THE TOY BOY

The first time I met my neighbor Janet I told her my "friend" would be coming down from Michigan each November to spend the winter here with me. Her response was, "Oh ! I have a Boy Toy too!"  I almost swallowed my gum laughing at the thought that I was a woman with a "boy toy" !
Janet's gentleman friend is now in a nursing home but she has shared with me some of the wonderful trips they had taken together while he was still in good health.

Unlike Janet's friend my man does not need to travel any further than his Michigan home to find fun.
This man has more "toys" than all of my kids had when they were young.  And that was A LOT of toys. (We once had a car stop in front of our house asking if we were having a yard sale.  It was just my kids out playing on the front lawn but the amount of stuff they had brought out looked like a yard sale.)

We arrived back in Michigan three days ago. We took Monday and Tuesday to recover from our marathon drive up from Florida. The weather was cool, in the low 50's, and partially sunny. Perfect weather for R&R.

Today we woke up to 65 degrees, sunny and a faint breeze. PERFECT weather for going out to the garage to see if the lawn mower would start.  No luck with that so we hooked the mowers battery up to a charger, plugged it in and moved on to tractor stored out in the lean-to next to the garage.  That baby started right up! I think The Man may have wet his pants he was so happy.

For the next hour and a half we have been outside "playing" with D's tractor.  First he drove over to the shed out on the edge of his property and I pulled out the wrought iron table and four chairs that had been stored in there for the winter.  I loaded them up onto the "bush hog" (a sort of flat mower contraption that gets pulled along in back of the tractor. The things I know about these days!) I rolled the round patio table across the lawn while The Man drove the chairs over to the patio on the side of the house. Now we have a nice place to picnic and entertain guests.

It's amazing how much there is to do on property this size.  Well, not really that amazing at all. This place is just a little larger than our 2 bedroom condo and lanai. Over the winter lots of things change so come spring The Man has to return everything to normal . . . What ever that is!  The tractor and mower were just the tip of the ice berg. The truck needs to come out of the garage, the deer have to be fed, because Heaven only knows how they survived all winter when we were not here. Not only do we have to go purchase huge sacks of corn we had to go to the tractor store yesterday to pick up a mineral salt block for Bambi and her cousins along with a huge bag of bird seed for the feeder.  I like this shopping on line and the curbside pick up is a breeze. Good thing our president sent us all some extra money because we are shopping more and more now that we don't have to leave the comfort of our living room.

At this rate The Man will have all sorts of new toys. I thought I was bad with Amazon shopping but I have created a monster in this man. He LOVES that all he has to do is mention something he and POOF . . .a couple of days later it magically appears at his door.  I am slowly teaching him how to use the Amazon web site but that isn't going very well. Being a TYPICAL man he knows that it is always much easier to just speak and the woman will take care of everything.

The one difference up here is that there is no such thing as "Next Day Delivery". Everything we have ordered over the past couple of days is going to take over a week to get here. Apparently there are no Amazon Super Centers within a thousand miles. Either that or things are being shipped by donkey. Very frustrating after coming from Florida where my orders often arrived even before I pressed the "BUY NOW" button on my computer. It's not like the items purchased are so large and heavy that  the sherpa who is trekking across the wilds of Michigan can't carry them. We are talking here about a set of blackout curtains and a charging wire for my phone. D's shopping consists of a new SAWSALL.  Do you know what a sawsall is???  I didn't !  When he was asking me to search for this item I had NO idea what he was talking about. I had to look at him to see if he had had a stroke and was slurring his words. Turns out this item is a small heavy duty electric saw, a bit like an electric knife. Some genius when looking for a name for his new invention decided that it SAWS ALL things so he called it a sawsall. (Note I said "HE" Only a man would invent something like this!) Along with this toy the man has ordered a battery operated drill like the one I have in Florida. The difference between my drill and his is I only have the ONE drill. At the moment there are at least three other battery operated drills tucked in various places on this property. There is one in the little room right inside the back door, one in the main part of the garage and a third in a different space in the back of the garage. Apparently he does not realize that once a drill stops working you are supposed to charge it in the charging dock rather than buy a new one.

Speaking of the "garage" . . . this building could house half the population of Canada. There are numerous rooms beside the main double car garage space. Unfortunately only one vehicle will fit in this space because three quarters of the room is taken up with furniture and boxes.  I'm not saying that this property holds way way more STUFF than any place I have ever seen and each time I am here my fingers itch just wanting to start throwing things out.