This time last year I was just happy that my plants lived through the late freeze.
And now a year later, I am equally as happy that they not only lived through yet another late freeze but that they are doing really, really well.
Check it out…
I was out of town for the free tree giveaway on the square Saturday morning. I was pretty bummed when I found out that my trip fell on the same day as the Arbor Day Celebration of Trees. However, some friends of mine picked one up and decided they had no room for it in their yard.
Guess who got a free tree afterall? Thanks to Cathy and Tim for my brand new sawtooth oak. I think I’ll call it ‘Crunkles’.
Not only did my plants seem to make it through the freeze last week, but this one surprised the hell out of me by opening up in the middle of the night. Instead of sleeping, it was hard at work, apparently. Nice job, dude.
Now, just tell your buddies to do the same and I’ll consider us even for babying your asses with plastic tarps, towels, blankets and custom-made, wooden stakes for 4 straight days, making me look like a total wuss in front of the entire neighborhood (and internet). Phew.
PS- Click the photo (or here) for a larger view.
It’s snowing. In April. For the first time in history, I am not excited. Why? Because I just bought and planted a crapload of shrubs and perennials a few days ago.
It’s supposed to get down to around 22ËšF the next 3 nights so my question is this: If I put plastic and sheets/blankets over my plants, are they gonna die? One of ya’ll is bound to know the answer. Better yet, does anyone have any better ideas? I put stakes under the plastic so it doesn’t smash the plants and then I put blankets or sheets over the plastic. Good idea? Bad idea? Help, please.
Thanks to the illustrious Eric Hobbs, I can now enjoy the luxury of sitting approximately 30 inches higher than before on my front porch. We still need to add stairs, thicken the columns, add rails and stain it but boy am I in love with it already. We also took the opporunity to also install a brand new door to let in more light while we were at it so needless to say, I am pretty excited. You can see a few pictures on my Flickr page if you wanna.
Eric is one of the most talented Dudes I’ve ever known so if you need anything at all in the way of renovation, construction, remodeling, welding, etc. you owe it to yourself to have Eric do it because it will be done quickly and it will be done right. If only he knew how to repair/remodel my eye…
This past weekend was a busy one. I finished moving in to my new house, did some weed eating, went to JR’s Lightbulb Club on its last night of existence and I attended my high school reunion downtown at The Radisson.
I’ll post more about my house later when we are finished fixing it up (read: next year) and when there are some killer photos to show and brag about. Weed eating is just weed eating and nobody wants to read about how tough I felt when purchasing my first gas-powered weed eater.
The closing of JR’s is pretty depressing. I have been drinking beer and playing shows at that place for over 10 years now and it’s been a Fayetteville hotspot since 1988. Apparently, it will re-open in a couple of months as a gay dance club called “Tangerine”. Seriously. No joke. There are rumors that the owners are opening a couple of JR’s-style dive bars around town pretty soon but none of them will feature live music. Four letters: L-A-M-E.
At my reunion, I was surprised to see that nobody had changed all that much after 10 years. I’ll bet after 20, I won’t even be able to recognize myself, let alone any of the other freaks and geeks (oh yeah, and cool dudes). The reunion itself was pretty boring but I did have a great time catching up with 5 or 6 friends from back in the day. I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in a few months and I managed to sabotage a few of my classmates by constructing something I like to call “Spoon Tied To A Balloon In The Aisle So It Gets Tangled In Peoples’ Feet While They Walk Behind Me.” There were a couple of celebs there too including me, a girl we went to high school with who was on MTV’s The Real World and her (husband?) Scott Wolf from Party Of Five fame.
The sweetest part of the weekend, however, was finding out that Seth and I’s names were still in the mailbox at the townhouse we lived in together right after graduating highschool 10 years ago. Hell yeah. Check it out in the picture below.
I knew that when I became a homeowner, I would be responsible for things that I have never had to worry about before such as calling a plumber and actually having to pay for it myself or replacing the air filters in the air conditioner and NOT getting reimbursed by the landlord. But I never thought that within one week of owning my first house the mailman would knock on the door and explain that since I did not have a roadside mailbox, then I would have to pick my mail up at the post office every day until I installed one myself.
He said something about it being part of a plan to convert our neighborhood into a safer place to deliver mail since there is no sidewalk. Sounds legit, right? Wrong. Why? BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE ON OUR STREET HAS A ROADSIDE MAILBOX. I figured that by the time I got home from work yesterday, I would notice lots of brand new mailboxes and would get a feel for what kind of mailbox to buy and how to install it. Nope. Not a single mailbox had been put up and nobody was even measuring or standing in the yard looking like they might be thinking about how or where to install their mailbox.
I immediately decided it must be a practical joke that the neighborhood oldies had gotten together and organized in order to initiate Sarah and I into their little club since we’re the only people on the street under the age of 70. By now I’d become all nervous and paranoid thinking that I was gonna end up on some new show called Geriatric Punk’d where Don Knotts comes slowly rolling up from the distance in a wheelchair and announces, “Nnnneewww Nnnnottt Nnnunnnkd.” And I say, “Excuse me?” And he says, “Nnnneewww Nnnnottt Nnnunnnkd.” And I say again, “Excuse me??” And finally one of the cameramen says, “I think he’s trying to say ‘You got Punk’d'”
As it turns out, all NEW residents have to get a mailbox so that eventually, when all these old people move away (read: die) there will one day (read: soon) be a street full of nice shiny roadside mailboxes and then the mailman won’t have to worry about getting run over by a Pontiac Bonneville that is driving a full 8mph down our street.
Lightnin’ Hopkins “No Mail Blues”
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