Memorial Weekend 2012 - at the Country House – post 1

First … We were without power from Beryl for over 30 hours! Trees on lines prevented power company from turning power on last night. It came back on around 6:00a. Got cable back around 4:00p today (5/29), yeah! 

Anyway, on to the weekend .

I knew we were going to be busy so spent most of Friday making Vegetable Lasagna so we could just put in the oven & not have to prepare anything. Here are the fixins (roasted squash, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, red & yellow peppers + mushrooms & spinach + mozarella, ricotta & Parm cheese):

Drive wasn’t too bad, even with the holiday weekend, we got there around 6:00p. Just in time to get the grass mowing out of the way. We have just over 9 acres w/about 8 acres of mowing. Off to bed early so we could get an early start on Sat. morning.

Plans for Saturday included applying water sealer to the deck & dock. We have had both for awhile and they needed to be sealed. A dreaded job, but one that has to be done as it sits in direct hot sunshine all summer long.

Saturday morning … Woke to a beautiful sunrise. One of my many cousins came over. We went to breakfast at the local café, picked up a roll of hay from his workplace & then stopped by an ‘estate’ sale (junk to highest degree at this one). Didn’t find anything worth buying.

Got home and got the brushes out & started applying water sealer to the railings & spindles on the deck. Boy was it hot (90 degrees+) - no breeze at 9:30a. We worked in sections & by 11:00a the breeze started blowing which made it bearable. The deck is 20x40 with a lot of railings. With cousins help, we were done with rails & spindles by around 1:30p. Decided to spray the decking, thank goodness!

Went very smooth & was done in less than an hour. Then it was on to the dock which was all sprayed and it is much smaller so we were finished by around 4:00p.

There isn’t much ‘color’ change so not showing before & after pics. Deck is a ‘during’ pic & dock is after. The extension on the dock was added after it was discovered that the original step we had, pretty much stayed under water, since we have been blessed with some rain this year.

Anyway, that was enough for us for the day. Working in the hot sun, even with a breeze, wore us out.

Another cousin (I have many cousins in the area) offered to take us 'produce shopping' the next morning. He works in the agricultural business & is friends with many of the commercial farmers in the area. One of the larger ones does a ‘neo organic’ growing system. I’m not really sure what that means but I believe he doesn’t spray pesticides. He does use product for disease & I know he fertilizes. But, I know the produce is fresh & very tasty.  Here’s what we came home with.

Yes, it is way more fresh stuff than we can eat in time. But, we bring back to the City House & share w/our ‘across the road’ neighbors, the neighbor who watches our critter(s) & the In-Laws. Not bad for a morning spent ‘in the field’.

Note: The blackberries are acually wild ones from our fence line. Had about 3 handlfuls but they didn't all make it back to the house. This is what was left. (lol). They are very 'thorny' and the rattlesnakes like to hide under them. So, I only picked what was 'convenient'.

We had plans for working on the permanent garden beds and then shooting pistols in the afternoon. But, it was way too windy for either of those so we made do with a whole bunch of cleanup.

Note: I have to decide on what pistol I want for my personal carry but need to get comfortable with which one. No such luck this weekend, Beryl put a stop to that.

While I am a hoarder by heart, my husband is not. We both like things nice and neat. But, I am willing to look at a pile for a while, while he is not. We (he) decided to do a little cleanup under ‘the barn’. The barn (for now) is actually a well house shed with extensions all the way around.

This pic was taken not long after we built the house & everything is nice & neat. (Looks way bigger than it is). That didn’t last long. We had stuff piled up that husband wanted to throw away.

kymber, don’t tell jambaloney about this .... We have very little space to store stuff, for now. We (he) tossed old vinyl railings, extra pieces of lumber (regular & pressure treated), old pieces of railroad ties, etc. He even wanted to toss the few concrete blocks we had! I immediately jumped into action and loaded them on the golf cart and took them down to the future garden area. He put the unwanted stuff on the trailer to bring back home and put in the dumpster.

That’s all for now. Next will be the ‘future garden’ and the other small project we got done which includes controlling pesky insects.