It all started sometime in the spring of 2008. Courtney realized that it might actually be best to live with Mom (that’s a novel in itself), and mom struggled to accommodate her. First, Courtney was sleeping on the couch love seat in Mom’s house. Her house is really more of a cottage or something. There are only three rooms, a kitchen living room split, the bedroom, and the shitter. Naturally, with Courtney sleeping on the sofa in the ‘living room,’ privacy was non existent.

Next, it was realized that one of Bruce’s friends had a REALLY SWEET brown camper available for free. This thing is something you’d expect to see in a really bad movie. It couldn’t have been more than a 10 foot camper, one of the smallest I’ve ever seen. Naturally, my sister was thrilled to have her very own living space (if it can be called that), and my Mom and Bruce were thrilled to have privacy.

It was realized that this camper would only be a temporary solution. After all, what would happen in the winter time when the COLD strikes? Would Courtney continue living in th camper? Since that wasn’t really a possibility, Mema assisted Mom and Bruce by cosigning on a loan to add onto the house.

On June 19, we cleaned out the shed which was sitting to the right of the house and collapsing. At first it was understood that several people would be assisting us in the efforts, but as the day wore on and the sweat poured, it was clear that we would be receiving little help. Between Mema, Papa, Bruce, Mom, Courtney, and Myself we cleaned this dump of a shed in a day.

The contents FILLED a huge (don’t know the yardage) dumpster almost to the top. Lawnmowers, soda cans, shot gun shells, office chairs, gas cans, refrigerators, clay pots, cardboard boxes, bed frames, a propane tank, a life vest, an oar, several reels of plastic piping, milk crates, rotting hay, and a broken shovel are just some of the impressive items that packed the dumpster.

gallons of sweat (and gallons of lemonade) later, the job was finished. I never thought I’d marvel at the sight of dirt, but what a relief it was to look into the (now empty) shed and see the dirt floor.

A few weeks after that, we went up to begin building the addition. I was of little use as Bruce, Steve, and Papa worked to measure things for the new structure. i watched them eagerly, hoping for something to do. They took a look at the right side of the house (were the shed were formally attached) and realized some of the boards were a little rotted.

They removed some of the outer boards with a crowbar and exposed BILLIONS of nasty black carpenter ants. I then realized my purpose! Spray the side of the house with cans of any bug / ant / wasp spray we could find. I felt like a fucking firefighter battling a blaze, spraying and spraying with little progress. With every second on the trigger of the spray, 500,000 ants came raining down from the crevices of the rotted wood only to squirm around and die in the sawdust they had created.

That was the only thing I ended up doing that day, fighting an ant fire (not fire ants!). As such, I didn’t return to work on the addition after that. With the hard work of Papa, Bruce, Mom, and I’m sure some others, they were able to complete the addition. Here is a photo of the completed structure: