Reclaiming the Porch, With Casualties

I hurt all over, I think my pinky toe is broken and I'm pretty sure I sprained my baby maker, but by gawd my Appalachian documentary nightmare of a front porch is presentable once again. I'd show ya'll a picture of the whole, beautiful thing, but I still need to clean a few things, fill some hanging baskets with flowers, etc.

I hauled chit to the dump that I'd forgotten we had. I think I sacrificed my toe when the Amazon and I were wallerin' on old, wooden queen size headboard in to the truck.

That's right. A headboard. One that I didn't realize was still here. It was that bad.

When I got to the dump, the old dump guard.. guy.. thingie.. was there to tell me which of the five dumpsters each and every piece of garbage had to go in. I think he kept the old refrigerator, I have a feeling it will end up at the flea market. Oh and before you start thinking I'm like.. Shee-Ra, Mistress of the Universe, it was the little room sized fridge the Amazon took to college the first two years. I didn't load a full size kitchen appliance by myself.

We didn't have a place to store it, so it sat on the leaky porch, out in the weather. I think some possums were born up in there.

He wouldn't let me leave the four pieces of scrap panelling, left over from the bathroom project of several years ago or the bathroom door Ma had removed about two hours after we moved in here. He said they wouldn't take wood. He was cool with the old wooden chair that was duct taped together, the wooden headboard and the old end table with the wooden legs, just not the paneling or door. He informed me I'd have to haul that stuff to the landfill, about ten dollars worth of gas from here.

Um no.

So now I'm riding around with an old door and some paneling in the back of the truck, until I figure out what I'm going to do with it. I think there's a bonfire in my near future.

I'm pretty sure my baby toe will heal.. eventually. It's a nice Welch's Grape Jelly shade of purple and swollen to twice it's normal size. As for the sprained baby maker, let's be honest, it's not in high demand right now anyway. There was, however, a casualty that won't heal on it's own:




That's Jolene's passenger side mirror. Notice that it's on the ground and cracked in a bajillion pieces. Yes.. that's right. I broke my truck. It seems I parked a little too close to the porch. So now, I'm not only riding around hauling wood scraps, but I'm missing a mirror.

You might be a redneck...

Do ya'll ever buy concrete mix for projects around the house? Well, if you do, you'd better not procrastinate or leave two 60lb bags of Quikrete on your leaky porch, where they can get wet:




If you do, someday you'll decide to declutter your porch and you'll discover that those two bags no longer weigh 60lbs. You'll find that what you have are two, very solid, very heavy blocks of concrete. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get rid of these. Maybe I can break them up with a hammer.. I sure as hell can't lift them. I think when I had the bright idea to slide the crate to the corner of the porch, is when the baby maker took a hit.

The really sad part? I have NO idea why we bought them to begin with.

This next picture really has nothing whatsoever to do with cleaning off the porch. I took a break and poked around in the driveway a little and found these:




To the untrained eye, they look like plain rocks, but they're actually pottery pieces. I've found rocks that have been formed in to tools, pieces used for cleaning hides, etc. A couple of years ago I took one of the pieces over to the reservation and asked one of the dealers there, who assured me I was probably sitting on a gold mine of artifacts. I'll take some pictures of all my findings one day and bore the bejeebus out of you all with pictures and explanations.

There was a time when "archaeologist" was on the list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. In a way, I chalk it up to one of those things that happen for a reason, that I live here where I can walk out my front door with a garden trowel and dig up all sorts of cool chit.

Anywho, Mahala needs to go find some Ben Gay.. and some ibuprofen. Now if I could only get Craig Ferguson to come rub it on for me.....

Ya'll enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Later Taters!