More pictures of Rick working around the house

 Here are some more pictures of Rick working around the house.  These pictures just portray some of the things that he does or has done, but not everything he does.  Sometimes I didn't take pictures, but I have to say that I have far too many pictures to post here of what Rick does, and it would take me weeks to post everything.

First I am going to show you a picture of Rick doing something that he enjoys doing......going for rides on his motorcycle.  

This motorcycle used to be Jimmy's bike, but it belongs to Rick now.  At the moment it needs repair, so Rick is riding his scooter instead until my trike gets back from the repair shop.  And then he will ride it plus his scooter.

Here are more pictures of Rick working around the house.

Rick keeps all the trees trimmed, 

in all of the yards.

He keeps the gutters cleaned out

and makes any needed roof repairs.

BEFORE
 First I'm going to show you BEFORE & AFTER 

pictures of my front porch.  It was a rotten mess.

(Rick already replaced the wooden porch posts with metal posts in this picture).

AFTER

Doesn't it look good?

In-between pictures of porch repair to follow 

(not in an particular order)

These 3 pictures were of Rick removing the old rotten wooden porch post and installing the new metal ones.

I helped Rick lift & hold the plywood the first day for the ceiling until I dropped my end and it landed on Rick's ankle, OUCH!  I was fired, (for a day) and allowed to return the next day with the promise that I wouldn't drop my end anymore.  That's the only thing I did except to fetch water, pop, snacks, nails, screws, paint and supplies when needed.  

Rick works better without my help, but he has gotten used to me always taking pictures......just as long as I'm quiet and don't offer any advise.

I am allowed to help mow the grass tho 

Rick taking a break

Rick doesn't think I appreciate him, but I do

 Today is Rick's second day back to work.  He works a construction job and for the last couple of days it has been brutally hot and humid.  It has been hard on him because of the three weeks that he was off work. They just didn't have anything for him to do for those three weeks, so he was on call everyday.  Being on call makes it difficult for us to make any plans to do anything, and he has to stay around here close just in case they call him into work. Here are a couple of construction pictures,  I have many, but I came across these first, so I'm putting them here for you to see the type of houses that they build.

While off work Rick didn't totally stop doing anything, because there are always plenty of jobs around here for him to do.  Keeping up with the mowing and weed-eating of three yards is in itself almost a full time job.  We don't even touch the cabin at Shady Oaks.  Precious little Suzanne keeps that grass mowed and weed-eated, bless her little heart.  

Today we might finally get some rain, or at least I am hoping so.  My trees, shrubs and flowers need a well deserved drink of water in this heat.

I was going to put up some pictures of some of the work that Rick does here at home, but I will post the majority of them in the next post.  Rick always keeps himself occupied and besides loving to cook, he works very hard.

To the right Rick is changing the oil on my scooter and making some repairs to it.  It wasn't running right and he fixed it for me.  I can't ride right now because of my back, but I hope to be riding with him before the summer is over.

Below Rick is repairing the gutter on his garage and also patching the roof.

This is Rick's truck and he removed his old black, rusted toolbox and installed the white brand new toolbox that I had bought for him.  It turned out to be so much work taking off the old toolbox and installing the new one, that by the end of the day Rick was not happy with me.

Same day, installing the new toolbox.

One day Rick decided to paint the gray primer fenders on my trike black to match the rest of the trike.  It looked very nice when he was done.

Look how nice my trike looked.

It's too bad that my bike got hit by a SUV

and put a dent in the right fender.

It doesn't look that bad tho.

This is Rick,

and

I can honestly say now that I really love him even tho we argue 

a lot.  That's just the way we blow off steam and get along.  He's a very hard worker too and he makes me laugh.

Rick put a new roof using the left over shingles that were stored in the red storage building.

The storage building had a leaky roof, so he removed the old shingles, put new plywood on the roof, and then shingled it.  Here he is installing the roof cap.

Rick painted my living room ceiling

and also my front doors.

Rick also painted this building.

Doesn't it look good!  Everything that he does he puts his whole heart and soul into it.

Weather, food, snow, and now work.

We were supposed to get some snow tomorrow and maybe we will, but now it's not for certain.  I hope we do because I love snow.  It was 17f degrees when we got up this morning and the high for today will be warmer than yesterdays high.  Sometime today I need to get some groceries.  I'm out of bananas and only have a few Cuties left.  I can't do without my Cuties in the winter months.  That's the only time they are good, just like the Naval oranges, and I do need some more of those too.

Enough of this humdrum stuff of talking about the weather and citrus fruit.

Oh no!  We just got called in to work.  See ya, bye.....

Working can be fun

We had a cold night last night and by 9:00 a.m. this morning it had warmed up to 20 F degrees.  Rick unfortunately got called into work again today to put in the long screws through the top wall plates into each rafter and to install all of the joist hangers.  He will probably be installing windows today as well.  Yesterday we worked together, but luckily for us the new home was far enough along that it had heat and electricity in it, being nearly finished.  This morning the new house under construction is only in the framing stages.  No heat for Rick and the other workers in these cold temps and it is only supposed to reach 32 F degrees for the High today.  I'm glad that I didn't have to go in this morning, but I'll probably be asked to come in with Rick on Wednesday, if the electricians & plumbers get done with their jobs.  

My job is to sweep up all the wood chips and sawdust, and pickup all the scrap lumber, empty boxes and anything that looks like trash.  It sounds like easy work, and it is, but before the heat is complete it can be brutally cold in those houses....and sometimes very muddy around them.  I've been helping out for about 2 years now, and it gives me something to do.  I sweep, mop and clean up each new house about 3-4 times before it is complete and then the real cleaning ladies do the final clean up when the house is complete.  They clean the windows, dust, mop and make the new home shine, and after that Rick and I keep the house looking like new until it sells.

What I do isn't hard work.  I can work at my own pace and if there is something heavy to lift or move out of my way, there is always some strong man there to help me moved it.  It is usually Rick, but at times one of the other men will come offer to help me.  The 3 bosses, the supervisor,  and all of the other men are all very nice and easy to be around.  I'm the only woman there on the job site (other than some of the inspectors)  and I'm very careful to stay out of everyone's way for safety's sake. Of course, I'm not there all the time.  I'm only called to come in with Rick to get the house swept out before inspections, after the dry-wallers have finished their jobs, before the floor is laid, before the painters are ready to paint, and after the finish work is done and the cabinets are installed, so I'm there many times during the construction of one home.  It's an ideal job for me because I don't have to go in to work every single day.....and I don't have to go in at all if I don't want to, haha.   The down side is that I get to be in beautiful homes, sometimes million dollar homes, but I don't get to live in one. 

He's not lazy, that's for sure!

Although he lives with pain, there is one thing that I can say for sure about him.....He's not lazy, but he can't do what he used to do and these pictures were compiled over the last 24 months or so.   His pain has gotten worse and it takes him longer to recover after a day or two of work, so work for him is spread out.  Working one or two full days takes him a month or two to recover, but when he does things for me, he can work at a much slower pace, sit down when he likes and stop when he's too tired to go on.  But even with his problems I have to give him credit for all that he has done for me since Jimmy died, when I let things go and get run down around here.  Thanks to Rick, the place is looking better.