This is a new format for me, but I’m excited to have my site up and running again. It isn’t like there is a lot going on in my life, particularly lately, but it is nice to have somewhere to save memories, particularly pictures. Speaking of which, let’s see if I can add one.

I guess I can’t because my files are too big. I need to figure out how to shrink the size of my pictures, I guess!

Dad just finished hooking up the light in the guest bathroom. Now he is sanding the final coat of mud on the walls around the tub, so we can get that painted before we actually install the tub permanently and then glue on the sub surround pieces. Progress…

And today, some pictures of the vegetables garden.

I think the little squash are so cute:

And these are going to mini-pumpkins when they grow up. Most all you see now is the blossom.

And finally, here is a picture of our new pasture on the side of the hill. See the electric fence charger on the post to the left of the gate?  The fence goes up the hill in that cleared path.

I brushed all the loose hair out and this is what she looks like. See how short her hair is for the summer, and I didn’t cut it at all.

The goats are about the same – mischievous as ever!

And we expanded the chicken pen again yesterday, so they have PLENTY of room now.

It is pretty sunny and dry out, so some of the flowers were a bit wilted, but here are some photos that turned out.

Here is how wilted some of the plants are right now, and it isn’t even 85 degrees.

Here is a blossom of one of them – it isn’t pink, though. It is followed by another that isn’t pink, but rather reddish.

And, for the grand finale, a whole row of hot pink impatiens.

I added this picture at the end, and it got put first – go figure!! Any, this is the basement at the new place, with the bathroom and all the walls and ceiling torn out. It will have a small bedroom and a family room.

Now, the shed move.

Here is a before picture:

See how close to the house it is, and how it blocks the view?

Now: 

This is basically from the same place, but with the shed gone. That smoke is our perpetually burning junk pile.

Now the new place – pictures of the dismantled interior.

This just shows how we pile it in different categories to take to the dumps or the landfill.

This is where the kitchen will go. The wall on the left will be removed, to open up the space. The wall with the black pipe will be opened on the right for a hallway and the rest moved back 2 feet for the bathroom behind it.

This is another of the wall that will be completely removed.

This wall will be backed up about three feet and have a hallway to the master suite. The stairs to the basement are behind that cabinet in the center. And the master closet will go on the left side of the picture.

The wall to be removed, from the other side. I am standing in what will be the living room. Dad is standing in the back entryway. 

This is the window we found behind the tub surround in the bathroom. This will be opened to a door leading to a big butler’s pantry off the kitchen. I’m thinking a barn door would be cute here.

This shows the second bedroom upstairs and the closet Justin and Kylene started tearing out and we finished. That wall will be moved one foot towards us to allow room for a long master bath on the other side of it. The closet for this room will actually go over the window to the left because it looks funny with those unmatched windows.

This shows the inside of the wall we have to tear out to make room for two doors. This used to be an exterior wall before they added on. That isn’t going to be fun.

This shows what the former kitchen looks like now – we have some cabinets to haul home, yet. This space will become the master bedroom. The wall between the bedroom and master bath will go about in the middle of the door. We will have a window on both sides of the wall – one for the bath, over the shower, and one an egress window for this bedroom, because the other windows are too high to be egress windows. We didn’t want the door in a bedroom.

This one is taken from where the master bedroom closet will be, so we are looking through the wall that will be moved this way about three feet, toward the living room. The wall that will be completely removed is the one starting by where Dad is standing, so the area behind him will be the dining room and towards us from that will be the kitchen.

And, finally, here is the grass beginning to grow where we took out the awful tarp and rock contraption that they had on this little hill. If you look hard, you can see the cut-off rose bushes just above the grass and straw. They will be pulled out, too, once they get enough new growth to keep them healthy when I move them.

Who knows what these beautiful white flowers are?

Burning pile we are working on eliminating. It is lots better than it was, but it is still an eyesore in the middle of our yard.

We plan to move the shed to it is parallel to and just this side of the Suburban. It will really open up that view from the front of the house and make it easier to drive vehicles down to the garden and burning pile.

And a few more of Bumpa’s Beast!

To begin with, we had the drywall on the far end of the living room, so it would be separated from the guest bedroom which is beyond that wall. The other side of that wall is still not done. There were also a couple of pieces of drywall tacked up behind the wood stove so the heat wouldn’t catch the paper on the insulation on fire! One of those pieces came down, but the other we just left and nailed in better. So the pictures start with the “before” picture and end with the “after” picture and show a few in-between times. (Oh, sorry, there is an extra copy of the “after” picture second and I can’t delete pictures, for some reason. But you can see the before and after more clearly this way!)

It has been a very long wait, but my great room/kitchen area is finally drywalled and taped. It looks almost like a real house. I’ll post pictures later, but I wanted to get this posted on the day we finished the first coat of mud, so I’d have a reference point for the future. Plus I haven’t finished mopping all the spilled mud and drywall dust off the floors.

This was a very busy seven day break for Dad. We did that pasture on the first couple days of the weekend and then rested a day and headed right into 2 1/2 days of drywalling and mudding. He is definitely ready for a break!

Dad is also battling an infection that seems to have originated from a crown that fell out. He is on some new antibiotics now and he says he feels better than he has in quite a while. I think the dentist is going to work on it once the infection is gone. He (the dentist) looked at Dad’s charts and there was a small problem in that area that he’d been watching, so that may be what this is and not the crown at all. The biggest symptom, in addition to the swollen gland right under that tooth, is that he is very tired all the time. He may leave early tonight if he can’t make it all the way to morning. But that is far better, I think, than calling in sick for the entire night. And it isn’t like he can give this ailment to anyone.

We decided to move our pasture on Friday. We’ve been planning to do this for some time, but it is quite a project as it involves pulling up a couple dozen fence posts, dragging the fence to a new spot (and 125 feet of fence is heavier than you’d think!), and putting in some corner posts. But it was a beautiful afternoon so we decided to start and we just kept going into the evening and the next day as soon as the weather cleared and it is totally done. Great feeling to have that big project done. And the advantage is that I can go directly from the front door to the garden again!

This picture was taken from where our west porch will eventually be. We’ll be able to look at the goats, dog and chickens in the paddock (on the left) and the goats and dog in the pasture (beyond the garden), and watch things grow in the garden. Rotating to the right, we can see the hill.

The part in the foreground will be the lawn, but it is pretty much destroyed by the goats. Still, it is much better than it was, since they took care of all the raspberry bushes and small thorny trees and other unwanted vegetation. Now we just have to clean it up, till much of it and plant grass. And we have to get rid of the big junk pile in the middle of what will be the yard. We plan to start burning that very soon – it will take several days! But it is going to be a nice yard!