Another Lifetime to go

11th November 2020

I admire the efficiency of the Japanese, the leaves on our Red Maple all dropped in one night and landed in two large clumps.

The airwaves are still filled with Trump refusing to concede. This action only continues the friction between his base and the Democrats, and makes it difficult to try to think straight.

The damage this man can do in his remaining days can’t be imagined.

It is interesting to note that he has asked donators to contribute to a fund to help him try to overturn the election, but in reality most of it is needed to pay for the huge overspend of his campaign, he can’t even be straight with that, what a conman.

The temperature dropped into the forties and boy you could feel it. I had a couple of jobs to do outside, one was sweeping up leaves, again, and building the third frame for the decking.

We are working on two dressers at the moment. I’ve stripped the top and fronts of one and stained them, the other is a paint job which, at the speed Kelli works will be done tomorrow.

Tonight was Stein night at New Holland, and to my horror I discovered they had stopped brewing Full Circle, the mild beer that was my favourite, which left me no option but to choose the Mad Hatter a beer so strong I never knew what day it was.

Kelli knows the signs, the giggling, the miss- pronunciation of every word that comes out of my mouth, and the rubbish that follows.

I do egg it on a bit, but the strength of the beer is pretty significant, and the result is evident.

I have never been a big drinker, even in the days when of the number of pints signified how much a man you were.

My point is, when I am merry, I am happy, there is nothing serious clogging my mind, for once in the week I can clear my mind.

Kelli was all excited that we were able to harvest some of the potatoes that we had grown. She managed to pull out a few the size of a dwarft’s testicles, it didn’t matter, it was the first grown at 593 Central Bay, and that was pretty important.

10th November 2020

Kelli lit so many candles this evening, it must effect global warming. The neighbours must think our house is really a church, or we can’t afford the electric.

It was a funny day, the temperature was into the sixties but it was grey and threatened to rain, but I did more to the decking and stripped the old finish off a dresser.

The build up of leaves is a constant frustration. There are two spots near the front door that attract them. It is alway in the same place, one by the front door, the other behind a wooden chair that Kelli has placed outside as a decoration. In the time I have been here, I haven’t sat in it once, and no wonder it’s buried in bloody leaves. Anyway the wind hits the house in such a way the leaves are sucked up and dropped in the two places.

I patiently collected the piles of leaves, and pushed them firmly into a plastic bag, I didn’t how heavy compressed leaves weigh, I had to drag the bag to the bin, and almost strained my greens lifting it in.

I’m fed up with brushing them to the road only to have them blowing back the next day.

9th November 2020

It was such a good day that I continued work on the back garden, fixing noggins into the decking frame and starting to landscape the ground.

There is little of interest at the bottom end of the garden, so I want to use the soil that I have dug out of the decking area to build some raised soil banks these will become the wild flower section and bring a bit of colour to the space.

The whole area will be reseeded anyway so it will look crappy for a few months,

I did a bit of leaf blowing but my two additional batteries I bought from Amazon have failed, I guess I should have known. I sent off a message to the supplier/manufacturer requesting replacements or my money back, I will await what response I get.

The election saga continues, the republicans are claiming voter fraud and have issued many law suites trying to overturn the results.

This is a sad reflection of America today. Seventy four million Americans voted for Biden, but more alarmingly seventy million voted for Trump.

After four years of miss-management, lying, and of screwing up the Coronavirus response, there are that many people still think he’s the best, they are dumber than rocks.

8th November 2020

We woke up to a number of wild turkeys in the front garden. Usually they walk up the other side of the road and not touch our property, but today it was all change.

I don’t know where they live, they seem to come and go as they please, but it’s great to see the little critters doing their own thing.

The temperature was remarkably warm, up into the seventies. I had put on a flannel shirt thinking it was cooler, and sweated like a pig fixing the joists into the second part of the deck frame. Luckily Kelli saw my mistake and brought out a tee shirt for me to change into. She is amazing, she anticipates all my failings and is alway there with a glass of water to refresh my parched throat.

I managed to finish laying the joists just in time to deliver the dresser that we sold yesterday.

We had watched Joe Biden and Karmala Harris make their acceptance speech’s last night, for once there were words of encouragement and optimism, subjects that have been missing from this country for the past four years. I hope they can deliver on the promises.

7th November 2020

You could hear the “Whoop!” The other side of the lake. It rattled the windows and crockery in the house. The dogs looked up from their snoozes, and it even shocked Larry, riding on his tractor scooping up the leaves in his yard for the tenth time this week.

The sound emanated from my wife at the news that Joe Biden had won the election.

It first hit my phone as a newsflash from the BBC, and I barely got the words out before Kelli’s phone alerts hit critical.

This was the best news we had for the last four years, the thought of not hearing that man’s voice filled even me with joy.

The news made the air smell cleaner and the sun that little bit brighter, I’m sure the birds in the holly bush we tweeting with joy as well.

The internet erupted with every joke and comment imaginable, it was like this black cloud had lifted giving a sense of hope and optimism.

But we had work to do, a customer was coming to collect a dresser, and we had two more to finish and post.

I had a lot of handles to fit, and some tweaks to some drawer slide, but Kelli did a great job on the paintwork.

I needed to get to Menards to get more timber for the decking. I managed to get eight, twelve foot lengths on to the roof rack, the most I have ever done. I secured them with numerous bungees, then we set off home.

With all that weight, every rut in the road made the load bounce, I was concerned that the roof rack could tear itself from the truck, but that didn’t happen, thank goodness.

Just when I was in slowdown mode, Kelli came bursting into garage with news of a dresser going free on the North side of the town, so off we went to collect. It was on the side of the road, so available for anyone to take. After numerous hold-ups and delays, we found it.

A quick look over and it was in the back of the truck heading for home

6th November 2020

Kelli had bought new dog bowls in an attempt to slow their eating down. Both rush in from outside as if their lives depend on it, and gorge all the food in seconds.

The new bowls have fan blades moulded into it, and food is then placed into the spaces in between. Watching both dogs trying to eat is amusing, in their enthusiasm to eat every morsel, the bowls are pushed around the kitchen, and we find them in different places every day, it’s like they take their food for a walk.

It was a pleasant day, the sun was shining, and the temperature was in the sixties, just right for sweeping up more leaves, there is an endless supply of them.

Most of them have been blown in from someone else garden, and mine have covered Larry’s grass. He then gets on his tractor and sucks them up and dumps them in piles at the side of the road. Tomorrow he might get them all back again.

I set the last two piles for the decking, into the ground and then, in the garage added a finish to a set of drawer fronts for the dresser the Kelli has been painting.

It’s been another day of frustration waiting for the result of the election.

Biden’s lead has been increasing in the last few states, but with the amount of mail-in ballots so high, it’s been an age counting them all.

You can tell that the majority of the media are pleased that Trump is heading for defeat, they just want to see what he does, or says next.

5th November 2020

The tension continues, there is still no result, Kelli is hopping about like she’s walking on hot coals. She messages between her friends trying to get more information, but nothing has emerged.

Trump has started on a campaign of accusing the Democrats of cheating, and trying to stop the count. This was to be expected, he knows that once he leaves the protection of the White House he will be the target for all the dirty deals and tax evasion that he had done all his life.

If there was the epitome of greed and evil it would be trump, and his enablers are shit scared of losing their cushy jobs.

To maintain some sense of sanity I mixed up three bags of concrete and fixed the remaining piles in place. Tomorrow I’ll go out and get more timber joists to complete the main deck frame. This will leave the secondary deck to work on next week.

In between all this I was also working on a couple of dressers, finishing tops and staining drawer fronts.

It was like it was just an ordinary day in an ordinary year, boy I didn’t see this coming.

4th November 2020

It’s hard to describe the atmosphere that surrounds me, Kelli has been on high alert, and openly critical of the Trump presidency for the past four long years.

Last night we switched off all news channels, because we didn’t want the anxiety created by the minute by minute reporting. There were tears of fear and frustration that had to be settled, and the underlining reality that there is nothing we could do about it.

The polls predicted almost a landslide, but as we turned on our phones in the morning, we discovered that it was not the case, just goes to show they spout bollocks as well.

I tried to prepare her for this, I’ve been around the block a few times to know that predictions are only as good as the data that gets fed in.

As the sun rose there was an optimism that grew throughout the day. There was clarity that the first votes counted were those cast on election day, mainly Republican that caused a distortion in the results. There were millions of mail in, or absentee ballots that had to be counted. It was believed that these were mainly Democratic votes cast by those who couldn’t get their ballots in quick enough, I know, Kelli was one of them.

As the day progressed some of the red states were turning blue as these votes were added into the totals. Michigan started off red and changed to blue, causing Trump to want these votes discounted.

Slowly the states declared their votes, Kelli was now getting excited, and updating me as the news came in.

I was cautious, I wanted to protect her from getting too excited, and to suddenly get disappointed if the result changed.

I carried on with my job on the decking, fixing in noggins on the joists I fitted yesterday.

By the evening the Biden news was more positive, the magic number of 270 electoral votes was just six away, with more blue states still to complete the counting.

It is more than even I can bare, I thought that the stein would be consolation for the stress I’ve been going through, it didn’t as much trickle down my throat, as evaporate as it touched my lips.

3rd November 2020

Oh god! Election Day is here, the air is electric, Kelli is on a tightrope of sanity, balancing for all she’s worth.

The turn out is predicted to be the highest ever, with everyone crawling out of the woodwork to vote, even the zombies.

I hope there will be a huge sigh of relief tomorrow, I remember listening to the 2016 results back in the UK, I had no idea how bad it was going to be, I hope at this election voters can change the administration and turn the country around.

Trying to keep things as normal as we could, we delivered the bookcase to a house on a new development north of Holland.

On the way back we stopped off at Goodwill and found a dresser, it was 50% off furniture day, and with my old git discount made it a good deal, we now have eight dressers in the garage.

The weather was sunny with temperatures in the mid fifties, just right to start fitting the joists to the decking frame.

2nd November 2020

I have been here in the US for one year, it’s the longest time I have been away from the UK.

So much has happened and changed what I was thinking about doing.

First there was Kelli’s family issues, then the pandemic and the whole quarantine experience, I feel like I have lived in some alternative universe, and now we have the election tomorrow.

To see it all unfold from this side has been an interesting experience, there is a real fear that there will be trouble in Trump loses. His band of loyal followers are real knuckle draggers but with guns.

Stores in towns and city have started to board up their windows because they anticipate unrest and civil disobedience.

I have become quite cynical about America, I used to think what a great place to live, but it is often when you start to see the cracks in their society.

I guess nowhere is perfect, but when a country can elect a complete idiot who does not even have a simple plan to deal with the virus, and his followers believe all the lies and rubbish he spouts what future is there?

Being isolated from a few months has taught both Kelli and myself that we don’t need to interact much with other people, of course we miss our friends, fortunately they too are as cautious as we are, so we have formed social bubbles were we can still enjoy get togethers in safety.

And we still have our furniture projects.

We delivered a small dresser today and we have a bookcase to take to the north side tomorrow.