I Traveled Back In Time Today

Turns out I needed to make one more trip to my old home town of Westwood this morning.  One more goodbye I wanted to take care of in person.

I stopped in to see my Optometrist, who was on the way, to say goodbye.

Drove through Walpole and snapped the Gilmore's pic below.  The store is shuddered and has been out of business for several years now but this is where we bought our chicken, rabbit, goat, etc. feed when I was growing up. This was really the only place around that carried animal feed -

Once in Westwood, I drove past my old pediatrician's house/office, Dr. Fisher at 775 High Street.  The doctor who also delivered me -

Then a mile or so up the road to my old dentist house\office, Dr. McHale, at 965 High Street -

And of course, our old house, which still looks the same - 

A walk down memory lane, reliving some old memories and haunts today...

Turning Of A Page

It's official!

It's with a heavy heart that I inform you all we've sold our childhood family home.  It became official at the closing this afternoon.

We found a great family of four, like ours, who we believe dad would approved of.  They intend to move it and start making it a home again, with very few changes in store.  They even plan to plant vegetables come spring.  I believe my dads legacy will live on with this house on Burgess Avenue.

It will be missed for sure, but sadly as we turn the page I will forever hold all the wonderful memories this house holds and means to me and my family.

Charlie's Place Has Been Relocated

Charlie's Place has been relocated...

Well, not Charlie's Place the shed, rather the Charlie's Place the drift wood sign that hung from my dads shed for as long as I can remember.  I waited till the end and took it down yesterday for the 12 mile drive to it's new home here in Franklin. Safe and sound, and out of the elements, hanging in my garage.

Bitter sweet.

Wascally Me

It's easy to see who visits when there's snow on the ground IV.

Enjoying the solitude and reminiscing of years gone bye. 

Wascally Squirrel

It's easy to see who visits when there's snow on the ground III.

Now that the walnuts are gone and the ground is frozen the squirrels are nut challenged.

Wascally Wabbit

It's easy to see who visits when there's snow on the ground.

Be vewy vewy quiet.  I'm hunting wabbits!

Ye Ole Charlie's Place Vice

If anyone needs something securely held in place let me know.  I now have the capabilities.  Another Charlie's Place relic re-homed! 

Charlie's Place

My dads shed, "Charlie's Place".

Ye Ole Family Mailbox

Mail sent to 270 Burgess Ave will now be delivered to Franklin...

And Off We Go...

Took advantage of a day off work to head over to my folks place for an afternoon of yard cleanup.  My awesome neighbor, and BFF, offered to help so I jumped at the chance.

We loaded both of our mowers onto his perfect fit trailer and off we went -

Charlie's Place before -

Charlie's Place after - 

Took us about 4-hour to mow the entire lawn, both cutting the grass and at the same time sucking up the leaves. Although, drab coloring with winter upon us, our worked made a difference; the lawn looks so much better.  Hoping this improves it's curb appeal.

We loaded the mowers back onto the trailer, tidied up using the leaf blower then headed into neighboring Dedham for lunch.  A new place named Roadworthy, founded in 2016, and inspired by wacky food trucks and eccentric mobile street vendors.  Roadworthy is the outlandish destination for fun and delicious foods.  The steak & cheese egg rolls were terrific!

Two thumbs up for lunch and yard work!

Open House in Westwood!

Our second Open House, held this past Sunday from 12:00 - 2:00PM, was a bust.  We had one party of three stop in around 12:30ish and they were in and out, alas.

Signs were up -

A fragrant potpourri was simmering on the stove - 

And I was enjoying a pre-open house Dunkin Donuts breakfast -

Feeling Nostalgic

I stopped by the ole Frye family house in Westwood yesterday, walked the property and took a handful of pictures.

Sure do miss the old place and the old times.  Memories came flooding back of times gone by; wonderful memories.  Such a quiet and peaceful lot, much of it created but our hard work and labor of love over so many years.

Where's my time machine?!

Westwood Snow Removal

In anticipation of this past weekends snow storm, which dropped another 12+ inches of snow, I headed to my folks house in Westwood to check out how the house and shed roofs looked.  As it turned out they had too much snow and needed to be cleaned/shoveled.

The shed roof, especially the old chicken pen roof was bowing inward.  It's a good thing we cleared it off, as there is no way the roof would have been able to handle the snow that fell on Sunday.

I cleaned the porch roof -

My friend and Franklin neighbor Ralph cleaned the main house roof -

My other friend Kevin cleaned the kitchen roof -

We all joined Shane on the shed roof to clean it -

The above picture give you a very good visual of just how much snow was piled on the shed.  When all cleaned, the snow at the rear of the shed was piled higher than the back edge of the roof!

I'm SO thankful that Ralph, Kevin and Shane offered to help otherwise I may still be there...

Westwood Pizza Reminiscent

I'm in the process of going through the many boxes of pictures we have in an effort to make sense of them all.  My master plan is to get them all scanned and in digital format. To date I've scanned 687 and that's just the tip of the iceberg!

In one of the boxes I came across this old menu for Westwood Pizza.  I don't know the date but based on the prices it was quite some time ago.  If I was to guess I'd say somewhere in the early 80's.

This is where the Frye's would get our pizzas from.  If I remember correctly, we'd get a free small cheese pizza with any order of five small pizzas, which we often took advantage of (I may have the numbers wrong but it was something like this).

Good old Spiro, the Greek owner/operator.

Deck Repair Fun - UPDATE

Booyah!

The painters arrived bright and early yesterday morning and wasted no time getting to work on the two decks.

I swung by in the afternoon to check on their work and was pleasantly surprised to see that they were finishing up.  They did a terrific job, the decks look new again!  They have their fresh Winter coats and ready for the cold weather ahead.

This was a last minute type project but came together rather quickly, with a nice strong finish!

Deck Repair Fun

Spent the day in Westwood yesterday doing some repairs on the front and back decks.

Some stair treads needed to be replaced, several sections on the rear deck and a railing section.

The repairs took longer than expected but all got taken care of.

Many, many thanks to Kevin and Ralph for their help, expertise and ribbing.

Next step, staining!

Pocket Selfie

Here's an accidental selfie of mine.

More Scrap Metal Found and Recycled

Did another metal run last weekend. I don't recall what trip number this is but I believe we're closing in on double-digits.  The majority of this run contained items that I've been holding at my place, although the load was topped off with even more metal items from my dad place.  Total weight was just over 500lbs.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying this was the last run, however, I'm not willing to put any money on that...

A Fish-cicle!

Think I may have found yet another source of "fishy" odor at my dad's house last weekend. And this time it IS a fish...

Now mind you I'm no Paula Deen, Gordon Ramsey, Bobby Flay, Julia Child, etc., yet, I'm pretty sure that this is the incorrect way to store fish in the freezer.

However, not to ruffle any feathers, or in this case scales, I put the little feller back where and how I found him.

Huff, Puff and Blow Down

Hurricane-turned-tropical-storm Irene did some tree damage in my dad's yard. The top of and a large branch from this maple (pictured below) came crashing down on top of the shed roof. Surprisingly, there was NO damage to the shed or the roof.

So, last Saturday following the mowing of (3) lawns I got to spend an additional hour + cutting and hauling (with dad's help) these damaged limbs, branches, etc. into the woods. Good times...