Lastest Paintings

Ready for some Whine?

I've had several people say they haven't heard from me lately and wonder what's new. So prepare yourselves.

1. I moved back to Maine to my ex-husband, and his (our) 2 grandchildren and our fat cat - Midnight. Mika is soooooo pleased to be home. She is very busy barking to let everyone know she's back - especially the squirrels and her neighbor friend - Jake.

"Can Mika come out to play, please? Please? Or at least give me a pig ear"

2. The kids are happy to have me back, and I am very glad to be back in their lives.

Getting ready for Easter

3. We have a new Great Grandson - Bradley - Here he is with his Papa.

4. We invested in a new 11 unit apartment complex - actually 3 buildings - 1 has 6 units, 1 has 4 units and 1 in a single unit. It came with 9 units occupied. I say occupied- because not all of them bother to pay their rent. The 6 unit building is a disaster - it has 2 units empty - we have already put in over $5,000 in the renovation of one of them. The other empty shouldn't be too bad - just a gutted bathroom and new carpeting and linoleum - oh and some sheetrock repair. 2 units are kept up fairly well, but one of them is 6 weeks behind in rent and I will be giving them a 7 day pay or quit notice. The other 2 are a mess - both are rented and they pay on time with help from the state. One has 2 huge dogs, 3 birds, 2 little girls, a mom and her brother. I have literally never been in a place so filthy and smelly. The other one has 2 cats, birds, 4 little boys and a mom and dad. They seem really nice - but it sure is crowded. We, as new landlords, have decided no pets - especially no dogs. So far, the dogs are still there. Now we found out that there are cockroaches. The 2 messies apartments have several occupants with allergies and don't want it bombed, others are upset and want the whole building bombed. Goodness - what a challenge this is turning out to be. The 4 unit building now has one empty unit that I am having another challenge on how to get rid of the cigarette odor. That tenant left owing a month's rent. The other bottom unit is awful. The tenants have never paid rent at all, they won't let us in to inspect. They hand papers back and forth through a torn screen door. I did get partway in a while ago and noticed that there is a padlock on the closet door in the living room. They also have 2 pitbulls. The other day they flooded the basement by using a dishwasher (not allowed) draining in their plugged sink. We gave them a 7 day in March and had our lawyer serve them again in April - we go to court in May. The 2 units upstairs keep their apartments immaculate, but one is almost a month late. The single unit has one man with 2 chihuahuas that are near death they are so old. Since he lives alone, we are letting him grandfather his dogs, but he can't replace them. He is the only one who pays his own heat - so he literally wrapped his whole house in plastic.

5. I am managing all of our rentals now, and not having to work another full-time job like before. We now have 19 apartments units (2 complexes), 36 storage units, 2 mobile homes, and 3 houses, oh and one house that we have never gotten ready to rent yet. Besides doing the bookwork, collecting rents, doing the banking, etc.. I'm also learning to do light???? maintenance. On the apartment we are almost done with - I've sanded sheetrock, removed trim from around doors and windows, removed baseboards, removed baseboard heater vents, cut and rolled up old carpets, removed tackstrips, removed nails from boards, removed old floor tiles, picked up lots of trash in the yard, replaced end caps on baseboard heater vents (in the apartment that is filthy - my pant legs almost stuck to the floor), gone to the dump and unloaded a toilet, metal junk, and the second trip, the entire old set of kitchen cabinets (by myself). Uff-da - I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

6. The Captain hired a nanny-housekeeper while I was being the prodigal wife. Not working out at all. She will be here until the end of this month. I like her ok, but she is sooooo slow. Anyway - with me here now, we don't need a full-time nanny-housekeeper. The ideal situation would be someone to come in before the bus got here to get the kids started on their homework, start the evening meal, and do some housework. With the costs involved in the newest apartment complex, it doesn't look like we'll be able to hire anyone full-time. The Captain is guessing that he will be done fishing from the middle of July until March - so with 2 of us here, we should be able to handle it. I will miss not having to do laundry or vacuuming. Oh well.

7. It might snow or at least sleet tonight - yuk.

Kids say the darndest things

I just overheard my grandchildren singing "The Clapping Song" - Arianna sang - 3, 6, 9 the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the cell phone line. Too funny. It reminds of the way my daughter Lisa used to sing "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" She always sang - "Then one froggy Christmas Eve,"

Wordless Wednesday - You know you live in the sticks when.....

Roadkill

The other day, a snowy day - I was slowing down towards the bottom of a hill so I wouldn't slide onto the upcoming intersection. There was this little chickadee in the road - it must have been aerodynamically challenged because it didn't lift quite high enough into the air and sort of tumbled across my hood and into the windshield wiper. I got out to see if it would be OK. A couple of days earlier I had been at my friend's (she teaches a wildlife class at a college) and a chickadee flew into their arcadia door and knocked itself dizzy. She said that if we left it outside it would freeze to death because it wasn't moving - so they brought it inside and put it in a cat carrier until it was back up to par - about 20 minutes. They put it back out side and away it flew. Sooooooo - I picked it up - it didn't appear to have any broken legs or wings but was way too docile. So I held it and drove to our office. Of course I had a hard time getting in because the overhead door was frozen shut - but I managed. I put it in a box with paper towels and an old torn bath towel over it - and went about my business. I had to make a trip to the new apartment complex we bought and I got a little feed from one of the tenants. The sweet little bird started hopping around and scratching to get out - so I stopped where I picked it up - thinking it probably had a nest nearby. I carried it up over the snowbank (with no boots on) and gently set it down. It flopped and wobbled and scurried away from me. I was a little alarmed at his lack of steady mobility, but he manage to hop up on a tree branch, and then to another, so I left it and went home for lunch. I took these pictures when I dropped him off.

After lunch, I had to drive past him again and he was still on the same branch, with it's little head tucked under it's wing. I was feeling guilty about hitting it and worrying that it would become fox or eagle lunch - so I climbed back over the snow bank and farther - and picked him up again. He didn't really try to get away, but seemed fairly alert. I put him back in the box and picked up the seeds I had left for him in the snow. I went to the office and planned to go to town to get a cage to keep him in until I was sure he was OK. When I came out of the office 10 minutes later - he was dead. But - surprisingly enough - I didn't cry. Almost though.

Home

Well, I'm home in Maine and very glad to be here. The children were ecstatic to see us. And we were glad to see them too. We got here on Friday the 20th - went to dinner to celebrate and then got a huge welcome back to Maine snowstorm - we got 12-18 inches of snow on Saturday. Back to shoveling. The Captain went back to Virginia for another unsuccessful squid trip - and is now switching gear to go scalloping instead. Yahoooooo! I am keeping really busy with the new (to us) apartment complex we bought (borrowed for). Right now my "job" is to manage 18 apartments, 2 mobile homes, 3 houses, and 37 storage units. There are 2 apartments that are vacant and need extesive work to get them ready to rent - and there are a couple of acquired tenants that we need to move out. I didn't think it would keep me that busy, but I run all of the time. The office is located in the basement of one of our apartment buildings where we also have the storage units. There is an overhead door that we access with a security card - it seems like I'm always having to work to get in - either the door is frozen to the ground or blocked by snow falling off the roof. Post office runs, bank runs, collecting rent runs. But I feel so alive and energized by it all.

Virginia

I made it to Virginia on Wed. 02/04. Mika and I picked up the Captain at the train station - she was sooooooo excited to see her "daddy". I was glad to see him too - I was tired of driving. lol

It took us until the 13th to get the boat ready for her first excursion with her new Captain. We had to get the gear ready to go "Squidding". It was quite the experience. Mika loved being on the boat - while we were docked anyway. The weather was wonderful most of the time. Shirt sleeves.

Then we were off - it kind of stopped being fun and started being work. I had to do all of the cooking, most of the dishes, and also worked on the deck. I didn't have to haul back or set out the gear, but I did sort fish. It was a good thing that Mika and I took motion sickness meds - we never found our sea legs. One of the interesting things I found out was that the squid were not as big as I thought, but we couldn't keep anything under 4" or the price would go down. So, the guys told me that if I lay the squid across my gloved hand and it covered it, that would be long enough. See - size does matter. In other words, "under a handful - throw it back" - for gals "over a mouthful is waste"for guys. You have to see the squid to get a clear picture. The picture I'm showing isn't really a good one. Some are really limp, but other's are a little more "sturdy".

We didn't make any money that trip - we had a fire on the boat (more about that later) and had to go back to the dock without a complete trip - so what squid we got didn't even pay for the fuel or groceries.