Loving Retirement

Tuesday - September 30th - Sunny 82 degrees

Oh!! How I love retirement!!  When I was still working, I would take my vacation, all two weeks of it, the first two weeks of October, as fall was my favorite time of the year.  When my parents were still alive, it would take that long to get their home ready for winter and then Al and I would also get our home and barn secured for the cold also.  Then after I lost my parents and Al, Krista and I would make a list and we would tackle what needed to be done and we would spend those two weeks doing what needed to be done here.  However; now that I am retired I can take my time and do the things that need to be done at my leisure and still enjoy this lovely fall weather.

This morning the fellows that come to weed eat the bank, came and took care of that job for us, then Lou decided he would rake the weeds down, dig up some big rocks and prepare an area for a rock wall and a bed for wild flowers.

Matthew going to help Grandpa

While Krista and Matthew worked on hauling rocks, I cleaned out the Tack Room, or what Lou uses as his Shop.  Took the curtains down and washed them, did the windows and got rid of all of the cobwebs, cleaned off the shelves and ran the shop vac over the floor.  Looked pretty good when I finished.

Tack Room after being cleaned

Rear door of Tack Room

Krista and Matthew taking a break

Lou and Krista found a hidden "treasure"!
We think it had been an automatic drinking fountain for the chickens years ago.

This is where Lou is going to build the stone wall.

Area is cleared off for the wild flowers next year.

We are in hopes that tomorrow we can get our epoxy on the garage floor.   The cement filler that Lou applied to the little cracks has not dried sufficiently to be sanded; therefore, we have had to hold off on this project.

A Leisure Fall Walk

Monday - September 29th - Sunny 81 degrees

After a couple of very stressful days and little sleep it became very evident that God has this situation under control, Lou and I decided we would wait until Matthew awoke from his nap and ask Krista and Matthew to go for a walk with us.  They were more than willing to take us up on the offer.

We went across the creek and over to the Butternut tree to check on the nut supply and found there were a few nuts on the tree and a few on the ground.

The Butternut and it's leaves

Matthew loves to throw rocks in the creek so he had a great opportunity to have lots of time to do that while the rest of us shipped rocks in the creek.

This was a rather shallow spot and a perfect place for Matt

We walked further down the creek and up the deer path to the stone wall into the open field where we found the Hickory Nut Tree.  When Daddy was still alive we had a lovely orchard in this area with lots of Spy trees.

The stone wall that was built by my father

Matt and Lou where the orchard used to be

After we reached the top of the hill, we headed for the cow path and started back down the hill, it was a beautiful day for a walk.

Lou and Matthew 

After we got back from our walk Lou remembered that we needed to get to the cemetery to water the mum that we had placed on Al's grave so Krista put Matthew's cars seat into the Saturn and we went to the cemetery.  We have noticed that several of  our family stones are growing fungus and Krista is going to search the internet for a formula and we are going to go back and scrub some of the stones.

All in all it was a very nice afternoon.  I can't remember when I have enjoyed a fall as much as this one.  We are all very thankful to God for the great stress relief and concern and love from our many friends.

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon

Sunday - September 28th - Sunny - Beautiful Fall Day

Lou and I have been working hard getting our fall outside work done.  My large plant box that Al built for our back deck was beginning to deteriorate on the inside so Lou decided he would rebuilt the inside and install a liner to protect it.  He removed all of the dirt, let it dry out inside then rebuilt it and installed the liner.  Today I purchased new potted mums to plant in the planter.

Lou putting in fresh dirt, ready for the new mums

I have been busy decorating for fall, a job that I thoroughly enjoy.

Our f aux window at the back of our home

I have orange and yellow lights in the tree above the pumpkins

Back deck

Lou has been digging a ditch down by the barn to divert the water away from the barn in the spring.  Brion is going to bring pipe up to us in October so we can finish that project, and hopefully that will take away the excess water that we have every time we have excess rain.

Lou has been busy filling in low spots with dirt the landscapers had left over this spring.  He has broken up many of the large rocks and hauled them away, all of this make cutting the grass easier for us.  With the improvement of my arm, I have been able to use the weedeater and I have cleaned up the ditch when grapevine from next door had taken over, so that all looks so much better.  This has been a very good work week.

I was able to finish cleaning the garage and have gotten the garage floor scrubbed and purchased a gallon of epoxy to give the floor another coat of that tomorrow.  Lou filled a couple cracks today, and it will be ready for the epoxy tomorrow.

We used the chain saw yesterday and trimmed up the  honeysuckle yesterday and that was a great improvement.  Krista has been coming down each afternoon and helping me with my flowers, we have everything cut down with the exception of the Autumn Joy.  Matthew plays with his Grandpa and rides his bike or car on the drive way and we all get to enjoy the beautiful fall days.

Last evening we all received a horrible shock, my brother sent Krista and Steve a letter of eviction, they have rented our farm house for 17 years and he and his kids have decided that they want them to leave, so they are going to have to find a new place to move quickly.  We were all shocked and hurt, as Lou and I have come to depend on them to be there to help whenever, as they come at a moments notice, they have always kept my driveway plowed and so so much more, and I can't imagine not seeing Matthew every day.  Michelle grew up here, as did Krista after she was eight years old.  I certainly am glad my father is not alive to witness this sad occasion, as he would be very hurt.

After our week of hard work and the sadness of last evening, Lou suggested after our church service at Charleston Baptist Church we take a ride to the Canyon and enjoy the colors and do some hiking.

Incinerator used with the CCCamps

Tribute to the CCC Workers

Taken from the Look Out Trail

It was a great afternoon, the trail we took, was over a mile and we both did well with the walk.  We had enjoyed an early breakfast with Brion and Janet prior to picking up some supplies and more mums at Lowes; therefore, we were ready for dinner this evening.  Lou grilled hamburger and had potato salad to go with it.

I spent some time talking to Michelle this evening, as she is terribly upset and doesn't know what to do to help her parents at this difficult time.  Many prayers are needed.
 

911- 2014

Camping at Merry Meadows - Freeland, Maryland

September 10th - Partly Cloudy 75 degrees

The above picture is what we see as we drove into Merry Meadows Campgrounds.  The 1920 Fordson really caught my attention.  I certainly remember many hours riding around in the fields with my Daddy on a Fordson tractor with the same iron wheels; however, ours had fenders and we were allowed to take along a  pillow and we could curl up and sleep on that pillow.

We have had a wonderful time at this SMART muster.  On Tuesday, we made a trip to Miller's Taxidermy and Museum.  We were able to see many of the treasures that Mr. Miller had captured all over the world and many treasures that are native to our area.

The workshop

Some of his treasures

Mr. Miller takes many trips to Africa and the following picture shows some of his treasures that he has brought back.

Do you recognize some of these? 

I was interested in the fowl, as my late husband enjoyed hunting ducks and had several prepared.

Just a few of the birds that Mr. Miller had.

After our afternoon at the Taxidermy we enjoyed our Potluck dinner, which is always a hit, our host, Betty and Bernie along with Ollie and Carol prepared Pulled Pork Barbecue that was delicious and the rest of us filled in with a dish to pass.

We all like to eat and talk.

Today we got new neighbors and they had a different variety of pets...........

Pretty and with voices !!

Tomorrow, we are going to have a special worship service for 911 before we break camp then we all head home.  Our next meeting will be in November when we meet for a wintertime luncheon.  Some of our folks will head south in October and we wish them  God Speed.

Catching Up

September 9th- Tuesday 73 degrees

Currently we are camping at Merry Meadows in Freeland, Maryland and we have a wonderful internet connection and here I can't work outside, so I will take a few minutes and make a blog post.

August has been a very busy month.  We have spent most of the month working outside as you can see from previous posts.  We have let things go for the last two years, and the time has come where we can't any longer. My shoulder has kept me from doing, I guess when I hurt, I just  don't have the energy to think about what needs to be done....

I had another MRI of my shoulder done last week and went back to see Dr. Rackish in Williamsport and I do have another tear in my rotator cuff; however, he  doesn't want to do surgery at this time, as he doesn't think it will help the pain, he gave me an injection and I do think it has helped some, so I am learning to live with it.

Krista has been coming down a couple times a week to help me do outside things and that is a great help, she is always willing to do whatever we need help with and little Matthew loves to follow Grandpa around.  So far we have gotten all of the iris, peonies, day lilies, lamb ears and holly hawks cut down for the season.

We have some heavy pruning to do in the back of the house when we get back home then I can call to have our house power washed for the season.  I am anxious to do the decorating for fall.  I did get the back deck scrubbed and all of the summer items washed and put away for the year.  I am ready to purchase mums.

Lou and I attended Lou's granddaughter's wedding on the 24th of August and that was a delightful event. I could not believe that I did not take one picture.  Someone told me that means I was having so much fun and I guess that must have been the case.  Lou only took a few.  We stayed over night in a motel in Clearfield, PA that Brion picked out, it was lovely,  then we all had  breakfast together in Tyrone.  We went back to Preston and Susie's house to see the new renovations and wow, they were beautiful.  It was a wonderful weekend and a beautiful outside wedding at Penn State.  Stephanie made a beautiful bride.

Lou and I asked my sister to make one of her hand made quilts for Stephanie and Bohb and she was glad to  do that and my Susie did a label for the quilt to commemorate the occasion.

Stephanie and Bohb

Lou took this picture outside before we were all ushered inside.

Stephanie and the photographer

Last Sunday we attended the Kemp reunion.  Dave Kemp is the older living member  of the family.  He is 94 years of age.  Still pretty sharp.  Many of you remember Judge Kemp, Dave is his brother.  He is a first cousin  to Lou.

Dave Kemp

So you can see from what little I have written about, we have been busy and hopefully we can accomplish lots in September,  because, you know what is coming.  Burrr....

Little Barn Project

Monday - September 8th - Cool 58 degrees

Our little barn has needed repair for several years and we have had promises from several  people that they would fix it for us, but no one ever followed through on those promises, so Lou finally said that he would tempt it and that he did.

He started by tearing off all of the old boards that had rotted.  My deceased husband had built the little barn years ago and had used screw nails and it was a challenge to get the nails out without destroying the boards, as we wanted to use the  boards as patterns to get the angles correct.

As with most jobs, it soon became apparent, it was going to require more work than we thought, we had to remove the doors and rework them.  I had built new doors the year that Al died, and I really am not a carpenter either.....

It wasn't long before we were able to start cutting boards to put back up to replace the rotted boards.

Doors back on and reworked, so they shut properly.  Tim cut us some tin so we  can put it above the doors to protect them from the weather.  Lou installed new drip edge to the front and back of the barn, we scrapped the barn, applied putty to all of the cracks and edges and then painted the barn.  Krista was going to help me paint it, as Lou hates to paint, but we got a good afternoon, and Lou said "let's get it done", so we did it and I am so thankful to have it all done.