Wednesday, January 30, 2013

rural mailbox conundrum...

There's something nostalgic about a row of rural mailboxes.
They make a great picture.


Look quick...
 because scenes such as this are disappearing fast.

We live in the country and have always had mail delivery to the mailbox at the road...
as long as I can remember.
If we happened to be short on postage stamps...
we would leave some money and a note for the mailman...
and he would take care of 'licking the stamp'.
That kind of service is a thing of the past, I'm sure...
but we still get our mail at the road.
At least we have to this point.
And I appreciate that!

Over the past few decades most light-weight rural mailboxes have been replaced by...


...heavy metal ones such as ours.
They are hard to vandalize...
and hard to steal.
Especially if they are cemented into the ground.
We received notice from Canada Post last week that our mailbox is non-conforming...
and we had until yesterday to remedy that!
(We never.)
The problem?
The lid needs to stay up without being held...
for ease of delivery.
We are still  looking for a solution...
along with 450 other rural route customers who purchased their heavy-duty mailbox at a local machine shop over the past few years.
The manufacturer has ordered in magnets that they hope will solve the problem.
They are on back order.
Will we have mail delivery today?
We'll see.

Did you know that once in awhile...
good stuff still comes in that mailbox?
Really.

I'll keep you posted.
 


23 comments:

  1. I laughed at your photo of the rural mailboxes. Last year I went with Dan to do an appraisal in a teeny tiny town about 30 minutes north of us. I took multiple photos of sets of rural mailboxes! He thought I was weird, but I just think they're so beautiful. Of course we haven't gotten our mail delivered to our home for years. It goes to a community mailbox down the street and around the corner. I sure miss home delivery...

    ReplyDelete
  2. In France every house has its own mailbox. By law it has to be a certain height from the ground so that the postman can put the letters in without getting out of the car!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh I do have some thoughts about mailboxes. I'm so glad that our mail still comes to us and would come right to the door if we were to require that. Our box is well down the drive so he doesn't have to come too far. We had to get a postal box recommended by the postal service, though it certainly is not as fine and sturdy as yours. Hope that those magnets come in soon and do the trick. I like seeing mailboxes in rural settings. Each one tells a little of the personality of the owner.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Loved this post Judy! Your mailbox is great and I do hope the magnets come in soon...what a shame it would be to lose rural mail delivery - we totally depend on it even though most of the mail is "junk" mail these days. There's nothing quite like getting a small package, card or letter the "old fashioned" way!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, the future photos of mailboxes will not be the same :-( I have never cared for change......

    Good luck to all of you.

    Hugs!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh my, you are not conforming!? Phooey...I like that old row of mailboxes...sigh. Hope all is resolved and theirs good stuff that arrives in the box.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I wonder if the postman's contract will allow him to close that mailbox lid once the mail is delivered? We still get mail deliverrd to our house maibox by the front door, but sometimes I wonder if these days are numbered.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have never thought of postal services too much...but you sure handled this well. It's sort of alike a special service and yes, it's fun when the packages still come into your mailbox. I guess soon we will receive the same notice...but I did get my real license yesterday in the mail.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I hope you figure it out without your mail service being interrupted. Don't you just love it when they randomly make these decisions? Government!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Our mail box is not in good shape and be depend upon the kindness of the carriers to keep delivering! The box itself is set in a stone column but the lid has come unhinged! All we need is a couple of piano hinges to repair it....and we need to do that someday!
    When we go home we have a TON of mail collected by our neighbor. Mostly JUNK!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Best of luck, Judy. We drive 5 miles to the tiny post office where the postmistress is always ready to have a good chat and she has a candy dish which is a nice treat waiting for everyone. She puts up decorations through the year and like you we can leave an unstamped letter in our box and she will put the change in the box for us.

    ReplyDelete
  12. That's how my grandparents' mailboxes were. Great picture!
    Too bad about today's mailbox vandals.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Enjoyed seeing the row of unique mail boxes that some of us will remember from our younger days. Hope your magnet comes soon and the mail person will be happy with the fix. We have to walk to the end of our street to collect our mail.....it's in a secure locked Canada Post box.....at least until now it's been secure.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Ahhh...good memories of harnessing our old cat Mac and trotting to the end of our cul de sac to get our mail from the mail box. Mac loved the walk and our neighbors though at harnessed cat was funny.

    Our current box is attached to our house outside and unlocked. So far...so good.

    Sorry your country mailbox bliss is getting miffed!

    ReplyDelete
  15. We get our mail from a horrible central box at the side of the road. In winter the locks freeze and the box is rusty. Still....good things do arrive in that box!

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Well...I never. Go figure! We had a mailbox just like yours but yanked it out after the mail delivery ended at our driveway. Now...we just have to remember what it was like to walk the 30 seconds to get the mail.
    Hope you got great mail today.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I enjoy seeing photo's such as this. The whole free standing mailbox thing doesn't happen here in the UK and if it did, the mail would probably get taken by people other than the addressee :(

    ReplyDelete
  19. We've had to make some changes to our mailboxes over the years too. For one thing, we had to get a locking one, because some miserable miscreant was going around the neighbourhood stealing mail. The one we got from Lowe's has a drop down flap where we can put out-going letters, and then the mailman puts the in-coming stuff in the slot and when he closes the top door, the stuff drops into the box below. It works okay for most things. Packages are a problem of course. And it's a bit of a pain to walk out to the box to get the mail -- and then remember that you've got to have a key so that you get to make two trips! But since my sister-in-law in England can't put any out-going mail in her box but has to make a special trip to a collection box or a post office, even if she has the right amount os postage stamps on her letters, I still feel like our service is pretty good.

    ReplyDelete
  20. In NYC my mailbod was right outside my front door! Now I have to walk to the corner and use a key to open up one of 14 house boxes for our street. If I ahd your address Judy i'd send you some good mail from time to time :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Leave it to you my friend, to direct my thoughts to mail boxes and mail delivery. And, like you do, you do it with interest and insights. The picture of the old mailboxes by the road, is a keeper. I don't see that very often. Who would have thought, one would be waiting for magnets to correct a mailbox problem, one did not even know existed? I can't wait to hear what you received in the mail.

    ReplyDelete
  22. We've had our rural mailbox vandalized a few times now. I'm looking at alternatives, but they are expensive for the heavy duty (thick steel)units.

    Best of luck.

    ReplyDelete

'The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.'
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson