Trip to Boston

While mom, dad and I were waiting for Gary's surgery back in September, we spent a lot of time in the dining room, looking out at this view. It gave us something to do. We watched the boats and Duck Tours go by.

This was a beautiful sunset while we were eating dinner.

The Shed is Here

Here are pictures of the shed that was put up today. 

This is the little solar panel that runs the light inside the shed.

Underneath the door and under the window is the light. Hard to see it. Guess I should have put up a 

close-up of it.

And finally, a picture of Riley in one of his favorite places to sleep - the back of the couch. He blends in so well that some times we don't even see him up there.

This flock of turkeys has been hanging out around our house. The dogs get really excited when they realize they are out in the yard. They both try to look out the windows.

Here's the long overdue picture of the generator and the outlet for it at the left front corner of the front of the house.

Not sure what this is called. It allows the generator to run the lights, fridge, heat, etc. 

This shows it under the fuse box. I know, not real technical. You'll have to talk with Gary to explain it! I just know it works!

Finished Porch

Not much to say today. Just wanted to get the pictures up of the finished porch. Well, almost finished. We will need to do some touch up in a few areas but if that doesn't get done till next spring, at least we have the wood protected from the weather.

The fun part is, we're not supposed to walk on it for 48 hours. That means going in and out through the bulk head. Riley is no problem he just jumps in and out. Ginger can get out fine, she just doesn't like jumping back in onto the stairs. 

Here's the view looking out the front door. You can see where the shed will be in the background.

Now to go see if I can get any more of the stain off my hands!!!

End of Summer Updates

Lot of stuff going on so haven't had much time to post anything. Kara has gone back to Houghton to start her senior year. She will finish a semester early. Alex has started his senior year of High School and seems to be enjoying all his classes. Before Kara left for school, I made the kids sit for some pictures (all 4 kids). Here is a group picture and then we have the girls and then the boys.

There is a wind farm going up in Groton, which is just over the mountain from us. On the ridge above our house, they are putting in 5 windmills. This is the one that you can see from our yard. I sure we will see more of them when the leaves are gone. We watched them put this arm into place. The crane moved so slowly that it was hard to tell if it was moving at all. I think there is a total of 24 windmills in all in the whole project. 

Here is what the shed site looks like now. It is almost ready for the shed. I think the delivery date is October 22 or sometime near there.

Today Gary and I painted the railings and post of the porch. Gary was getting very frustrated having to paint left handed and I did a lot of the painting between the rails. We will need to put on 1 more coat. We have stain for the stairs and deck. It is called Boston Brick by Benjamin Moore. It really makes a big difference having the the railings and post painted white!! Hopefully we will have enough good weather to get this finished before winter hits.

More Site Work

Been meaning to put up some pictures of the work everyone has been doing to get the site ready for the shed. Here are some pictures of Kara and Alex doing some digging. I think the pick ax was Alex's favorite tool. He pried out many rocks with it. I did my share of digging too. You will just have to take my word on that since no one else takes pictures. I had blisters to prove it. In front you can see just part of the pile of rocks we dug up.

Here is what the area looks like now. The landscape timbers are here and we are just waiting for the gravel to be delivered so we can get the site leveled out and ready for the Reeds Ferry Shed people to come and set the shed up. They were supposed to deliver on 9/11 but Gary pushed it back to make sure we would have the site ready.

This picture was taken from the driveway.  This is where the door will be.

More Stuff We are Working On

My sewing area is finally done and we are moving stuff back into it. We moved this stuff yesterday before we went into work. Just waiting for Gary to get up this morning to finish moving things in and around then I can get to re-organizing. 

I'm making a little garden here. There used to be one of the old ugly pine trees here that we took down last summer. Guess I should say, Gary took down. There used to be a little garden here so it's a little easier to dig. There's a little rose bush that is growing here. At one point one of the home owners of the old farm house that used to be here had gardens and the rose bush was left over from that.  I didn't know if it would come back after Gary weed wacked it last spring. There are some buds on it. so maybe we'll be able to see what the flowers actually look like. I pulled out a bunch of those big orange lilies that are every where. We'll see how many start coming back. I put a humming bird feeder out there. I have seen a couple of humming birds this spring. I would like to plant flowers here that will attract humming birds and butterflies.

This Luna moth was on our door the other morning. It was a small one compared to some I've seen.

Here is what is left of the key tree. The key tree is where Habitat hung the key to the house so we and other workmen could get into the house during the week to work on it. It's taken a long time for the guy to come and start cutting it down. I hope he comes fairly soon to finish the job! that area is where Gary would like to put a shed so we have a place to put our snow blower, lawn mower and other stuff. 

Trees and flowers and things

Here are some new pictures of what we've been doing around the house. This weekend we planted 2 apple trees. Here's Gary with the help. Here's Alex with his cousin Alex (gets confusing sometimes!!!) and Alex's (our Alex) girlfriend, Tabitha. We planted a Macintosh tree and a Honey Crisp.

Here's the garden under the dining room window. The Azalea is blooming nicely. We added two types of hosta and a bleeding heart. Of course by the time we actually got the bleeding heart into the ground, it was done blooming. The plants in back of the azalea are waiting to be put into the ground in a different area. Just have to finish working the ground and getting it ready for plants. (which means digging up a LOT of rocks!!!!)

I've also been finding a lot of wild flowers around our house that we didn't see at Mom  and Dad's. Here is a Purple Trillium. It's also called Red Trillium or Wake-robin.

Here is a Jack-in-the-Pulpit. It was hard to get a good picture of it since it was hidden in the hosta. I'm really surprised that I actually found it in the first place. It was just a lucky accident. 

Here are a couple of different butterflies that are around. They really like these purple flowers that are all over our yard. I've looked up the name but can't remember it right now.

And here is a Columbine that I found the other day. There are some other flowers I've found but they are so small I can't really get a good picture of them. 

I've been using all the field guides I bought for classes in college. My wildflower guide, bird guide and butterfly guide. I'm having fun finding out what we have around our house. 

I put up a small raised bed garden. It's only about 4'x4'. I have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and I thought I'd try mini eggplant this year. I might try putting some lettuce in but I don't know if it will get too hot for it now. 

We still have a lot of work to do outside with the landscaping but I am starting to see what it can look like in a couple of years. It's hard because you want to do it all now but it is just not possible. We still have some projects that will take some time. Like the rock wall along the property line between our yard and the neighbors. We have a bumper crop of rocks so it will be no problem getting enough to make the wall. (and I'm sure we'll have a bumper crop again next year!!!) This will give us something interesting to plant flowers against and we will also be able to tell where our property line is when the wooden stakes Habitat used have disappeared.  

I'd better stop here and get off the computer and get some other stuff done today!

What We've Been Doing

It's been a while since I've posted. We've been busy around the house, especially this spring. Blogger has changed how they upload pictures so these aren't in the order I wanted them but I don't feel like trying to change them now. 

Here is the little garden underneath the dining room window. The azalea was given to us by some friends last year. We picked up the granite pavers a couple weeks ago to line the area. We found a local place where the pavers were a lot less than at Home Depot. Still need to finish putting them in. We picked up a couple of small hosta to put in here. Just waiting for some warmer days to put them in. It's been chillier lately.

We decided to put in a couple maple trees.  Gary dug a couple little ones up from a different part of our property. The bottom maple we put between the two pine stumps. We cut the pine trees down last summer. We didn't want a yard full of pine needles. The tree in the top picture is sort of in the middle of the yard between the house and the apple tree.  We'll see if they survive.

This is what my basement sewing room looks like now. Gary and Alex put up the frame work for the walls. We couldn't just attach sheet rock to the styrofoam insulation panels. Alex helped run the wires for the outlets and wired the outlets up. It will be nice not to have to run an extension cord from the washer and dryer area to run all my stuff.  Gary has been mudding the walls. Wish they would dry faster. Once Gary is done, I will be able to paint the walls. We have lots of green paint left from painting the upstairs so I will be using that. Alex also helped put up the light fixture.

Gary also planted three new blueberry bushes. Two of them look like they will make it. The third one I'm not sure if it will make it or not. I planted three little lilac shoots last fall. These were from a lilac at my parents house that Gary and Kara gave me for Mother's Day a while ago. Each shoot was only about 6 inches tall. I didn't know if they would survive the winter or not. I thought i might have moved them a little too late last fall. But they are doing good and getting lots of leaves. Hopefully they will start getting a little taller.

We have to keep reminding ourselves as we plant new stuff to remember that everything won't always be this small and not to plant too much stuff or it will all be too crowded later. We have a couple of people who are ready to give us lots of plants from their gardens. Last year we just weren't ready to plant a lot of stuff. We were busy getting rid of trees and trying to pick up all the rocks and stuff that were left over from construction.