Another Birthday, comes n goes!

I can hardly believe it, Lynn called me today to remind me that today was my birthday because of course I completely forgot about it. Lynn's off installing flooring at her mothers place and has left me and the boys to fend for ourselves for the last few days. Of course that means a diet high in TV n Movies, interrupted only by trips to the fridge or freezer. I did however, manage to stack the rest of the wood in the basement. That has to count for something. I'm going to have meatpie n gravy for supper and then go watch the Last Samurai again. Which reminds me, Jake pulled off a good one today, managing to steal half of Loki's begging strip...fast like a snake he is, but smart like hockey puck, Loki beat him up later just to prove a point :) Anyway it's off to the TV!

Busy busy

Boy has it ever been busy around here lately, Lynn dug out all of the old deck supports and replaced them with teleposts, she is now staining the new stairs for the rear deck while we wait for the weather to clear so that the asphalt guys can come and lay down the asphalt. We ordered four cords of wood (enough to get us through the winter) and we have managed to put away three loads. We took Jake in for his neutering and boy what a difference, the vet here does not keep the dog for hours after the operation, so you get him when he can't walk and is way dopey. We managed it but boy was he ever out of it for a while there, kinda like Bambi. He is way better now, and up to all of his old tricks including fighting with his brothers. We are supposed to keep him calm for a few days but that's like bottling up lightning! Gas here is getting up to 1.40 a litre so we're thinking of getting a moped :) Everything is blooming again, it's wonderful, the ducks are still here but we haven't seen any little ones yet. Our Starling had her babies and now she is trying to teach all of them how to feed but they seem bent on following her and getting her to feed them. We gave away our fish tank and now the living room looks huge, ok not so huge with three dogs in it but still a lot more room. We also took down the flagpole and now Mr Lazy has to scrape off the old paint and repaint it, thank goodness for the rain. I think that just about covers it for now.

Music to her ears

I think this pretty much sums up what Lynn thinks you should do when you're retired!

Ah the rites of Spring

The snow is gone and with it the tedium of snow shovelling and snow blowing along with the prospect of seeing your house buried in snow. Now it is time to rectify all that we discovered was wrong with the design of the backyard that made our lives miserable during the winter. After careful analysis and severe number crunching coupled with several power point presentations, Lynn laid out her vision to make our lives better this coming winter. First, the front porch needs a new set of stairs adjacent to the house which would alleviate the need for shovelling 20 feet of sidewalk and six stairs. Second, the rear deck would have to go, which would eliminate many hours of shovelling and another six stairs. With her ever dutiful husband on board, what remained was finding the appropriate material to replace the deck. A beautiful cobblestone patio was envisioned by our landscaper but I think he was really envisioning building his summer cottage with his profits, so out went that idea. We settled on asphalt which we already had on the ground level in front of the deck but since the deck would be in the way of the asphalt people, it had to go. Lynn then enthusiastically tackled this major undertaking. As you can see, from the pictures below, it was quite the chore. These pictures do not show all the work that went into removing the stairs, railings and bench seating from around the deck but they give you some idea of what went on.