Boardwalk Empire

The internet being absolutely useless today and therefore not being able to do any paid work worth mentioning, I started my day by sending an email to Amazon requesting a refund for the shipping I paid for the high gain antenna/booster coupler since it is now very, very late and DHL says it won’t be here for another week. It’s in Calgary. WTF DHL? Amazon gave me the refund, of course ($16, paid to have the part in four to six days business days and it’s been eight!).

I went to the post office to check for mail (fliers and the local papers) and then did a bunch of chores around the house.

Mid-afternoon, I got the trash together and put it in the wheelbarrow along with the rakes and shovel I’d borrowed, as well as two gallon jugs to fill with water.

Caroline was outside and helped me bring everything in, filled my jugs, then invited me in for coffee. We chatted for about an hour and then another neighbour dropped in to help her with something. I headed out just as Charles came in and he asked if I wanted to borrow their dolly to move pallets. Indeed. He’s so thoughtful!

Having gone through a bunch of the pallets, I’ve conceded they are too weathered to be of any real value for interior projects, but they’re still in too good shape to be left to rot. I noticed that many of of them are very solid with planks spaced closely together.

Having walked across the wet and muddy yard a few times today in my full skirt, I decided that that was going to get old fast. So I got started on a boardwalk:

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I even found one that was solid, with no space between the slats, for the other half of my porch! No more risking the chair falling into the cracks!

Taking the Eastbound Road

I went for another long walk after supper last night, this time taking the eastbound gravel road towards Willow Bunch. I hoped to find the infamous lagoon where I can dump my black water, but I’m not sure I did. I’ll need to get confirmation.

It was a beautiful clear evening with a bright blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and yet there was spitting rain. Very odd!

I came home and finished raking the lawn so I could return C&C’s gardening equipment today.

Then, I baptized the new porch with my last Texas beer. I had been saving it for the first really hot sunny day, but I doubt I’ll work this hard on such a day! Tonight felt right to have it, like I was firmly letting go of winter and settling into my summer.

The internet gets really bad soon as it’s humid and overcast, so I wasn’t able to post this last night. Today isn’t been much better AND the latest version of WordPress is broken and won’t let me add captions to galleries or input pictures manually so I can add text below them (I have given up hope that WP designers will ever get adding media right). I have put numbered picture descriptions below.

#1 is main road extending east towards Willow Bunch.
#2 is looking south from the main road at the western edge of the village
#3 is looking north from the main road at the western edge of the village
#4 is looking east back towards the village
#5 is about halfway down lagoon road looking towards main street
#6 is looking from lagoon road to the village
#7 is looking north from the top of a very steep hill across from lagoon road
#8 is looking northeast to the village from the top of the steep hill
#9 is same as #8 but zooming in
#10 is looking north to Montague Lake (very alkaline, so no swimming or boating)
#11 is a closeup of the lake
#12 is our mostly French welcome sign (“The beautiful village.”)
#13 is our village bunny (I saw a massive hare up in the hills, but he was too fast to get a picture!)
#14 is half of my new porch (there’s a third chair behind me)
#15 is my last Lone Star beer