New Steel Roof

Our house house is not quite four years old and we've had a problem with our shingles the whole time.  Bill was having to get up on the roof and glue shingles down every time the wind blew.  He ended up taking pictures and sending in a claim and we got money back toward a new roof.  We decided to do steel shingles this time.  They shouldn't blow off!  These guys got started on Fri. and so far this week have worked in some nasty conditions:  ice on the roof, strong wind and a little snow.  They have most of the east side done already.

 

Stump Removal

Bill & Tim are working on getting rid of the big tree stumps today in the 98 degree heat.  (you can see that our grass is turning brown)  Here are lots of pictures that tell the story.  Bill is in the borrowed payloader and Tim is in the Bobcat.  They're loading them up and taking them back to a hole that Bill dug where he'll burn them eventually.  It's looking good! 

We watered the new trees last night.  It takes 900 gallons which we get in town for $3.00!   They really needed it.    

Road Trip for Trees

Karen, here is the answer to your question - we have a large pile to burn!

Next picture shows our house with no trees to the north side - very bare!!

Yesterday we borrowed the pickup and trailer in the third picture and went to Kelly Tree Farm in Clarence, Iowa - about 4 hours away. It was a nice spring day for a road trip with leaves just starting to come out on the trees as we got a little farther south.

We're going to have two rows of austree willows which are very fast growing on the north side of the new grove, one row of techny arborvitae, two rows of Norway spruce and one row of white spruce for now. Once the stumps are gone that are on the house side, we may put another row of white spruce or something else "pretty".

We also got two pink flowering crabapple trees and two red buds which we planted in the yard tonight.

In one of the pictures, you can see some pink flowering trees at the tree farm. They're peach trees! The last tree picture shows some austrees that are only about 5 years old. We're supposed to plant ours and then cut them off waist high. We have our work cut out for us the next few days!

We asked Kevin at the tree farm where a good place to have lunch would be, and he said they really like their little Mill Creek Cafe in town. It was cute and they had a choice yesterday of vegetable soup, breaded tenderloin or a poppy seed chicken casserole with sides of roasted potatoes and grape salad (yum - the kind with cream cheese & brown sugar) and a little piece of a good quick bread. Bill had the tenderloin and really liked it and their potato chips. They had 4 homemade desserts. We split a banana dessert. We were glad we found out about the cafe rather than eating at a chain restaurant that you can go to anywhere.

Yard is Done - Let it Rain!

Bill is sitting in his chair relieved tonight. The yard is finally done!! He's been working hard again this weekend with various borrowed pieces of equipment.

In the first picture, he's using Farmer Mike's little blue tractor and tiller to break up the clumps some more.





Here he's using a seeder of Mike's. Mike usually uses it for planting alfalfa. It's made for planting larger seed so wasn't working too well so Bill went and borrowed a different one from Mike! (no picture) The 2nd one required also dragging after seeding. As we started to hear thunder and Bill was still planting, he had me go get the lawn mower (at Peggy's) and he hooked the chain link drag up behind the mower and I did that (no picture). It sprinkled and there was lightning to the East, but we got done - just as it got dark. Now the rain has missed us and no chance again until Fri.!













I'm still getting everything ready to go for my Indiana stamp class and downline meeting. I did get this rag quilt purse finished so that I can show a finished fabric project using the Big Shot.

Be sure to check out the Holiday Mini catalog - just out Sept. 1! (right column - click on the picture to see all of the new products in it).

No Phone Line

We think Bill accidentally cut our phone line when getting our yard ready for grass seed on Fri. night. So no Internet! The phone co. is coming out sometime today, and we're hoping for a temporary line they can lay on top of the ground.

Yard Work

Bill has sprayed Roundup on our yard to kill all of the weeds plus the rye grass he planted after we built the house so we'd have something green while the old house area settled and until we got the landscaping done. A couple of days ago he borrowed this little tractor & tiller. From the video below, you can see that it's slow going but he got the back yard done. He's waiting until the front yard dies a little more. Now that the landscaping basics are done, we'll be excited to have grass! And we hope the yard won't be as bumpy for mowing.

I did a little painting job that needed to be done in the garage and started another one (pictures later). We're trying to get these projects done before the beans are ready to be combined!

I went to our Farmers' Market. Always glad to get some of "Beth's bread" (whole wheat), green beans and tomatoes. No peaches today.

Summer Landscaping Project

Bill has finished the deck and patio, edging and put in the river rock. It's looking good! Now he's trying to get the yard sprayed between days that are too breezy. He's killing the grass & weeds we have and getting ready to add some dirt, level it and plant grass seed around Labor Day which is supposed to be the best time here.

The special sand that goes in between the patio blocks stuck to everything including in the grooves of the patio block. So I still need to use a wire brush to finish getting that out.
























We think we'll wait and see how the knock out roses do with the wind this winter. If they still look good next spring, I may add one plus a hosta or two in the area by the patio that's now just river rock (1st picture).

I have a few of Grandma R.'s irises left to move to the area by the screened porch plus a daisy plant and another Black Eyed Susan. They will get big but that's ok there. I want to eventually have several flowers that I can cut for bouquets. I also have 3 coneflowers and about 6 clumps of daylilies (some Stella de Oro and 2 burgundy ones) plus some creeping phlox. Not shown, but behind the porch I have some chives. Next summer I'll add parsley and maybe another herb or two - and rhubarb. Bill has done the hard work. Now I can slowly add to it.

Garage Floor - day 2

This is Steve, the owner of Floor It, Inc. The floor is finished and drying now. Looks really nice but the true test will be when it's wet. He ground it down so that it should slope right for water to run to the drains rather than the wall.










Close up of the speckles. They have a clear coat over them so it won't be hard to sweep or clean. Bill tells me that he added something to the last coat too that is supposed to help it to not be slick for walking on it when it's wet.

Garage Floor

Bill and I were on our way home tonight, but the road was blocked by a train that was stopped. Then all of a sudden Bill saw a vehicle in the ditch on the other side of the train so we thought the worst, that the vehicle had hit the train. So we stopped and Bill went between the train cars to check, but it turns out the guy in the SUV had tried to turn around rather than wait on the train, and accidentally backed into the ditch! He was ok and soon friends showed up to pull him out.

Our garage floor is being worked on by this company, Floor It, due to problems with water going toward and under the wall instead of into the drains. He'll be working here for a couple more days.




It seems nice to have an empty garage! Some things now have a permanent home in the basement like the freezer, refrigerator and a set of shelves. Some things are temporarily in the old garage.

Black Raspberries!

We've had a busy summer so far and this past few days I've been busy getting ready for a power stamping weekend. So I haven't taken any more pictures of the finished landscaping, deck & patio. I'll try to do that before I leave. It really looks so nice to have color and something besides dirt around the house. The deck is going to be so handy to walk right out from the screened porch to grill.

The last big thing to be done for the house is the grass/lawn. Bill is already planning to kill off all of the rye grass he planted last year for temporary green - and the weeds. Then he'll add some dirt where the old house site has settled and a couple other places before planting grass seed around Labor Day. Then we'll hope for rain at the right times!

When Mom was here, Peggy told us she had lots of black raspberries at her house and that we could pick as many as we wanted since she would be gone a few days. They were really nice ones. We were lucky to pick a bunch before the birds found them. Looking forward to them again next summer!

Filling in the Cracks

Beth, who is our Farmers' Market organizer and also a P.E.O. member, saw Indiana cantelopes in an area grocery. She was so nice and bought one for me and brought it over today! She knows that I've talked about the southern Indiana ones being so good! This one is - yum!


Today Bill put the black plastic edging around the patio blocks to hold them in place and in these pictures is filling in the cracks with weed resistant sand. It has to be broomed in, watered down and more put in a couple more times.

Friend, Randy, is in town from Las Vegas this week and sent us a text today to come over for cocktails and appetizers "on the porch" tonight. His parents live in a farm house that originally had a porch on 2 sides but it was taken off at some point. They've recently put one back on and it looks really nice - like it's always been there.

I made a green pepper/onion/pecans/cream cheese dip that you serve in a green pepper to take.

Bryan cut our grass for us again today! Next is Peggy's yard. We're going to miss him! He leaves Fri. evening.