2011-10-29

Lousy Weather

The weather has really been crappy this year - tons of rain, Hurricane Irene - and it's cost people psychologically and monetarily.

Put me in the money category.

We're having a rare October snow (a heavyweight one), and the branches have been coming down. Now, that's bad enough. But when one especially thick branch came down on our fence and destroyed a section of the fence.

Oy vey. You can see the mess in the pictures below. What might have cost of hundreds of dollars will probably now cost us about a thousand bucks. Of course, we have that much just lying about. (Sarcasm, naturally.) There's no way I'm going to ask my mother, because she's given us so much over the years. I'd ask my sister-in-law (my hubby's sister), but we'd be beholden to her forever, that's if she deigned to give us anything.

Yeah, she's watching her pennies despite her husband making well over $100K a year. Yeah, right.

Anyhoo, I do have two permanent job prospects, and I'm crossing my fingers that one of them pans out, especially as I have to explain away a firing from a few years ago. (I'll be honest about it; I just have to say it right and say it as if I mean what I'm saying.)

A permanent job would blunt the dough we'll have to cough up for this. ::sigh::



4 comments:

Angie said...

Ouch. :( Replacing fences can be a major pain, definitely, especially if you have to work in the snow. Best of luck on the jobs. [crossed fingers]

My mom (and my grandparents before her) used to live in a house with an alley behind. That's unusual enough in that area (newish neighborhoods in California don't have alleys) but there was also another small street coming right up to meet that alley in a T, just where Mom's house was. Since my grandparents bought the house new, until my mom sold it about thirty years later, drunk drivers missed the T intersection and came through the fence to land in the pool twice, and wind blew the fence down once. :/

My ex-stepdad was really good at building that sort of thing, so the third time, rather than just replacing the flimsy grapestake fence yet again, he built a much more solid fence, with 6x6 posts and sturdy slats. The thing stayed up through every storm thrown at it up until Mom moved out; it wasn't tested against any drunken speeders, but I imagine it'd at least slow them down enough to keep most of 'em out of the pool. Even with Dad and some friends doing the work, it cost a lot just for the materials, but much less than the cheaper fence replacement plus misc. damage over and over.

Angie

Unknown said...

Yeah, October snows, when the leaves are still on trees, are messy. The jet stream just keeps sending the misery east.

Nancy Beck said...

Angie - yeow! That really sucks. Fortunately, the section of fence that was destroyed isn't that big.

I wish either my husband or I was good with that sort of thing, but unfortunately, neither of us are. I can take out computer hard drives and put 'em in, but fences and anything related to wood? Forget it.

And one of our neighbors has offered to start cutting into the branches, and we can haul them off. But first I have to call up the insurance agency; one of my cousins works for them, so I'll probably direct her to my FB wall (and a photo album I'll set up) to see if they'll be able to send any dough our way.

They probably won't, but I have to know for sure.

Nancy Beck said...

Kay,

You ain't kidding. I wish Mother Nature would cut it out! ;-)