Our First Sukkah!

This was a LOT of fun! The fabric was left over from my daughter's wedding, son once again, we were blessed to have a lovely sukkah at no cost. No roof. That will have to come later. We worked on this for half the day before moving back to the patio project.






This little guy kept us company for much of the day. Might have been looking for his friend who was wandering around on the other side of the pile of earth.

It's amazing. It felt like two weeks of digging but we actually got it leveled in two days. We spread out about 6 bags of playground sand so the pavers could be nestled down smoothly and fairly level, then we began putting them down as neatly as possible.





And we called it quits for the evening, leaving to spend time in our sukkah, reading from the old testament, reading some books, relaxing, and having a snack as the sun went down. Proving once again, that life is good!





Faith

Life is full of detours.

Isn't this nice? A friend gave us a huge bag of Fugi apples. Very crisp and juicy ones. As soon as I find the time I'll do something with them. Monkey-boy up there. I think the natives are restless and want to head outside, don't you?

Before we get busy on the leveling we had to take care of a couple of things...

I've been having battery cable corrosion trouble. I dislike new cars. As soon as possible I am going to get a classic car rhat I can work on. These new things are a nightmare!

Believe it or not, I am taking a picture of where the battery is to be found. Can you see it?

Me neither.





A little scrubbing of the cable clamp and the post with a solution of baking soda and water gets us started again.





Then we had to blow off the registers from the painting job so I can paint them later on.






Now for some hot and hard work. It was warm today again.






Look at this clay! WOW! Really hard to get through.






I wear a dress for a lot of work outside. It's just cooler than jeans.





We drank a lot of fluids, sweated it all back out again, laughed and grumbled good-naturedly a lot - and I hope we made a dent in the work. I'm telling you, it doesn't feel like we did!

Our last detour for the day was beginning a sukkah. For home schooling we have been studying Jewish feasts and we decided last minute to do our best to celebrate Sukkot, or the Feast of Booths. We actually had the wood necessary to build it laying on the floor of the tool shed, waiting to be useful, so it didn't cost us a thing! This is the frame going up this evening.






Goin' on - Faith.

A Slight Detour

Remove sport equipment and put in in living room along with extra seats from your minivan and....

VOILA! Delivery truck!





With my first pay from painting, I was so excited to have some extra money that I could not resist going ahead and finishing a project Michael and I had begun way back in early spring. An extension to a patio cement pad I had put in a few years ago with a girlfriend who has since passed on from cancer. We traded work days at each others' places. We got stuff done, but got to chat and visit as well. I taught her how to lay a cement patio and she taught me a little more about her nursery business.

The patio has been a cluttered hodge-podge area





where I put my weight equipment and BBQ (on days when it wasn't in the dirt). But we really want a place to sit and enjoy outdoor weather while we BBQ. So we've been buying up a few stones every week or so in anticipation of having enough to do the job of creating a 10 x 10 addition.






As you can see, WE BOUGHT THE REST!!! Cool! I had to buy some pavers for the back porch project and I just bought all we needed for this project. I'm really happy!

We took up the few pavers we had down and the next job is to level it.










I honestly hate leveling things. It's annoying to think it's level, only to find you are way off. But there is nothing to do but begin, and stop whining.

Look at this cute little guy!





Faith

WAR ! ...but a Civil one.

A beautiful Autumn season marks the beginning of this blog. I love using the word Autumn. It holds the beauty of the season so much more appropriately in it's lovely vowels and consonants than does the word "fall".

I am excited about all that the season brings!

Last night we camped in the brisk air with our scout troop at a civil war reenactment. It was a terrific time with friends for my son, Michael, and I. He's 12 years old and I home school him as I did my other three children who are now adults. This is a mostly home schooled scout troop and it's a lot of fun!

We did the typical camp out things; campfires, singing, tent pitching. One of the actors came by our camp quite late and engaged the boys in a simple conversation about the civil war, then invited us all to go on a moonlit walk with him to see all the encampments as they were at bedtime. We all marched silently, well almost, over the hills taking in the campfires dotting the darkness, quiet conversations and spirited period music playing in front of canvas shelters. It was beautiful.





After a great night's sleep we woke early and had pancakes and bacon, coffee and cocoa, and I, being an organization freak, took over the mess hall under our pavilion while the boys went off with the men for a "challenge". Lots of fun conversation and then I brought my friend Sarah home with me to seriously wash up some badly neglected kitchenware and bins before everyone came back for lunch. Sarah had never been to our little farm before so it was nice to show her around.

The reenactment was wonderful. I took lots of pictures, hoping for the elusive giant smoke ring from one of the cannons, but I only saw one true ring and I did not catch it.











I treated myself to a funnel cake, and was slightly nauseated for my impulse buy, but I sure enjoyed it, as all the powdered sugar the wind blew back at me attested.

The sky was an amazing blue with perfect little white puffs floating about here and there. It was about 80 degrees at the peak of the afternoon and we had a delicious cool breeze all day long. Perfect!














Michael was pretty tired, so we ended up coming home and were planning on going back for dinner and the dance but he was so tired that we decided to stay home. We've been awfully busy all week and it was kind of nice to have a quieter evening together.

As I share our adventures I will tell a bit more about myself. But for now.... I'm going to slide between the sheets and listen to the crickets outside as I fall asleep and enjoy that night breeze coming through the windows.

Goodnight all, and may you sleep well and safely, your heart filled with the softness of peace and contentment in whatever your circumstance.

Faith

Adventure in the woodpile.

Aren't the girls cute? They looked like the Bobsey Twins on this cooler morning as Michael and I took a trip down to the woodpile to see what we had to work with for building out back porch.

This home has been here for over four years and we've never been able to use the back door as it had no porch or stairs. So we are going to build a small deck off the back with scraps from our pile down by the barn and buy whatever we have need of with the money I am earning on a little side job of painting a dentist office for a friend of mine.

We are really excited about this project. In the winter the front porch gets no sun whatsoever as it faces directly north. We really miss sitting out there. Our hope is to get this porch done, as well as a side porch, before the end of the year so we can soak up sunshine as we do schoolwork outside. we just get so claustrophobic locked up in the house all the time.

Took our paper and pen down behind the tack/feed room to make a list, and look at what I found when I leaned down to count boards!






Yup, a baby copperhead! Michael ran to get a bucket and we scooped him into it with a stick. It was hard to resist reaching in and touching him. I kept wanting to do it and then reminding myself that this one is poisonous. We don't see too many poisonous ones, mostly garden snakes, and they are very beneficial, so I don't like to dispatch them.

When I was a young girl, the 1970's my folks bought acreage from a sub-divided ranch in CA. It was the job of my little brother and I to hunt the rattlesnakes and do them in, as well as the ground squirrels. My dad didn't want the land massacred by ground squirrel holes and have the cattle breaking their legs in the holes. At least that was the story. I think my dad just hated them. LOL

But the snakes did have to go. There were many of them and to have them that close to where people lived now was dangerous, so we hunted many of them on our walks with our snake sticks. We either shot them or chopped their heads off.
my biggest regret is never having eaten one.

This little guy, however, was not under such a sentence. He regained his freedom in a field some distance away from humanity.

I am always in wonder at the gifts all around us; beauty and simple pleasures.

Faith

Horses for Sale

We really need to find them a home before we have to buy hay over winter.
This is Michael's pony.




Here is the Filly.






Faith

Gettin' Figgy

Isn't it great when you first set the table for fall?

My six fig trees have struggled off and on since I planted them about 5 years ago or so. I think the worst thing that happened to them was the original mulch got pulled away by chickens, exposing the first flush of roots. They've not had enough care since then.

So the figs thus year were a little small, but delicious as usual.






Here's Michael, mowing out by the pool.







Faith