July 17, 2020 When you move to a new house, there is something about putting up your mailbox and getting that first piece of mail that makes it finally seem real. We just hadn’t had a chance until now, and it was something we really wanted to get done. Interestingly, one of the many items left in the house was the original, oversized mailbox. A bit battered, dirty and with a broken post, we decided to clean it up and use it – recycling house history, and our first “renovation” project of the myriad to come! Bob and I often divide tasks according to our talents, and no joke, Bob is pretty good at digging holes! He is a persistent guy and considering the rocks, clay, ledge and roots around here, that is a good thing. Finding a cedar post big enough for an oversized box took a few trips, but it’s not like we weren’t going to the hardware store all the time anyway (insert eye roll). We had brought some tools with us, but you know how it is, you never have the ones you need… In the end, I got the box firmly attached to the new post and Bob got it planted into its new location. This small job took longer than it should have… and somehow we knew this was merely a foreshadowing of the travails to come in our overwhelming, but oh-so-cool house project.
Oh yes, the sheep. You might wonder about the 2 super cute white sheep on the trees across the road. We did too. Turns out our neighbors across the way, Than and Cathy, had put them up quite a while back, in response to a question from their daughter, “Why are there no sheep on Sheep Road?” Feeling lucky to have really nice neighbors with a sense of humor, we began pondering our own place in the grand scheme of things on this little dirt road… with our story combined with the stories of the house and its history, we figured we were more like the black sheep, for sure. (Have I mentioned yet that the house was struck by lightning twice, and burned down once?)
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