outside..

Even with the nasty temps lately, we have been doing outside work.  We hate outside work..oh, wait...have I said that before? Yea..we hate it..  But it must be done..

So here are the before... what you cannot see are the new gutter guards that went up on Friday...

Front Yard before, although you can see supplies there..

These plantings were at the house when we purchased it, but not tended to in a long time...

This holly (ivy?) is by the back deck...

looking down the steps on the deck

Back deck steps..

And here are the afters...  after sweating and raking and lugging and sweating and carrying and well, you get the idea...  WE WORKED!!!!

Three planters across the front of the house

Ten years of leaves were raked away from these plants, more than one dead plant removed and mulch added.

Nothing will grow here...nothing...it gets no sun..and the cats would tear up any plantings while new...   We thought about mulch,  but we figured the cats would just scatter it everywhere..so Rich carried 28 bags of white granite chips down the side of the house and i ripped them open and dumped them... It may not be the best landscaping but it looks clean...go back and take a good look at the before photo again.. See all the leaves he raked away...we didn't even realize that the concrete step went all the way over to the house...

Somehow i missed getting a photo of the clipped holly (ivy?), so look at that before photo and imagine it all clipped nice and round with black mulch underneath...believe me it's pretty..

 Rich mowed the pasture...twice...with a riding mower...

 but that was after he tore down a section of fencing, weeded and cut..

This is us in the truck driving out of the pasture...

And so we proceed....

This is our parking situation at the moment.. At the most we have three cars and a truck parked in various places..the problem is that propane tank.  It's in the worse possible position...many a times we almost hit it backing up in the snow and ice...

see how close it is??

The propane man came today and trenched across the driveway (and might have cut the phone line, uh oh!!)    Tomorrow he will return and move that propane tank across to the other side of the driveway....behind a stand of trees...and out of our way...

And more workers are coming tomorrow to do a HUGE job...  photos to come...

Nancy

outside...

As the weather warms up here in the Midwest, I am being forced to work we are doing more outside work...  This past weekend I was gone Saturday from 8am and didn't return home until after 5pm...

"Someone" decided to do some planning and working on his own... I was surprised to come home to this..

Adding a step (or two) will help...

Sunday morning, I was asked nicely if I could help with some outside work, I was told to drink my tea, eat my breakfast and come on outside... ugh...

Remember, we started with this...

A partial walkway...
leaves everywhere...
no grass...

Oh wait!!  Did you notice the fence?  It's new!!   Since that happened a couple of weekends ago, lets start there...

Isn't it nice...  We needed to add the fence in order to be able to get dirt to stay IN the yard and not wash down the hill...

and then Rich and Ryan shoveled  dirt into the front yard.. This was 11 scoops of dirt dropped into our Chevy truck...

more dirt...

So now we have a fence and dirt... Remember that before photo?

Leaves, no grass, and more leaves... I don't know when the previous owners raked, but it wasn't anytime in the last 10 years...These leaves were matted down...into a leaf carpet...ugh...

I raked these....

Some came from the side of the garage...

Some from around the steps..

And now after working all day yesterday, in the rain, we have two stone walls...filled with dirt... two new steps...grass seed and straw...  and a pad of concrete pavers for the trash can..

Now we need to research plantings for those areas...We know absolutely nothing about plants..we need something that will grow in partial afternoon sun and that won't die easily...Hostas maybe? We did manage to save the Clematis on the right..I'm not a big fan of the lattice structure, but it's woven so tight on it I don't know if we can change it... We are open to any ideas on plantings.. Grapes are going in on the right..and the cat door is going to be closed up..I'm pretty sure that's where all the kittens are being produced...lol

Grass is already starting to grow in front of the house and hopefully with all the rain we got in the last two days the grass under all that straw will germinate and start growing...

And now we move to the back...

We've had more visitors show up...

FREE KITTENS... They are approximately4 weeks old now.  They were born under the steps below our bedroom window and I have seen 3 so far...this one has the bluest eyes... They should be ready to be adopted soon!!

And the same three deer show up every day unless it's raining or windy...  They are very comfortable and don't mind us being on the deck snapping photos..

Now I need to go and make a birthday cake and get the house ready for company...It's my grandson's birthday tomorrow and we are hosting tonight with BBQ pork steaks, baked potatoes, fried corn and pineapple Birthday cake...

Nancy

the small things...

It's getting close ...  A week from today our doorbell will ring and the packers will be here to move us.  I have spent the last two weeks cleaning out drawers and closets, donating stuff we don't want to take with us, and today I cleaned out both freezers.  I have called two electric companies, two telephone companies, two water companies and changed email addresses on Flickr and Facebook.  I have attempted to contact our trash company here and have attempted to figure out who our trash company is at the new house.  I got my hair cut for the last time here this morning...and need to find a new hairdresser in the new town. (I think I have a lead)   We have decided to purchase a flat screen tv before moving and have called a local crisis center and donated our current tv to them...along with the stand, a vcr and various kids tapes...  (luckily for us they agreed to pick it up next Tuesday so we aren't without news!) 

Part of the sewing room... table from breakfast room here will become the table for my sewing buddies (they better come!)  The little wood tv tray will become their personal ironing surface..nothing is too good for my sewing buddies...

This is some of my sewing stuff waiting to be put away... I'm hoping to persuade pay a grandkid to come help me...

I painted this dresser this past weekend.  It used to hold all my paperback books (that were given away) and will now hold my tv in the sewing room.

register cover added to sewing room floor

another register cover added to sewing room floor

register cover added to kitchen

After realizing that the magnetic paint didn't hold a magnet, I added another coat of the paint.  If it doesn't work this time it will become an epic fail and I will paint blue over it...which will mean another three coats of blue to paint over the black...sigh...

Meanwhile, Rich worked outside on Saturday...and I helped him finish up on Sunday...

no more wooden walkway up next to the house

no more wooden walkway from the house to the garage

some of the wooden walkway removed from the hillside.

We used a sawzall, a crowbar and a truck with a chain to remove all this wooden walkway.  We also removed a lot of miscellaneous bricks, rocks and pieces of wood that were strewn all over the yard.

We now have four piles, one pile of bricks, one pile of wooden walkway, one pile of rocks and one pile of railroad ties...  We have a friend that is taking all the wooden walkway this weekend.

This weekend we have more small things to do...

Hang curtains in son's room..
clean all windows, floors, kitchen and both bathrooms...
add electric box in basement for freezer (we I decided to locate the freezer in the basement instead of the back hallway)
help deliver all that wooden walkway..
clean out freezer so I can move the leftovers from here to there...


Nancy

Behold....

the beauty of concrete...

I spread a sealer so it will clean nicely...

I can't wait to cover all that gravel with dirt....and get some solar lights...

and now you don't have to walk underneath the eaves of the house to get to the front door.  I hated that..

her graceful curve...

her long stretch to the driveway...

The day the contractor came to do the shop pad we talked to him about doing a sidewalk. He gave us a price and we said "Yes"...  I kind of walked him up and told him with arms sweeping "I want it to come from the porch and around a corner and to the left of the plantings and then end here" which we marked with two pieces of re-bar from his truck.  I am ecstatic.. I love my sidewalk.. I love a small  town where you just tell someone what you want and they do it. And they do it right.  We didn't give him any money upfront and there was no bill hanging on the door.  We know that he will either send us a bill or stop by and get paid.  And he knows we will pay..

because we have a garage that needs a pad.

Nancy