Stay...In...Control...

...it's not easy to stay in control because suddenly, after many idle months, there's so much to do!  The grading is complete and now we have to get ready to plant grass..... green, sweet smelling, bare foot soft.... GRASS!!!  How wonderful it will be to have GRASS!!

I catch myself falling out of control every day... I try to pick one thing to do and not to start anything else until that one thing is done, but many times I'll suddenly realize that I'm no longer doing what I set out to do.  Instead, I was distracted by something else and am doing that instead.  For instance, this morning I decided to feed the birds, but on the way to the feeding station I noticed a plant that needed watered, then I noticed another, and another...next thing I knew all 180 feet of garden hose was stretched out and I was watering the garden, and the poor birds hadn't been fed yet!

And, my mind is almost always mulling landscape designs, no matter what my hands are doing- I'm mentally arranging plants,shrubs, trees and rocks, trying to imagine all the possibilities.  Except for several trees that I've always wanted to have, everything will be transplanted from existing flower beds or the "old" garden space where I started storing things until I was able to find a new place for them.  I still have six flower beds to do away with, and the old pond area still has plants that need moved, although the water part of the pond is gone.

For the second time in 10 years all my landscaping rocks, except for the pond rocks,have been gathered into one place, thanks to Rod and Chris.  As soon as the grass is planted I'll start on the patio, by that I mean I'll be laying 6 tons of flagstone.  This will be the second time I've done this.  The first time Rod was working out of town and I was on my own,I did ok with that but was never perfectly happy with the stones being set in crushed limestone- very messy!  The same flagstone has now been lifted out of the limestone and I'll be re-using it in a new patio, this time in a much better foundation because I'll be setting them in concrete.  I know this will be a really big job, if Rod helps me build a form I'm confident that I can take it from there...

I rented a contraption called a "York rake", which attaches to our lawn mower and gets dragged around the yard raking up the bigger rocks as well as roots sticking out of the ground.  By Monday the yard should be ready for grass seed!

That makes me think of our dog Bear... 10 years ago, when we first moved back here in the woods, we were anxious to get grass growing.  We had a very large yard then too, and I walked around spreading seed with the seeder for quite awhile in one direction before it was time to turn around.  When I did turn around, there was Bear.  He had been following along behind me, walking through the grass seed I had just spread.  As far as he was concerned we were just taking a stroll through the yard, not planting grass.  Bear had very hairy feet, and sure enough, when I lifted his paw to check, the hair was packed with grass seed!  It wasn't a problem though, the grass grew ok, no dog paw shaped bare spots anywhere...

Here are a few random pictures from around the Crouse House..

The Strawberries:
I guess I must think I don't have enough to do...on our way home yesterday Chris and I saw an Amish buggy parked on the corner of Rt. 408 and Johnstown Rd. with a sign attached to it that said "Strawberries".  We stopped, the strawberries were only $2 a qt. so I bought 10 qts.  I finally finished cleaning, crushing and freezing them at 2 a.m.  Check out the mutant strawberry, doesn't it look like a flower?

The Flower Boxes:

I had a terrible time finding brackets to hang flower boxes from our deck railing.  Our railings are made of a composite material and are rounded on the top, and are much bigger than wrought iron railings, which are the only round brackets I could find.  I searched the World Wide Web for many hours and couldn't find anything that would fit our railing.  Finally, at Stan's Garden Center I found a bracket with a round top...it wasn't perfect, Rod had to use his big manly biceps and bend the metal to fit the railing, but it seems to have worked...none of the boxes have fallen off the railing yet!  I had my flowers planted in those green plastic bags for hanging plants, and they weren't growing nicely.  I ripped those bags open and re-planted the plants in the flower boxes, and I believe they are smiling now!  Soon they'll grow over the sides and hang down the railing...I love flower boxes!

This is my water garden now, a rain barrel.  The only water plant that I kept was my miniature water lily named "Susie".

Bulldozers are noisy!

Monday; Tom the excavator arrived and starting moving the earth, he moved earth for 9 hours that day.  His job is to grade the yard, but also to dig a gentle swale from one end of the yard by the field, to the other end of the yard by the woods, for rain water to flow through.  Our property is on a downhill slope and we hope this swale will divert any water from the house foundation.  Tom has told me that this is the time to think of anything I want done that involves bulldozing, like moving some really big rocks that I'd like to work into the landscaping, so I've been giving this a lot of thought!

Tuesday; The heating and air conditioning guy was here on this day and installed the central air conditioner!  Happy Day!!

Wednesday; Tom is back today, probably to finish the job.  It's hot and humid, and bulldozers are noisy, so I've shut all the windows and doors and turned on the air conditioner!  I'm staying inside today, I have more than enough to keep me busy indoors.. I don't even make lists anymore, there's so much to do - inside and outside- no one needs a list!  I have so many idea's and plans running through my mind, and bumping into each other!  I think it will be like this all summer, although we hope to be done by the end of July and then plan an open house!  The garden is planted now, except for the 75 marigolds that I started from seed and will plant around the border of the garden.  It would be perfect if I have the landscaping done before I start harvesting the garden.  If my garden grows, I'll be doing a lot of canning this year!

note: Tom just came to talk to me, I had him step inside to get cooled off!  He said he'd be nearly done today, still has some earth moving to do, then finishing the driveway.  I'll add some pictures later.

In Memory of my Mother.

Ann Miller

August 12, 1932

June 8, 2001

My mother was a beautiful person, she had a love for God that was apparent for all to see.  She was kind and generous, wonderful, courageous, and her accomplishments were many ...  she was a true role model. Her husband, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, in-laws, brother, sisters, niece's and nephews, and many friends, as well as the elderly patients in various facility's who experienced her loving care as their nurse, were all blessed to have had such a person as my mother in their lives.

Ten years ago today my mother lost her five year battle with ovarian cancer, and it was a battle!  She endured treatment after treatment that made her so sick that she must have wondered if the cure would kill her before the disease.  It seemed so cruel that such a person as she should die such a long and painful death.

Not one day goes by that I don't wonder what mom would think or say about occurrences in daily life if she were still here with us.  Lately, I think about how much fun it would be to have her here with me as our house was being built, and now as we try to figure out how to furnish and landscape it.  She was a whiz at such things and her advice would be priceless!

I miss you mom.....

What a mess!

May... almost the end of May... and we're finally getting started on the yard work.  The excavator has been here twice this week to work, but still hasn't done what I'm waiting to have done, so that I can do my thing... the landscaping!  That is my work, I know just what to do, I have all but two items ( a Japanese Maple and a Dogwood tree) lined up and waiting to be put in place.  I would be close to finished by now except for one thing- a very, very wet spring has kept the excavator and the contractor from coming back to finish their work.  Until the yard is graded I can't plant or build anything, and the contractor has to clean the siding, install the air conditioning unit, install the downspouts, etc., etc. So, I still can not proceed with my landscaping and grass seeding.  I had really hoped to get that work done before the insects arrived and the weather got to hot, but that didn't happen.

There were some things we could do while we waited,and that was tearing down... The pond is going- no more water gardening for me.  I am saving my mini water lily and will have it in a deck container.  The labyrinth is going- no one ever used it and it was a huge task to keep it looking manicured.  The patio and fire pit are going- why have a patio where no one will use it?  The bird feeding station is going- I'll be downsizing to one seed feeder and one suet cage, and will still feed the hummingbirds and Baltimore Orioles.

The following pictures are of these things in progress.  I'll post throughout the summer as things are happening.

Mid May, finally a sunny day!  We are setting up our patio furniture out even though the deck has not been treated yet.  I took this picture of Rod enjoying the sunshine from around the corner on the front porch.

    I am standing in a low, very wet spot in the yard.  And when I say wet, I really mean swamp like! The labyrinth is in front of me, the pond beyond that, and the patio to the right.  The bird feeding station is behind me.  When these are all torn down the excavator is going to fill it all in with dirt right up to the driveway and to the deck attached to the garage and hopefully it won't be so wet anymore.  I'm thinking of leaving the first row of pond rocks and just planting a few shrubs there.  Those are the heaviest rocks, and I think I might leave them there for a few more years at least.

 Chris and Harley get started digging up the patio stones, Chris has moved all the field stones that lined the labyrinth, and there were many... Harley's football is near by, he'd rather have Chris throw the ball for him.  Now you can see the bird feeding station that will be gone one day very soon.  It's leaning like that because of black bears who occasionally stop by for a meal.

Chris is looking for same sized stones, when he moves them he stacks them in piles of equal sizes. I'll use them to build a new patio, and having them seperated by size will make that job so much easier...such a good boy..

And this is where the patio stones will be moved to... there's so much to do, I have the blueprint in my mind, I can't wait to have it finished and not have a mud yard anymore!

Tom the excavator starting on the driveway turn around, I'm standing in the low spot again.. squish, squish, squish...

I dug the Hosta out of the labyrinth in the wet spot, they were in about 6" of water.  It's amazing that they even grew.  This is the first thing I planted at the new house.  While roto tilling the ground I put a small ding in the siding...oops!

A picture of Tom from Chris's room.

And just now I noticed that another major job is getting started!  My garden space is being plowed!  Our amish neighbor had agreed to do it, then forgot about it.  But, he's here today, so now I can get out old Bessy, our ancient rototiller, and start working in the fertilizer (bat poop).  Maybe I can have everything planted by next week! John Horst, get your taste buds ready for sweet pickles!  I had to be stealthy about taking these pictures, one is through a screened window, the others from Chris's room when Sam's back was turned!

What's been happening? Not much!

People are asking why I haven't posted in awhile...the short answer is - nothing is happening!  On Tuesday the 22nd it was one month that we've officially lived here, the photo ops are pretty much over.  Chris Fuller has been coming back now and again when I notice small things that need repaired, there's a small persistent leak in the 2nd bath shower that refuses to stay "fixed".  And amazingly, there's even been a few things that have broken and had to be replaced. 

There are a lot of things I think of now that we've lived here for awhile that I wish I had done differently, for example: I wish I would not have had the outlets in the living area installed under the windows, since the lamps are on tables in between the windows and the cords are visible stretching to the outlets. 

A week ago I sealed all the tile floors, which left them with a soft gloss that looked so lovely.  Yesterday I mopped all the floors, using good old Murphy's Oil Soap.  When the tile floors dried they had a white scummy look that seems to be the finish that I applied last week coming off!!  I was very sad.  The container says the product should be used in dry areas, I took that to mean it can't be used on the shower tiles, I did not think I wouldn't be able to clean any tiles it had been applied to.  So, back to the hardware store I go for something waterproof and I'll have to do the tiles all over again...oh my poor knees...

Our cat Daxter has finally come to the new house to find us, must of wondered where we were at these past few weeks.  We left the cats and Annabelle at the garage and just feed and water them every day, we do feel bad because they no longer have family activity around them.  Gabby and Tiny are still at the garage with Annabelle, but use the cat door to venture outside whenever they want to.  Annabelle comes to visit on nice days and lays on a blanket in the garage, she does not come in because she can no longer go up and down stairs, she is now 14 years old.  Daxter being here at the house has caused anxious moments for Harley who thinks of himself as the one and only.  But Daxter is the same size as Harley, and doesn't back down when Harley charges at him.  So, they sit and stare at one another, and the only time there's a problem is when I sit down and they both want to sit on my lap.

I was in Home Depot for something one day and stumbled into something else, a really great sale on window blinds, no interest for a year, and only $118 to have the windows measured and the blinds installed in the whole house!!  Eric, the blind guy (nooo, not the guy who is sightless...) was a nice young man, and we now have blinds on our windows.  After all my searching for the right shade of green in top down, bottom up, cellular shades, I ended up choosing a shade of white.  I was afraid of getting too much green in the living area, plus I would be stuck with the color green forever...this way I can change the wall color to whatever I want.

I'll post a few more pictures in this blog, then I will sign off for a few months.  There just won't be anything happening worth photographing until sometime in the spring when the outside work can begin.  That will be a huge job that no one except me is looking forward to, I can't wait to get my hands on the landscaping project.  Plus, I have an area picked out for a vegetable garden!  I've mentioned this to Rod and Chris, but they pretend they can't hear me... they want the end result, without all the work that's involved in growing the food...

Talk to you again in a couple of months!

2/17/11  Today the temps were well into the 50's, notice the garage windows are open?  I moved everything out of the garage and hosed the floors clean, leaving the windows open so it could dry.  Chris is uncovering the sidewalk leading to the front door, the sidewalks had been covered with straw and plastic (and dirt and snow) all winter.  With a clean garage floor, and the sidewalk cleaned off, I hope to have less dirt coming into the house.  Chris is so strong, he made short work of this job!  I had struggled with it a little, but the plastic was so heavy with the weight of the dirt and snow on top of it, so I left that job for the stronger ones in the family..

2/22/11
Eric The Installer...sounds like a super hero name.  There are six windows in this room, each one with two double hung windows, that's twelve shades..it took Eric under an hour to do the whole house, not just this room...because he's...Eric- the installerrrr....

2/24/11
This is Daxter, doing something that Harley can't do, sitting on a window sill...na,na,na,na,naaa...

Harley washing his leg, he got onto the sofa using the stool technique that Uncle Bob taught him.  I was taking pictures of the blinds but posted this one because I saw that I had captured Harley taking his morning wash...and the next picture because he's caught in mid air while getting off the sofa.

Harley had to end his bath and get down because he heard Daxter jumping down from the windowsill.  Harley will now attempt to intimidate Daxter...  I hope you're also noticing the top down bottom up cellular shades in these pictures, since that was the reason I was taking pictures.  The patio door also has a cellular shade, a vertical shade, although the sales person informed me I could have a horizontal shade on that too.  I just couldn't imagine why I would want a horizontal shade on sliding glass doors... I do not have valances on the window blinds yet, they were so expensive, and I saw a website that shows a person how to make their own valances..hmmm, I wonder if I could do it....

Attempting intimidation...

And finally, one more sunset post, this one from the 17th of this month.  I told Rod that I was going to stop taking pictures of sunsets until he gets the rest of the trees cut down...

Weekend guests and a small (?) problem...

Tomorrow it will be 3 weeks since we've officially lived here, hard to believe!  I'm not anywhere near being completely moved in, and it just doesn't matter, we don't have any deadlines to meet so we can move when we get around to it.  I've decided not to move anything this week in the hopes that my back will get back to normal if I rest for a week.  That doesn't mean that I can't boss Rod and Chris around and have them move things for me! 

Last week was spent getting ready for our first overnight guests who were arriving on Friday evening and staying until Sunday, my sister Deb, her husband Bob, and their daughter Donna from Dalton, Ohio came to visit, and we girls were going to practice making crepe paper flowers for Donna's upcoming wedding in June.  My other sister Linda was actually our first official visitor, but not an overnight guest.

I was very busy on Friday, I had a lot to do before company arrived but had everything tightly scheduled and knew I could be ready when my sis arrived if I stayed on that schedule.  Chris didn't have school that day, while he enjoyed sleeping in I started laundry, cleaned the kitchen up, and swept and mopped the floors.  Then we both took showers and headed to Edinboro to pick up our new glasses and a few things at the grocery store...I was exactly on schedule...to good to be true, right?

When we got home- following my plans- I started to finish the cleaning, then I was going to prepare all the food for the weekend so that I could be free to make paper flowers and when it was time to eat everything would be ready, all I'd have to do was pull out the food and put it in the oven.  Sooo, I started a load of laundry (the sheets for our beds!), started the dishwasher, and was cleaning the hall bath when the alarm on the washing machine went off.  A code was flashing, telling me that there wasn't any water in the machine...  I turned everything off, called Rod- who was on his way home from work, and told him we had NO WATER, and asked him what I should do (yes, I was panicked!).  He had me flipping breakers, changing fuses, checking gauges, but still no water. We hung up, Rod called our contractor Chris Fuller, and he said he'd be here in 40 minutes, which was about 30 minutes before Rod got home, and about 60 minutes before our weekend guests arrived...

The end result was that the problem was not discovered that night, Chris said he'd be back Saturday morning.  Rod went to the store and bought bottled water and filled two 5 gallon buckets with water at a friends house to use for toilet flushing.  I did not prepare any food ahead of time, our bedsheets were partially washed and still in the washing machine, and we had to be very careful with our toilet flushing!  So much for my schedule...  Our guests are very laid back and adapted to the situation just fine, I tried to look on the bright side and said things like,"at least we have electricity", and it wasn't to long before we all went to bed.

The next morning was windy and snowy, Chris Fuller came back, and since the night before they had determined the pump and other things were not the problem, they pulled something up out of the well to check that.  That also wasn't the problem, so...what was the problem?

 Chris Crouse, Chris Fuller, Bob Horst, and Rod kneeling.

They finally decided the problem was in the transformer, and had to call the electric company, who came right out.  They found that when they had hooked up the power to the new house that something hadn't been done correctly that involved the water pump, that connection had got wet, and on the day that we were getting company, shorted out... They fixed the problem, everyone went home, the guys came inside where I was spending my time preparing food and Deb and Donna were making flowers.  The rest of the week end was sunny and relaxing, and I give thanks for water that comes out of the spigot when you turn the handle..

Donna and Deb concentrating on making flowers.

Bob and Harley concentrating on relaxing in a sunbeam, and I think Bob was drying out his pant legs!

Deb got marker on my new counter top!  She promised me it could be removed with bug spray, plus all insects would be repelled from that spot.  The stain was removed, and I haven't seen any insects there...

Sunday evening; this type of spectacular sunset is what we usually have here on Brown Hill, but the first since we've lived here!  The end to a really crazy week end!

P.S. Within minutes after posting this our power went off, and just came back on after three hours without electricity...  So, what's next?

The sun sets on a crazy day!

Tuesday the 8th:

7:00 a.m.

Chris missed the bus...

I have to take him to school, but I got the van stuck in the driveway while backing up and I got over to close to the edge of the driveway, got into a snowbank and onto the ice underneath the snow. Chris and I tried and tried to get out, my back is killin' me, we give up..

Around 10:00 it occurs to me to pour hot water on the ice, three buckets of hot water later we're on our way to school...

When I returned I went to the little farmhouse to get some things that I want from there, and I got stuck in that driveway!!  I got out of that in about 2 minutes, then left and went home, without even going inside!  I'll wait for Rod and his 4WD truck...

I spent the rest of the day in the old place, gathering up "stuff" that we need the most right now (picture Steve Martin in "The Jerk", "I need this, I need this..").  I had a lot of stuff gathered up, so instead of using "Old Blue"- the plastic sled I've been using to move stuff, I loaded the van, then backed into the garage and unloaded into the house. Chris came home from school and helped me, he's so strong!  When I pick something up I groan and strain, Chris just takes it from me and carries it with no effort..  Rod and Chris moved a lot of furniture related things for me tonight ...AFTER Rod blew the snow out of the driveway!  :-)

I've been dealing with lower back pain for a week and a half, it was REALLY bad at first, but I was feeling much better this morning, After shoveling, carrying buckets of hot water, and then carrying all that stuff to move...I bet I'll be in pain tomorrow!

Then, the sun set, and I got to see what I wanted most from this house...sunsets, the moon and stars.. without having to go outside to see them!

The sun is setting..

Going....

Going....

Gone!