Carnage or Progress?

After music lessons on Tuesday, Matt and I worked on putting the banisters on the deck. When we got done this is what it looked like.

However, it didn't stay looking that way for long. That afternoon Paul Carter showed up with this to do some work for us, and our whole property began to look like a tornado had struck.

Holes were dug around the sides of the house to check to see if there were any drainage pipes around the house. A couple of trenches were dug to channel surface water away from the foundation of the house. Trees that we didn't need and were in the way got toppled over like match sticks. Brambles and underbrush got uprooted. By the end of the day Tuesday, our property kind of looked like a war zone.
The "carnage" has continued for the last couple of days...more trenches have been dug and more trees and underbrush have been removed. This is what it looked like when Paul got done digging last night.

It is hard to picture it right now, but eventually all of the dug up places will be graded away from the house properly and we will have a beautiful lawn all the way around the house. Also our basement will have no more water trouble, and we will be able to build more rooms down there if we so choose. It is amazing what can happen in such a short period of time, but it is so exciting to see all of this happening that I can't stop smiling! I choose to call it not carnage, but progress! :-)

Saturday and Sunday

We had such a busy, productive day Saturday, that I didn't take any pictures. We decided to start the day out a little earlier and try to get some things done before it got SO hot. By 11:00 that morning, we had put up a clothesline, mowed the lawn, Matt had tilled the garden, I spread manure over it, and he had tilled it again. By that time it was getting pretty hot, so we came in, got cleaned up, and headed to town.

 Matt had some birthday money and I had a little piano lesson money saved up that we put together and bought a porch swing for our new deck. We had seen it a few days earlier, and had tried it out at the store deeming it very comfy. I had mentioned picking up a couple of lawn chairs, but jumped on the idea of a porch swing instead. In no time the swing was purchased and loaded into the back of the truck, and we were headed home for a busy afternoon after grabbing a bite to eat in town as well as a grass trimmer to keep our yard looking spiffy.

It was our week to clean the church, so that was the next thing on our "To Do" list when we got back from town. We had that done in about an hour, and we headed home and assembled our new swing and the grass trimmer. I hung out some clothes on my new clothesline, and then Matt and I took turns trimming up our lawn. By supper time our dooryard looked amazing. Here is the one picture Matt took of our Saturday activities.

We ate supper out on the deck for the first time Saturday night! It was so beautiful and relaxing out there! I could have stayed there forever! After supper we made a quick run to the grocery store to pick up a few supplies before heading to Dad and Mom's to return their tiller. We stayed and had some ice cream with them, before heading home to grab showers and fall into bed. Not before Matt had cut down a bush near the front of our lawn that was full of tent caterpillars, though. :-) We enjoyed our productive day together, and found ourselves wishing Matt's vacation wouldn't end.

*******************************************

My ever faithful photographer had his camera ready last night when we showed up at church last night to find a little excitement happening. Somebody pulled into the church parking lot before church last night with their car smoking. Some of Matt's sisters were at the church singing and saw the car pull in, went out to see if they could help, and found the car starting to flame with the lady who owned it trying to beat out the fire with a blanket. Pam tried to call 911, but the phone in the church wouldn't dial through. I'm not sure of the timing of all that happened next, but somewhere in the next few minutes Mr.Jim had been alerted and had arrived with a fire extinguisher, giving it to the lady and grabbing another one from the church to try to help. Also around the same time one of the Sedgwick firefighters happened to be driving by, saw what was happening, and radioed in the fire department for them. The fire did spread to a couple of trees, but by the time we got there, the fire had been put out, and the trucks were starting to clean up to leave. I felt bad for the poor lady, but she seemed to be doing OK, and thankfully nobody was hurt and the fire didn't spread any further.

Baby Shower

Yesterday we actually got hot summer weather! I was beginning to wonder if summer was ever going to arrive, but it came in full force yesterday. Matt and I worked on the deck (and our suntans) until about 3:30, but by then it was just too hot to continue working. Our labors paid off though, and by the time we got done, we had the railing up all the way around. We just have to put the spindles in the railing now. Matt custom made the flower box that you see in the corner below. Wednesday was a rainy day, so we set up shop in the basement and worked on making one for each corner of that side of the deck. I can't wait to put flowers in them!

In the middle of working yesterday, when I was drenched in sweat and my hair a mess, I got a phone call from Leah telling me that somehow when they were passing out invitations they had "missed" me, and she and Mrs. Bamford and Sarah were hosting a baby shower in my honor that evening! Talk about surprised!! Usually I am a little suspicious about things, but everyone did a great job at keeping this a secret! Matt completely knew about it and had not so much as dropped one clue that there was a surprise shower being planned for us! He just stood there grinning and winking at me as I got the phone call from Leah. :-) I was grateful she gave me a little heads up so that I could get cleaned up from working.
The shower was so much fun, and everyone spoiled little Brett and I rotten. Mrs. Jan Bamford led the games, and she had very interesting ones. She passed around sealed,  unlabelled baby food jars and we had to name the baby food inside. It was much harder than it looked like it would be! Mashed, cooked baby food looks very much alike! :-) We then were given a page with clues and we had to name the body part of the baby that each clue described. Some of those were stumpers for this blonde brain. We also had an M&M guess where we had to guess how many M&M's were in the baby bottle she passed around. The last game was a list of old wives' tales predictions on whether the expectant mother was having a boy or girl. We had to fill in the blank with "boy" or "girl". Some of them were HILLARIOUS!!
"If the pregnant mother sleeps with her pillow facing north she is having a boy."
 "If her nose is wider now than before she got pregnant, she is having a boy."
How on earth did these people come up with these things!?!?!?
Matt's Mom led in a short devotional and went over a couple of names for the Lord that are so very helpful when you need help and guidance in raising children of your own ( or in any situation):El Shaddai, which encompasses aspects of both a father's strong, protective care and a mother's tender, loving care; Shepherd which shows the care and concern and work the Lord puts in to every one of us. With a God like this, we know we can turn to Him in any situation of life and He will be there ready and willing to help us. It was a great reminder to me, especially knowing that this little guy is entrusted to our keeping and he is an eternal being who needs to be taught about the Lord.
Pam decorated the most adorable cake for little Brett and I, and we snacked on cake, fruit, cheese and crackers. Here is a picture of Pam's handy work.

We were so generously showered with presents with everything from baby washes, lotions, and powder; to nail clippers, thermometer, and diaper cream; to baby wipes and diapers, burp cloths, a little quilt, and much, much more. One package of diapers even looks like the baby is wearing little blue jeans when he has them on. When I got done opening all of the gifts, I had things all around my chair so I couldn't move, and that was how Matt found me when he came to pick me up. :-)
Thank you so much to everyone who blessed us with gifts, and to the Bamfords for hosting the shower. I had such a wonderful time, and the gifts were so very helpful in getting ready for little Brett's arrival.

Here is baby and I with all of our presents after Daddy brought us home last night.

Memorial Day/ Matt's Birthday/Deck Building

Matt has this whole week off and we both have been enjoying every minute of it. It's the first vacation he has had in a year and a half!!
 Monday was Memorial Day as well as Matt's birthday, and our day was packed full of activity. We started out the day by enjoying a birthday breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and eggs that I cooked for him. Matt's friend Kenneth came down Sunday night and stayed the day Monday, so he was able to celebrate Matt's birthday with us. After breakfast, Dad and Mom McFarland and Charity arrived to help out with getting started on building the deck out back. The guys went right to work and I worked away at cleaning up from breakfast and visited with Mom, Charity, and April.
Around 9:30 the guys took a break from working on the deck, and we all went to Blue Hill to watch a Memorial Day parade that Jay was in. We met up with Rosanna and Gramp and Gram McFarland at the parade, and we ended up with the best spot to watch the little ceremony Jay participated in in the middle of the parade route. They paid tribute to all the soldiers who had died in active duty by floating a wreath down the river and a gun salute. Then they all stood at attention while the Last Post and the National Anthem was played by the local high school band, before continuing on with the parade. Here are some pictures Matt got of the ceremony.

A few more pictures from the parade.

After the parade, we headed back home and the guys spent the rest of the day working on the deck. It was beautiful day for working and they wanted to get as much done as possible in the beautiful weather. We womenfolk helped out where we could, making a couple of runs to town for supplies and passing hammers, nails, and screws as they were needed. Here is the progress they made in one day.

Around 5:00 the guys called it a day after all of the floor stringers were in place and a few decking boards were laid. We had invited Matt's family and Kenneth to stay for supper to celebrate Matt's birthday, so I fired up the grill, and the girls and Mom helped me get supper on. Jay and Rosanna arrived around 6:00 and we all sat down to a supper of hamburgers, hotdogs, steak, potato and macaroni salads, with raspberry cheesecake for dessert. I realized afterwards that I got so busy cooking and enjoying the meal that I forgot to take any pictures of the celebrations. You'll just have to trust me that there was a TON of food and we all were stuffed by the time we were done! By 9:00 everybody was ready to call it a night and Matt and I headed to bed tired, but so happy with all of the progress that had been made.

Baby Room Prep Part 2

This past Tuesday Matt had some time to work a little more on our baby room. The next step that had to be done was doing some patch up work with crack fill. The people who had the house before us had put chair rail up in the baby's room, but had not done it properly and on top of that had just used glue to attach it to the wall. Of course when I pulled it off, it brought the paint and pieces of the drywall with it. There were also many little nail holes which I'm assuming were made when the previous owners hung pictures in the room that needed to be filled. Matt went right to work and in less than an hour, the first coat of mud was applied and it was left to dry.

I picked up some sandpaper today, so the room awaits my sanding down the rough spots before Matt can apply another coat of mud. Then it will be on to step 3...painting! :-)  

Projects with My Man

This afternoon my sweet man devoted some time to helping me with some projects around the dooryard. He started out by mowing the lawn so that I wouldn't have to, and then helped me with a project I was completely at a loss how to do. Last Tuesday he took me to Home Depot and bought me decorative cement blocks to build up my flower garden around the stump on our front lawn. I spent the whole day last Wednesday trying to get the ground level enough so that my rows of blocks would be level, but had no clue what I was doing. By the end of the day I  was farther behind then when I started. This afternoon my man offered to help me with the project and show me how to set the blocks. He went right to work, and what I couldn't do in a whole day, he did in an afternoon!! I carried the blocks one by one to him as he needed them, and he leveled out the soil and set the blocks. In the end my little garden was completely surrounded with the blocks, and I was feeling like one spoiled girl. We love working on little projects around the house together, and enjoy spending the time with each other even more!!
Here are some pics of my man hard at work and the finished product of his labor. Thank you SO much, sweetheart, it turned out beautifully!!

Round Garden

My little round garden at the edge of our driveway has been a challenge to reclaim from the fern and blackberry brambles that had overtaken it before we got the house. Matt said that when he bought the place he didn't even know there was a garden there because it was so grown up. The last few days I have been working on cleaning out all the leaves and dead growth from the winter, and digging out the blackberries and fern that have popped up in abundance this spring. I was finally able to finish it this afternoon! My battle with the brambles and fern is far from over, but I am enjoying the beauty of my cleaned out garden while it lasts. :-)

A Good Job Done

As of yesterday morning we no longer have huge oak logs sitting on our lawn. The guys doing the milling arrived about 9:00 and finished milling the logs into boards. By 10:30 or so the job was done, and we had a stack of lumber sitting on our front lawn, along with a huge pile of sawdust.

This is what it looked like Thursday evening after the guys had left. They only had two logs to finish up the next day. Matt's Dad, Mom and the girls came over that night after supper and we loaded the truck up to get some of the lumber under cover in Dad's shop.

Altogether the guy doing the milling estimated we had about $1000 worth of lumber from our logs. He cut them into 8 foot lengths, but some of the boards are 14 inches wide! Matt said you probably wouldn't be able to buy them that wide. It turned out to be absolutely beautiful wood. It has a beautiful grain in it, and some of it even has a reddish tinge to it. I tried to capture some of it, but the picture doesn't really do it justice.

I started the task this morning of cleaning up the bark that was scattered around the lawn, and used a little of the sawdust to put around some of our bushes to keep the weeds down. I had what I could do to clean up the yard done by the time Mr. and Mrs. Jim arrived this afternoon to pick up the remaining sawdust and the log he had milled out. Dad, Mom, and Charity showed up not long after Mr. and Mrs. Jim arrived, and between the one ton truck Mr. Jim had borrowed and our truck we got the remaining lumber loaded to take to Dad's shop. 

Here is what it looked like this morning before I started cleaning up.

Tonight the lumber is all over at Dad's house and the mess is all cleaned up. Our lawn looks SO much better!! What a great project to have done! Thank you to Dad, Mom, and the girls for measuring and stacking this all tonight.

More House Projects

Today is the first cloudy day we have had in a week! The rest of the days have been warm and sunny. Although it is still quite warm today, I thought I'd take advantage of it being cloudy and try to get some inside things done. Also we have some guys milling out logs in our front yard today and I thought it would be better if I could stay out of their way while they worked. :-) I'll tell you more about that in a minute.
Monday evening one of Matt's coworkers brought his tractor (or his Tonka toy as he calls it) to our house to drill the holes for the sona tubes for our deck. We would have had to dig them all by hand if he had not been willing to do it for us, and when he started digging, we found out just how hard that would have been. There were a lot of roots crisscrossing each other that would have made for nasty hand digging. He also hit a rock in one hole, that he had no trouble with, but it would have been a big deal had we been digging by hand. Matt said he saved us at least two days worth of hard digging. In about 45 minutes all four holes we needed were dug, and the tractor was being loaded back onto the flatbed.

The auger he had on his tractor had no trouble breaking the sod or going the depth we needed him to drill. Matt just pointed a stake where he wanted the next hole drilled and the guy started drilling. It is SO exciting to have things underway for our new deck. We have talked about it for a year, but now it actually is starting to seem real!

Some of the holes have water in the bottom of them, but Matt knows how to deal with that when the time comes to pour the concrete. We are hoping to have them poured and hardened by the last week of May, because Matt has taken that whole week off work to build the deck.

The rest of our week so far has been taken up with getting some logs ready to be milled out. When Matt bought the house there was a huge oak tree in the middle of our front lawn that was leaning precariously toward the house. Not wanting it to fall on the house in a wind storm, he had it cut down, and the logs from it have been sitting on our lawn ever since. We have contacted a couple of mills, but they have either been too busy, or we would have to have the logs hauled a long distance. Last week a portable mill showed up at a property on the end of our road. Matt immediately started researching who owned it, and was able to get a name and phone number. The guy was willing to do the milling for us as long as we had the logs by our driveway in a row so that he would be able to get them on his mill. That is easier said than done because these logs were HUGE and we had no equipment to move them with. Not to be daunted, my man came up with a plan, and Tuesday afternoon he executed it.

All but one of the logs he was able to throw a chain around and tow with our truck, but one of them was just too big. All our truck would do is sit there and spin. Thankfully Mr. Jim came to my man's rescue since he had a log that needed milling out too, and between the two of them and the truck they were able to inch it along on makeshift skids to the spot it needed to be. A lot of muscle power and truck power went into the work, but finally all of the logs were in place.

As I write this post, the logs are currently being sawed into boards for us to use on whatever project strikes our fancy. :-)