Lazy Days of Summer

I have been lazy this summer, writing.  I have not had the motivation but today I have determined to force myself through this block and get back to this on a weekly basis.  There's no reason not to write.  Well one and I'm going to wean myself away from FaceBook.  When it is all said and done, I would be far to say "I wrote every day in my blog" and not "I wrote every day in Face Book.  I have tried to write some historical/genealogical in Face Book but it gets swallowed up and lost.  It soon is buried in the wasteland of Face Book and unretreivable.  So, I will make this my priority! 

Besides, the more I write, the more I remember.

Ten Years Worth

January 2000

 I have this one labeled January 2001

but this isn't looking like January in Missouri. 

Wow!  Spring!

I can hardly wait!
Emerald City ?

The good ol' days.

June 2003
I loved that boat. 

No, he's not fishing.

He's got a boat out there.

A remote boat!  2004

2005.

This is the one and only photo

I found for this year.

Was I in a coma?

I know I had a digital camera. 

This must have been the year of my discontent. 

Really, I have no idea. 

Fishing buddies.

2006

This was one of our favorite spots.

Mid summer.  2007

Icy Day

2008

My kind of day

Fall 2009

Grandkids and their interest in a

Dead muskrat in the water.

wa hoo!  yes!

Wintery Day

Early 2010

I think this was the only time we spent at Too

where the road was snowed over.

There will be more days like this.

Promise to
Himself.
Happy Father's Day.
Love, the other side : )

new projects, some started. some finished.

Seems like Himself and I are never just happy to sit.  Or to sit and fish.  Or to sit and ponder.  Wonder why we don't take up fishing?  or sailing?  or hiking?  But oh no no . . .  our hobby has to be, seems to be --  working! 

Okay, I can qualify my projects by calling it gardening.  Gardening is a hobby.  hmmm.  I think.  A hobby that involves a lot of hard work. 

We'll explore Himself's projects later and see what we figure out there . . .  

Project 1

At Too, we have an abundance of shade.  It is hard to find a "full sun" spot.  Our lawn is mostly "full shade" or "partial shade".  For a vegetable garden, a person would want full sun.  For a lot of flowers, a sane person would want full sun.  Since we have abundance of shade here at home in Creston, we have an abundance of plants that like "full shade" and "partial shade" and as our gardens fill up at home, we want to move some of our favorite plants to Too.  So, we have plants, we just need some soil to put them.  It is hard to find soil in this lawn.  We will find clay.  We will find rocks.  We will find a small pocket of dirt but soil?  never.  Unless Himself or I have put it there. 

At Too, we also need to eliminate some of our mowing time so my newest project was an attempt to accomplish those two things -- more soil!  more garden space and less mowing area. 

I got some landscaping timbers a while back.  For a month, I studied angles and ideas.  I finally came up with a plan and found the time but it took me the good part of Sunday to kick start it all.  After all of this, I have the first of four or five parts of a "shade to sun" garden started.  The good thing about that is I have some of the kinks worked out of the plan.  What to use, what tools are needed -- the how tos!  The rest of it will go quicker. 

Project 2

My prized possession, the Harley cart, has been out of commission for the last month.  The front tire blew.  As we were loading it up onto the trailer to haul it to our favorite tire guy, we found the back tire was flat too!  OMgosh.  So, off it went to Mercer to the tire doctor.  Harely cart boarded out almost two weeks and when we went to pick it up, Dr. Tire said "$30.00".  holy cow, he must not have charged us any labor!  He must have been honored to park it in front of his shop for 2 weeks.  who wouldn't be?  Anyway I tipped him a little extra but probably not enough. 

We hauled the cart home and wouldn't you know it, within minutes of rolling her off the trailer,  Himself diagnosed a leaky fuel filter.  So off to Napa at Lineville for a new  fuel filter and some new fuel line.  And here, in the photo above, is Himself making the repairs.  

The Harley is all new again!  well practically.  It is alive and tottering around the roads of Twin Lake again. 

 Project 3

We have steep banks at Too.   Plenty of them.  Himself, the mower that he is can whip them all out in 5 or 6 hand mower hours.  That's a lot of time that could be used for porch sitting so we are trying to find some plants and flowers that will take over some of the banks.  If the plants run rampant and are thick and lush, they will kill out the grass and weeds that Himself now has to mow off. 

So, in this corner  . . .

We have some Goose Neck started several years ago and doing well.  A month ago we planted 40 lilies.  This past weekend we planted 30 Iris and a few more day lilies. 

We have turned noxious flowers loose.  Put them out to pasture.  Gave them permission to run, to be prolific and take over! 

Project 4

The last project of the weekend was this big one.  After almost 40 years, this lineolum is coming up.  Well most of it did.  Part of it.  I hadn't been working on this too long before I discovered the edges and the seams were glued down!  And there ain't nothing going to take that adhesive up. 

It was easy enough, to start.  I grabbed an edge where it was curled up for years and pulled.  Then I hit the seams.  I ripped that flooring up to the piece in front of the door and came to a screeching halt.  OMgosh!  I never thought Gramps would glue vinyl flooring down!   a) guess he had to and b) he knew it wouldn't be him pulling that floor up! 

                                       Some day there's going to be a door

                                        Right where that kitchen window is! 

 

 But wait! It gets better! No, I mean worse -- I thought the Orange lineoleum was hard to get up but I hadn't seen anything yet! 

 

Himself, Sir.  Attention!  Where is the dynamite?  OMgosh!  there's no peeling that chemically inert and space age compositionally strong lineoleum off that kitchen subfloor.  We are just going to have to blow it up .  Or cover it up!  Yes!  Projects almost accomplished! 

 

Guess what?  I think I have Craig thinking about a tree house . . . 



Memorial Day weekend

Fishing tournaments

Freight hauling



Fun in the Sun

Food in the Shade



Fellowship

Full house crew

Fishing dock wars

Fender to Fender full

Finale swim

You kids get out of the water now! 

THE DRYWALL IS GOING UP-(no one fired)

After working on the cabin on weekends with just Herself and I, it was a pleasure to have a "work crew" this Memorial Day weekend of 2012. In the above picture are three "workers" and one "supervisor". Herself and I had done the hanging of the drywall in the upstairs and were not looking forward to doing the downstairs. Thank goodness, a family workday was declared and work started about 10:30 in the morning.  Present were Himself, Dana, Chad, Craig, and of course the "supervisor"

In the above picture Craig and Himself carrying drywall into the cabin for installation. Notice Himself is not quite as slim as the son.

Here the toughest piece of drywall goes up around the stair area. And, by golly, there is another "supervisor" checking our work.

We are just about finished at this point, only 2 sheets of drywall to go. So in approx 4 hours, we did 95% of the downstairs. The guys all worked hard and it sure looks good!!! I figured at Herself's and my speed, it would have taken the two of us several more weekends to have completed this phase.

                           Here "himself" trying to instruct the "rookie" where to put the screw

Too Weekend, full steam ahead!

Himself and I spent the weekend at Too.  It was a working weekend but we didn't work that long and we had visitors.  We may have worked hard tho!

Himself's plan was to get the rest of the insulation up so Saturday morning I bought three bales from Girdner's, our favorite, local lumber yard and hauled it all home in the Jeep -- along with our breakfast picked up at the local cafe.  

After eating, he and I set to work and as we were insulating the space between the upstairs floor and the downstairs ceiling, there was a lot of climbing up ladders, climbing down ladders and moving ladders.  We love our ladders but they are sturdily built.  They are heavy!   They are utilarian and handy.  Just plain, right down handy.  I should give one of these great ladders away in a raffle, a la Pioneer Woman, and my blog readership might soar to 40,000 comments on a "give-a-way" weekend.  lol

Anyway, we worked and we rested and we had a couple of welcome visitors.  Traci and Bella came along.  Gabby had a ballgame in Bondurant and Craig and Joey were there to cheer her on.  Traci was down to mow and weed eat and anything else she wanted to do.  That's the nice part of Mo for me.  Himself does what he wants.  I do what I want.  Sometimes we have to work together for the good of us all . . .  but this method works relatively well for us and I hope it works for Craig and Traci. 

Any Way!  This weekend, WE put up insulation.

This weekend, HE carried and sorted and puttered and put away and got rid of. 

This weekend, HE prepared for a dry walling sortee.

This weekend, WE put up insulation.

This weekend, I planted phlox, gourds, cosmos and painted wooden door brackets and rearranged my little cabin. 

This weekend I vacuumed and dusted and got rid of spider webs in preparation for visitors and the Memorial Day Weekend. 

It was a very good weekend . . . and we look forward to the next very good weekend!  You'all come down! 

The Drywall is going up!! and: YOU ARE FIRED!!!

Lanny:  The loft is finally taking shape. The first picture is before we drywalled. The rest of the pictures are during the drywall process. I had purchased a drywall lift. I didn't want to, but after seeing first hand how much trouble it was for us to lift and maneauver the drywall sheets, I decided it would be a good investment.

Nancy:  the drywall lift was a great investment.  We couldn't have handled those big sheets.  No way.  No how.  We would have injured ourselves.

Nancy:  The drywall going up has made the room smaller but it is a cute room.  It will make a great bunk room for the grandchildren and I hope to carve out a sewing/craft corner for me . . . for my retirement years. 

Nancy's view:

Himself and I were upstairs trying to drywall. We were on the ceiling, having to cut pieces and figure angles. He proposed a solution to our current situation and I disagreed. I said, no, let’s do it this way.

Suddenly, there was shimmering, the heavens dimmed and the earth shook -- and instead of Himself, there was Donald Trump standing tall, holding his arm out, pointing his finger at me yelling “You are fired!” “Get out!”

So I got out.

Craig and Traci were at the cabin that weekend and just happened to outside as I left the cabin. I said “I’ve been fired. Told to leave.” I said, “don’t worry, it has happened before and it will happen again.”

So I left “Donald” to cool down and went about my own business for a bit before going back, humbly apologizing to Himself (thank goodness, Donald had gone!) and promising from that day forward I would only do his bidding and not have any ideas of my own . . . And I did and I didn’t . . . for, oh well, for about 2 hours.

And that is the ebb and the flow of Himself and Nana working together!

Look at all those angles!  No wonder we bickered a little! 

At least I came back to help clean up.

In case you don't know, this is Himself's bedroom.  He sleeps here and has turned over the bed in the little cabin to me.  He is a room and half away (with space between the cabin's) and sleeps very well here -- he can't hear me snore.  I hate knowing that I snore like that, that loud, but anytime I mention going to a sleep clinic and checking into my snoring, it is like "oh now, you don't snore that bad".  Yeah, right . . .

I will be so glad when we get this done -- and the downstairs. 

It will be so nice when it is finished!

Spring 2012

Looking toward LakeView, Himself was happy to find that his two Japanese Maples made it through the winter.  I have to add that the 2011-12 winter was the most mild winter in our collective memories.

Our last visit down, we planted four young trees (including a buckeye!  I hope it grows and prospers!) and 40 lilies.  We are always looking for some plant that will take over the banks and crowd out the weeds so that the banks don't have to be mowed.  If the lilies don't work, we'll keep trying! 

In fact, this picture above was taken January 1, 2012!  Himself and I had younguns at the Lake for New Year Celebrations and this was New Year's Day.  We were in jackets as the day was so mild.

This is the first year that I got to see the Redbud in full bloom.  I love Redbuds.  We had two and one died but Himself found a small one coming up down by the big ditch.  I am excited and we will encourage its growth!

Something else to be excited about is Traci and Craig's new cabin!  We have shared a couple of weekends at the Lake and it is nice that Gabby and Joey can run down the hill to Nana and PaPa's -- or back up the hill to run home.  They seem to be enjoying their independence -- as did Jack and Maddie when they got to stay too.   I am looking forward to many days of fun and entertainment and family campfires and smores!  : ) 

Here's one little girl beating Nana down the hill!  You can't quite see our cabin from Craig and Traci's yard but step out on the road and it is right down the hill.  See the Bradford Pear Tree in full bloom? 

I was standing on the road looking through the trees, to find Himself on the rocking porch.  I couldn't see him through the camera without zooming way in.  I think we will have a nice private porch when the trees are leafed out.

Bob and Vi

Sitting in a tree

K    I    S    S    I    N    G

This is pretty cute!

Might have to find something

like this to sit by our bridge.

New Years Eve

This year we had party hats.

We had whistles.

We had snacks and fizzy drinks.

We had Snappers on the bridge

and shouted Happy New Year! to the stars

and each other.

We had a late night game

of tag and hide and go seek.

We will have a Happy New Year!

Next New Year's Eve, I'm going to have fire works and sparklers.

Put the date on your calendar. 

Be There! or be Square!