September 1, 2011



Wednesday morning's project



Dinga standing guard



The Autumn month is here. The last week or two of August is usually when I smell Autumn arriving, but not this year. I definitely felt it during the last couple days of the month, but that certain smell is not yet in the air. Probably because the smell of summer never did have a chance to sink in.


It was a glorious day to be working outside yesterday. Didn't even reach 60. In the morning we split all the wood that was stacked and ready. There were about 42 pieces and it ended up being four wheel barrow loads. It really doesn't take that much time to split the wood. It's getting it to the splitter in 16" rounds that is time consuming, so by the time it is there, we have done most of the work. JB split almost a whole load while the washing machine finished its last spin and I hung out the wash. I figured it would save time if I let him do some splitting. . .

After lunch, I cut some dead branches off a few trees and moved a couple piles of wood to the cutting area. There were enough small pieces to take a load to the wood shed. JB worked in his shop and put up another yellow jacket trap near where I had discovered a nest in the ground. Only got one branch cut off that log!

JB called for price and availability on the tongue-in-groove knotty pine that we want in order to finish the great room walls. When we last ordered it in June of 2009, the cost was 52 cents per foot. Now it is 60 cents per foot. Not too bad, I guess. We will probably order it to be delivered mid-month, after we get back from Seattle. That way we can split wood in the mornings and work on the inside walls in the afternoon. Doing the same thing all day long gets old. I like variety.

We have decided to leave for Seattle on Friday and stay two nights. Just too much to do for a one-night stay. But we will not be renting a truck - way too expensive. We'll just take our trailer and plan on a second trip which will still be cheaper than renting a truck. Also, it is Mike's 13^th birthday on the ninth, so we may be able to go to his party.

Our resident frog has been serenading us with his croaking most days. I have to get down under the house again to confirm that there is no leak and the water that was down there earlier in the year was from poor drainage outside. I have visions of meeting a huge, foot-long frog, so I've been putting it off.

It has been fun going through all my photographs looking for ones to print for my mother-in-law's birthday. I didn't realize I had so many loose ones. I remember now that I had taken a lot of them out of albums that were not archival grade. Now I have another winter project - scrapbooking. The way it feels outside right now, we'll be snowed in by the end of October!

I finally have everything I need to put in the last small pieces of wood on the deck and finish caulking, so I hope to be able to do that today.  Then I may have time to also put on the sealer.  Dare I hope that this project might be done by the end of this week?  Or did I just jinx myself?!