Backyard Visitor

We have an OLD apple tree in the back of the yard.  It produces apples, but they aren't fit for human consumption.   But the local wildlife really enjoy them

We see the squirrels moving around in the tree and then running off across the yard with apple in mouth.... but I haven't been able to get a picture of him too.

2016-07 Cabin on the Lake

We have traveled every summer to Cadiz KY for something like 10 years.  We rent a cabin on Lake Barkely. 

But this year... the week we chose back in January... happens to be the wettest year we've ever spent here.   I heard that we have had at least 3inches of rain per day. Wednesday night was 5 hours of thunder and lightning and heavy rains and no sleep (for me).  When it isn't raining, the humidity is off the charts!

The lake is very high... hubby had to move his boat twice to keep it close to the shoreline instead of in the middle of the lake.   The water is so muddy the fishing is terrible.

We each have found our own form of entertainment during the soggy afternoon/evenings... 

 Cayden and Matthew are taking turns watching their selected tv shows or movies on the portable DVD player.  Cayden brought along his model airplanes to assemble and paint.

Matthew has his coloring and wordsearch books to entertain himself while watching tv.

 Stan enjoys playing Risk on his iphone.  He even taught Cayden how to play and now must share his phone time.

I, of course, brought along my featherweight and worked on some projects and gifts.

When it wasn't raining we walked back and forth across the campground to the glass enclosed pool to swim, the game room for ping pong, and some soggy putt-putt golf.

 

The rains came in the afternoon/evenings most days and I was able to get out for my morning walk all but 1 day.  It just shy of 4 miles out to the the main road and back (8800 steps) and I earned the rest of my 12k steps per day walking around the campground for activities.

This morning, on my walk, I spied this.... and took a picture with my phone.  

  

And knowing that wasn't good enough, I got back to the cabin as quick as I could.  I grabbed my camera... and Cayden had just gotten up, so I grabbed him too and drove out to the spot hoping he would still be there....  Thank goodness for zoom lens!

On the way back to the cabin he informed that he lost his tooth during the night.  We found it and bagged it for the toothfairy.

2016-06 Chimney Troubles

Early this Spring, when we turned off the gas fireplace we use to supplement the heat pump,  we noticed that water was coming in our chimney!  It has taken quite some time, but we finally located a mason willing to work on the repair.

Raymond and his son Cody tore the chimney apart down to the roof line, brick by brick, saving as much as he could of the old bricks because they would be difficult to match since they aren't made like this anymore.

He was shocked to discover that the chimney was hollow on each side all the way down to the tinder box.  There was only one row of brick on either side of the flue!  He had never seen anything like it in over 30 years of mason work!

He and his son replaced the flue and built the chimney back up with used/throw-away bricks that he located from two different locations!  I think he did an excellent job of matching!

2016-06 My backyard garden

Two weeks away in Canada and Pennsylvania and my little garden had turned into a jungle!

The peas and spinach had shriveled up and died.  But,  I was able to harvest several kolharabi bulbs and they were delicious!  I've also had several kale salads from my garden this week... and I left the plants to continue growing in hopes of salads to come.

Several of the Gladiolas bloomed, as did the Vinca and one of the Geraniums.  The second Geranium doesn't look too good, but maybe some TLC will bring it back to life.  My roses had all bloomed and were covered in japanese beetles!  YUCK!  I cut off the eaten flowers and will talk to hubby about something for the beetles.  Hopefully I'll have more blooms.

Once the weeding was done I began laying down the shale rock to cover the drainage pipe.  Hubby didn't want it burried again.  It will be easier the next time it gets clogged to just lift off the shale rather than dig it up again.

Back in April,  I saw a suggestion on the internet that you could cover a slice of tomato in soil and plants would sprout.  So I filled two pots with soil and tossed a tomato slice from an heirloom tomato in each pot and covered them with dirt.

I was pleasantly surprised that it worked!  Between the two pots, one month later I have 9 small surviving plants.  I planted 6 of them plus two store-bought Roma tomato plants in my garden.  Hopefully I will have lots of nice fresh picked tomatoes next month!

Hubby's garden was a jungle too!  You could hardly find the strawberry and bean plants! He has spent several hours each night after work weeding out there and is harvesting zuchinni, yellow squash and green beans.

The strawberries are done for the season.  We are waiting on the raspberries and blackberries to ripen and have harvested about 2 quarts of blueberries.  YUM