We’re in a drought. I’m feeding hay to the horses for the first time ever in spring, and because I’m a stickler for finding silver linings, I’ll say this: at least I haven’t had to cut grass every other day.
It hasn’t been terribly hot, which means Reece has been in absolute heaven, spending most of his days outside. Poptart, however, is on hose restriction after twisting her ankle last week playing a little too hard. We’re letting that heal before she resumes her regularly scheduled hose chaos.
I had a little construction project going on over here, too. My back porch decided it was done and had been slowly falling apart for the last few years. As most of you know, I’m out here all by lonesome these days, and having lost both my dad and stepdad in recent years, I felt especially grateful that one of my uncles stepped in to help out and rebuild it.
He wrapped up last Thursday, and Friday after work I loaded up Black Pearl and hauled the old porch off to the construction landfill. If you know me, you know dump days are my faves - ha!
With her strong bones and heavy heart pine, she’s lived through her fair share of questionable repairs in her 120+ years. Layers and layers of fixes instead of real repairs. As most of you may remember, the kitchen alone had multiple floors stacked on top of each other - water damage in one, signs of fire in another - just patch over patch that I discovered and then did the demo work to do it right back in 2023.
The back porch was no different. Untreated wood. Columns made by slapping 2x4s together instead of using proper 6x6s. Sitting on the lip of the concrete instead of being centered correctly. Uneven spacing I somehow never noticed… until someone did it right.
Funny how you don’t always see what’s off until you finally see what’s solid. So many things in my life have been the same. Take a few steps back, realize shit’s not even close to being solid or safe.
Anyway… I’ve got a new back porch now, and rain is finally in the forecast for the next few days… hopefully.
I’ve been keeping up with my weekly outings too… haven’t turned into a full hermit troll just yet.
Oh! and this part feels so important!!
Back in 2021 when I had COVID, the only symptom I had was losing my sense of smell. For three years… nothing. Just gone. It’s hard to explain how much that takes from you until it happens.
A couple years ago it started coming back, but all wrong. Phantom smells, distorted ones. Nothing quite lining up with memory.
But this year… for the first time in over five years… I can smell the privet blooming again.
And it’s exactly how I remember it. As invasive and hard to manage privet is, the scent from the blooms are amazing.
Unless you’ve lost something like that for a long stretch of time, it’s hard to explain what it feels like when it comes back…
Right now though…this house… she’s something. All her windows are open, weather is perfect, and new lights are now strung on the new back porch.
xo
-s
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