Told Ya He Needed New Work Gloves

In the last blog, I told you Steve would be needing a new pair work gloves. Sure enough, we were able to pick some up in a size that was comfortable for him.

Yes, he always needs work gloves, of course, but now we got a few special jobs lined up that he will be using them for. At the same time we had swung by the Tractor Supply Store and noticed that they had some trees on sale. Nice big tall beautiful leafed out trees! They were only $29 each.

We picked out a gorgeous ornamental cherry. It's called a Yoshino cherry, and is a related cousin strain to the ones that bloom in Washington DC every year.  It is said to bear large round 1" black colored cherries. It is really more of an ornamental tree, but the birds and the deer will love them. It can grow between 25' and 50' tall... the 1st year we can expect it to grow 2' or 3' more.

We popped it in the back of the saturn and hauled it home, along with his new leather work gloves. 

Steve looked pretty happy to be coming home with a tree. At our log house out on the river, we had planted a beautiful cherry tree for his birthday. That was many years ago in about 1998. That tree is gorgeous now when we drive by that old house. It is time to start a new tradition by planting this one here, in this yard.

Also, our sweet father, Pops Pfundtner, ordered us FOUR new apple trees to arrive sometime soon.  We will be excited to start a little orchard in our big backyard. 

We have the cherry tree sitting in the garage, waiting until we get some proper fencing on hand to put around it after we dig it into it's chosen spot. 

We learned our lesson in spring 2019 when we planted a housewarming gift apple tree from our kids. We were going to get fencing the next day to put around it. The deer got to it that first night and chewed it all down to only a few bare twigs remaining!! That one is recovering slowly, but it sure was a set back for the important first year of growth. 

So we will be more careful this time. It's about 8-9 ft tall already.  Anxious to see it prosper and grow.  (and bloom!)

That means that this one will sleep overnight in the garage until we get some more fencing materials tomorrow. It was too rainy today to do much of anything for the rest of the day. 

Speaking of trees, the other night the sun was going down and the light from the West cut through under the heavy clouds across to the East. I love that time of day.  It reflected so beautifully on our big cottonwood tree with the dark stormy clouds behind it. I ran out with just my cell phone camera because I know it would only be like that for a few minutes. I think it made the most beautiful stunning picture that I've ever taken???

This is with no filter, no touch up no manipulation whatsoever, other than just a shot from my cell phone.  I was so surprised. 

Here is a wide shot of the backyard

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Another project that I had in mind came up while we were working on that little back patio slab. Last year when we put up the screen door, when it was purchased it was all bare wood. I brushed on white paint from the one side, but the other side that had the screen you could not reach it unless you took off the entire screen material. So instead, at that time I just spray painted it from that side. Of course spray paint got all over the screen on that side and it looked blotchy. I guess that I didn't really care because we never were on that side of the house to look at it from the outside. From the inside it looked fine. LOL But now that we are doing this little patio are and planning to spend more time in that part of the yard, the screen on the door looks just awful!

We picked up a little $5 roll of fibreglass mesh screening to replace it. We already had the spline tool, so it wasn't going to be a lot of work. We just needed to get around to doing it. 

Steve took the door off the hinges and brought it to the garage where it would be easier to work on horizontally on a flat surface than trying to do it while the door was still hanging on the hinges. 

I helped with stretching the screen across the frame while Steve carefully rolled the spline back into the groove. It helped to roll the edge of the screen around a long dowel of wood and pull the entire dowel rather than in small sections. That let us stretch it more evenly. I don't have a picture of that because my hands were busy holding the dowel.

Once all the spine was back in place, then we carefully trimmed around the edges of the excess screen material. At first Steve tried a big scissors but that didn't work. Instead I went in and found a nice tiny craft scissors. It was slow going but it was much sharper and got closer to the edge of the spline. Safer to use a scissors than trying to use utility blade, which just our luck could have possibly cut the new portion of the screen.

 There we go -  

5 minutes later the job is done!

Putting it right back into place was pretty easy. The holes were already there from the hinges, so it was a quick zoom zoom zoom and the job was done.

Why didn't we do this sooner? It sure looks a heck of a lot better than the spray-painted screen! I guess sometimes if it's not something you see everyday right in your face, you kind of ignore it. 

It faces out into the fenced-in backyard so nobody else really saw it either. Other than the dog going potty! But now with the grill out there and the little patio furniture, it will be much nicer to look at.

I also had Steve bring out my cute little rain barrel. I painted this at the last house and I really think it's kind of sweet. Even though we really don't need water yet for any plants, we put it out into place just for the fun of it. I have another one painted with red designs up on the north side of the house too.  I don't even want any water in them yet because it could freeze and wreck the valves. So the temporary downspout for the winter is still in place, routing the water away from the foundation.

Speaking of freezing weather, did you know three years ago we had a super duper winter blast snow storm blizzard? It dumped 29 inches of snow here in Oconto in a 48-hour period! It was high winds and huge drifts. This is a picture from at our daughter's house, how drifted in her yard was. She had spent most of the night in her Jeep in a snowbank down the road. Even with four-wheel drive she couldn't get out. Her husband Jesse was home with 2 small kids and only a small minivan that couldn't get through the snow to her. Her cell phone battery was dying and she managed to get a call out to me and also to her nearby friend. He was able to get up and drive as far as where she was buried in the ditch. He gave her a ride back home and they went back the next day with a tow truck to get her Jeep out. This picture below is just from their own yard once she got it home, not where the jeep was stuck in the ditch. The high winds made a mess everywhere the next two days! 

So even though right now we have beautiful grass starting to green up and the tips of the irises and lilies are poking through the ground. The buds are coming out on the trees with teeny bitty tiny leaves. But at any time, the weather can change and it can turn into this in Wisconsin in April!

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On a personal note, I am extremely pleased and happy, ecstatically really, to report that after my sister's multiple tests and cancer surgeries, the pathology reports have come back. The cancer has NOT spread to her lymph nodes, and contained everything within the margins taken during the last surgery. She now comes back down for scheduling her radiation appointments. But things are really looking up and it is the best possible news!!!

The other best possible news is our nephew's little boy. Bennet, who had Pediatric Hepatoblastoma on his liver, had a transplant exactly one year ago. He just now had his stent removed, a year to the day since his transplant.  Blessings to the family who lost a small child for the donor organ. All of Bennet's testing has shown that he is now cancer free! 

Way to go Linda and Bennet!!

Prayers answered.

Birthday, Patio, JAIL?? and Farmhouse Projects

 Our darling grandson Clayton just happened to turn 9 years old yesterday! He's growing so fast and that big head of his is filling up with so many wonderful brains and smarts and intelligence that he needed a new helmet for his mini bike. Grandma and Grandpa found just the right one to fit that bigger noggin!  

Drive safe, Little Speed Demon! 

Sadly, we had to stay socially distanced while giving him his present. We stayed outdoors on the deck, while he opened his gift as we wore our masks. We only stayed for a few minutes and then left. We didn't want to risk anything. Why?

Last Tuesday both Steve and I started feeling sick! Although we are both fully vaccinated for Covid, we both started coming down with an awful head cold, sore throat, low grade fever/chills, and all over lethargy. Our sinuses were on crazy overload, even though we are both on prescription Flonaise year round. 

We called the doc and decided we would just wait it out with over-the-counter meds. Nothing was severe enough to require anything more. We went through quite a bit of Alka-Seltzer Plus Severe both Day and Night formulas. Lots of Chloraseptic sore throat spray, boxes of Kleenex, Ibuprofen and Tylenol. It is now eight days later and we are just starting to get a little bit of energy back and most of the symptoms have subsided.

Before we got sick, we did start a new project on last Monday and worked on at partially through Tuesday before we were so exhausted we had to quit. Here's what we had started with. Outside of the She Shed door that leads out to the fenced-in dog yard, there was this little concrete patio area. It was tilted and sloped and cracked and not in very good shape.

When we bought all of the 16 x 16 paving stones for the new sidewalk on the north side of the house, we purchased an additional 36 blocks to cover up this patio area here on the south side of the house.

We stacked them in bundles of six in the garage, up on wooden blocks so we could scoop underneath them with the dolly cart for transport. Each paving stone weighs 32 pounds, so that is almost 200 pounds in each stack!

Last Monday, the morning was beautiful weather and it was a good time to get started on the project. We had gotten some pressure treated planks to close in and define the area that would need filler sand for leveling and laying out the blocks.

Our younger daughter Heather had an above ground pool in her yard. They had had a large load of sand brought in to level out their land. We needed sand and we knew exactly where to get it! We dug up and hauled out six buckets at a time in the back of our Saturn. Two loads were enough to level off and pack down to cover up the broken cement patio.

We were ready to start making sure we were square and right with the world. (that is Steve's saying)  The first three stones looked awfully good. Compared to what was there before, this was a great start!

Working carefully and making sure each stone is laid so the patterns do not repeat themselves, as well as making sure everything is level and snug and square together. Once all the stones are in place, we will sweep in the special polymeric sand that becomes activated with water. That makes a nice concrete join that prevents weeds from growing through the joints.

As we dumped out the third bucket, we found this great big huge hitchhiker! He was still very groggy from being woken up from his winter sleep. We let him sun himself for a while to get warm, but then I carefully buried him in a little spot over in the woods and let him go back to sleep. We are still having cold weather at night, sometimes down in the low 20's. No time for a little guy like this to be out hopping around.

We got 20 of the stones laid down but we were really tiring out. This was on Monday so we didn't know we were really getting sick yet. That was as far as we got, then decided to take a break for the night.

Tuesday morning we got up and went to it again and got another 12 stones laid. But we were exhausted and decided that was enough and we weren't going to push ourselves any further.  We did set the picnic table and benches into place, and then I went inside. 

I thought we were done for the day. As I got inside and put my feet up, I noticed Steve go zooming by the window and I saw him dragging something. I snapped a picture just as he went around the corner:

Sure enough,

 he had put his new grill out on the patio! 

What a guy.

That is as far as we got. Then we were sick.  We are going to pick up 12 more stones to finish the last area from there over to the corner of the building by the kitchen nook. (yellow marks) We totally ran out of steam. For now that is good enough.

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We didn't do too much more for the rest of the week. We were pretty much down and out. Family celebrations were called off, an Easter visit with Steve's elderly father was delayed, and we just stayed home, curled up, alternating between dozing and eating and sleeping and feeling lousy!

Lots of chicken soup, hot apple juice with spices, some beefy chili and frozen fruit bars. 8 days went by in blur...  We did binge watch 4 seasons of Edge of Alaska! 

We started to get a little bit more energy back now this week. Steve decided we could finally add the little brackets to the screen door and get that mounted on the north entrance to the She Shed.

Before screwing the brackets into place, we ran a thin bead of caulking along edgess so daylight would not show through the cracks where it was attached to the door frame. I like that neat and finished appearance.  I held while he caulked.

Steve carefully pre-drilled and screwed in the brackets while I held them into place as level as I could, with added stacks of magazines underneath to keep it at the proper distance and centered on the door frame. I was also hoping no caulking would squeeze out and get down onto the black fiberglass screen material.  The magazines helped prevent that too.

Steve also pre-drilled and mounted the hinges right away to the door. I love these type of hinges, they are spring-loaded and make the door give a delightful "springy" twang sound as it's opened, and door can give a resounding "thwap" back into place.  The Sound of Summer. 

It didn't take long and we had the screen door mounted into place. This is the door on the north side of the She Shed by the pergola that leads to the garage. It matches the two other screen doors on the house, one in the front and one over on the south side. How cute is that?  Once the ivy and clematis vines start growing on the pergola, it will be a sweet little secluded entrance.

From within the She Shed we can have a door open on each side for air circulation moving through the room, as well as the three open windows along the west side.

This screen door looks out over the new patio 

and the fenced-in dog exercise area

This is the new one that we just put in by the entryway into the She Shed from the garage. This is also Binney's favorite spot to hang out on the ottoman to watch for the deer at night.

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I made another cute little project and Steve was finally able to gather up enough energy to go out and mount it onto a tree for me. This is my repurposing of an old teapot. I painted it, and Steve made a little wooden circular plaque with a smaller entry hole, good for the size of a birdhouse. This wooden plaque can be popped back out to clean the teapot at the end of the season. He drilled two holes in the base and screwed it right into the trunk of a tree. I used a hot glue gun to attach the lid upwards on an angle, resting on the handle, as kind of a little awning over the perch area.

Yesterday I gathered up just enough energy to take one of my green striped chaise lounge cushions and recover it in some cute red and white printed fabric. One done, three to go.

Ohhhhhh I almost forgot!   

On Easter Sunday I got myself into trouble! Facebook trouble! All I did was post my cute little photo called Happy Keester with little babies butts painted like Easter eggs. I've been posting that picture every Easter since I started on Facebook back in 2009? I guess they consider that child pornography and I got thrown in FACEBOOK JAIL for 3 days!

I get to go back on tomorrow morning. 

Now it is Tuesday, and we are finally feeling a little bit better, but not quite back up to snuff. Steve had ordered some parts for the motorhome and decided it was time to get started. He will work on it a little at a time as his energy level increases. I wonder what he's up to?

I guess you'll have to find out in my next blog.

Spring Projects Have Begun - And It's a Small World

Today, I am happy to report that with our hoisting of patio stones the other day, both of us woke up just fine with no sore or aching backs. We did pop a few ibuprofen tablets though, as a preventative measure before going to bed.

I calculated that 32 pounds per each paving stone, times 78 stones, that equals out to TWO THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND NINEY SIX POUNDS!!!! 

That is over one ton!  Steve and I took turns lifting, loading and stacking them onto the trailer, as well as lifting and unloading and stacking them in the garage or placing them on the lawn.  So we each did 1,248 pounds TWICE.  Ack! 

I'm glad we did it in three trips. It gave us a chance to rest in between each episode of lifting and stacking and moving. We could sit on the seats of the Saturn and relax for the rides back and forth to the store. LOL!

During the upcoming week, we will be getting some free sand from the city municipal lot and then scavage some fine gravel from our driveway.  We will get a grandkid to skim it off and load the wheelbarrow for us.  Then we can work on leveling out the patio area in the backyard by the door to the She Shed. We will be able to build it out level and then lay the stones in a 5 1/2 by 12 foot grid. That will be a nice patio area for Steve to put the new gas grill!

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In the meantime, Steve found another wonderful bargain on Facebook Marketplace. He sure keeps an eagle eye out and finds some interesting things. This one has a really funny story to it that I will get into a little bit later.

We had been discussing a while ago about adding one more screen door to the pergola entry side of the She Shed. We have debated whether or not we wanted to have to struggle opening an additional door every time we go back and forth, versus the niceness of having the outside air blowing through from one side to the other of the She Shed.  There's a screen door on the other end to the south that could enable nice cross breezes this summer.  That door leads out to the soon-to-come patio and fenced-in dog yard.

So as we were contemplating the idea about getting another screen door for a few days, Steve happened to come across this listing for a very nice new vinyl screen door ---  at less than half of its original price. 

We contacted the sellers via Messenger and made arrangements to meet at a public space, in a local gas station parking lot three towns away.

Here is our plan:  We are going to dress it up with four more little corner bric-a-brac pieces like we did for the other screen doors last year. I really think this little added touch is adorable.  It really dressed up the cheap $29 wooden screen doors. 

Here's the front door that we did last year with the added bric-a-brac and it was just a plain wooden screen door that we screwed onto the aluminum storm door frame.

Yup, that would work for us.  Home Depot doesn't carry these cheap wooden screen doors anymore (we checked during our discussion a few days ago)  and this one being offered was solid vinyl and probably made more sturdy and longer lasting than the cheap ones. 

We loaded up our little trailer and headed on over to the gas station, about 20 miles away.  

It was exactly what we wanted and in great new shape. It had never been mounted and still had the tags on it. So we quickly handed over the money, all while we were wearing our masks. They hopped back in their truck and drove away. So we really didn't get to see each other's faces.  It was windy and cold, so we hopped back into our Saturn after strapping the door down to our trailer.

Now ---- here's the funny part of the story, showing that it really is truly a small world. As we drove away, the seller texted us. She says "We think we know you! We think you bought some other things from us in the past!"

It turns out that almost two years ago we had bought a light fixture from the wife. She was kind enough to drop it off, sight unseen, on our front porch the very same day we closed on the deal of the house. We said we didn't know if we would be here when she came through on her way to work, so we just left her a check in the mailbox. We never met face-to-face. 

But here's the beautiful light fixture we bought from her, that matches the other light fixtures that we were bringing up to install in our newly purchased old farmhouse

The parrot is in the background hanging from the window frame, 

it's not part of the light fixture LOL

Then she said, her husband remembers my husband! Well, how could that be? It turns out that we had also bought a pile of old office cabinetry fixtures from him almost two years ago. We had met him at a storage unit where it was being stored. It was left over furniture fixtures from an office. Amazing that he recognized Steve from way back then?

Here are some of the goofy cabinetry pieces, with some odd greenish stain and burgundy doors. It took three and four coats of white primer and paint to cover it up. 

The first section of 3 door cabinets were what we wanted the most.  We mounted them on the wall in the laundry room. Just a bargain at the price of $100 for all of the cabinetry. It more than paid for the amount that we wanted for some cabinets in the laundry room.

In my mind, the rest of the cabinets were an added bonus, leftover to configure for my use in my She Shed. And configure them we did!

The tall section that was used as a counter (I think to stand in front of and make appointments with the receptionist) became the back surface of my sewing desk. On the top counter surface I was able to set my rectangular large ironing board, known as a quilting "Big Board", as a perfect height ironing surface for working on my fabric projects.

The two file cabinets were spread apart and mounted underneath a recycled table top. This became my sewing desk with a leg hole opening in the middle for my office chair. Underneath we wired in an electrical outlet into the floor and put a porthole through the tabletop. Then we ran up my electrical cords and light cord to power anything on the desk.

The super strong file cabinet drawers, designed to carry a lot of weight, also double now as an ironing surface on one side and a rotary cutting board surface on the other with removable planks. One is coated with ironing board material and the other has a rotary mat permanently affixed to it. It makes a great sewing center with the U-shaped design.  I can just flip the planks off, and close the drawers up like a regular desk if I want. 

By having the tall counter in front of the sewing table, it kind of hides my clutter and mess from the rest of the room as people come and go through the She Shed. It also enables me to leave everything out, and I don't have to put things away each time in between quilting sessions.  The little stools are fun for the grandkids to sit on and work on art projects at the counter when I remove the Big Board. 

This one awkward piece of cabinetry had slanted side shelves, and it was a little more unusual. At first we considered cutting off the angled corners. Instead we decided to securely mount it high enough on the wall to hold my weaving supplies. The end shelves were just perfect for my most often used tools and accessories. They were easy to grab and reach from each side, especially now that I have two looms set down below it. 

So all in all, I messaged back to the seller, and told them that any time they're ready to sell something again, let us know first! 

  

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Our warm temperatures from yesterday were beautiful in the low 60's.  Last year we had such large puddles in the back, ponds really, that Steve was running pumps and hoses trying to clear them out. He got it to run out to the gutter in the front of the house to go down the street and off into the swamp. 

This year the water table is much lower, and the level of snow melt was much less. It's a little muddy back there but no big ponds.

It's a beautiful view out to our backyard, even without the green grass or the leaves on the trees yet. This is the view from the She Shed that we enjoy every evening from our chairs.  You can barely see the blue of the neighbor back there on the right. Come summer, when the trees leaf out, we don't see him again until late next fall.

The weather was amazingly beautiful yesterday in Wisconsin. It was almost 70°. We opened all of the windows of the house, letting in the fresh air (after turning off the furnace). We spent some time out on the front porch, with the porch swing and end tables now in place. Ahhhh this is nice. 

We also put out the pair of rocking chairs, along with the little repainted end table between them. It feels so good to have the furniture back on the porch. It's a sign of SPRING!  The long front porch is just one more of the features of the house that we really enjoy.

A lot of neighbors were going past, and we were waving and chatting with a few as they strolled on by. Everyone was remarking on the beautiful weather for March for Wisconsin. Very unusual. Of course, we can still be hit with a wallop of a snow storm yet. And that would not be unusual at all!

Selfies! 

These are the two upcycled chairs from my neighbor Sheryl.  They make great additional seating for visitors, and can be carried over to join in the group on the other part of the porch.  Much nicer than hauling out lawn chairs from the garage.  I bought them from Sheryl for $5, painted them, and recovered the seats with red upholstery vinyl. 

From the other side....   

Binney came out to enjoy the sunshine too. 

It was wonderful afternoon

to hang out and enjoy the blue sky,

with our American Flag waving in the breeze. 

Stay tuned for more projects.