that board back in place before we had one extra mammal living with us. I got the board back in place and ran outside to see if the raccoon went through the hole.
Apparently, Laura had the same idea and gave me a full report as I met her on the front lawn. She said that the minute I let that board down, the raccoon flew through the hole. I remember standing there and how good I felt. It was like I just won the lottery. Then, I remember thinking about how we now had five raccoons in the attic instead of just one. It felt like someone just took all my lottery money away from me.
It was time for a real plan…a plan that would solve the problem.
Laura used to work with animals and had access to really heavy duty animal handling gloves. They were about three feet long and about a half inch thick. These gloves were meant to hold down a mountain lion. If the mountain lion bit, you probably wouldn’t feel it. Okay, you would feel it, but the teeth wouldn’t go through your arm. Okay, maybe they would, but these gloves were really heavy duty.
My plan was to wait until mid afternoon when the mother raccoon was out for the day. Then, I would go up into the attic and screw the piece of plywood back to cover up the gaping vent hole. I would capture each baby raccoon and put them into a cat carrier that we had hanging around. After that, put the cat carrier outside and just wait for momma to come back.
That was the plan and I must say that I executed it perfectly the next day. I think the worst part was that the attic was about 150 degrees then and moving the insulation around covered my bare top half with sweat and fiberglass. It was pretty terrible.
You really should have seen it. I was like a professional animal handler. With the exposed baby raccoons looking at me and the cat carrier open and ready to hold the animals, it was show time. I put the gloves on and started reaching back into the corner of the attic. I grabbed the first baby raccoon and put it in the carrier. You should really see the claws on these raccoons. They are very long and really stick on everything they touch. I can only imagine wrestling with a full grown one. No thank you.
The first three raccoons went into the carrier without incident. The fourth one gave me a little problem. I am assuming that this last raccoon was the big brother of the bunch, because he kept trying to go deeper and deeper into the corner of the attic. He was hissing and being very aggressive. Eventually, he saw things my way and was placed into the cat carrier with the rest of his siblings. Another thing you should have seen was how much fun I had while trying to place each baby raccoon into the cat carrier while there was already one in there. Each time I opened the carrier door, the raccoon that was in there tried to climb out. It was crazy.
After I got the last little devil in the carrier, I beamed a great big smile. I kept the plywood over the vent hole, picked up the carrier and slid through the hole in the ceiling to enter the living room. I walked the carrier outside and sat it down in the shade at the side of the house. I kept the carrier locked, because I didn’t want any baby raccoons walking around without the protection of their mother.
I am sure you can imagine the excitement on Laura’s face when she got home from work that day and I showed her a cage full of baby raccoons. I’m not sure which she was excited more about, not having to deal with the “raccoons in the attic” issue any longer or getting an up close look at these little cuties. She asked what I was going to do with them. I answered that I was going to leave them there just like they were and wait until the mother raccoon returned to get them. We were certain she would be back.
A few hours passed and we were watching TV in the bedroom when we heard something outside tampering with the cat carrier. We ran out there to see what was going on. Well, low and behold, the mother raccoon was tossing the cat carrier around, trying to get it open. She wanted to get at those babies badly. I tried to walk over to open the carrier, but the mother raccoon lunged at me. Okay, obviously our mutual understanding of not harming one another was over. We were enemies once again.
Since I wanted to get this ordeal behind us and I wanted this raccoon family to reunite, I ran to the back of the house again to grab the hose. I came back and handed it to Laura again, with the same instructions. “Spray the raccoon while I open the carrier,” I said. Laura started spraying the raccoon and she backed up into the neighbor’s driveway. Each time I went over to attempt to open the carrier, the raccoon ignored the water and lunged at me. Laura had to keep getting closer to spray the mother raccoon harder. Eventually, I got the cage open and took off. Big momma ran in there and grabbed the first baby. She raced up the willow tree across the street and placed the baby in a “V.” Laura and I walked inside to give her some peace and privacy.
About five minutes later, we walked back outside to see if the mother got any more babies. We were surprised to see an empty cat carrier sitting on the ground. Man, she was fast. We would be resting easy that night.
The next morning, I walked across the street and looked up into the “V” where the raccoons were placed and noticed four small heads looking down at me. What a sight.
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Saturday, November 29th, 2008
He should have never bought that gun.
You know, for the past few days, I have been agonizing over how I am going to make this story good. On the surface, it seems like a simple task, but the more I have been thinking about it, trying to make someone smile through writing is a challenging feat. I knew I had to start writing soon because I had already committed to it a few days ago. I’m not sure who wants to see this story on my blog more, you or me.
Recently, my Aunt, who is a writer, told me that she really gets a kick out of what I jot down here. This means an awful lot to me because she is in the writing business. Truthfully, I have absolutely no training at all when it comes to expressing myself through text and it’s a little intimidating knowing that someone with years of successful stories behind her is on the other side of the screen. I mean sure, I attended English class back in high school and college, but I’m not sure I retained anything. When the day finally came where I wanted to get something off my chest, I started to learn.
I asked her to give me feedback if she saw a glaring error. Actually, I would appreciate feedback if I make a small mistake, like using “it’s” instead of “its.” What would be great is if she let me behind the scenes regarding strategy. How do I start a story off? What should be the first line? Where should I begin the crescendo, like in music or a verbal story? These are all things that can make or break what I, or anyone else, writes.
As you may have noticed, some of my posts are better than others.
Sometimes, an entry comes out nicely when I least expect it, like my recent post, “Snowboarding Is Back.” I really just wanted to get something down quickly, but after I started getting into it, I got more and more motivated.
Sometimes entries don’t come out so nicely. I think I had high hopes for my, “The Rules Of Blogging” post, but I was a little perturbed when I sat down to write that, so it didn’t come out as planned. I actually had to delete an entire paragraph from that one because I thought it came across mildly abrasive.
When I think about what is going to make or break a post, like trying to figure out the answers to those questions I asked above, I think it’s entirely up to me. If I took lessons from someone, the story wouldn’t be entirely mine and it might seem “forced.” It depends on how I feel right at that point of what I am doing.
My Aunt tells me that she enjoys the details. I enjoy writing them. If I can express to someone how all those little green blades of grass feel when they are softly tickling my toes, I think that’s a success. Otherwise, we have a bland story, and no one wants that.
Just a few minutes ago, I was standing in the shower trying to raise my body temperature. As the water got hotter and hotter, I began thinking. I guess the water temperature got my brain moving. I had so many thoughts running through my head about just how I would explain the beginning of this post. So many thoughts were good, although I’m not sure I just spent the past fifteen minutes expressing any of them. I forget so easily. If I could figure out a way to lay my thoughts out faster, I might be on to something, until then, this is what we get.
So it begins…
When I graduated college, I had zero dollars. I was broke. I’m not sure I was in a position to do anything with my life other than to live at my parent’s house and find a job. At least I would have had someplace to sleep and I would be fed. Looking back, I think that might have been a good idea, but that really wouldn’t have put me where I am today. I took the challenging path, which is the one I usually end up taking.
In the past few years, I have had more conversations about how other people live their lives than I care to admit. “If I did it, then so should you,” is how I would usually end a conversation. I probably got that line of thinking from my father. It frustrates me when I see people not working to their potential. I’m not sure why, because seriously, it’s none of my business. It’s just that when I think back on all the adventures I have had through life, I guess I want others to share in those kinds of adventures too. If they are taking the easy way out, then they are missing many of the challenges and rewards that life has to offer. When you take the hard path and accomplish something, you tend to realize it once it’s done. That, my friends, is a good feeling.
A few months before graduation, my friend Rob and I decided to look for a place to live. We had been hearing many good things about Atlanta, Georgia for a while and decided to hop in the car for a trip down South. I actually had a professor who used to live in that city, so I would pick his brain during our student/teacher meetings. I am sure that time could have been better spent (at the rate I was going), but now I’m not so sure. What really struck me was his recollection of Lake Lanier, North of Atlanta. He said it was very active, very deep and very cool. I have always wanted to live near a lake, so hearing this only made me all the more excited for our trip.
Rob is a fun guy to travel with. He can be trusted behind the wheel and the conversation is good. We seem to be on the same page a lot, which makes for a good amount of agreement when it comes to really trying to analyzing something, such as a new place to live. If you had been sitting there, listening to us that first night in Atlanta, you would have heard a, sort of, agreement fight. We were so involved in what we were agreeing on, it may have been viewed as an argument. It’s funny to engage in and I’m sure it’s even more funny to watch.
Rob at age 14 (I think)
I remember a little something about our first drive South to the town nicknamed, “Hotlanta.” We were cruising down one of Virginia’s most scenic highways, Interstate 81. Rob was behind the wheel of his Honda CRX and I was in the passenger seat, trying to get some sleep with one eye open. I generally don’t trust anyone behind the wheel besides myself, but as I said above, Rob is okay, hence, only one eye being open.
The car was already a mess. For some reason, it is impossible to take a trip that lasts more than three hours without the entire car being filled with garbage. This is a phenomenon I will never understand.
I am not sure what began the exchange, but when I opened the other eye, I peered over to see Rob giving someone in a bright blue pickup truck next to us the one finger salute. I got all excited and told Rob to cut the crap. I said, “Rob man, these people aren’t like us. If they somehow get the cops down here to pull us over, they are going to tear our Yankee asses out of this car and no one will ever see us again.” Of course, Virginia is only a few miles past the Mason-Dixon Line and I was at a very ignorant point in my life. Rob tried to explain that the pickup truck had cut him off and the finger was warranted, but I wasn’t having any of it. All I wanted was to get to Atlanta in one piece so I could make a decision that would affect me for at least the next year of my life.
We drove for a while longer and eventually forgot about the whole exchange. The conversation was fluid, but we both agreed that it was time to pull over, get some gas and browse the service station aisles for its best and healthiest food. After all, we were already at the bottom of Virginia and had been driving for a good long time.
We found an exit that had a huge “Gas” sign next to the exit ramp. We pulled off the highway and made a right. We quickly made another right into the gas station.
While Rob was creeping along, trying to figure out the best place to fill up, something made me glance out the back window. A few moments after I did, I managed to force out an, “Uh oh.” Um, yeah, you guessed it, a bright blue pickup truck was pulling in right after us. Mind you, this was like an hour after we had seen our last bright blue pickup truck.
We stopped in front of the gas pump.
I saw Rob stiffen up when the pickup truck guy start walking towards the car. I had no idea what was about to take place, but I was ready to pounce. I was going to let this good ol’ boy know what it felt like to get his ass whooped by a young and limber red headed Yankee.
As he approached the car, the pickup truck dude finally said, “What are you doin’, showin’ me your age?” to which Rob replied, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” The guy responded, “Don’t act like it never happened. I saw you back there giving me the finger.” Rob came back with a swift and forceful, “I didn’t give you the finger, that would be road rage.”
Okay, after I realized the pickup truck guy wasn’t going to try to tear either of us out of the car, I let my guard down and loosened my grip on the fist of death. There would be no Southern altercation today. The gentleman, who actually ended up to be quite pleasant, walked away with another story to tell his friends and we filled up the tank, did our thing, and continued on, headed South.
We made it to Atlanta, and after a few days of driving around, we decided against moving there after graduation. We thought the culture was oriented too much around work. Everyone seemed to be working all the time. Work, work, work, work, work. That went against the grain of Jay and Rob, who honestly weren’t all that much into the whole work thing. We left and headed up to Nashville, Tennessee. Now, that’s a story for another time.
A few weeks later and after hanging out up North for a while, I made the call. I said, “Rob, let’s move down to Atlanta. What the heck. It would be something new and if we don’t like it, we won’t stay past the first year’s lease.” He agreed and we decided to move on down after I came back from college in Binghamton.
Rob helped me out a lot those first few months. As I already mentioned, I had no money. The complex we lived in had a pretty sweet deal…either take the first month’s rent for free, or spread a discount across all twelve months of the lease. Since I moved down about a month earlier than Rob, I said that we should take the first month free, and then we would split the remaining ones after I get a job.
Rob, Pete and Jay in Atlanta
The job didn’t happen until a few months into our little adventure. We took the first month’s rent for free and then Rob covered the next month. Right at the end of that month, I finally got a job and started paying Rob back. He had payed for more than just rent. He payed for the groceries, the utilities and everything else. You know, he didn’t even make a peep about it either, perhaps that’s why I never made a fuss about what happened next.
One day, Rob decided that it would be a good idea to buy a .22 caliber rifle. That’s right, a rifle. Now, this wasn’t a big, powerful gun, it was basically a step up from a BB gun, but still, it could do some damage. Rob walked into Wal-Mart with a wallet and walked out of Wal-Mart with a wallet and a gun. It seems like Georgia actually encourages this kind of stuff.
There was one thing I knew for sure; Rob should, in absolutely no way, own a gun. He has a little history with guns that I will tell you about right now, in numerical order.
1. One day while twirling my BB gun in the front yard, Rob shot the out neighbor’s house window.
2. One day, while shooting targets with my BB gun in the backyard, Rob missed the target and the BB ricochet about three times and hit me in the temple.
3. One day, while standing at the end of the driveway twirling my BB gun, Rob blew out the back window of our friend’s Mustang, while it was driving down the road.
The fact that Rob owned this gun made me nervous. Luckily, neither of us ever saw it again in Atlanta after the day he bought it. He must have put it in his closet for protection or something.
I will move ahead about a year to get this party started.
After our Atlanta experience, we decided to move back up North. I decided to stay at Craig’s house for a month or so, before moving back to Binghamton for grad school. Rob ended up back at his parents’ house for a short stay before renting a house down in town.
Craig owned about 40 acres of land up in Oneonta, NY. We would all visit about once a month to see what he was up to. When we arrived, Craig was usually straddling some earth moving machine in an effort to either create a road, a dirt bike track or a pond. Every time we were there, Craig was working on some project. Over the years, Craig had collected quite the array of machinery to assist him in his effort to transform his 40 acres into the land of his dreams.
Craig was quite dedicated and Craig was quite serious.
There was one particular visit I remember well. Both Rob and I were on slate for a weekend visit to “the farm.” Since I was already there, I don’t think it qualified as a “visit” for me. For Rob, the three hour drive definitely made him a visitor.
During the few weeks I lived at Craig’s, I witnessed him acquire a few neat little machines. These were basically farm type things and I really don’t know what some of them were used for. I know one spread around manure. It was a cool trailer type machine that, when towed, spread cow crap all over the fields for various reasons, such as fertilizing the grass and, well, getting rid of the manure.
Another piece of equipment Craig acquired while I was there was an old dump truck. It must have been from the 60s or 70s. It was old and rusty. This was his pride and joy.
I remember the day he rolled in the driveway with it. I took one look and said, “What the hell are you going to do with that? Does it run?” He replied, “Of course it runs. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a good running work truck like this around here for so cheap?” He looked so excited and I didn’t want to burst his bubble, so I just kind of shook my head and walked away.
Well, Craig decided it was worth talking about, so he chased me. He explained that this work truck was going to save him countless hours of time. Instead of moving dirt around with the machines, now he could fill up the dump body of the truck and haul the dirt where ever he wanted. His eyes were so bright when he told me about what this truck could do, he almost glowed. I hadn’t realized it, but he had been looking for a truck like this for some time. They were so scarce because none of the farmers in the area ever let them go. They were all using them for their own purposes.
Okay, if it was important to him, it was important to me. I wouldn’t make fun of it.
Rob wasn’t there for this conversation. Rob had no idea how much Craig loved that truck. Rob showed up and wanted to drink beer and ride dirt bikes, of which we were both only too happy to oblige.
We had a good time the night after Rob arrived. We ate and drank and told stories of all the crazy stuff we used to do. Craig showed us the shiny new rifle he recently bought, but hadn’t fired yet. Living on a farm in the middle of no where, I guess one needs a huge rifle that uses 3 1/2 bullets. I saw them and they could probably penetrate tank armor. Craig was pretty excited about this and said he was going to see how it shot the next day.
It just so happens that Rob decided to bring his gun too. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as powerful as Craig’s new bazooka, but it would be fine during target practice. I just had to be sure the stay the hell away from Rob when he was firing this thing. At the time, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to bring that gun up to Craig’s, since it was on a hillside in Oneonta, NY. There was virtually no one for miles.
You know, come to think of it, at no point that night did Craig ever express to Rob the importance of his new work truck.
We woke up the next morning. As usual, Rob was up first, looking to get a jump on the day. He was always so damn chipper when he was up there, it was annoying. I wanted my beauty sleep, but I guess I was kind of excited too. After all, this was the day we were going to see two guns that had never been fired before, fired.
We took showers and walked downstairs, but couldn’t find Craig. We strolled around for a while, got some coffee and decided to sit on the couch and talk. The house was silent and kind of boring, but we didn’t really want to get into doing farm chores…we would leave those for Craig. We were there to have fun.
After a few minutes of some pretty lazy conversation, we were shaken by a huge “BA BOOOOM!!!” Our eyes shot wide open and poor Rob almost fell off the couch. I think my heart skipped a beat when I heard that enormously loud explosion. I looked at Rob and Rob looked at me. We both thought we were under attack. Rob started to get to his feet, when another “BA BOOOOM!!!” knocked him back on the couch. I felt so bad because he had no idea what the heck was going on. Neither of us did.
We got to our feet and raced to the back window, the one overlooking the mountainside. There, we saw Craig standing and smiling with a grin so wide it went from ear to ear. He was standing there with his huge new rifle in his hand and a new wake up call. He was staring straight at us and obviously knew he was going to scare the heck out of us. I’m not sure if he was so happy because he scared us or that he mutilated whatever it was that he just shot.
Craig's back porch
Hillside in Oneonta, NY
I just stood there staring out the window, frozen, when I saw Rob whiz past me and run down the back porch stairs. Oh no, he had his gun too. I guess I had been in a trance longer than I thought because Rob had actually run upstairs to grab his gun and bullets, got his sneakers on and made it outside before I even knew what was going on.
I quickly pulled my sneakers on and tightened up the laces nice and snug. I flew outside to meet Rob standing a good distance in back of Craig. Craig was setting up for another shot and we didn’t want to be anywhere near him when we heard the…”BA BOOOOM!!!” again. Yeah, that was it, he took another shot.
We were both standing there next to each other when Rob asked, “What in the world is that?” He was looking at Craig’s new truck. I said, “Oh, don’t ask. That’s Craig’s new work truck. Like he needs another hunk of junk around here.” Rob said, “Seriously.” and began walking down to Craig, who was filling his rifle up with another bullet.
I remember standing there when I saw Rob stop about half way between Craig and me. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a bunch of bullets. He took the clip out of his gun and filled it with the bullets he just pulled out of the pocket.
At that point, things started to move in slow motion…very slow motion.
When Craig woke up early in the morning, he walked down to the new work truck and placed a shooting target on the very rearmost, highest tip of the wooden boards used as sides to the dump body. The main dump body was steel, but there were two 2×10s on each side of the bed to hold more material. This target was placed neatly on the uppermost corner, far out of reach of the rest of the truck. It was almost invisible from where Rob was standing.
When Craig shot his gun, the bullet was so powerful and so fast, it simply sliced through the paper target and splintered the wood. The bullet easily exited the backside of the board. It was almost like there was no damage from the small missiles at all. Craig hit the target three times and the board was still clearly intact.
Craig had loaded his gun and Rob had loaded his gun.
No one ever told Rob that there was a target on the back of the truck.
Craig set up to take another shot when we both heard, “PAP PAP PAP PAP PAP.” It was Rob’s gun going off. I think Craig liked it because now Rob was getting into the mix. Rob was standing there like he was a hitman taking down a rival gang.
“BA BOOOOM!!!” again. Craig made another shot. “PAP PAP PAP PAP…” Rob kept firing. I think his clip held 20 bullets and he had emptied them all. “BA BOOOOM!!!” Craig had fired his last bullet. What a morning it was.
I stood there watching the whole thing from behind them both. What struck me as odd was the angle of Rob’s gun. It wasn’t lined up with the target and it kept moving from side to side. Craig’s, on the other hand, stayed straight and steady, like it was in the hands of a trained marksman.
I stood there in disbelief. My mouth parted slightly and hung open as I realized what had just happened. The corners of my mouth began to curl upward. I started walking toward both Rob and Craig when I overheard them congratulating themselves for the massive amount of firepower they had just displayed. I just kept on walking, one foot in front of the other.
When I reached them, the three of us started walking down to the truck together. We were quiet during this time and for some strange reason, no one said a word. The silence was deafening. All we heard was the crunching of the dried dirt beneath out feet.
We had about 100 feet to walk in total and about 50 feet were left. When we reached 20 feet, we all heard a “HISSSSSSSS.”
Craig’s head quickly snapped over to look at Rob when he belted out, “ROBERT, WHAT DID YOU DO???”
I felt a tear forming in the outside corner of my right eye. My upper lip began to tremble in anticipation of the discovery we were about to make. My feet started shifting in my shoes.
A few steps closer and the hiss got louder.
That’s when all three of us simultaneously saw bullet holes peppered out over the entire side of Craig’s new work truck…his pride and joy…his saviour of countless hours of hard labor.
I began making quiet screaming noises inside my tightly clamped mouth. My eyes were only half way open and my forehead has scrunched up more than it had ever been. At this point, tears were fully formed and rolling down my cheeks. I really tried to hold it in.
As we got closer, we found that the tire was punctured, the windshield was shattered, the side of the truck had about 10 bullet holes in it and the front fender was hit multiple times. There were no bullet holes anywhere near the target at the back of the truck.
I turned around and began walking back up the hill towards the house. Craig looked over at Rob and started yelling at him. I finally let a breath out and nearly broke down in the middle of the field. I looked back to find that they had popped the hood of the truck open. Rob had shot the fender, which sheltered the engine. Apparently, Rob’s bullets made their way through the distributor cap, the radiator and the valve covers. The truck was unusable.
I kept walking up the hill and heard the yelling get louder. It was like a cartoon. A few more quick glances and it felt like someone slipped peyote in my morning drink. I was full fledged balling at this point. All I could do was walk away and dream of brighter days ahead.
I love Rob. I love him to death. The gifts he has bestowed upon me are immeasurable. I am not sure he will ever know the joy he has brought to my life.
This, my friends, was the second funniest thing that has ever happened in my life and I enjoyed sharing it with you very much.
Thank you.
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Sunday, May 25th, 2008
There are actually two different bird nests under the back porch. I look at them almost every time I walk by. The parent birds like to whiz by my head to scare the heck out of me. Actually, I am just writing that for entertainment, I really don’t get scared by birds, even if they are whizzing by my head. Now, Crows on the other hand are scary. When there are hundreds of them all screaming at the same time, it’s a little freaky.
I took a nice picture of the birds living under the porch this morning. Tell me if you like it.
That’s an up-close nature shot. I kept thinking the momma bird was going to dive bomb me from behind, but it never happened. I wouldn’t have been scared if it had.
Just a few weeks ago, these little birds were much smaller. I could hardly even see their heads. One time I saw all of the beaks wide open, sticking straight up in the air. I said to them, “No little birdies, I don’t have any worms for you” and I walked away.
That’s a “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey” line if I ever saw one.
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Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
I took a few photos of the back yard this morning. Every year, I like to take pictures of the trees in the area. I do this, because every year, I forget when the heck the leaves come out. It’s kind of like a journal…or a log…or a web log…oh wait, a BLOG. That was funny.
Anyway, since it was so wonderfully beautiful this morning, I decided to drink my coffee on the back porch. One really big reason it was wonderful is because there were no bugs flying around my head yet. You should’ve seen me trying to rake up some leaves yesterday evening. Whoa…it was like I was in a boxing match. I am sure the neighbor was laughing. I put on some “Off” and it did nothing. What is it with the bugs this year? I think I may be stirring them up by raking.
It seems like the leaves are taking a reaaaaaly long time to bloom here. It may because there are virtually no Maple trees. They are all oaks and they take longer. I bet Westchester County looks totally like Summer right now. Maybe with some more warm sunny days, things will start looking greener around here.
As I was sitting on the back porch, I noticed a little bird land on our bird feeder. I thought it was odd, because there was actually bird food in the feeder. Do you know what that means? It means that the squirrels haven’t figured out where it is yet. If they had, it would be empty. I think I am going to just keep walking around quietly to keep the thing under their radar. Everyone knows what happens when a squirrel finds a bird feeder. That’s the end of that. Squirrels are on Laura’s “nemesis” list. For an animal lover, I have never seen such darkness in her eyes…
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Saturday, April 26th, 2008
Well, we went back to our house in New York today to do a final cleaning and get some stuff we left behind in the kitchen. On moving day, I thought it was just a few things. Today, I realized it was a full car load. When I say car load, I mean, trying to find a place to squeeze a wine bottle in full. Again, it was a full car load. I even had to leave my two red gas tanks behind. These were five gallon plastic tanks that I used to fill up the lawnmower. One of them was full, so I poured the gas into my car and then gave them to my neighbor, Tim (who by the way missed us very much already. We miss him too.). I didn’t think Laura would appreciate me making her carry them on her lap. I am such a gentleman.
We cleaned up all the rooms and mopped the floors. I did a little touch up painting throughout the house and cleaned all the windows. When I took all the curtain rods down, there were small screw holes left in the walls. I filled the holes and painted over them. I thought that would be a good idea since the house is empty. We cleaned the kitchen and bathroom very, very thoroughly. It never looked so good. When it was all done, I took a step back and realized the amount of work I actually put into the place. Someone is going to get a very good deal…the house looks brand new.
I really think the big sellers are the huge screened in back porch and the brand spankin’ new kitchen. The wood mixes just perfectly with the floor and the walls. I am going to miss that kitchen. If you remember back, that was about a month and a half of eating on the couch and washing dishes in the bathroom. I never even peeled the protective plastic off the face of the dishwasher. Brand new dryer and semi-brand new washer. It’s the whole package. The new floors and vaulted ceiling in the living room help, but it’s all about the porch and kitchen.
Ok, enough selling. I just thought I would tell you that the house officially goes on the market tomorrow. We were going to wait until Tuesday, because we were going to do the cleaning on Monday, but Laura reminded me that there really was nothing to wait for. The sooner we list, the sooner someone can purchase.
I will tell you this…it is a little weird seeing a real estate sign hanging in front of the house you were just sleeping in a few nights ago.
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Monday, March 17th, 2008
Well, we visited the house again this afternoon with the realtor. We liked what we saw and headed back to the office to sign all the paperwork and give a deposit. Before we did, both Laura and I took lots of pictures and even a video of the road the house is on.
Just a few minutes ago, as I was resizing the pictures, I thought to myself, “How would I like it if someone posted pictures of the inside of my house on the internet?” I mean, I know the realtor posted them in the online ad, but still, we took pictures of all the bedrooms and stuff. I don’t think it would be too cool if I posted them. After thinking about it, I decided that I will just post the outside shots and then the video of the road. That way, no one will get mad at me if they ever come across them. Hey, you never know.
So, without any more fluff, here you go.
This is obviously the front of the house. The master bedroom is over the garage and is pretty big. It also has that nice dormer to let in the sun.
This is the back of the house, looking up from the woods.
This is looking into the woods from the back porch. There are 4.25 acres of land.
This is looking into the woods from the backyard.
This is me asking, “Where’s my room?”
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Thursday, April 26th, 2007
Well, well, well. I think we’re going to do it. All that’s left with the house is to re-do the bathroom, kitchen and the back porch. Yeah, just the bathroom, kitchen and back porch….ya know, those cheap and easy projects.
We are going tackle the back porch first. The one we have is in pretty bad shape. It’s made with that Trex stuff…only, I don’t think it is Trex. It may be some knockoff, who knows. All I know is it’s gray and very washed out looking. Also, the porch may be a little crooked, which drives me absolutely mad. The railings are hanging on by a thread due to poor workmanship and the top of the porch collects water. The whole thing just looks really bad. Are those enough reason to get this thing done? (Oh yeah, the bugs out here are TERRIBLE! The current porch is pretty useless as is.)
As you may already know, I made our front porch. I am a pretty handy fella, but I just don’t want to do this one. The first reason is that this one will be screened in…meaning there will be a roof. I am really not in the mood to attempt to build that by myself. Also, I want it done quickly, so no messing around. It would take me about two years to get home all the lumber strapped to the top of my car again. I like to do projects little by little.
I am going to use a contractor that is a friend of my neighbor. He seems like he would do a good job of coming in a putting this thing up quickly. The porch will be 16′ out the back of the house and 20′ wide. There will be 6 sonotube footings, 12″ wide. There will be 2 main girders holding up 2×10″ joists. Everything will be pressure treated. For the floor, he will put down 6×1 5/8″ boards with a 4×4″ every 4′ to hold up the roof. The main beam holding up the roof will be a 4×6″. The roof will have to be built into the current roof, which is the tricky part…to me. I am sure it will take no time for these guys. Also, they are going to put in a set of 4′wide stairs about 4′ out from the house. Currently, the stairs are slapped right up against the house and very loose.
I asked that they don’t complete the railings and the screening. I want to do them. Those are things that I can take my time on. Also, I am going to tear down the current deck. My neighbor, Tim wants to burn it. I have to keep him away because it is pressure treated and I can use the wood for another project. Tim is disappointed, but still willing to help me.
I picked up the building permit from the buidling inspector yesterday morning and have to fill it in and drop it off so the contractor can draw his diagram.
Now, of course, you are going to see lots of pictures of this. I hope you are as excited as we are!
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Thursday, November 9th, 2006
A while back, I ordered some trees from The National Arbor Day Foundation. I received the Norway Spruce trees the other day, but found the bulk of the other trees sitting on my front porch last night, when I pulled in the driveway from work. I was a little curious about the size of them.
When I opened the package of Norway Spruces, I was pleasantly surprised to see 10 trees, each about one foot high. They were pretty full trees. These trees come with their roots bunched up together and surrounded by gel in a plastic bag. It is recommended that you plant the trees immediately upon receiving them. Luckily, I saved all the plastic containers from all the shrubs I purchased throughout the summer. I mixed some topsoil with some sandy loam and planted all the Norway Spruce trees…one per container. I added these new trees to the collection of about 25 I am growing on my back porch.
As I mentioned above, the rest of the trees were waiting for me last night (by the way, I ordered a new shipment yesterday). I found two boxes with 3 Red Maple trees, 1 Paper Birch, 10 Canadian Hemlock trees and 3 Saucer Magnolias.
The common question everyone has is how big the trees are when you get them. Here is some insight. The Red Maples came about 2-3 feet high, the Paper Birch came about 4 feet high, the Hemlocks came about 8 inches tall and here is the good part…the Saucer Magnolias came about 6 inches high. They say these trees are supposed to be 1-2 feet high. Oh well. I have all these trees planted now in their own buckets on the back porch. In a few years, I will be able to plant them in their final place.
Obviously, these trees are meant for patient people, but go ahead, give it a shot and get your own!
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