Saturday, November 2, 2013

You'd Best Watch Your Step, By Cracky!

 Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door!

Hick is replacing rotten boards on the back porch, just outside the kitchen door. They're only fifteen years old. According to Hick, they should not have rotted. It's due to his homebuilding carpenter not leaving a gap between the boards like he should have. A pencil-width would suffice, according to Hick. Except that suffice part. Hick would never use a word like suffice.

This is the part of the porch that veers around to the right side of the picture, past the kitchen nook sticky-outy part, that is not under roof. The porch, not the kitchen. What kind of kitchen would that be, without a roof? Not Val's kind of kitchen. She needs a proper kitchen, to use for warming things in the oven, or heating them in the microwave.

Hick and his apprentice, The Pony, spent all afternoon prying up boards, tossing them over the brink, and screwing down new planks. According to Hick, the nonexistent cracks of the rotten boards were "...full of cat hair and dog hair. The water couldn't seep through. So they rotted." By tomorrow, I'm sure my sweet, sweet Juno will be the sole fur purveyor for all boards rotten.

I hope the animals have good night vision. The cats are wont to hop up on the porch rail and tightrope walk while taunting the dogs. The dogs take a shortcut from the house of Juno by the kitchen door around to their food dishes on the other side. I'm sure they will be leery of the opening. That's about a ten-foot drop.

The internet was slow today, my friends. Slow. Like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. Oh, wait. That's the angry sea. Not the slow internet. Hick was not exactly driving Titleist golf balls off the back deck. But my internet has really been slow tonight. Twelve minutes to load that picture. You're welcome.

Hopefully nobody will decipher my location, and show up to fall through that hole, just to sue me for an attractive nuisance. Except it's not all that attractive. I suppose I need orange cones and yellow tape to cordon off the area. Everybody's out to gain a quick buck these days, maimed limbs be darned.

I will be relieved when this project is over.

8 comments:

  1. S'posed to leave a 2 penny nail gap between boards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Consider me a late-night visitor tonight. I'm on my way. I'll wear my worn-out Crocs, I'll dampen and comb back my hair (so I look eerily like Christopher Walken) and I'll tromp around until I either fall through or find a sink I can get my head stuck in.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Watch out for those new woods roamers. Your kid actually wants to help out? Wow!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still think it was golf balls, and not fur, stuck in there. Clearly Hick is architect of the back porch.

    ReplyDelete
  5. By cracky is right! Good thing YOU weren't standing there and fell through before they cracked! And I am NOT considering any weight issues here. I am talking about rotten wood! I am surprised Hick didn't fall through on his way in with an auction box of meat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. joeh,
    But a 2-penny nail does not look as cool when the Architect of the Back Porch sticks it behind his ear between measurements. That flat pencil just screams competency.

    *****
    Sioux,
    We found pry marks on the kitchen door this afternoon. I certainly hope you were wearing gloves, Madam, or Sgt. McGruff might be paying a call. I think there's a spare laundry sink under a BARn lean-to, in case you'd like to freshen up. We've paid our fire tag, so I suppose the firemen would respond to a rescue call.

    ******
    Linda,
    I am doubly suspicious of those woods roamers today. The Pony does not so much WANT to help out as he was commanded to help out by The Architect of the Back Porch.

    ******
    Tammy,
    Hick has many titles, and Architect of the Back Porch is one of the most socially acceptable ones. Thank goodness he has no desire to be a marine biologist, or to call himself Buck Naked.

    *****
    knancy,
    Hick is only replacing them because I complained that a certain section sagged like a diving board when I walked over to toss leftovers to the chickens. We do have a sturdy parallel portion nearer the house that we tread to get to the door. The Auction Meat is safe.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That Hick is one industrious guy. Such a powerful work ethic.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Stephen,
    I must agree with you on this one. Hick has always been a worker. He proclaims that if he ever lost his job, he'd take three fast food jobs while looking for a better one.

    If he's between projects, he'll create ten new ones to occupy his time. Thus all of our outbuildings like the A-frame cabin, the one-bedroom cabin down by the creek, the tiny creek barn, and the BARn lean-to workshops. AND the two outhouses, neither of which we need at this time, but which may come in handy during the apopadopalyspe, as Hick calls it.

    ReplyDelete