Tuesday

Hello ladies! I thought I would make a post and give everyone an update on how things are going. We have been busy, isn’t everyone these days? I have been helping Hubby yesterday and today. The sheetrock is being delivered today and he will start hanging tomorrow. The insulators came last week. They sprayed this insulation in that looks and acts very similar to Great Stuff. It was pretty amazing. Anyway, I think he is going to get someone else to help him hang the ceilings. (Someone maybe a little stronger and taller than me). I don’t mind. We have plenty to do here.

Tomorrow morning, we will start picking blackberries. I think there will be plenty for canning, juicing and making jelly. Speaking of making jelly, I still am having no luck getting my jelly to set up. I just don’t understand what could be going on. The other day, the girls and I made 15 pints of peach jelly. None of it set up. Very disappointing and very expensive. I went to our local health food store and purchased the pomona pectin that my blogger friend Cheryl uses and redid it. It finally set up some but it is a soft set definitely not as firm as jelly usually is. So I used the magical powers of google to see if I could find out what was going on. Now I am not a novice at making jelly and jams. I’ve been doing it for years. Anyway one person said they had to switch kettles that they were using and then theirs did just fine. Do you all think it could be the kettle I am using? I tried to remember how long I have been using the kettle and it could coincide with the jelly problem. My old kettle finally gave out and I did switch to a different one. The kettle I am using now is a teflon kettle. The next time I do jelly I am going to try a stainless steel kettle and see if that makes a difference. What type of kettle do you all use?

The girls and I picked a mess of green beans for supper this evening. We also dug our first hill of potatoes. We will be having pork tenderloin, green beans, potatoes, onions and peppers and cucumbers for supper. Everything fresh from our garden (except the pork tenderloin). I can hardly wait. I could just feast on the veggies but Hubby always wants meat.

Our pullets are starting to lay pretty good. Yesterday we got 6 pullet eggs. Our old layers though have slacked off for some reason. Probably the heat. We have been hot for the last several days. Low 90’s. We did get a storm yesterday evening and it brought a pretty good rain with it. Lots of thunder and lightning too.

Well, I guess I better get busy starting supper. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 17, 2012 6

Garden

I thought I would share with you all a picture of the lower garden. It is doing pretty good. The upper garden is having a little more of a difficult time. We are having trouble keeping the calves out of it. They seem to find new ways to get out every day and seem to enjoy the corn in the upper garden very much. Shadow is getting too old to chase them and Jasper is just learning. He is on the accelerated learning program right now as I want him to learn quickly. He actually is getting much better. He “sometimes” listens and obeys commands. Sometimes he is just so happy that the calves are running from him, he doesn’t care where they are running. Oh well, that’s life on a farm.

I helped Hubby today at the farmhouse job. We thought we would start on running the pipes for the plumbing. However, the walls in the bathroom were in terrible shape, so we started tearing out the sheetrock in there. We will be running the pipes up and over the ceiling as there is not enough crawl space underneath. These older homes were built right down on the ground. The bathroom has a rock type flooring on it and the owners are wanting to keep it. This suits me just fine as I was not looking forward to trying to crawl under that floor. The girls worked on history and science while I was helping Hubby. We had brought our portable grill with us and did a picnic for lunch. We had hot dogs, potato chips and oreo’s. The lunch of champions. It was fun. We set up under a huge walnut tree and were entertained by a very friendly squirrel while we ate. I brought the girls home after lunch. They did the house chores while I went back to help Hubby. It was a full day.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

June 15, 2012 4

Ouch!!!

I thought I would show you ladies what happens when a cinderblock falls on your toe. Thankfully, I was wearing boots or it would have been lots worse. I must tell you all though, I really hesitated about showing you this picture. I did not realize I had such strange looking feet until I took this picture. Oh well, they are what they are, I guess. It didn’t get me out of work though. I had to go with him this morning to texture the ceiling on the sheetrock job. That job is finished now so we can go back to working just the remodeling job. He has been going to the sheetrock job in the mornings and the remodeling job in the evenings. Doesn’t that sound wonderful!!! 2 jobs at one time. We are so blessed.

Our temperatures did warm up some today. I think we actually got to about 50 degrees. It is supposed to be cold again tonight. I just finished building a fire to keep us toasty warm. I kinda thought we were finished with fires for this season but I guess I was wrong. I hope all this cold doesn’t destroy the fruit harvest.

I hope you all have a great evening. God bless.

April 24, 2012 8

Update on Job Site

Hello everyone! I know it has been several days since I made a post. First off, my blog was down for a few days. Thanks to David, I am now back up and running. Second, we have been pretty busy here. I thought I would share a few pictures of how the progress is coming on Hubby’s job.

We tore up the flooring in the livingroom. It was in pretty bad shape.

The floor joists were sitting down on the ground. Of course, there is only one way to fix that.

This was our progress as of Monday evening. Tuesday the girls and I had to go to C-burg so I didn’t get to help (too bad, right!) Hubby did finish moving the dirt out of this section. Next we will tear up the other side of the floor and do the same thing again. It is hard work but exciting. The house is really starting to take shape. Today, I helped him hang sheetrock on another job. Thank the Good Lord, work seems to be picking up some for us. We are SO thankful!

The girls working on school work. Homeschool is so much fun. We can take it with us wherever we go.

I thought I would show you all what damage termites can do.

We will be replacing these pieces of wood with blocks. Tuesday when we went to C-burg we stopped by the Horn’s for a visit. They had a great surprise.

Baby Ducks!!! Their mama duck had just hatched 16 baby ducks. It was very exciting. We had a nice visit and Vicki helped me (actually she did all the work) list some school books on Ebay to sell. Thanks again, Vicki.

Today has been wet and chilly here in Floyd. When we came home from hanging the sheetrock, I built a fire to take the chill out of the house. Wet weather seems to make the house feel colder. Well, I think that about catching up all we have been doing. I hope you all have a good evening and God bless.

April 18, 2012 8

Thursday

Hello Ladies, it has been another busy week for us. Monday we went with Hubby to the job site. This is a picture of one of the rooms he is working on. He has gutted all the upstairs and Monday we put the new subflooring down in 2 of the rooms.

He put these on the rafters upstairs to give them extra support. This is a very old house (over 100 years old). He will be running new electrical throughout the house, hanging sheetrock, lots of updates. We are VERY thankful to the Lord for this job. It is the biggest job he has had in several years.

We took our school books and when the girls had finished with school they wanted to go exploring.

Then on Tuesday, Grace had an eye doctor appointment in Salem. This usually takes all day. It takes about an hour to get there from our home. Wednesday, we did school in the morning and then went to help Hubby again. Today, we went back to Salem to pick up Grace’s eye glasses prescription and then made a trip to Rocky Mount Wal-Mart to get the prescription filled. Tomorrow we are going down to Jessica’s. A week spent on the road.

It has been warm here this week. A beautiful week for being outside. We slept last night with our bedroom window open a little. I love falling asleep listening to the frogs. We are getting rain now. The rain and the warm temperatures will get everything blooming and greening up. So exciting! I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

March 15, 2012 5

Sunset

Monday evening Julie and I were outside letting the chicks run free for a while and this is what we saw. God is so good to show us glimpses of His glory.

Sorry I did not make a post yesterday. As you know we went down to Jessica’s on Monday for her ultrasound appointment. Well, this baby did not cooperate. He or she decided no one was going to look that day. All kinds of movement but legs crossed. They told her they would do one more a little later on. I guess this is a shy one or stubborn-not sure which.

Yesterday the girls and I went with Hubby to help him work. He is doing the sheetrock on a remodeling job. He can do it all by himself except hang ceilings. That is just too hard to do alone. The house is in a beautiful location. If we go back with him another day, I’ll try to remember to take the camera so you all can see some pictures of it.

Today we’ll work on catching up here at home. How can a house get so dirty when no one is home? This morning was very chilly here-42 degrees when we got up this morning. Yesterday was really nice. Hubby’s van tells the outside temperature and it was 70 degrees when we left the job site yesterday around 3:00.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 15, 2011 3

Unexpected Repairs

Water can do a lot of damage. This is what Dave found when he discovered a water leak behind the wall where his breaker box is. Lots of damage. Obviously this had been leaking for quite a while.

We went down on Tuesday evening as soon as we got the distress call.

Hubby and Dave fixed the leak yesterday and went to Lowes to get materials. They are tearing out the floor today and beginning repairs. Jess and I came back to Floyd to do some of her laundry as this leak occurred in her laundry room. The plan is to put new sheetrock on the walls and ceiling, also they are putting down tile on the floor. All the old must come up before any of the new can go down. They think they will also have to replace the floor joists too and level up the floor. Lots of work. I have been really blessed to have a man who knows how to fix all this.

Lots to get done so enjoy your day and God bless.

September 2, 2010 0