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Started off this morning by reinstalling the flagpole.  It had blown down in one of our high winds.  I had to find a heavy-duty pole and one was in the grain room – I think it was part of our old antenna.  The installation was not my best work, but the flag is flying now and I am OK with the not-so-perfect job.      

I went through about five boxes from the office today and it was about half of what needed to be sorted out.  Why is it so hard to let go of things?  Honestly, it should be easy because I have not even seen most of the stuff in years.  I am delighted to say that I did throw away a multitude of stuff.  Some of it was needlessly packed and shipped from California – eight years ago.  What a colossal waste of time!  OK, I will step down from the soapbox – for now……     

I miss my kids and I miss my grandkids.  It will be so good to see them all one of these days.  I called my mom later this evening to chat with her and to catch up on family news and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.  I am still waiting for Gabbe (Mimi) and Robert to send some pictures of their new grandson.  It is all wonderful and new to them.  I do remember when Erica was born in 1969, then my first grandchild, Eric, in 1987.  He is 24 now.  When he was very young, he amazed me with his grasp of the English language, so it was not a surprise to me that he became a voracious reader – like his mom and his grandma.  My youngest daughter, Michelle, is the same way.  She is able to get lost in a good plot and only come up for air if someone yells fire. I know that I have missed going to sleep some nights because I did not care how difficult it was going to be to get up the next day, if I even got to bed.  The better the plot, the fewer hours of sleep I get until the end of the book.  I know some of you can relate to this preoccupied behavior.

Erica called to wish me Happy Mother’s Day and while on the phone with her, I was roaming around the house in the dark, trying to find a cool spot to settle on.  I opened the new window in the dining area to let a cool breeze in.  The aroma of fresh flowers was so superb that I took several long breaths to try to identify the flower and was unable to figure it out.  I walk the property every morning and most evenings and cannot remember anything in bloom except some of the blackberries.  Tomorrow when it is light, I will take a whiff of the blackberries and see if that was the aroma that I was enjoying.  There are some blossoms on the citrus in the greenhouse, but that is in the front – not the back yard. 

I went to check if anyone signed the guestbook on this site and found a wonderful note from my son Richard.  He lives in California with his wife Crystl and five children.  They each have another older child from before they were married, so that makes their family a family of seven children.  Anyway, I have never heard Richard express himself the way he did in the guestbook.  I don’t even know or care if the words were his own or from a Hallmark card, I am thankful for the thought and effort.  Thank you Richard and would you give a hug to all your family for me?  He and I are working on a plan to get his whole family here – hopefully this year.  Love you all.

I wrote about my attempt to grout the tiny glass tile that I put up in the kitchen.  We had Keith do the grout work and found out that the problem was not my hands that could not do the work, but the outdated grout - outdated by close to a year.  It took Keith a day and a half to grout the 30 square feet of glass tile that I installed earlier.  I had put the last four square feet of it into the new bathroom behind the sink.  We were running out of grout so I went into town to get some more that we could mix up ourselves.  Once Keith saw how well the grout mixed up, he knew that something was wrong with the pre-mixed grout we had before.  What a difference the new grout made!  It is finished and it is beautiful!  I am very pleased that I settled on that somewhat neutral tile (white, off-white, copper and tiny echoes of red).  Even in the event that I stray from my preferred color  – RED – the kitchen could easily be a backdrop for another color or combinations of colors. 

When I see things in the house, like furniture that is in the way or awkward looking in a room, my mind starts to work it out before I am even aware that something will change.  Sometimes the change happens that same day or it can fester for weeks before I act on the thoughts of fixing it or making it better.  Unfortunately, the fix is usually a lot of work.  That is what happened this morning in the old office.  We had already rearranged it so a queen-sized bed could fit in the room along with the desk, file cabinet, printer, six drawer dresser and bookshelves that were already there.  I have been going in the, now crowded, office to work at the desk but it is cramped and my chair backs into the bed and does not fit correctly in front of the computer.  When I am done in there, the chair has nowhere to go and has to be taken away from the desk to give enough room to walk to the dresser.  When it is away from the desk, it is in front of the closet doors.  The day we rearranged the office I measured the closet and the desk to see if it would fit – it would – except the top shelf on the credenza was higher than the clothes pole in the closet. 

My good friend Phyllis just sent an email to me and she is so encouraging- all the way to her core.  This blog is for her because she loves to hear about what goes on here, no matter how boring it may sound to me.  Love you Lady.

I looked out the back sliding door one morning and saw the eleven horses in an all-out stampede.  The Matriarch of the herd was leading them.  She is a very large all white mare that rules the herd with an iron well-placed kick and a piercing scream.  She has used that scream to help me remember that I have apples in the refrigerator that she wants to have for a snack.  That being said, the weather at the time of the stampede was looking like a rain coming on and they all were feeling their oats.  I watched delightedly while they covered the full 26+ acres several times and saw the Matriarch come in first place.  She has a pure white daughter that has blue eyes and they look surreal.  The daughter, as of this writing, is not at all like her mother.  She is sweet and shy.  Of course, she does not have to defend herself when she has a mom who will quickly and quite effectively put any of the others in their place if they unwisely tried anything.  Times like these make me smile and keep me happy to be here even though it is so far away from my family.  I truly wish that these times could be shared with each one of my children and grandchildren, siblings and my mom.

Dan gave me the cash to put down on a new king sized bed for my birthday.  It is the first time we have ever had a bed that no one else slept on before us.  It is so comfortable and cozy.  No body dents either, although I am sure we will change that over time.  It is an imposing piece of furniture. 

It’s Tuesday night and we have cleared all the counters in the kitchen in anticipation of the new cabinet additions (3 base and 1 wall cabinet) plus the new counter top installation.  We will be enjoying a new sink and faucet too.  The latest cabinets have drawers on top while behind each door there are two pull out trays, which will allow me to reach the things in the back of the cabinet without those cute little stars I see when I bend over that far, not counting the knees that rebel when I try to get back up again.  The older cabinets will eventually be outfitted with the add-on drawer and pull out tray hardware and some of the newer technology that makes the kitchen fall into this century of kitchen goodies.   I now have space to put the electrical kitchen gadgets - in the kitchen - where they belong (they have been kept in three other rooms in the house).  I also have 16 additional square feet of counter space.  Wow – how wonderful is that?  Will I be clever enough to leave some of that magnificent counter space – naked? 

We have been enjoying the early crop of asparagus for several weeks now and I do hope they continue to put out stalks until my sister, Kitty, gets here with a different recipe for asparagus that she wants to share.

The red metal roof should go on this month and then we will slow down until we can catch up with all the disarray. 

I have drawn out the garden plans for this year.  I checked the last two years plans to make sure I do not put the same things in last year’s spots.  It would be so nice if the winter squash and pumpkins would do well this year.  The weather has already been very tricky to figure out concerning what to expect for the planting times.  We had a very early spring!  

Boris and I went on the early morning – sun is not quite up – wonderfully quiet – walk around the property.  This time of day is very exceptional for me.  I like knowing that I beat the sunrise and have accomplished some things on my things to-do list already.   On the walk around, I noticed that Boris is walking slower than usual.  I wonder about how much longer he will enjoy that time with me.  As I walk around toward the garden area, he just sits down on a slope and watches me and he does not follow me.   I will miss him terribly when he is gone and I know that I will outlast him.  I wonder if I will get another dog and if I do, will he ever be the great dog that Boris is.  He is so very connected to my thoughts that it seems he can read my mind.  In years past, he has pointed things out to me that I did not notice – things I needed to know and wanted to know, like the time he sat and pointed his nose to the tree in the front yard that I thought was a fruitless Mulberry.  I finally noticed his posture and walked over to investigate what was so interesting about that tree.  It was so small that I could not imagine what could hide in there and be so entrancing to Boris.  It was Mulberry fruit!  I am a fan of fruit and nut trees on our farm, planting several new trees every year.  I was so happy to find that it was a fruited tree.  He does the same thing with the blackberries, grapes, figs and vegetables in our garden.  He never eats anything unless I give it to him and he will not eat everything I offer him.  Blackberries need to be fresh and sweet – not the least bit old or fermented – he will spit them out.  Figs and grapes need to be opened before he will eat them.  I can toss cherry tomatoes to him almost any time and he is ever ready to catch them in midair.  Boris is the main thing that people around here will talk about when they meet him.  When we have gotten an invitation to visit someone, Boris is usually mentioned in that invitation.  He also has a particular sounding bark for each occasion.  When he sees a squirrel, his bark is a stressed sounding high pitched yelp, when the mail is delivered he makes a short bark, when someone is at the door his bark is loud and robust – he doesn’t like it when someone gets to the door before he knows about it.  He even barks at us when we come home and is so glad to see us, checking out my purse and our pockets with his nose to see what we brought home to him for a treat.

My friend Maria brought some rocks from her place to help fill in some low spots in the flowerbed that runs the length of the house.  This morning I put them in place and planted some Lemon Thyme while Boris lay on the grass watching the road. 

Dan just called from the kitchen to let me know he was sitting down to breakfast, so - gotta go. 

I'm back! 

We had the place mowed and it looks so good and neat to me.  It took 3 men, three days to get it all done.  One friend came to mow and edge the front acre for us and would not hear about us trying to pay him.  Another friend came and mowed two afternoons in the back four acres and charged us $15.00 an hour.  The second afternoon he came, he brought a friend with a John Deer Mower who worked for an hour and a half for $50.00.  I wrote him a check and he stayed to talk a while.  After some great fellowship he was ready to leave and when he was walking out the door he handed Dan the check I  had given him and left.  We didn't ask any of them to do the work, but it got done and everyone was pleased with the results - God works in mysterious ways - His wonders to perform.

More pictures in the "2012 Remodel Page" 

This has been an exciting week of remodeling.  I had purchased a rustic entertainment cabinet to replace the large floor to ceiling built-in linen cabinet that was taken out – along with everything else in that bathroom. The big rustic cabinet was just the right width but way too deep for the space.  I found a picture of a simple linen cabinet and asked Keith if he thought he could make it for us.  He agreed to do it and when he finished it, he finished the bathroom off with crown molding.  It looks great, and I will be painting it white.  Sounds real boring - white - but I think it will do just fine.

Below is a picture of the oak island that used to be a rolling cabinet that I made in an adult wood shop class at the local HS.  The cabinet was originally used under the counter in a hole of unused space in a tiny kitchen. You can see the old space behind the rolling shelves that has been torn out to get it ready for a new base cabinet.  We are replacing the counter top and the blue tile backsplash in the kitchen.  I ordered the butcher block top to make the rolling shelves into an island.   Later - Another change of plans, the island will not be a rolling island, but a stationary one, finished off and made permanent.  I was concerned that someone might lean up against it and tople the whole thing.  Keith is going to make it a little higher to put the stools in on one side.

The floor went in yesterday.  The studio, kitchen, bathroom, den and hall floors are finished (except for the base trim) and they are just what I imagined them to be.  There are a few problems; bubbles under the linoleum and a vent cover that has lost its vent.  I found the cover last night and went on a hunt to find the naked vent but there was not one because the vent had been covered over with linoleum and forgotten.  The floor man has to come back and cut the hole for it.   All the rooms that have not been remodeled have all the furnishings and whatnot’s from the remodeled rooms stored in them.  It is a big mess and will probably take weeks to straighten out.  I feel a lot of culling coming on!

The table and chairs arrived yesterday.  The table is beautiful but not the size I thought I was buying, so I will need to talk to the furniture place and see what we can do about it.   Later - Found out that I am the one who made the mistake and we are looking for a table that is one foot longer than the one we have.

Boris is still the one having the most stress from the changes though, but as long as his bed is where we are - he is fine. 

My friend Maria is helping us take out a large, very heavy desk to put in the storage shed.  I helped with that part of it but have been relagated to the recliner for now.  Dan and Maria are taking up the carpet, padding and tack strip in part of the den as I sit and watch them work.  I am trying not to say anything about how to do anything since I am the only one not working.  Can you believe a person could be jealous of others being able to work? 

At about 5:30am, Boris and I did the morning walk-a-round the property. It was uneventful but invigorating with a temperature of 27.  I noticed two big piles of remodel debris and wondered how long they would take to clean them up completely. 

So far, we have the bathroom sub-floor, tub (surround is back-ordered), toilet, vanity, mirror, pocket door and sink (no faucet) installed.  I have primed and painted the walls and put in the wallpaper yesterday.  We need the floor finished and it looks like I will need to find another linen cabinet.  I purchased what I thought would be a beautiful rustic linen cabinet, which fit perfectly into the space along the wall, but it was too deep and came so far out into the room  that it dwarfed the already small space.  It will make a nice entertainment center in the den though.  Nice save – right?  But really, where am I going to find a linen cabinet?  We have linens temporarily stored in boxes that are in the way in two different rooms.  What else do we need?  T.P. holder (very important), short shower curtain (also very important because I have visuals of mopping up the floor after using the hand help spray nozzle), towel and hand towel holders.  I am making the trek to Springfield today to visit my favorite store – Lowes.  For me, Lowes is the best idea sanctuary there is.  I should be able to make a real dent in the list of things I need to get.  Times a-wasting, I better get going.

Since we do not have alpacas anymore and now our Barnevelder chickens are leaving at the end of this month, I have been thinking about what kind of information this blog should be written about.  I have some wonderful  children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I would love to write about if I knew enough about their daily lives (triumphs and triblations).  I could write about my annual vegetable garden but that would be seasonal and it would be redundant at best, because the subject of gardening has been done by millions of people already.  I could write about the perils of growing old and one of the best things about that subject is that I will not run out of material (until my mind goes or I am in heaven).  I could even focus on the felting of hats, scarves, purses and flowers while throwing in the Tri-County Fair Exhibits and a Mountain Grove Central Arts Council Event or two.  Oh, I almost forgot about the Town Country Women’s group that helps the Community in so many ways.  Boris is likewise a great subject, but like me, he is getting old too.  Well, maybe the selling of the Barnevelder chickens is not the huge loss that I thought it was.  It seems that I might have enough material to make it interesting to read about our small world here on the farm – what is left of it. 

I believe the greatest aspect in most people’s lives is the belief in the existence of a higher power.  I believe!  That belief should color any blog I write because God is ever-present in my life.  He has never failed to help me in all facets of my daily existence when I am wise enough to allow Him.  It is my desire to let Him reign over my life always, but my nature does get in the way of His perfect will for me.  It has been a constant battle to be a person that exemplifies the love of God in all parts of my life.  I am stubborn, willful and pride will be my downfall if I do not allow God to help me every single day.   The best thing I could do is to let God take me as a lump of clay and let Him mold me and shape me into what he sees in me.  I don’t know why I struggle so, because His will for me is perfect.  He sees it all – I don’t.  He knows it all – I don’t.  He loves perfectly and I certainly don’t.  Consequently, my struggles here on this earth, are a fight for the perfection of my soul, which has already been won by the Son of God, my Savior - Jesus.   I thank you Lord, I who was created by you, for never giving up on me and for loving me unconditionally, even when I was unlovable.   I thank you for putting a warrior inside me that is unwilling to give up the good fight.  Because you have put everything I need in me by your Spirit, I am victorius.   Even in death - I am victorius.  Of course -  I am not in a hurry to die.

My flock of rare barnevelder chickens has been sold to a customer from a couple of years ago.  I am finishing out the fulfilment of several egg orders and will be done close to the end of this month.  I have to admit that it is hard to let them go - it's been seven years and I have learned a lot of interesting things because of them.  This blog will have to be finished up tomorrow if I can find the time - just wanted to let you all know.

It is now late tomorrow: Last night I was too tired to continue.  Today, I drove 45 minutes out of town (and back) to purchase paint and pick wallpaper for Dan's new bathroom.  I have only just started the paint job and I am done-in.  I still have the wallpaper to install.  It is very frustrating to think you can do things that you used to do - and then not be able to handle them.  It will get done, but not as fast as I would like it to happen.  Thank God that wisdom comes with age or else we would have little to look forward to.

The weather has been so beautiful this last week or so.  We have been taking the wonderful black compost out of the concrete water trough by the barn and moving it to all the raised beds.  The soil level has lowered each year we planted vegetables in the raised beds.  Now the soil level is full.  While we shoveled the soil out, we encountered numerous huge grubs.  Every time Dan, Maria or I found grubs, we would take a bunch of them to the chicken coop fence to feed the chickens.  We were over 200 feet away, in the barn area, and would look over toward the chicken coop and see all the chickens lined up at the end of the fence, waiting for our treat to be hand delivered to them.  Anyway, after all the composted soil had been taken out of the concrete water trough and put into the growing beds (minus the grubs), it filled the 60-foot long flowerbed in front of the house and more than six raised vegetable beds!  Now we can use the concrete water trough to burn our trash.

You might ask, “What ball and where is it rolling”?  The remodeling ball of course!  We received the funds from the VA and are well on our way to getting the things done that need to be done.  A partial list would include;

Installing the on-demand water heater

Moving the washer and dryer to the garage

Building some shelves over the washer and dryer

Taking out the wall between the dining area and the laundry room

Widening the hall

Remodeling the bathroom with a walk-in tub

Building a wall across the garage and installing a door

Finishing off one half of the garage for the Fiber Studio

Taking out the ceramic tile in the kitchen area and removing carpet in the hall (This will be used as a weed ban around the raised beds in the vegetable garden)

Laying linoleum in all those places, including the den          

Resurfacing the concrete on the front porch to drain away from the house

Look into a new metal roof 

That ought to keep us busy until spring!

There are probably more jobs, but at this time, I do not remember what they are.  We purchased a 20 X 12 foot storage building to keep some of the furniture and misc. stuff in.  We need to have all that stuff out of the way for our carpenter to be able to do his work. 

It is Monday morning and I cannot sleep so here I am at the kitchen table, trying to see the computer key board clearly through bleary eyes.  Later this morning, when the rest of the world is awake, we are going to take a drive into Springfield and look into finding a kitchen table that will seat more than 4 people comfortably.  I can envision what I want it to look like but would be extremely surprised if I could find something like it.  I like the look of rough and sturdy pieces of farm type furniture.  Something that looks like it had been built to accommodate a growing family and that had been built out of pieces of barn wood left over from a huge barn raising, where all the neighbors came to help.  I would like it to look like something that many generations of families sat at for every meal.  It should be a comfortable table that had been a place to gather, share a meal and talk about the day ahead or later at the close of a day and discuss what had been accomplished in that days’ work.  We have a lumber mill less than a mile up the road from us and they primarily work with oak.  We have gotten wood from them for many projects on our place, including the raised beds that hold our vegetable garden soil from year to year.  I have been amazed at the low prices we pay for hard oak wood.  The table should be at least six feet long – maybe more.  Once the remodel is done in the dining area, we will be able to see what size table will fit in attractively. I have seen a table, on an internet search, that is beautiful and would be perfect for the space but $1,900.00 dollars for just the table is more than I want to pay – so the hunt is on and I am looking forward to that challenge.  If you would like to see the table I am talking about, follow the link below.

http://www.potterybarn.com/products/benchwright-reclaimed-wood-dining-table/?catalogId=69&cm_src=AutoRel

The older Barnevelder breeders have been in the quarantine coop for a week now and they are doing very well.  They are obviously keeping to their own groups.  The breeders are staying on the roost at night and the chicks stay on the floor because they have never tried the roost yet and the hens would not make them feel very welcome.  The rooster (King David) is all about making everybody comfortable, paying copious amounts of attention to the pullets; he has even started his training of them to get them used to him as their provider and protector.  Even though most of his attention has been going to the pullets, the hens still seem to be getting more attention from him than they want right now because they are all still molting some of their smaller feathers.

Sometime around the first week in April, the pullets will be laying their first eggs and King David will be trying to keep ahead of the young cockerel that is going to be growing up watching him and how he woes those pullets.  Eighteen hens are more than one rooster can reasonably handle, so time will tell who the better rooster will be.  I am sure that King David will dominate until he gets tired of trying to stay ahead of the young cockerel and there will eventually be a time of battle and surrender to the younger, more energetic cockerel.