Water Logged!

As a friend of mine recently said…”If it doesn’t quit raining soon I’m going to rust!”

We had a semi dry week while Hayden was here but, after that rain. rain. rain. I was able to pop in the garden to weed a bit in the early mornings while he was here but never caught up.  Then the heavy rains started and things are out of control.  Plants are growing willy nilly and weeds are into full on party mode. I was out over the weekend in ankle deep mud trying to gain some since of control….Since its near 90 today and 70% humidity at 11 am I’m leaving it be for the day!

We had a minor emergency here over the 4th.

  My coffee pot died.

  Yes, you read that correctly.

In my house a broken coffee pot constitutes an emergency.

The on off switch broke.

If you jiggled it just right it would come on and stay on.  Mr. Fix-It (bless his heart) fixed it…..I think he was worried about life as we know it without coffee.  Rather his life with me when I don’t have morning coffee.  A $5.00 switch replaced and we were good to go for another few years.  A simple part to do the repair…made me wonder how many would have simply tossed the pot and bought another. 

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Erika and I spent part of last weekend working on a few updates at her house.  We pulled her shutters, power washed them and the house. We painted and rehung the shutters…  Oh my gosh the difference it made..to get the full effect, this is last summer & the condition of the house when we bought it a few months ago

This photo was taken this morning.

We’ve all kinds of plants waiting to put in the front flowerbeds. It’s been to wet to get in there to do it.  They would have really benefited from all this rain but we wanted to get the shutters finished first. The sun is out so I might get some in today…we’ll see.

Sunshine means laundry to hang so, I better take advantage of it while I’m able.

Hoping for a dry day

Katie

Technorati Tags: Katiedids,garden,little house,updates

Pesky Wabbits!

Loved my maters!

Yes loved, past tense.

They had shot up over a foot tall and were leafing out really well, nice thick tasty stalks *Sigh*  A dozen roma’s, 3 Amish heritage & 2 chocolate cherry.  More than they could say no to I guess because they ate them all down to little nubs  I’d considered letting that small garden section rest this year but planted them anyway.  You could say they changed my mind for me LOL!  The past few years my tomato’s have been wonderful & undisturbed by 4 legged pests.  My BIL happens to raise domestic rabbits & I was lucky enough to be the recipient of the poop & bedding.  Mulched straight into the garden it was the best wild rabbit deterrent I’d found.  This past fall he bought a house about 30 miles away & cut the amount of rabbits they have drastically.  so NO POOP FOR ME (very often)

I thought I’d just let the tomato’s go this year, there are plenty still put up from last year…then my oldest daughter Danielle brought me a dozen more heritage plants! What a sweet heart she is but, now I need to figure out where to put them. 

I still can’t pull my bow so yesterday, I took a couple of bales of straw I’d used as backer for target practice and mulched them in the tomato garden.  No sense letting them rot when I could put them to good use. Trying to get ahead & help smother the weeds and wire grass that would attempt a take over, I was spreading the straw my legs and arms started itching bad..well, I wasn’t looking at what was in my hands I was looking where I needed to spread more.  Turns out there was an ant hill started in that straw!  My arms and legs were covered with ants!  I brushed off as many as I could and finished spreading pretty darn quick.  Thankfully Mr. Fix-It had the hose on & I got them rinsed off ricky tic!. that cold water felt so good. Those suckers bite!  I have more than a few polka dot legs and arms this morning.

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Last night we used big red and dropped 4 bucket loads of dirt in the front of the little house.  Some It he dug near the creek.  Its nice and rich soil full of worms but some has bits of clay. Believe it or not this has been tilled ..more to break up the wet chunks so we could move it around some. I’ve nowhere near the compost needed so I’m going to price loads from earth first tomorrow

We left it to dry out for a few days and our 90 degree temps today sure gave it a good start.

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Mr. Fix-It ended up needing another MRI on his arm & had it done today.  It started to improve and then went down hill again.  Basically he’s at the point he can’t use it at all. Dr’s are pretty sure something was missed in the last MRI.  Either it didn’t show or, was not properly read….either way, something is really wrong.  I (with my limited medical knowledge you could fit in a tea cup)  think there is/was a small tear and as the strained muscles healed and he started building strength caused the muscle to tear more & create the *take you to your knees* pain.  It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s not that we want there to be a tear but it’s the only thing left other than nerve damage.

We get the results tomorrow so your positive thoughts and prayers would be appreciated.

Hope you had a wonderful day

Katie

Technorati Tags: Katidids,gardening on the cheap,gardening,garden pests,healing

 

 

What a difference a chain saw makes

to the look of a house.  We were at taking a break from the inside clean up, we’d sent Erika on an errand with one of her Aunts (kind of a forced break) the guys were waiting to go pick up furniture which, due to the pending divorce wouldn’t happen.  Here we had all this wonderful willing help with nothing for them to do.  We were standing outside discussing the change in plans,  & I looked back at the house with those horrible overgrown bushes……

..and said “Hey Mikey, want to play with the chain saw?”

I hadn’t planned to work on the outside till she was moved in and the inside was finished but we had willing help….

This is a photo of the house last summer

and by the time she returned 2 hours later

Looks pretty barren but that won’t last long

The bushes were gone, the debris cleaned up and the guys had even scrubbed the green mold off the siding.

It was like day and night inside the house!

The base of the bushes were about 8 inches across, out in a field they would be fine.  next to a house WAY to big.   Now we have a nice clean slate to start with. 

Gutters will be going up right away. The house has a short roof line so rain water falls against the foundation…allowing water to seep into the basement.  We knew this was a problem when we made the purchase so no surprises there.  We also found 8-10 inches of soil has been eroded over time and let the front porch steps sink toward the house.  Repairs will need to be made right away on those which will stop some of the moisture. It won’t all happen overnight but at least we know what were up against. 

The shutters need painted but we cant decide on the color.  We want to coordinate with our house (which is tan and green shutters) but not use the same color.  We’re leaning toward a barn red?

Have a wonderful day

Katie

Technorati Tags: Katidids,Little House,changes

We Got the KEYS!!!!!

And inherited a mess!  The prior owners were 2 days late moving out (we closed Thursday morning)… sent her daughter to drop the keys off and took off.. We quickly sent Erika a text with a photo of the keys…. she was there before we had the door unlocked  Since she currently lives 1.5 miles away and the little house is less than 200 feet from our back door…that was quick!

When we unlocked the door, we quickly realized why they left so fast…the place was a MESS!

We cleaned cat hair 2 inches thick out of one room & the smell was as bad as you are imagining  GROSS! Curtains we thought were gold-ish beige were actually white…at the top. the rest was covered with cat hair.  We were worried there was urine in the floors  and they would need to be replaced but, cleaned and emptied it was fine

We’d agreed to purchase some furniture which was left but so was e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. else they couldn’t take in 6 carloads.  Yes, 6 carloads of personal items is all they took. The prior owner had made arrangements to have help moving with a truck but, upon confirming her help was still good to go…. the folks all backed out.  Seems she neglected to tell them she was moving to Tennessee !!SERIOUSLY..she was upset they backed out!

Goodwill was our friend today.  We didn’t even free-cycle this time. Years of “stuff”.  It all just needed to be gone fast.

6pm Saturday we got the keys & worked till 9-10 pm and all day today with the help of some awesome family Mike and Jessie and Mr. Fix-It’s cousin Mike.  They worked their rear ends off and we really appreciated the help.

.  We need to wash the windows again but it’s clean & Erika can start moving in now.  The bathroom needs a bit of work so that will hold up them actually living here for a few days yet. With the delay in getting the keys it shot having the repairs finished over the weekend.

All things left behind

Standing in the dining room looking into the living room

I seriously doubt the windows have been opened for 10 years or more.  We’ve never seen them open...  The blinds? NEVER!  The first thing I did was open them all over the entire house.  The windows have been washed no less than 3 times and I’m not sure they are clean yet.  They looked as if they had a tinted film (UGH).

It’s a sweet little house with an open floor plan on the entire front of the house & It’s now warm, clean and inviting!

2 huge bedrooms and a bathroom take up the back of the house.  We will be adding an addition of a 3rd bedroom (this summer) on the end of the living-room area.  The door way to it, will be on the end wall (closest to the inside wall) and unfortunately,  she will loose that window. 

Tomorrow we’ll start moving her things in and finding homes for everything.  Since most of her household was ruined when the city sewer backed up it will be a pretty easy move.  Other than a truck for a few bits of furniture, most we can move in her van or my Santa Fe.  On the positive side they can start out pretty  much clutter free!

Oh, and the bushes got trimmed hehehehe, have to show you photos of those tomorrow.  It’s 1 am & I’m crawling off to bed

Hope your weekend was as good as ours!

Katie

Technorati Tags: Katidids,Little House,Property,family,cleaning out