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You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / What Has John Cole Been Doing?

What Has John Cole Been Doing?

by John Cole|  June 14, 20207:57 pm| 72 Comments

This post is in: John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"

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Manhandling this:

What Has John Cole Been Doing?

What Has John Cole Been Doing? 1

What Has John Cole Been Doing? 2

And that handful of wildflower seeds I dropped in the front yard a few years ago:

What Has John Cole Been Doing? 3

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Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    Geoboy

    June 14, 2020 at 7:59 pm

    John, that’s beautiful! You really have a gift. Thank you for sharing!

  2. 2.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 14, 2020 at 8:02 pm

    Wow the willow has really grown.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    June 14, 2020 at 8:02 pm

    You make West Virginia seem like a nice place, Cole.

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 14, 2020 at 8:02 pm

    I feel compelled to raise my concerns about the willow.

  5. 5.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    June 14, 2020 at 8:04 pm

    Your yard is beautiful.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    June 14, 2020 at 8:05 pm

    Did you guys get the irrigation system in?  Or at least started?

  7. 7.

    Mary G

    June 14, 2020 at 8:05 pm

    Looks like a little slice of heaven. How are the birb condos doing on the front porch?

  8. 8.

    CaseyL

    June 14, 2020 at 8:05 pm

    OK, is that top photo what the back yard looks like now, versus earlier versions, when you first planted the trees?

    Or is the top photo what your back yard looked like after spending all spring going crazy with growing, and the photos below it are how things look now after you’ve pruned everything back?

    I hope the correct answer is the first, because otherwise I may offend you forever by saying I like the “jungle garden” more than the “neatly manicured yard.”

    But that’s just me – you do have an idyllic looking space.

  9. 9.

    scav

    June 14, 2020 at 8:08 pm

    Veggies!

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    June 14, 2020 at 8:09 pm

    @CaseyL: I think they are all current, just close-up vs. further away, and from various angles.

    Now I will wait for John to tell me I am totally wrong. :-)

  11. 11.

    Yutsano

    June 14, 2020 at 8:09 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Looks like it will be quite the whomper.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    June 14, 2020 at 8:10 pm

    It’s lovely.

  13. 13.

    Aleta

    June 14, 2020 at 8:13 pm

    impressive

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    June 14, 2020 at 8:15 pm

    in my best Marlon Brando as Col Kurtz……. The Willow… The Willow…. The Willow….

  15. 15.

    Melusine

    June 14, 2020 at 8:15 pm

    OT: Happy Belated Birthday to WaterGirl and Indy is gorgeous!

  16. 16.

    HinTN

    June 14, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    Wildflowers! Very nice.  All very nice but the front is excellent.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    June 14, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    @Melusine: Thank you for the birthday wishes!

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2020 at 8:17 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ix-nay on the illow-way. (But dayumn, it done got big.)

  19. 19.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 14, 2020 at 8:21 pm

    Like everybody else I am now getting actually concerned about the willow.

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    June 14, 2020 at 8:22 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah, but we never actually see the house and the willow in the same photo, so how can we know for sure?

    Unless the willow has swallowed the house?

  21. 21.

    Ken

    June 14, 2020 at 8:25 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Naw, John just has the realtor’s touch with the camera – the ability to find the one angle that makes a 300-square-foot apartment look like a luxury lodge in the Berkshires.  He’s used it here to make an attractive small willow look like an Ent. An Ent in full battle rage.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    June 14, 2020 at 8:25 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Cole,

    They have been warning you about the willow?

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    June 14, 2020 at 8:26 pm

    Cole,

     

    Your backyard looks great?

  24. 24.

    jharp

    June 14, 2020 at 8:27 pm

    I’d cut down that willow tree before it takes over.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    June 14, 2020 at 8:31 pm

    At first glance it looked as if you had installed a tetherball pole.

    Just got off a two hour call with Mom about something having to do with her computer. Finally got around to walking her through installing Teamviewer, so I can now see from here what her screen looks like rather than trying to best guess some stuff from her description and control her computer remotely if needs be. Once that was done, dilemma solved. In this case it wasn’t a real computer problem, it involved something to do with online borrowing from her local library.

    Her first comment, punctuated with a laugh, after I explained what Teamviewer is: “Does that mean you can look at my porn?” And people wonder whence I get my acerbic sense of humor.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2020 at 8:35 pm

    @jharp:

    That just makes them mad.

  27. 27.

    TaMara (HFG)

    June 14, 2020 at 8:36 pm

    It looks lovely, Cole.

    And everyone, the point of planting any variety of willow is because it grows quickly.

  28. 28.

    wvng

    June 14, 2020 at 8:37 pm

    Nice. I think I bought the same arbor(s) you have. We’re training squash to grow up it. What are you doing there, John?

  29. 29.

    CaseyL

    June 14, 2020 at 8:40 pm

    @WaterGirl:  I think you’re right.  I took another look, and the new (?) tree in front of the red wheel barrow, which looks so tiny and nearly invisible in the first photo, gets its DeMille closeup in the second photo.

    So the “Jungle Fever” look is a matter of camera angle and position.

  30. 30.

    JoyceH

    June 14, 2020 at 8:42 pm

    When I first moved in here, I planted a willow. It looked nice for a few years, but then it died. I was talking to my lawn mowing guy and he said well of course it died. Once it got bigger there wasn’t enough water in that spot for it. So… huh.

  31. 31.

    Eljai

    June 14, 2020 at 8:42 pm

    The wildflowers look great!  Why is one of those cars parked facing the wrong direction?

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2020 at 8:43 pm

    What happens when the bear down the holler learns about your new hot tub.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2020 at 8:44 pm

    @Eljai:

    Here, it’s a parking ticket. There, it’s fittin’ in.

  34. 34.

    joel hanes

    June 14, 2020 at 8:50 pm

    Seven nests of babby birbs the man has, and he shows us pictures of plants.

    Plants.

    A request from the peanut gallery :

    either at sunrise or sunset, Cole, please walk out on your front porch and make an audio recording of the birbs.

  35. 35.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 14, 2020 at 8:58 pm

    OT:

    RIP Sushant Singh Rajput, an upcoming actor who worked in the Hindi film industry passed away today. He killed himself, he was depressed. He was only 34.

    Here he is in Kaipo Che, 

    He is the cricket coach. (Kai Po Che = you have been cut in Gujarati, when cut some one’s kite with your manja, the sharp and abrasive String which you use to fly a kite)

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    June 14, 2020 at 9:03 pm

    New Grantchester starting in a few minutes (at least here in D.C.). I thought they lost the thread a bit last season, but I’m going to give it a go. Not sure about the new vicar.

  37. 37.

    Luciamia

    June 14, 2020 at 9:04 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: I was gonna say, Did you water that tree with Viagra?

  38. 38.

    Punchy

    June 14, 2020 at 9:05 pm

    Johnny, are you married yet?  Nice house to share with a lady/man friend….

  39. 39.

    Sab

    June 14, 2020 at 9:06 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Too late. It is already established.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2020 at 9:08 pm

    @Luciamia:

    I planted one (curly leaf willow) at the far back corner of our backyard. A cutting from wife’s cousin’s willow, which wasn’t scary big. Learned if you plant one over the sewer main, it will go bonkers, and ours is yuge, many times the size of the donor tree.

    The shade is welcome in summer but it’s kind of a giant weed, otherwise.

  41. 41.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2020 at 9:12 pm

    @Steeplejack: 
    My husband can’t go up the stairs to where the TV is, so we’re going to try to stream it. I’m a little leery about the new vicar too, but it just means Robson gets more to do.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    June 14, 2020 at 9:12 pm

    @jharp: You! Monster! The willow is part of the Cole compound (and will soon consume the Cole compound). ?

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    June 14, 2020 at 9:13 pm

    @Steeplejack

    Not sure about the new vicar.

    Not unusual.

    ;)

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    June 14, 2020 at 9:14 pm

    @NotMax: LOL

  45. 45.

    geg6

    June 14, 2020 at 9:20 pm

    @Baud:
    I can attest that WV is almost universally gorgeous.  From a distance, almost every square inch has spectacular scenery.  And Cole’s hometown is quite picturesque.  As long as you don’t look too closely in some places, you almost forget how much poverty and ignorance is there. I must, actually, admit that my part of Western PA is similar, except our mountains are not quite as high.

  46. 46.

    J R in WV

    June 14, 2020 at 9:30 pm

    Well, there are corners of W Va with lots of ignorance. Other places pretend they aren’t pits of ignorance, but…

    Most of it is beautiful, although the top of the Mud River watershed is one of the world’s largest mountain top removal strip mines. Friend is a hydrologist, does research, says the valley fills do hold water and release it more slowly, so flows downstream improve in dry spells. But the fills also release heavy metals, selenium, lead, etc, etc.

    So the bass have issues with sexual dimorphism, and the little flood control lake has signs about “Don’t eat the fish from this lake!”

    But it is really pretty, nearly everywhere away from the mines.

  47. 47.

    Juju

    June 14, 2020 at 9:30 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: First Irrfan Khan and now Sushant Singh Rajput. Its all so sad. I don’t know what to say.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    June 14, 2020 at 9:33 pm

    @joel hanes:

    One of my best friends from high school has some nests with birbs nesting and peeps just starting to get all fuzzy.  She had been documenting them in FB for the last couple of weeks, from eggs to hatchlings.  She PMed me the other day asking if I was okay because I always comment on people’s animal pics, always a positive comment.  I had to tell her the bad news: birds are one of those animals I hate.  They are dirty and full of insects and they are fucking dinosaurs.  Once you see the dinosaur in them, you can never unsee it.  The only animals I find more creepy than birds are snakes.  I hate them both.

  49. 49.

    jame

    June 14, 2020 at 9:36 pm

    Nice! You have the food planted in back, and the ornamentals in front, as they should be.

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    June 14, 2020 at 9:38 pm

    @NotMax:

    Your Mom watches porn? Coo-ool.

  51. 51.

    mvr

    June 14, 2020 at 9:39 pm

    Quaint!

  52. 52.

    TaMara (HFG)

    June 14, 2020 at 9:46 pm

    @zhena gogolia: My cousin somehow managed to break his shin, I think, just from a misstep. Had to have surgery and in a wheel chair and was celebrating being able to crawl upstairs to sleep in his own bed this week. It’s been a long 8+ weeks.

    Hope for a quick recovery for your husband.

  53. 53.

    kindness

    June 14, 2020 at 9:54 pm

    The willow tree has gotten big quickly.

  54. 54.

    Doug R

    June 14, 2020 at 9:57 pm

    Has anyone mentioned that willow is too close to the house?

  55. 55.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 14, 2020 at 10:01 pm

    @Juju:  It is sad. Good human beings besides being good at their craft. Sushant Singh had so much potential.

  56. 56.

    captnkurt

    June 14, 2020 at 10:11 pm

    Inquiring minds are asking: What’s he building in there?  We have a right to know…

    What’s he building in there?
    What the hell is he building in there?
    He has subscriptions to those magazines
    He never waves when he goes by
    He’s hiding something from the rest of us
    He’s all to himself
    I think I know why

  57. 57.

    randal m sexton

    June 14, 2020 at 10:35 pm

    Did you manage the padrons ? I just ate my second little batch of them, but Im in a warmer clime.

  58. 58.

    Juju

    June 14, 2020 at 10:37 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: he certainly was a handsome young man.

  59. 59.

    opiejeanne

    June 14, 2020 at 10:41 pm

    @randal m sexton: 
    what are padrons?

  60. 60.

    Yutsano

    June 14, 2020 at 10:47 pm

     

    I had to look up that one myself…

  61. 61.

    Sure Lurkalot

    June 14, 2020 at 10:47 pm

    That willow is either scarily beautiful or just scary. I’m jealous of the veggie garden and Mr Cole’s prodigious preserving capabilities.

  62. 62.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2020 at 10:49 pm

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Oh, thank you. I am so looking forward to his being able to be upstairs — it will probably be 8+ weeks for us too.

  63. 63.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2020 at 10:51 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I was pretty underwhelmed. I liked Will okay last season — the episode with his father (Nathaniel Parker) was great — but this one just felt really flat. The mystery was meh and there was a lot of pretty photography but not much else. I hope it picks up. I can’t blame it entirely on Will, but James Norton is a hard act to follow. He just infused the series with life.

  64. 64.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 14, 2020 at 11:06 pm

    Cole, you’ve been manhandling most handsomely from those photos!

  65. 65.

    satby

    June 14, 2020 at 11:07 pm

    @NotMax: Your mom rocks.

  66. 66.

    joel hanes

    June 14, 2020 at 11:31 pm

    @geg6:

    I know what you mean about the dinosaur thing — I think one of the bits of genius in Jurassic Park was to study bird behavior and make the biped dinosaurs act like birds do — because birds are dinosaurs that survived.   And some bird behavior is genuinely creepy.

    And when I was in elementary school,   I used to gather eggs in my aunt’s chicken coop, and those old hens were everything you say: scraggly dirty evil-eyed demons.  And the barnyard geese could be really alarmingly aggressive.

    But a flight of pintails or mallards overhead gives me joy.  As does a string of merganser chicks on the river, paddling like fury in a line, trying to keep up with their mother.    And last winter, eight mute trumpeter swans wintered on the river near my Mom’s place, in a state where they’d once been extinct for half a century, and we often saw them flying — my god, they’re huge and graceful.

    And brown pelicans fishing always make me laugh.

    Mom has seven feeders up year round, and watching the orioles and cardinals and blue jays and chickadees and juncos and nuthatches and three kinds of woodpeckers and house finches and sparrows and grosbeaks and mourning doves and grackles and and goldfinches and catbirds and brown creepers and blackbirds is absorbing.   And the birdsong in her backyard early and late is good for the heart.

  67. 67.

    Anne Laurie

    June 14, 2020 at 11:40 pm

    Congratulations, Cole — so tidy and well-organized!

    (My thighs & shoulders hurt, just contemplating all the lifting you did to make it so.)

  68. 68.

    BruceFromOhio

    June 15, 2020 at 12:32 am

    Does the willow have it’s own Instagram account yet?

  69. 69.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    June 15, 2020 at 1:20 am

    @Melusine:

    Thanks – we think Indy is gorgeous too!  :-)

  70. 70.

    Steeplejack

    June 15, 2020 at 1:28 am

    @zhena gogolia:

    I was a little underwhelmed too, but for different reasons. Will strikes me as okay, but you’re right, so far he’s not replacing Sidney as the heart of the show. Although the way they wrote Sidney’s exit kind of diminished him, in my opinion, and made me not sorry to see him go.

    And they have sort of painted themselves into a corner—or ended up there inevitably because of James Norton’s departure. So much of the series was based on Sidney and Geordie’s relationship, and just slotting Will into the same spot is pretty clumsy.

    My other complaint is the way they are putting an increasingly heavy-handed gloss on the ’50s through a “modern” lens. Really laid it on thick tonight with the “women’s issues” angle.

  71. 71.

    zhena gogolia

    June 15, 2020 at 10:00 am

    @Steeplejack:

    I don’t think the phrase “the patriarchy” was used that way in the 1950s. Sidney agonized for several seasons about his love for Amanda conflicting with his love for his vocation, but after 15 minutes with this other woman it was all easy peasy and he just left. Geordie just involves Will in all the investigations for no particular reason — Sidney had some kind of super-intuition that was always signaled by certain chords on a piano, so we understood why Geordie used him. What does Will bring to the table? Why is it just assumed that the new vicar will also be a crime-solver? It’s a mess. I think they probably should have ended it when Norton decided he had to leave. Or at least they needed to do some clever writing to make it work. That hasn’t happened. Will’s mother is the most interesting character, though. Love me some Jemma Redgrave.

  72. 72.

    opiejeanne

    June 15, 2020 at 11:54 am

    @Yutsano: Thanks. I looked it up too but was having trouble finding anything because autocorrect kept changing the word. I finally did find out about the time I couldn’t stay awake any longer.

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