Jackson's Orchard

 This past week I was on Fall Break from work.  The last few days turned into a beautiful fall weekend.   It was the perfect time to go to the orchard to get apples.  Years ago you could actually go out into the orchard and pick your own apples, but I don't think they let you do that anymore.  They were having their annual pumpkin festival with lots of activities for the kids including face painting, sand art, and wagon rides to the pumpkin patch to pick out that perfect pumpkin.  We passed on all of the kiddie activities but I did manage to take a few pictures.

The Cider Slide

 There was a kid inside of this tire - walking and rolling the tire.

 

  It's a little hard to pick out, but this is a tractor activity center with slides coming down from the wagon.  I bet the grands would have loved it!

 These tires were partially buried and the kids could hop from one to another and walk around the whole circle.

 We bought 2 - 1/2 bushel bags of Red Delicious apples to freeze for this winter.

I can't believe I didn't even get a picture of a single pumpkin while we were there :-(

DESTRUCTIVE HUMMERS

I usually try to feed the hummingbirds every spring.  This year we were at the cabin early and I put out the bright red sugar water for them.  It's hard to keep the feeders full when we aren't there full time.  I did buy a 2nd, larger feeder thinking it would keep them feed.  About a month ago while we were there, I kept hearing this really loud pecking noise.  We thought maybe it was a woodpecker, but we didn't ever see it.  Later that day we were on the lower back deck looking at the steps that handyman had been building and I looked up at our red, white & blue party lights.  This is what we saw:

Note only did they like the red ones... 

They liked the blue ones.....

 And the clear ones!

For now, the lights are still hanging, but I'm not sure if they will last long with the big holes in almost all of them.

Handyman's New Toy

Handyman recently sold his fishing boat.  It was a nice boat, ran really well, but it would only hold 2 people.  That's not good when we'd like to take others out on our boat.  So we bought a used pontoon instead.  It's rated to hold 10 people.  Last Saturday we did finally got it in the water and took a little boat ride.  The weather wasn't very good that day.  It had been raining and we had some raindrops fall on us while we were out on the water, but it was great to get out on the lake.  I'm looking forward to spending more time out on the lake just being lazy while handyman gets in some fishing.

The life jackets are all in -- 3 different kids sizes and 10 adult vests so we're all ready to go. No one will have to wear one of those uncomfortable, ugly, orange, yoke type floatation devices since we have enough vests for everyone.

Here are a few pictures of handyman's new toy.  Hope we'll have lots more later with family & friends on board!!

BUILDING A STAIRWAY TO THE WATER

Handyman is at it again.  He's started another building project.  This one will take him a while and he may not finish before he runs out of money and has to find another paying job before he completes it.  We spent the past few days at the cabin and I got to watch his progress.  Here are some pictures of his work.

Walking out towards the steps from the cabin.

Stairs from the side.  Looks like there may be some good places to plant some flower bulbs this fall so we'll have some colorful flowers next spring.

Walking down the steps to nowhere (at least for now).  The tall posts will get cut off eventually. 

Looking back up at the cabin from the bottom. It's gonna be a lot further down when he's finished.

Part way back up.

 We sure are going to have a lot of steps when he's finished!

 The walkway from the stairs and a few more steps.

ANOTHER KITCHEN PROJECT FINISHED

Handyman got a call on Friday from the cabinet company to let him know that the counter top was in early.  They were only open until 3:30 so he he headed on out and picked it up.  He had already spent much of the week sanding and re-staining and varnishing the cabinets to make them all match.  That was the biggest problem with reusing parts of the old cabinet.  Handyman has done such as good job and this project and I'm thrilled with the extra storage and all of that counter top space.  Thanks Randy!  Ready for another project?

Tearing Down, Building Back

When we first purchased our home in 1996, our kitchen just didn't have enough cabinets for all of my cooking paraphernalia.  So, my handyman husband went to work building cabinets across a blank wall.  I don't know what I would have done without those cabinets because they held so many things that just wouldn't fit in the other cabinets.  At the time, we had discussed building base & upper cabinets, but it was decided that we just didn't have enough floor space for those bigger cabinets.  In the summer of 2009 we decided to add on to the kitchen area by making a new laundry room/pantry and extending the breakfast nook.  (You can look at posts from that summer in previous posts).  I was happy to have all of the extra storage, but then I began dreaming of  more counter top space since we finally had the floor space we needed to install base cabinets where the original cabinets had been built.  It was a while before I approached the subject with my handyman, but he seemed to be pretty receptive to the idea and so began the planning stages of our latest remodeling project.  I had hoped that we could salvage some of the original cabinets and salvage he did!  He just sliced those top cabinets right off!!  (Well, it wasn't quite that easy).  The base cabinets had to built from scratch because the fronts would be different than the old cabinets.  They were designed specifically to hold our "stuff."  I now have a drawer that holds the trash can, getting it up off the floor and out of sight and big drawers for cake pans and plastic ware.  Handyman has done such a good job.  It's not quite finished yet, but he's been letting fill up drawers and cabinets. 

 This picture was taken after handyman removed all of the doors just before the whole cabinet was removed.  He was able to reuse eight of the original doors. 

 Here, he's got the base cabinets in place and is working on the electrical wiring so I'll have plenty of places to plug in my appliances.  He thinks of everything!

 Got the base drawers and doors in place!!

 Three fourths of the upper cabinets are in place -- progress is being made!

 The fourth upper cabinet is in place.

Here is the super duper huge drawer that  holds the trash can.

And this is one of the other big drawers that holds my cake pans.

The countertop is just a piece of painted plywood right now.  The permanent one is on order.  It'll be a close match to what we have on the others -- nothing fancy like granite.  We would have had too many other things to replace if we had gone that route.  Randy is still working on getting the stain to match a little better and I think he's come up with a formula that will work.  Plans are to eventually get the TV off of the counter and hang a new flat panel on a wall.  We had enough knobs on the original cabinet to cover what we needed for these.  

I'll post a few more pictures once everything is complete.  We're still about 3 weeks from getting the countertop delivered.

Thanks handyman for all of your hard work!

Happy Valentines Day

Hope yours is wonderful!!

A LITTLE CRAFT PROJECT (continued)

Since I have 2 granddaughters, I couldn't stop with just one play purse, so I made another one this weekend.  I wasn't crazy about the first flower, so I tried another one.  Not sure I like this one either, but I guess they'll do for play purses.

 


 

A Little Craft Project

I haven't done much crafting lately, but I came across some instructions for a crochet project that I thought I might like to do.  I found this cute little purse on http://www.tangledhappy.com/2010/11/granny-stripe-boutique-bag.html.


I thought the granddaughters would like to have one so I headed to the attic and found my yarn stash and came up enough to make one.

My flower didn't turn out exactly like I wanted, but I think it will do for a play purse.  Now to make another one so they won't have to share!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Another year has come and gone.  It hardly seems possible.  This past year we've gotten to spend time at the cabin, enjoy a family reunion with several cousins, and spend time with our kids and grandkids.  I joined "You Version" last January and during the final weeks of 2011 I finished my "Read the Bible in a Year."  It wasn't my first time through it, but it had been a couple of years since I had completed it in a year's time.  Yesterday I began the New Testament again.  I'm looking for a good book on women of the Bible.  I'm hoping that there's an interesting one out there.
I read quite a few books last year, thanks to my Kindle and their new access to library books.  Our library doesn't have a lot of books  yet (just a little over 600), but they're adding rather steadily.  It's been nice to not have to purchase books for my Kindle.  
During the last 6 weeks of 2011, I started walking.  First at a city recreation center, then at a local church.  I found that the church's carpeted walking track was kinder to my knees.  I plan on ramping up my walking in 2012.  It was hit or miss, plus I was just getting back in the habit and trying to get my body used to the exercise again.  I walked 1 or 2 miles a few times a week.  Now I'd like to get back to 4 miles a day at least 5 days a week.  At least I know that I have a nice warm, safe place to walk while it's cold outside.  I do plan to change my diet a little, but not much.  Mainly just smaller portions.  Our menus are usually pretty healthy with plenty of fruits and vegetables.
I have a few projects around the house that I'd like to finish (or start), nothing major is on tap for this year that I know of yet.  Handyman will probably finish painting the walls in the bedrooms and I'd like to redecorate our guest bedroom.  New bed linens, a few new accessories, but keeping the furniture that we have in there.  I'd also like to change the lighting the master bath.  This year we changed the towel bars and TP holder to the bronze.  I really like them, but we need to change knobs on the vanity too and maybe a few other things in there as the year progresses. 
Our Christmas tree is still up in the living room, so I guess I'd better get up from here and start taking it down since it's back to work tomorrow.
Hope everyone has a great 2012!!  Happy New Year!