Sunday afternoon

Football, nap, after church.  Fall must be here.  Cleaning up the gardens have started.  So...it's clip and dig and then clip.  Two more huge garbage bins are ready to move to the street.  Bells start this wed. evening and that's about all that is added to the schedule.  Noah will be here Tues. again.  This week should be less full of places to be.  I finished another Xmas wreath last week and I think there is one more very simple one to do.  Met with the knee doc last week and surgery is a go but I think I will wait till the last of January.  Life should be a little more simple at that point.  Holidays are over and my soup kitchen cook will be back from Florida at the end of January.  Great music at church today and tonight is one of those old fashioned hymnsings in the chapel.  They have been fun to attend.   

Sat. evening

Life is good.  Continuing to make scones...Yum, Yum.  There are so many things one can put in a scone that it is just a picnic thinking of something new.  I've also had a blast cooking from an old New England cookbook that I bought at Copper Harbor for 2 bucks.  Just good old...carrots, beets, beans, maple syrup stuff.   Oops...forgot onions.  Basic food found in early New England.  No mushrooms, and all that specialty stuff. I'm continuing on the war on ivy.  Another container ready for the garbage.  Today neighbor Judy and I  went to Tipton to a friend who raises plants to sell to retail nurseries.  She offers friends wholesale prices twice a year.  I have some beautiful things to start to plant in the front bed but need to get the soil ready.  I think I'm finished with the ivy war but will continue if the ivy doesn't stay in it's place!!!  Fun, fun.  Noah continues to visit on Tuesdays.  We just have the best time.  He loves to dig and there are many places now that he just does that.  This spring we had a great hail storm which did a lot of damage.  The car is fixed and now it's time for a new roof and chimney work.  I'll be happy when this is all finished.  Insurance folks just really did a long drag on coming through.  Church continues to keep me busy, busy.  I'm working on Christmas stuff and have a lot finished but more to do.  That's fun time just being in the groove and away from everything else.  Two more huge wreaths to go for sure and a few small things.  Early work is the secret.   

Groove...

I'm in groove and need to move on one of these days.  Filled two more huge containers with garden clippings.  One might think that there is no garden left but there is...More ivy, dead ferns gone and just a whole bunch of trimming.  It has been unreasonably dry so watering continues. The front of the house got it's final...I hope...tilling and I'm watching for anything coming up and so far nothing...so good.  I needed to do more digging with day lilies.  Noah's favorite thing to do is dig in the bare flowerbeds.  Keep it up kido. 
Thursday we had more people than ever...really ever...at soup kitchen. I would think over a hundred and we had enough food.  Busy, busy.  It's the end of the month and for some reason...I said let's take all of the pans out of the freezer so we had 4 pans( we usually use 3) with the last one emptied when the last person walked in the community room.  Woo...sometimes it makes me wonder...it's the 5000 we're feeding. 
Spend time that afternoon  making the two large wreaths for Xmas...moving right along.  So far I'm ahead of the game. 
Noah came on Tuesday.  What a treat.  He asked me if I was old.  Well, I gave him a none answer and then he said...Grandpa is old.  and then I told him I was older than grandpa.  Well, I got a very confused face looking at me.  Gave me a good laugh and something to remember for sure.  What a great little guy.  I love his visits. 
Making scones on a regular basis.  A bakery in Copper Harbor makes them and I found out how simple the process is.  So...we've had black berry, cheese, bacon and orange.  Yum, yum.  Doug is lovin it and neighbor Nancy is also. 

more stuff

I was a little brief in the last post...So...Yes...there were pancakes every morning.  What fun.  Needed to increase the amount this year.  Bigger boys.  It was a wonderful two weeks with family and friends from Novi and Copper Harbor.  Now home stuff.  Where to begin?  I'll start today and go backwards.  This afternoon I finished pulling out all the vinca, and ivy as well as some beat up hostas across the front of the house.  I also dug up all the day lillies in more than one place but I did that last week.  What a job.  Ucky flowers for sure.  That might have caused the final blow on the ailing knee.  So...one of these days I'll get the tiller out and move all the dirt, add some good stuff to the soil so that it's ready to replant next spring.  It's been one G Aweful  mess for some years now.  I think I have enough stuff from the back to move to the front with no problem but I'd like to add a few things as well keeping some of the sunny places for cut flowers.  I have some time to think about this.  When in michigan I gathered a lot of birch bark and drift wood and I'm using those things in the Christmas decorations at church.  Yesterday I made 4 swags, took one of  them to church, hung a banner, hung one swag and it's a go for one of the ideas in the sanctuary.  I added some burgandy and pink silk roses and a few other things.  Woo...that's the beginning of a huge project.  Next week I want to work on 2 huge wreaths and get that out of the way asap.  I've never started this early but I'm anticipating that after an appointment with the knee doc in Sept.  there may be some knee surgery to contend with.  We'll see but I want to be ready.  I had lunch with my good old teaching buddies as well as a great lunch with Doris D.  She is feeling so much better and is very much aware of that.  So...we had a good lunch and a lot of good laughs.  Tuesday Noah came to see me.  That's another morning of fun.  He is such a good entertainer.  We made a book, read stories and just had great conversations going. 

HOme

Back home again in Indiana.   The vacation was wonderful.  Cool weather, one or two sweatshirts...one afternoon of shorts for 2 hrs.  Smoked fish, Pasties, Grandsons, smores, walks, stones and rocks, and then it was doing it all over again.  Read 7 books.  And now it's the life as it is back in Indiana. 

Easy livin'

This past week seemed a bit easier.  Well, it was stinkin hot so that means...take it easy.  Went to the library on two of the afternoons.  Ate on the patio and just stayed quiet with the fan going at 100% which I think is what really happened before ac.  Doug has all the apple wood branches burned, flowerbeds look great and am trying a new trick for the deer.  Seems that we had a ton of tree branches because of Jared's apple tree project.  so I just made a big barrier around the tomatoes and beans.  Seems to be working!  Didn't cost a cent.  Today I packed my clothes for vacation.  Whoopie!  Food is gathering on the table to be packed.  That means pancake mix and syrup with just a few more things to buy.  I think all of my jobs at church are covered.  That is more than one job for sure.  Stayed with Andrew and Noah today at their place.  Noah has once again developed a horrible cough. Some day that won't happen but it's a regular visitor again.  Tomorrow they will come here for the morning.  Took a hearing test today and no change.  That's another blessing.  The aids now are at 100%.  Love it.  Wed. I'm having lunch with a long ago student teacher Moria.  She is such a gifted teacher and was that from the first time I met her.  Carmel has a gem.  Thursday is soup kitchen and we leave for Michigan on Friday...Doug's 74th birthday.  We are getting old or at least older.  Seems it goes with living.  We make it a two day trip to Mi.   Sunday night we'll be sleeping in a tent in Copper Harbor with JB, Kimmy and the grandsons as next door neighbors.  That's a winner for sure.  The packing is beginning. 

Way to much happening.

I can't remember all of it.  Memorial service for brother-in-law Phil on the 13th.  Dinner at church and Supper at neice Beth's house. 
Brother Jim here...Jared and Kimmy here...4 huge projects completed by Jared...Apple tree bit the dust, patio power cleaned, dishwasher fixed and one more I forgot.  See...to much stuff going on.  The battle continues in the garden with the deer.  Sort of gave up on them...But...we piled tree branches over the beans and then the deer ate the tomatoes.  Can't win I guess.  So...the plan is now to pile tree branches all around the tomatoes to see if that discourages the tomato eating binge.  Flowers look good.  Things are starting to look a bit dried up.  So...started to water today.  Andrew and Noah spent the morning.  Big event was filling their little swimming pool.  Lots of fun on an extremely hot day.  Sunday afternoon I decided to work again on the ivy growing on the house.  A few weeks ago I cut all the ivy so the vines were dead so I wire brushed the entire front and back brick of the house getting a ton of little stuff off.  Woo...wore me totally out.  Monday I was NO good.  Such a bummer to experience a body that can't work hard two days in a row.  The north side of the house remains to be finished but not during our hot week of weather.  Tomorrow morning I'm working on the desk at church and Thurs. is soup kitchen day.  That's enough for this week.