Lazy Sunday

Sunny, beautiful fall day.  Random pics…

Another Monday at home

I took every Monday off in October this month as vacation time.  I could really get used to this.

I prefer Mondays to Fridays because it seems like no one works Fridays anymore and shopping areas and restaurants, etc, are all just as crowded on Friday as the weekend.  I hate crowds, so I take Mondays off instead.

It’s a great plan.  The weekends seem twice as long and the weeks go by fast; perfect arrangement.

While I get tons of vacation time and I’d never complain about it, I wish I had more so I could have every Monday of the year off.  Paid of course. 

Happy Monday everyone!

Favorite gift

So I had a really nice birthday spent with family and friends at our house.  The weather cooperated and although it wasn’t exactly warm and sunny, it was dry and crisp which works too.

I wasn’t expecting gifts since we don’t really do family gifts anymore, but of course I got a few things from a few people anyway.  I want to show you my favorite gift, which came from my 7 year old niece, Emily. Please click on it for the larger, full effect photo.

This is a card showing all the fun things I can do, being forty. This also includes all of the fun things we have around our house.  Please take special note of the details on this poster.  Ah, to be 7 again.  We have turkeys and rabbits and turtles and frogs and fish…. and tigers and armadillos and toucans and water buffalo.  I can fish in our pond from out boat, for big bass…. and octopus.  I can’t wait to catch me a big squid this fall!  I love this poster more than anything.  I love thinking of all the time she spent with her dad, picking out all the *just right* pictures, cutting them out and pasting them in place, taking special care to be sure they’re all spaced properly and are grouped just right to tell the story.  I love, love, love this gift and I love her for making it for me.  Someday when she’s much older I’m going to pull this card back out and let her know just how much it meant to me.  Then she’ll be embarrassed and I’ll laugh.  Thank you Emily for the wonderful birthday gift, and thanks to the rest of you too for spending my birthday with me.

Last day

Today is officially the last day I’ll be able to say I’m in my 30s.  No biggie really, or turning 40 hasn’t really sunk in yet, I’m not sure which.

Yesterday was an awesome day.  I got my new tenant settled with a signed lease, security deposit and first month’s rent!!  I’m very excited about this one and hope she turns out to be as good as I think she will.  And if she is, I hope she stays forever!  After meeting with her, I drove home to a clean house, not cleaned by me!  The cleaning lady did a great job and all for sixty bucks.  I feel like a thief.  Now I just have to try and not destroy the place (you listening dogs?) before the party tomorrow.

Family and maybe a few friends over for a cookout tomorrow.  With all the rain we’ve had I’m crossing every part of my body for a non-rainy day.  I’ll even take clouds as long as it’s not raining.  While I’d prefer a crisp, bright, sunny fall day, at this point a non-downpour would be great.

Guy worked on getting the area under our deck stairs enclosed last weekend and I’ve been meaning to post pictures but it’s been rainy most every day, and when it hasn’t been, I’ve been home late and it’s getting too dark to take pictures. I’ll try to get some posted soon.  He did a great job and we now have a very useful area for storing trash cans and empty pots and other random outdoorsy type stuff.  And another project off the list!

Better day

Ok, that’s really weird.  I had a long post about what’s been going on the past couple of days.  I published it.  I never verified it, but this morning it showed up as one single word “yes”.  Ummm…. what the hell happened?

I don’t feel like rewriting everything I wrote last night so I guess it’s all going to have to go unsaid.  No great loss I guess.  Now I’d just like to know what happened to it.

It’s officially over

Summer, that is.   While I’d say it’s hard to believe, it’s not really.  Time has been flying by so fast this year (and in recent years) that it’s really not a huge surprise to me that we’re looking at fall already.  I love fall, especially at the new house.  We’ve already seen several trees lose their leaves and many more turning color already.  This seems very early to me.  Doesn’t that normally happen in October?  It’s only September and I’m afraid by October the trees are going to be bare!  It’s been an incredibly beautiful year this year and I hope that trend continues into the fall and winter.  My only complaint is that the lack of true summer heat really did a number on my garden.  I had a severely lackluster tomato crop and that’s my favorite part!  My cool weather vegetables loved it though so I guess it’s a trade off.

So Guy and I are trying to get ready for winter.  Stocking wood, deciding what projects need to get done and in what order.  As usual, lots of projects will wait until next year because we just didn’t get to them this year.  Hard to find time  for projects when time flies by so fast!

Dolly is pretty much back to her old self, although she does limp a bit, especially after a full day of running around like the maniac she is.  Hopefully we can go a few month without any pet health issues since we’ve had a real run of bad luck in that area this year.  They’ve been to the vet more this year than Guy or I has been to a doctor in the last 10 years!

Happy fall everyone.

Getting wood ….

As Sue mentioned a couple posts back, Fall (and Winter) are approaching quickly now.  Although I cut up and stored about two cords of wood this Spring from trees we cleared from around the house last Fall,  I never really had the time last Fall to cut any trees specifically for firewood for this year.   Since it takes about a year for wood to season properly after it’s been cut, there was no way I was going to have a good supply ready for this Winter without buying some.   So,  I bought four cords, and added them to the two we already had.  Now, we should be good for a while…..

I’ll probably buy another cord or two in December just to be sure we don’t run short if we have a bad Winter.  It’s hard to believe that it’s Fall already, but we knew the Summer was going to fly by with Dolly’s leg being broken.  We just kept hoping the weeks would pass quickly and she’d get healed up and back to normal as soon as possible, but sadly, it made for what seemed like a VERY short Summer.  Luckily, I think she’s pretty well healed now.  She’s still favoring it, but she’s putting weight on it, and as long as she has the sense to be careful with it until it quits hurting, she should be out of the splint this week some time.  She keeps losing the splint, or getting it soaking wet, so it can’t come off soon enough to suit either of us.  Here she is after one of her most recent “splint-losing” expeditions …..

Meanwhile, I’ll be busy getting us ready for the cold weather which will be here before we know it.  I finally have a line on a good wood boiler at a price that may suit us.  The company that makes it just went out of business, which would normally be something of a big red flag, but from what I can tell, they make a good boiler, and the reasons for their demise aren’t really related to quality.  I think it was mainly price.  These things were priced in the $8-10,000 range, and I think the price tag was just a bit high for most applications.  I’m hoping we can get one for around $4000 now that they are trying to dispose of their stock.  Anyway, I’m going to go see one Tuesday, and assuming it’s what I think it is, and I can negotiate a good price, we may have our boiler.  We don’t have anywhere to install it right now, but that’s another project!

The manufacturer still has a web site up with information about this furnace.  I’m told that parts will be still available, but luckily, all the pumps and controls are standard items and can be purchased anywhere so I doubt that will be an issue.  The firebox and body of the furnace were originally warranted for 20 years, so I’m going to assume we won’t have any problems there either.  Anyway, for more info if you’re interested …..

CLICK HERE

When I can get one of these for a good price, or something similar, I plan to design a special room for it into our barn.  I’ll pipe the hot water underground to the house, and then take advantage of the waste heat it will radiate to keep the barn warm.   It should be an interesting project …..

Congratulations!

Congratulations to my sister, Kim, who just landed a great new job.  She’s taken a job as the Mount Gilead agent for the American National Insurance Company, complete with her own office and everything.  Good luck Kim!  We wish you the best of luck with your new endeavor …..

Hello?

Yeah, we’re still here, just haven’t had much noteworthy to post about lately.

August came and went, and it’s now September.  It’s been such a beautiful week… clear and cool in the mornings, sunny and amazing in the afternoons.  Let’s hope for more of the same for next week.  Seems early for the low 50s in the mornings but I love it so no complaints from me.

Hopefully this will be the last week of Dolly’s splint.  She’s doing really well and running on it like it was never there.  She still favors the leg when the splint is off but I think that’s to be expected after not being able to use it for eight weeks.  I’m sure it will take time for her to get back to normal.  She’s run away on us a couple times in the past few days so she’s obviously feeling better and making up for lost time.  She’s going to be a monster for a few months while she tries to run and see and sniff and roll in everything she’s missed for the whole summer.

We got several loads of firewood delivered this week.  Yes, we have tons of trees on our property but Guy hasn’t had the time or desire to spend all summer cutting wood and trying to get it stacked so we had to buy some.  Besides, wood cut this year probably wouldn’t be ready to burn this year anyway, so we really need to start cutting and stacking for next year unless we plan to buy wood again.  He’s got a line on a boiler for the radiant system, so if we could manage getting that in before winter, our wood usage might go down a little which would definitely help our situation.  Otherwise, buying it wasn’t so bad and if that’s what has to be done it won’t kill us.  Still cheaper than propane.

I’m personally looking forward to fall.  It’s my favorite time of year, although I can’t complain about this summer because it’s been just gorgeous.  But I’m still partial to fall.  I’m ready to clean the garden out, collect some seeds for next year, plant some mums, pull out the sweatshirts and watch some football.  Oh, and turn 40. Yeah, really looking forward to that too.  Ugh.  I think I’ll at least make myself a cake this year and drown my sorrows in icing, then start dieting the next day since I’ve totally blimped out.  Yep, love fall.

Truck

I should probably let Guy post this, but since I know he has a busy week ahead…

He finally got his new truck on Saturday.  The dealership still hasn’t been reimbursed, but finally caved in for some reason and let him take it.  We don’t know why, and don’t really care, he’s just glad to finally have gotten it.  It’s really nice!

And random shot of Dolly, who decided this looked like a good place to lay.  She’s doing really well, by the way.  Her splint is working out much better than the cast was, and as of yesterday she seemed to be walking on her leg quite a bit rather than holding it up and hopping.  We’re hoping that’s a good sign.