every blog needs a gorgeous hunk, right?

Yeah, I think so too. One of my favourite subjects to photograph is my gorgeous hunk of a virile husband. How about some of him roofing? Did I mention he's drop dead handsome ~ in that capable, muscular, handy and talented sort of way? The first time I met him he was driving a pick up truck, wore a shearling lined winter denim jacket and cowboy boots. Be still my heart ~ when I saw that smile I knew I was done.

The house rooftop is finished, just this area left to do.

"What...?" he didn't realize I was in the upstairs window taking his picture.

"Ah, it's you."

We've lived here for 15 years. We're the second owners of this 24 year old house. The original owners didn't upgrade anything from builder basics so pretty much the whole house needs work (read as spend lots of money doing repairs and maintenance). Amongst our current projects are the backyard, which is a construction zone right now, and the roof. The shingling is almost done except for the kitchen breakfast nook portion on the back of the house. It's got 5 different slopes and 4 seams that need capping. There's a lot of shingle cutting to work the angles.

And then more cutting. For a little area it's a deceptively large amount of fiddly work. Our house is north facing. We have a shady, cool front yard. When everyone else's snow has melted we still have a mountain of it up front that has lasted in to May and sometimes June. Handsome husband has to pile it a storey high with the front end loader when there's a lot of snow so we can park the trucks in the driveway. That used to really excite our kids when they were little.

The sun rises to the left side (east) of the backyard and sets to the right side (west). The back side of our house is a hot pit with full sun all day and the tall wood fence around the pool. The wear and sun damage on the south side of our house is significantly more than the front.

That's a long way down.

And not a bad view up.

Here he's telling me to stop taking his picture already...

Consider this last shot the "before" picture. I almost didn't show it because it's got so much that needs to happen there and it's a mess right now: finish the roofing, build new stairs for the still under construction new deck, and enclose the bottom portion under the deck with planter boxes, cleaning up all the construction tools and stuff. Lots to do before the snow flies again. We have had snow by the first weekend of October (many times) and that's not that far off.

It's rained all summer. We only have time to work on projects on weekends. The few dry weekends have been used up baling and putting up hay for our in laws cattle and our horses. The farmer idiom of 'make hay while the sun shines' has definitely been true this year for us. Working on our yard projects hasn't happened as quickly as we'd have hoped, but they're getting there.

My handsome, charming, loving husband is the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm seriously lucky. He's my true love. The first time I ever saw him he made my heart do a flip. He still has that affect on me each and every time I see him. Sounds corny, doesn't it? It's true though. Some times I have to pinch myself to be sure I'm awake. I take a lot of pictures of him since he's always doing something interesting and well, who wouldn't want to take lots of photos of a gorgeous guy with that smile, with those deep, dark blues eye and that... oh, wait... getting carried away, sorry.

We always have a lot of projects on the go. I'll try to make a point of showing you what we're up to around here and add a bunch of gorgeous hunk pictures while I'm at it. He has the best smile. :)