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

weekend update...

When last we you looked this what what the back of the house looked like..

and the right side...

This past weekend we experienced 90-92 degree heat...so what to do?  Go to the pool? no...  Sit in the AC and sew? no... Work outside in the heat?  SURE!!  Why not?

116 boards   $470.00
696 deck screws  $25.00

throw in 2 old people...and this is what you get...

left side....  That's the sun porch up there..

and right...  Sorry about the lawn mower..I had just finished cutting the front grass..and was waiting for the back to dry a bit more before cutting it...luckily I didn't have to do it.  I left to attend the String Concert for a grandson and Rich cut while I was gone...

and finished...almost...We Rich will be adding a sliding barn door in that big gaping hole and it will be painted to match the deck..but that's for next summer.  You have to let the treated wood dry out before you can paint it...yea for that...

I have decided that I just might be getting a bit old to work outside in the sun all day...

Nancy

More of the Great Outdoors...

Lets play BEFORE and AFTER...

We are focusing on the island of planting there in the middle of the photo.. This is before...

Now what's missing?

I hated that big post with the bug zapper on top...hated it...Like everything else when we moved in the bug zapper didn't actually work...it was just hanging there... I pulled it down and dragged it around the house and plunked it down onto the big pile we have of "trash for Rich, the trash man"...
I also pulled out a lot of dead plants... and while I was cutting grass Rich (not to confused with Trash Man Rich) started working in the back...  The back of the house is just plain ugly...  All of that area underneath the deck and sun porch needs to be enclosed.  Saturday he did some preliminary work and got four post holes dug, concrete poured into them and some post brackets set..  Today he got four posts in...

Three posts are already in...

before....really ugly and those satellite dishes don't help any..  Unfortunately we have to have TV and Internet... and with most of our land in trees, this is the only place to get a good "sky view"..

Stringers ready for next weekend...

Thought I would show you the planting on the left side...Hosta..

And more Hosta along with three Concord Grape plants..

On the inside I did a bit of DIY spray painting.. Our daughter was cleaning out her garage and she had that headboard..It was bronze which is not a color I happen to like, so I used Rustoleum Hammered in Silver...  This is the guest room..and still needs a dust ruffle and proper quilt..and a new lamp..and some artwork might be nice..

Closeup of the paint job..  I love how it turned out.. Not bad for the cost of two cans of spray paint..

 And I also did a little DIY on the refrigerator..  When it was delivered it had a big sticker on the front.  It was supposed to be stuck to the plastic coating, but it wasn't... I couldn't get that sticker off with anything...  Then my sister-in-law came out for Easter and noticed it... 

I used three items...

to get this off... it was worse, but I forgot to take a photo before I started...this is halfway through..

Add Miracle Whip (Mayo would work also) and let sit..

Nice and clean... 

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

a new visitor...

We had a visitor a couple of days ago... He came in unannounced, stayed a few minutes and promptly took off...  We were very excited to get a photo of him....

Rich was pretty sure that this is a Bobcat...  He sent a photo off to our local conservation agent and sure enough..

Yes, I do think it's a bobcat.  It appears to have the distinctive color 

pattern of a bobcat.  You would need to go out to the site and measure the 

salt block to compare measurements.  Bobcats are larger than domestic cats,\

 have proportionately longer legs, and a much shorter tail. 

 The total length of a bobcat ranges from

 22 1/2 inches to 50 inches and weight is 10-40 lbs.

 Males are somewhat larger than females.


Jeff XXXXXX
Wildlife Management Biologist
Missouri Department of Conservation
Prairie Fork Conservation Area

We also had three deer visit us yesterday...They walked in and laid down in the trees behind the pond and stayed for quite a while...  Three ducks landed on the pond....and there are carp coming to the surface to feed...

Spring is definitely here...

Nancy

new friends...

see that little deer peeking in from the right?

He was just checking things out before his friends got there...

overnight....

Nancy