Top ten reasons why I love spring.

Now that spring is officially here, I would like to celebrate with a top 10 list. Here are the top 10 reasons why I love spring.

10. The end of High oil bills. My house costs a fortune to heat. And because my wife and kids are home all day long, there is never the opportunity to turn the heat down either. Once April gets here, I can just shut it off and tell them to wear sweatshirts.

9. The dog stays outside. I have never been much of an animal person, and I really hate sharing a living space with one. Ours is really annoying. He is impossible to keep clean, and he sheds like you wouldn't believe. We have to vaccuum giant clumps of hair several times a day. You can't have food anywhere near him. He will take it right out of the kids hands. He will climb up on the table and counter. Any attempts to break him of this are constantly counter-acted by our three-year old feeding him all the time. The only time this eat-everything-in-sight mentality ever worked out for me was when my wife was gone and the youngest one puked on the living room floor. I took my son into the other room to clean and change him, and then returned to clean the living room only to find that the Dog had eaten it all for me.

8. I no longer need to wear pants. I think this one is self-explanatory.

7. Baseball.

6. Baseball.

5. Baseball.

4. Baseball.

3. Baseball.

2. Baseball.

1. The leaves on the trees will once again obscure my view of the neighbor's house. gagknee thinks he has the market cornered on lousy neighbors, but I think I can give him some competition. While I was taking a walk in the woods with my kids the other day, I decided to take some pictures for your enjoyment.


Here you see the remains of a "camp" they had set up a few years ago. I think somebody was living there one summer, and I'm pretty sure at one time he was keeping a horse there too. Note the "tent" is actually a couple of tarps.


Here is a shack they have on the back of the property. Pretty sure I've seen people sleeping in there too. It could also be a weapons cache for getting rid of nosy neighbors who take pictures of the yard.


How many broken trucks can you count in this picture? There are at least three, not counting whatever is under the tarp. At one point, the engine compartment of the red one in the foreground actually served as a feeding trough for the aforementioned horse.


Note the old smokehouse behind the red truck. I don't really know what it is, but that's as good a guess as any. Could also be an outhouse for the camper right next to it. By the way, I KNOW that people are living in the camper. Also note random piles of garbage everywhere.

This is a new "garage" that they put up this year. It's one of those fabric ones that fit over the metal frames. Apparently they were worried about leaving their stuff out in the weather. (ed. Note: This is the NICEST "building" on the property)

This is a picture of the back of their house. Its hard to see in the picture, but the dark structure circled in green is part of their house. It sticks off the back and looks very strange. They never bothered to side it. Actually the white you see on the rest of the house isn't siding either - that is just house wrap.


At first glance, this is another picture of the smokehouse, but if you look closely at the area circled in red, you will see a PILE of old motorcycles. I am guessing at least 6 of them.


A zoomed out version of most of the back yard.

The front of the house - taken from the street. Note the addition they are building. Judging by the condition of the rest of the house, my guess is they consider this "finished". It is crooked, because I took the picture on the sly while walking past it without looking through the viewfinder. I didn't want them to think I was spying on them.


Not pictured: The "foundation" for this addition is not really a foundation. It is 4x4's on top of concrete pilings - the way you would build a deck. He built this in January/February, which leads one to wonder if he dug them deep enough below the frost line. Judging by the effort that he puts into keeping his yard nice, I'm going to guess probably not.