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. 

~~~~~~~~

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. 

~~~~~~~~

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. 

Hot Hot Hot

Ewwwwwee the temperature sure jumped up here in Wisconsin on Tuesday. And along with that, the humidity!

This was from earlier in the afternoon, the weatherman later said our record breaking high was 94 degrees and the "feels like" temperature was well over a hundred with the heat index.  The humidity was in the 70% range. ICK!

Just three days ago we were covering up all of our plants and vegetables because we had frost overnight. Only in Wisconsin...

~~~~~~~

We started a few projects early in the morning to get them done before the heat got any worse. Steve had reconstructed the new sills on the basement windows on the south side of the house.  Once he had the new material in place, I gave them each a couple of coats of good exterior paint. Boy oh boy, that sure looks a lot better than how they used to look.

Towards evening when things cooled down a little bit more, Steve was able to mount the two newly painted windows into place.  Then from the inside, we will add the second layer of windows for added heat loss prevention in the winter.

We were losing daylight fast,

but he wanted to get them into place 

so no critters would wander into our basement! 

It sure looks a lot better than what was there before. I took this next pic today.  Now all eight basement windows are finished!   They will match the multi paned windows we want to install later on the main floor of the house.

We have also installed some room darkening roller shades in the west facing windows of the she shed, as well as in the dining room and office. This keeps that hot blazing afternoon sun from heating up the interior of the house and combating against the central air conditioning.

 As soon as the shades were up and in place

 the rooms cooled down considerably.

I even found these adorable little crocheted shade pulls rings, that look so old-fashioned and cute. Perfect for a little Grandma and Grandpa farmhouse!

~~~~~~~

Now on to Steve's newest acquisition---- 

 for his "Retirement Entertainment":

He bought A THIRD PUMP! This time it's a gas powered one. First he bought an extra supplemental used household type sump pump. Second he bought an electrical pump from Harbor Freight and a couple more hoses. Now he has increased to a large gas-powered pump along with even larger hoses!!!

My Boy with his water toys is sure having fun!

He found it used on Marketplace and 

had to rebuild the carburetor and clean out 

the old gas....  and now it runs! 

There's really no need to pump out the big puddles in the yard, except for him to have fun. Big Boy playing with mud puddles, you know!

Look how happy he is???

Some friends suggested just making a big pond back there, year round.  I wouldn't mind one, but he said no. He said all they do is attract mosquitoes and then he has to maintain it. He wants all the puddled up water drained so he can cut grass there!!! (like he doesn't have enough grass already with two and a half acres?)

If we just let it naturally fill up a hole, it would be just our luck that cat tails and marsh grass would grow.  Then the DNR would designate us as a watershed property and we could never cut the grass for 50 ft around it!!

The situation is that there has already been 20 to 30 loads of fill brought back there by the previous owners in the last few years. We are just so low to the newly heightened water table of the Great Lakes being so high... that it never has a chance to soak down in the ground anymore. When you walk in our grass everything is mushy and soft and never has a chance to dry out. Until the Great Lakes level were to go back down where it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago or 50 years ago, the yard is probably never going to dry out. But he's having fun playing with his puddles. I don't care one way or another if the puddles are back there. But he wants to drain them so let him play. At least now he can start using gasoline instead of electricity.

We're supposed to get a bunch more rain before the weekend so he can play with them again!!

~~~~~~~

As far as our self imposed quarantine, we have allowed ourselves a little bit of leeway. We have done a few shopping trips to the stores in the early morning senior hours on a weekday. We picked up what we needed and got the heck out as fast as we could.

This has been very tough on us being apart from our grandchildren. So we started letting up and are starting to visit with our grandkids and our grown children this week.  One family at a time.  Touching my grandkids again and hugging and playing. We need that....

We have decided that we are going to visit with family members that are not sick, and that have not been around any sick people. For now. Until we see how things go.


I feel like we are waking up after being asleep for a long time...

Thinking about a Couple Songs Tonight....

Yes, I have a couple oldies songs running through my head this evening.
One of my favorite songs that I used to play in band class was "Stormy" 

And yes, we sure had "stormy" weather here in Wisconsin today.....  about 3:30 the skies turned black, the winds started to blow and rain began.  Wheeeeeeee  this pic is taken right from the front steps of our house.

It got dark so fast, and there weren't any warnings yet on the tv. I was surprised.  So I pulled in our American flag, shut all the windows and waited for it to hit.   It was getting very hot and humid and windy. Steve was on his way home from work in the middle of it.  I was getting worried when he was late (he was stuck behind finishing up something at work)

The next song is a variation of "The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia"  errrr Chilton?
Then the power went out.  All over town!   Seems a big tree went over some lines and started on fire, so over 2,000 homes were without power as the storm rolled in.  I checked the WPS website and said it would be repaired as soon as possible. But no real time frame.

When Steve finally got home, there was a lull in the rain.  So we grabbed our uncooked dinner, our laptops and cell phone (which also doubles as a mobile data hotspot) the doggers and their dinner dishes.... We went on out to the motorhome in the back yard! Just as we got into the motorhome it started raining again.  We made a good choice to run when we did.

We have four deep cycle marine batteries of power stored and fully charged from the solar panels, and we could kick in the generator if need be.  Steve settled in playing his favorite game of cards on his laptop while I was cooking up supper on the propane stove. I was able to recharge our lagging cell phone battery as well as plug in our laptops to power up. The doggers thought we should be going somewhere, and were a bit confused.

We decided to settle in for our next song:   "I Love A Rainy Night"  

The rain came down for a while, and we ate our dinner and watched the storm pass on the tv weather stations. We had radar tracking on the laptop and the weather station on the tv to follow along. Soon it was over and the sun came out again!   The power didn't come back on yet, so we stayed in the rig.  The dogs had now figured it was fun time camping and cuddling and snuggling. Could the next song be Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love" ???

About 7 pm my friend Sarah messaged me that the power was back on.  Sooo the next song of course has to be the gospel hymn :  "I Saw The Light"  as we craned our necks out of the motorhome side window to see the back porch light come on. 

So we moved kit and kaboodle back into the house.  

sooooo along comes John Denver, singing

"Back Home Again"

The house was pretty stuffy and hot being closed up all afternoon and evening.  It was hot and humid outside.  So we kicked on the central air to cool it down.  We started thinking it was time to get the little window air conditioner unit for the window upstairs installed for the summer. 

See, last summer we figured out even with the central air running in our house, on hot evenings we weren't getting cool enough temps up in our bedroom.  With the thermostat on the main floor, of course it was cool down there as cool air travels downward... and the heat stays in the upstairs bedrooms.  Even with shutting all of the registers on the main floor, it was not enough to boost the air to the upper floors.  We have to run it at a considerably low temp setting on the AC thermostat downstairs for a long time to push the cool air upstairs.   And by morning the downstairs is freezing! 

I asked Steve to think of a song now with something "cool"  in it....  all he could come up with is "Long Cool Woman in A Black Dress"   oh geesh! 

Our solution was to buy one small window air conditioner for the bedroom.  But since our bed is right near the two front windows, it would be blowing right across us, not to mention the noise factor.  Our creative thinking caps figured out to install the small window air conditioner unit in our closet!  Yes, our big walk-in closet has a window.  Imagine that, in a 100 year old house, to have a window in a closet?  (also the grandtot's bedroom closet has a window too) 

If we keep the closet door open at an angle to blow the air into the bedroom, we are comfy and somewhat peaceful without having the noisy unit right next to the bed! 

And that brings us to our next song.....  "Up on A Roof"   because Steve has to crawl out of our bedroom windows to get on the front porch roof to remove the outer storm window. It's the old fashioned kind that has to be removed from out there, not inside like the rest of the windows.  Once he removes that, he is able to install the unit from the inside.  

Once he got the outer storm window off, 

he passed it through to me waiting inside. 

Then he came inside to remove the trims and remove the lower pane of the inside window.  We discovered last year that the closet window is so small you can't leave the lower pane in an upwards position, the AC unit won't fit.  So it takes a real re-vamping to get this to work. 

Carefully he lifted the ac unit into place 

and I moved over to hold it there as soon as I snapped this pic. 

I was the person handing the tools and holding the unit in place while he put the trim boards back on. Now he had to put the large support board on to make sure that it never falls out the window and rolls down off the porch roof! 

See how this configuration works now?  The noisy unit is in the closet window, and if we leave the closet door open on an angle, it helps the flow to come into the bedroom.

The unit even has a remote that has a mode called "feels like" which you can set a comfortable temp on the remote and set the remote in the portion of the room you want that cold.  Then the AC unit runs until the right temp is sensed by the location of the remote, not over in the closet.  Neato!

Curtain back in place,

all done! 

While Steve was out there, he decided to clean all those danged whirly bird helicopters out of the front porch rain gutter.  All of the rest of the gutters have covers on them, just this one and the garage are the older open type and need to be cleaned.  Paula Freund who grew up in this house remembers having to clean out that gutter, and in later years they send her son out there through the window to do it for the grandparents! 

so that brings to mind David Grays "Gutters Full of Rain" 

 Out he crawled back on the roof to scoop out the gutters....

they were all wet and goopy and full of saturated helicopter mush! 

Mr Zoom Zoom didn't even wait for me to get him a small trowel 

or to fetch a set of work gloves.  

He used a plastic bag on his hand and scooped them out, 

tossing them to the ground below! 

That is another job well done

around Our Old House! 

He safely got off the roof and back in the house, 

all in one piece.  

Whew! 

Tomorrow I will write up a blog about our weekend fun and the baby shower at our daughter Heather's house on Sunday. 

Dreary Winter Week ahead of us

Now that we are home from our vacation, we are trying to catch up on things around the house.  How depressing is that?  So I didn't have much to write about all week for a blog.  Once the excitement of the vacation is over, it's not too interesting to read about coming back home and feeling like drudge drudge drudge!

For any of you new readers, here is the first post about our vacation as we took off 2 months ago:

http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2011/02/vacation-heading-south-from-wisconsin.html

The bright spots about coming home are the grandchildren!   We were able to go see Chelsea right away, as they live close by and we went to town to get the rest of our mail (Erin had been picking it up for us every few weeks)   We brought her some souvenirs, and enjoyed seeing her again.

At first, she stood far away and stared at us! Almost broke my heart, thinking we had been gone too long and she forgot us!  But soon she was flying into my arms, and cuddling in my lap.   I got lots of hugs and kisses too.  She was her silly girl self in no time.

We brought them a Mexican woven blanket to be used for picnics... 

which little Chelsea sat herself down in the center of the big star to try it out. 

She put on her dainty little Mexican Senorita dress, and was twirling and spinning with the pretty lace around her ankles. It was hard to get her to stand still for a few shots.

We came home just in time... because this week Chelsea's little day care had some festivities planned.  On Wednesday, they had a little parade through the downtown of our city, with the older kids marching and singing, waving pompoms. The younger ones got to ride along.  Here is Chelsea, up front with little Finn on the 6 seater kiddie stroller!   Wave those pompoms, kiddies!

They even went though the local City Hall, in the front door, down the long hall, and stopping at the big banquet room in the back where the Senior Citizens were having their Meal Site day...  they sure enjoyed seeing all the little ones on their parade!  Then out the back door and down the sidewalk back to the day care.

I was invited to a special Pancake Breakfast at the daycare.  And yes, Chelsea even fed me pancakes! 

 And what can be more fun than a box?  They crawl in and out and let the flap come down to hide out... the older kids at the day care center "decorated" it for the little kid room.  How cute is that?

Steve went back to work on Wednesday as planned, but he was coming down with the same horrible flu/cold I had during the last few days of vacation in Missouri. I guess I "shared"  huh?   He felt so awful Thursday morning, that he tried to get ready to go into work, but was so ill he had to get undressed and crawl back into bed. I know JUST how he felt!  You know he has to be REALLY sick to miss a day of work, and especially having tons to catch up on there, it's going to be a long haul for him to start getting back into the swing of things.  Two more people in his department abruptly retired quick while he was gone, in the wake of our new Gubbner Walker Budget Cuts.  Of course replacement staff will probably not be hired.  That makes even more work for Steve's department.    More work, less guys. 

The weather here has been very depressing too.. this is what we woke up on Saturday morning:

Rain, sleet and then finally ...snow... 

Next up on the souvenir list was little Allegra... we drove down to Green Bay on Saturday to see her.  Again, she too gave us the Ole StinkEye when we came in, as if to say: "Who are you Crazy People?"   But soon she was doing high fives and knucks with us,  Daddy put on her little Mexican Senorita Dress to dance around in.

and Mommy showed her how to play her maracas.  

  

What a little nut, she was soon all over the place, enjoying the attention of having her Granmuddah and Granfaddah Pfun come to visit.

We didn't get to visit Jameson as he was gone to a birthday party while we were in Green Bay.
So we will be seeing him on Easter and will give him his souvenirs then.  

We did a pile of grocery shopping at Aldis in Green Bay, and drove back home.

We holed up for the rest of the weekend in our easy chairs, Steveio with his laptop going,
and I, with the sock machine a-cranking.  

I had to finish up 5 pairs for friend Lisa, and 8 pairs for friends Jeanie & Ray and then 4 more pairs for some friends of theirs!  Whew... so it was a crank-a-thon during the depressing dreary icky weather.  

(these are all spoken for--- but I can knit new ones for anyone who wants them) 

We did get a bit of sun poking through the trees for sunset on Sunday, 

so I snapped a few shots from the back deck, through the bare woods towards the river. 

  The water level is way up, about 6 inches below "flood stage" right now, 

and will be much higher before the end of the week. 

Why????  Just look what our forecast says for tomorrow night????

Here is a current Winter Storm Watch for Home (Oconto, WI) until 1:00pm, Wed Apr 20 2011, from your local National Weather Service office. URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI 628 AM CDT MON APR 18 2011 ...LATE SEASON WINTER STORM EXPECTED TO BRING A BAND OF HEAVY SNOW TO THE REGION TUESDAY AFTERNOON INTO WEDNESDAY... .LOW PRESSURE WILL DEVELOP ACROSS THE CENTRAL PLAINS TUESDAY MORNING...THIS TRACK WILL LIKELY RESULT IN A BAND OF HEAVY SNOW SOMEWHERE ACROSS PORTIONS OF CENTRAL...NORTH CENTRAL AND NORTHEAST WISCONSIN. THERE IS STILL SOME UNCERTAINTY IN THE TRACK OF THE STORM AND HOW MUCH WARM AIR WILL WORK INTO THE SYSTEM...SO THE EXACT LOCATION OF THE HEAVY SNOW BAND IS STILL IN DOUBT. BUT REGARDLESS OF WHERE THE HEAVIEST SNOW FALLS...THE STORM IS LIKELY TO HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON TRAVEL ACROSS ALL OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN WISCONSIN. * THE STORM IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE A BAND OF 6 TO 10 INCHES OF  WET PACKING-TYPE SNOW. ALTHOUGH STILL SOMEWHAT UNCERTAIN...THE  MOST LIKELY SCENARIO IS FOR THE HEAVY SNOW BAND TO SET UP TO  THE NORTH AND WEST OF GREEN BAY AND THE FOX CITIES.