Has Spring Sprung Yet?

Spring is in the air!!! The sun is shining bright and the temperatures are warming up slowly. We had such a beautiful sunshiny day yesterday. Even though the temperature didn't get above 34 degrees, the rays of the sun are warming us up, increasing in intensity, and starting to melt the snow. That's just fine with us!

Although we can easily get another foot or two of snow during the month of March and even into April. Three years ago, right before we moved into the house, we were dumped with 21 inches in one day in the area. So anything can happen in Wisconsin this time of year. But we will appreciate the sunny days when we get them. 

Yesterday, we did some work in the garage, then we sat out on the front porch for a while in the sunshine. It felt so good to sit in the rocking chairs again and soak up a little vitamin D.  Our friend Roger said I need to be in a bikini to get that vitamin D... LOL Those days are long gone, Roger. 

 

Silly little Binney had to come and lay out on the porch too. She really enjoyed the sunshine and she has a fur coat to protect her from the cold temperatures.  We watched people out walking by the house, and even saw a motorcycle cruise on past! 

Even though it was a little windy from the West, it felt good to sit out on the porch and enjoy this part of our house again. It's been a long winter, and sitting on the front porch is a distant memory from last autumn. After the winds kicked up a little more, we switched sides of the house and sat in the backyard, sheltered in the secluded area by the back patio.

Why where we sitting and resting? 

Because we had just unloaded 15 heavy pieces of sheetrock! It's 1/2" thick, 4' x 10' sheets, which weigh 56 pounds each. But they are attached together as a pair, so that's 112 lbs. Ugh! 

We got them all unloaded and stacked up into the garage. This is the first time in a month that we've even felt like really doing anything physical. After being sick for almost the entire month of February, this was great to get out and stretch our muscles and breathe in some fresh air. It was quite invigorating. Plus we didn't collapse into a fit of coughing and wheezing and crawling back into bed in our jammies.

So what do we need all this sheetrock for? 

Well, this winter, before we got sick, Steve had finished insulating the whole ceiling of our entire garage. It's two stalls wide by two stalls deep so it's 24 ft wide by 40 ft deep. Since he got up all this insulation, it's made a huge difference in the garage temps.  No more cold winds blowing in the open soffit vents or the ridge vent along the roofline.  It can be well below 0 outside, but inside stays in the 20's or so, with no heat source. The Saturn starts right up with no struggling from a cold battery or engine.  It's nice to go out in the garage to get something out of storage, as I have a lot of my fabric inventory out there on shelves for my rug weaving.   We can work on projects with a supplementary propane heater if we want to warm it up, or do a needed car repair (hopefully not). Steve did change the oil in the Saturn the other day, in comfort of a warm garage. 

This sheetrock is only about half of what we need, but our trailer can only haul so much at a time. We will make another trip on another nice day when the pavement is dry to pull the trailer down the road. You definitely don't want wet slushy snowy salty roads when hauling sheetrock on an open trailer.

Three of the sheets are set aside for another inside project. We were going to start doing the beadboard on the walls in the master bathroom, but Steve figured that we should tackle the ceiling first, then work on the walls. 

The 100+ year old bathroom ceiling has some cracked areas where the plaster is uneven and it really should get a whole new layer of sheetrock all of the way across the entire ceiling. It'll be close quarters for working, and we will cut it in pieces out in the garage to bring in and screw up into place. It'll be quite a project, but it's something that we would like to get done before we even begin working on the walls down below. It will mean removing the bathtub for a couple days, but the shower will still be usable, as well as the rest of the bathroom facilities. Good thing we also have a half bath to use during the process too.

The previous owners had done some textured plaster 

and rough repairs

that need to be covered up.

This crack over the shower area is a potential problem

if not taken care of right away.

That will be an upcoming project on our radar.... 

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We had a couple little giggly granddaughters over for a sleepover on Friday night. They played together so well and then both finally dropped fast asleep, totally exhausted in the little grandkids room. I didn't even have time to read them a story.

In the morning they both crawled into our big king-size bed and decided to watch old fashioned Tom and Jerry cartoons---- upside down! For some reason, watching it upside down makes it much more hilarious, especially when you are only five and six years old.  See those chins in the air? 

Later on, after a big breakfast, they got their "Green Thumbs"! They earned them by helping me pot some coleus rootings that I had started in the window in the kitchen. They learned how to carefully scoop the dirt in around the roots and pack it down. Here they are showing off their green thumbs. What good helpers.

Of course we had to get in some time at the big Sanna Kangas Finlander Barn Loom. We've been doing a series of "caterpillar rugs" lately and they have been enjoying being the ones to design the rugs. I do the main beating part, and they help with all of the assistant designer work. They pick out each little piece of colorful knit scrap socks (they are left over factory waste from a sock knitting mill in New York). They decide which color should go next, to be inlaid on each row of the rug as we go along.

So far, the last three rugs that we have woven together on the loom have all sold to new customers. This one will go up for sale in my Etsy shop as soon as we finish it up. 

When our daughter and son-in-law came back from a trip to Milwaukee, they had made a pit stop at Trader Joe's for me. The nearest two Trader Joes are 150 or 165 miles away.  These are the two most favorite items of mine. Only available at Trader Joes, and not sold online either. 

Now I am stocked up on more cookie butter and another case of my most favorite wine, Two Buck Chuck White Zinfandel.  Steve loaded up my little wine rack and now I'm good to go for a while.

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On Sunday, the youngest grandson Clayton came over to spend the day. He wanted to have some jobs to do. He started out with filling all of our bird feeders. The birds are coming back in scores and we have to fill them up every day now. The squirrels are gobbling down all of our suet as well as the woodpeckers, so we are going through two blocks every day of that too.  He knows how to lower the feeders and suet cages to fill them up for us. What a good helper.  The deer wander in at night to clean up anything left behind from the messy birds. 

Clayton helped Grandpa remove the shiny stainless steel decorative rims from the motorhome. We are getting ready to take a jaunt down to Appleton to have our new tires balanced and mounted. We are waiting for a dry pavement day with no salt or slush or snow or ice. The tires are there waiting for us, as soon as the weather cooperates. I will do a separate blog post on that.

Clayton helped cook lunch and made us macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. He likes using the stove and being our little chef. It's good that he learns how to make food, even if it's as simple as boiling noodles and mixing up a box meal. He'll never go hungry. LOL 

For supper, we had some leftovers to eat up from our take out meal the night before. But Clayton made his own dinner. Aldi carries these cute little pizza kits of three crusts and three packets of sauce. So he took out a crust and then he added pepperonis and cheese. Created his own little mini pizza. Just the right size for him. 

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Steve got a new toy in the mail yesterday. It's a "surge tank"! Its also called an overflow tank for the radiator that goes on the motorhome. Last fall, right before the end of the camping season, we noticed a crack in our old one. We had replaced it 12 years ago, so we did pretty good getting 12 years worth of pressure out of it before it cracked. Steve sealed it up as best he could with epoxy last fall, but he wanted to replace it with a new one before we start doing any traveling this spring. He found one at a good price and ordered it, which came within three days. It even came with the right pressure pound rated radiator cap. He's like a silly little boy getting presents at Christmas.  Awwwwwww

He grabbed his tools, and went outside in the sunshine yesterday, making a beeline for the motorhome. He quickly removed the old tank and got the new one into place before I could even take a photo of the process!  Mr. Zoom Zoom. 

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It is lightly snowing out today with big soft fluffy flights floating down. We aren't supposed to get much, but you never know.   This is Wisconsin, and the time of year when the weather can change in a heartbeat.   Time to get some lunch going, and post this blog. 

Getting Plastered and Canning Tomatoes While Missing Mom

The Packer game last night sure was good. We watched until half time while we were still in the house. We could see the rain start pouring down at Lambeau Field in Green Bay on the screen. It's only about 30 miles south of us. We figured this would be a good time to gather up our sleeping gear and head on out to the motorhome in the driveway.

Because of our bedroom being dismantled, we slept in the motorhome. I preferred getting out there in our jammies while things were still dry and not with the impending storms that were forecast. So we packed up the dog, some morning coffee makings and a couple donuts, and headed on out to the motorhome. We finished watching the game out there, in comfort, while the rain beat down on the motorhome roof. Packers won 35 - 17 over the Detroit Lions.

We woke up in the motorhome to sunshine, but chilly temperatures. Much better than the muggy humid stuff we had yesterday. We snuggled in with our coffee in the morning and watched a little TV before it was time to get up and start the day.

We wanted to get in the house and unroll some more of the rosin paper to make a protective walkway back and forth to the front door. That way when Paul, the plaster guy, came he could carry his buckets in and out and not worry about the hardwood floors. He has the outside water faucets, both hot and cold, to stand outside and mix up the buckets of plaster with his power mixing drill.

The original hardwood floors are so nice, we don't ever wear shoes in the house. But we sure don't expect a hired contractor to take off his shoes each time! Lol

Paul started on his project this morning and got the seams all taped up and first coat on every seam. It's important to get the first coat on and let it dry because the compound shrinks a little bit. Then before you put on the second coat, you are sure the first coat has done all of its shrinking. Otherwise you'll get cracks! Then he started filling in the rough textured walls with the new plaster. It's going to look amazing!

This is one of those wide angle shots that distorts the room, but you get the general idea. We are quite pleased that everything is filling in and it's going to be a nice ceiling surface as well as new walls ... without the splattered blown on textured surface that they were before.  Look at all of that beautilful sunshine streaming in.  Ahhhhhhhh

He said he should be completed sometime tomorrow. 

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Silly me, remember when I was so excited my very first grape tomatoes this year? It was such a delight to go out and pick one at a time as soon as it turned red and pop it into my mouth. They started out slowly, one by one.  The grandkids would go out and look all around for even ONE little tomato, to nab it from the vine and bring it in like a treasure. 

Soon we were getting a handful at a time--- enough to cut up and put into a salad or even chop up and put into tacos. 

Now I get tons and tons of them and they're driving me nuts LOL. Soon the season will be over. So it's time to can them up. I chopped them up into little pieces and mix them in with the large tomatoes to process in my canning jars.

Yesterday I picked a whole bunch of ripe larger tomatoes. These are Better Boys and Early Girls. My tomato patch of 8 plants is getting almost to the end of growing season.  This batch is about 6 quart jars worth. I was going to can them up last night during the Packer game. But the game was so darned interesting, that I ignored the tomatoes. So this morning I washed them up and got them ready to process.

I chopped all of the little ones in my food chopper with the skins on. Then with the large tomatoes I cut out the stems and I slice an X into the bottom of each tomato. Roger, if you are reading this blog, that is your beautiful tray right there... I used it to carry the tomatoes over from the island to the counter. I love that tray!

Then I simmer the large tomatoes in a pot of water, just enough to loosen up their skins. By having the X sliced on the bottom it makes it much easier to peel the loose skin off the tomato.

I plunged the simmered tomatoes into a big tub of ice water. That helps loosen the skins up even more. I ladle them out with a large slotted spoon & peel the skins away to discard. In the bottom of the jars I have a tablespoon of lemon juice, a tablespoon of pickling salt, and a couple scoops of the chopped up little grape tomatoes.

As I peel the skin off each tomato I grab my little knife and cut it right on the large slotted spoon into sections or chunks. This is much easier than trying to hold it in your hand because the tomato is still very hot.

Instead of using my big canning kettle that holds nine jars and heating it on the outside propane burner, I am just doing six quarts in the house. I do not like putting the big canning kettle on my glass top stove, I have heard it may crack it. Instead I use my tall blue enamel soup pot, and I put in three jars at a time. Because there isn't a rack for the jars, I wrap each one in a burgundy cloth dinner napkin and I put one on the bottom of the kettle as well. That way the jars are not sitting on the hot metal. That can crack a jar. In the smaller red kettle on the right I keep the next three jars warm on a low setting just so they don't cool off too much after filling them. Once the first three jars have been in the hot water bath for 45 minutes, slowly simmering, then the next three jars will take their place.

As I type this, I have three jars finished and sitting out on the towel, and the last three jars are in the hot water bath right now. Soon I will hear the PING PING PING of their lids as they seal up tight. 

I line them up on my little pantry shelves. Row by row, jar by jar, my shelves are filling up for the long winter. Nothing can be better than popping open a jar in the middle of winter to make a pot of chili or a casserole. The smell of summer comes wafting up. I reach in with a fork and take out the first chunk of tomato and eat it straight from the jar. That is my reward for these hot days of summer, processing these tomatoes.

I wistfully recall my childhood years, of canning vegetables with my mother. Year after year. I would stand by her side in that hot steamy kitchen and we would process up all of our garden produce. We did hundreds of jars of everything. Not just tomatoes! We did all kinds of canned vegetables and sauerkraut and jams and jellies. One of my fondest memories is after putting the last few jars on the shelf of what Mom called her "Veg-All Mix" which was a mix of all different leftover vegetables at the end of the season. As we placed the last few jars on the big wide deep basement shelves, she stood back with such a look of satisfaction on her face. She put her hands on her hips and smiled after wipinig her brow. She said "My oh my, are we ever rich!"

That made such an impression on me, because we weren't rich at all financially. Life was not easy with a large family and a big garden and not a lot of money. But knowing she had hundreds and hundreds of jars stashed away for the upcoming winter, it gave her the sense of being rich.

Sometimes, it's the little things.

I miss my Mom.

And It Goes Up Up Up

Steve has determined that today is the day that we will get the three big sheets of drywall mounted up onto the ceiling. 

So he grabbed the covers and flipped me out of bed at 5 a.m. and said it's time to get a move on! LOL 

Not really, I woke up at 5 a.m. with thoughts buzzing through my mind of every step we have to take (or should take) by putting things in order in my brain.

I am really good at doing A B C D E F etc. Steve is sometimes known to fly by the seat of the pants and his alphabet goes P J E L A Z~~~~~ That is why we are good for each other. 

We disassembled our bed and all of the other furniture, to clear the room out and prep. It was necessary to clear it all out to get the sheetrock in and up on the ceiling.  We stacked the mattress and bed frame up against our dining room buffet.

Then we disassembled the bed frame itself with the under-bed drawers and moved them out of the room as well.  They are stuffed all into our dining room and office. We can eat in the kitchen for time being.  That is okay, we are adaptable.

We stuffed our end tables and drawers and the other items all into the guest bedroom. There will be just enough room to crawl in there if we want to sleep. But I think we're just going to sleep out in the motorhome in the driveway for the next couple nights.

We rolled out rosin paper on the floor and taped it down. That way (hopefully) there's no excess mess to clean up. We can just roll up the paper and throw it all away. Once everything is done, we can put the tall mopboard back on the wall under the window.

Next, we spread plastic across the openings to our closet and to the master bathroom. Taping it down securely, we hope this will keep out any excess dust or mess. That was better than completely removing everything from the closet.

Steve carried in the big drywall lift machine piece by piece and assembled it in the room. This is a very handy device that helps raise the whole big 12 foot long sheet of drywall, and hold it flat up to the ceiling. It sure makes life a lot easier getting it up there and screwed into place.

Our wonderful and helpful neighbor, Ed, came over to help Steve lug in the three big long sheets of drywall. I was going to help do it, but it sure was nice for Ed to come over and lend a hand. He and Steve trade favors back and forth to each other. I was very thankful that Ed was willing to help. I was in charge of opening and closing doors. Mainly to keep the air conditioning inside the house. It was getting to be a hot muggy day.

They quickly loaded the piece up on to the lift and had it raised up to the ceiling in the first position nearest the closet and the master bath.

Look how spiffy that works! It's a very heavy board and the lift is holding it up there in the perfect position.  What a helpful piece of equipment.  

They both grabbed handfuls of drywall screws and went to work securing it to the previous wood strips that we mounted on the ceiling yesterday. Zip Zip Zip and soon they had all the screws into place.

In came the second sheet, which they had to measure and cut out the opening for the light fixture. Then the third sheet was up and in place before I could blink my eyes.  

So here is the ceiling, already covered up, in a room that is 11 and 1/2 ft by 13 ft. Tomorrow morning, the young man we hired, Paul, will be here to do the skip trowel plastering for us on the ceiling and the walls.

It will be so very exciting to see the room come about and evolve. Then it will be my job to prime and paint. Steve will recreate the woodwork trim to match the original vintage trim on the other window and the doorway.

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In between all this exciting bedroom stuff that we are doing, I picked another huge amount of tomatoes. I think tonight I will be canning up another four to six quarts during the Packer game. 

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On the sewing machine, I am working on a new quilt. It's called a pineapple block and I'm using a lot of beautiful colorful batik fabrics. These blocks in this photo below are just laid out in no particular order. I have a couple more rows worth of blocks to do yet. I have a nice piano key style border planned for around the edges.

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And on the Sanna Kangas Finlander Barn Loom, I started a new rug. It's in soft creams and blues and browns. I kind of like this farmhouse style of Hit and Miss rugs. I've been doing quite a few like this lately, and they are very pleasant to work on. 

The nubby texture, as well as the soothing transition from one color tone to another is so harmonious in this style of rug. I like the neutral warp string which doesn't add a lot of detail. The rug is the "Artistry" of itself, with the colors as they undulate from one to the next.

Time to get some supper going here. I tossed some boneless skinless chicken breasts into the pressure cooker with some soup broth mix. I will take out the cooked chicken and shred it up. Some we will use tonight for tacos. The rest I will put in quart ziploc bags and toss them into the freezer. They are very easy to grab out for a quick casserole, chicken salad sandwich, toss into some soup, or just use again another night for chicken tacos. Easy peasy.

Bedroom Ceiling, Shutters and Pic Nic Table

Even though the rest of the room isn't finished yet, I am thoroughly enjoying waking up each morning to this beautiful view!  

We can now sit in bed with a cup of coffee and languish around a little bit longer, since we have this beautiful sunshine coming in.

But then it was time to get to work. Steve brought in the wood strips to start reinforcing and leveling out the ceiling to add new sheets of drywall.  At first he tossed them RIGHT ON MY HANDMADE QUILT!!!   ACK!!!!

I quickly grabbed a couple wool saddle blankets and took care of the situation.  It was not a good way to start the day, to say the least.

Steve pre-measured and pre-marked the walls and the ceiling to add these wooden strips. They will bring the ceiling surface down a a bit lower.  These are for the sheets of drywall to be screwed to, and cover over the rough areas of the old closet walls and old attic scuttle hole.

Each wooden strip has a thick bead of construction adhesive running the entire length of the strip before it is lifted up to the ceiling.  Then long screws are put through the pre-drilled holes at 16 inch intervals, right into the ceiling joists.

Steve starts on one end, while I stand on the other end holding the wooden strip into place. Instead of going up and down up and down a ladder, Steve made me this handy board with a y-shaped end made of two screws. I can hold it into place exactly on the center mark until he gets everything fastened at his end.

Even though we have 9-foot ceilings, Mr. Tall Man Steveio was able to stand on the bed to reach the middle sections of the room. When we get ready to hang the drywall, we will dismantle the bed and move everything out of the room.

One strip happens to be located in line with where the light fixture is. So, for that one we had to cut it into two pieces. We will remove the light fixture during the drywall phase, and just have a temporary light socket wired in.

Now we are adding extra strips on the other side of the old support boards from the old closets. They were both removed to make this bedroom bigger, and it pushed the wall over into the other bedroom. That smaller bedroom then was made into the master bathroom. This is the ugly stuff that we will be concealing underneath the new ceiling.

At the same time that we are going to hire a young man to plaster the ceiling, he will also replaster all of the walls in the bedroom. The old wall texture is from a blown on splatter gun texture sprayer that the previous owners had done. This surface will all be covered over with new skip troweling. It will be made to appear much neater and cleaner.  

We hired the same young man that had done all the walls and ceiling in the She Shed last year. He is going to come as soon as we get all of the drywall screwed up into place. 

We got all of the supplies ready for him, and we will dismantle the bed and remove everything from in the room. I have a roll of wide rosin paper to cover the hardwood floor. 

As soon as we borrow the neighbor's drywall lift and a little help from our son-in-law, the sheets of 12 foot long drywall will be attached to the ceiling. 

We are just getting too old to do all of that overhead work anymore... plastering and drywall... taping and sanding excetera. 

I think this is one job that we will hire out again this year. He did such a great job for us in the She Shed, we are happy to get him again, on short notice.  Sometimes we have to know our limitations due to age, and eek out the money to pay someone else.  

In between doing this other work, last night I found a local guy selling some shutters. They were just the right size that I needed for on each side of our bedroom window! He even dropped them off right at our front door, how nice is that? He only charged me $10 each and they are the exact size I needed. The only problem, they are BLUE! 

I got out my can of special primer for PVC vinyl or plastic. It's rather stinky. But this gets painted on first and it helps the paint to cling better.  When we bought the house, I gathered and painted the other shutters red too. By painting these to match, it will be nice to complete all the sides of the house, all of the way around.

First thing this morning, before we were working on the bedroom ceiling, I grabbed out my can of Double Decker Bus Red and started to paint the shutters. Do you see my supervisor making sure that I do a good job?

I wanted to get them done as early as possible, we were going to be up in the 80's and very high humidity. It's so pleasant to paint early in the morning but I had to wait until the dew was starting to dry off the grass.

At the same time, I decided to paint the little picnic table and four benches. They had originally been red when I first got them, down in Chilton. I bought them as a fundraiser from the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue rummage sale. I had painted them blue to match that house. 

Then when we moved up here, I had only painted the tops red before I ran out of paint. So for the last two years they had blue legs and red tops. It was time to make them all back to red again!

After we were done with the ceiling work,  I popped back outside to finish up a second coat. Tah Dahhhh! 

Imagine my shock when I later saw that Binney's nose was bleeding!!!

Nawwwww

She was just being "nosey"

in my red paint.  Lol!