It's Done

Well after slaving away on Saturday, and then a late start today, we finally got almost everything done on the Breezeway addition.

Some pieces of trim around one window, and a Z channel and we'll be done with the outside.

Lots more inside, but that is another adventure.

The view from the south as you come up the drive from the highway:



and as you come around back, the view from the northside:



So that's about all from this neck of the country, cepting J beat me at Golf again, but I trounced her 3 games - nil in tennis.

PSS: someday I'll learn how to set the date on the camera. Pics show date of 7/13/2007 yeah...... what were we doing back then??? was it "The Coop"?


So we settle back to a quiet evening after spending a weekend

CELEBRATING LIFE.

THE BREEZEWAY CONTINUES

So since taking on this massive project

= mind you without the help of the Florida crew, {who helped put The Coop up in record fashion
}

we continue the saga of bulding the breezeway. With the help of the Barngoddess1, Sharks Angel (daughter), Little Princess (granddaughter - aka my noble assistant), and Derek (daughter's friend), we continue to make headway on finishing the breezeway before winter hits.

For John, here is another picture of that scaffolding that isn't OSHA approved, but works great. Notice no safety harness either. Glad Missouri isn't an OSHA state.


and another picture of the opposite side of that wall, with more scaffolding in place over the hot tub so a window can be framed out and installed without moving the hot tub.


A few more shots so you can see the progress. But first another picture of my Noble Assistant holding the scaffolding steady while it was being screwed together.



a picture of Sharks angel and I putting the north wall on:


and a picture of the two of us arguing which LEVEL is indeed LEVEL.


Now if you remember way back in this family's saga, you would recall a project we were doing that involved a LEVEL that my brother (The Old Long Roof) had as a youngster, it was't so level


but no matter how we tried, the two levels we had, never paired up and matched. So OK now what, put the tin up flush with the garage and go on. PS A new level for Christmass would be great!!

But after 7 hours of
1. putting the roof on: yes the roof is finished, even put tar paper down under the tin to deflect any tin sweating down the roof.
2. building our own souffet to include holes for vents
3. painting the soufeet, well primering it
4. getting 3 pieces of siding on



The Little Princess and I decided to call it quits and go play 9 holes of my favorite game = golf. Unfortunately she whipped me: Jay 3 under, Tom 3 over
a picture of us mid game



and that is it for Saturday, July 23, 2010, at the Haven Lee Farm, just outside Marionville MO.
Today, I am so sore it is 9:42 am and I still haven't got up the energy or over the aches and pains to go outside and start anew.

But with all the aches and pains, we still enjoy life and by being able to still do the work we do ----- we

CELELBRATE LIFE to its fullest.

ps. Ed and John, miss you guys, but you are here in spirit.
Ed - left some bent nails for you
John - that level isn't level!

tom

Ah the Breezeway is coming to pass

Yes fellow countrymen, we are about finished with the roof to the breezeway.

Another day gladly spent with the wife, daughter and grand-daughter working around the farm.

Today Ed and John missed out on some great adventures, putting up more trim and sealing in the house to breezeway roof area.

We even got in some painting tooo...... Boys you are both missing a lot of fun by not being here.
So some pictures the Barngoddess1 took of the days work.

NOW NOTICE THE LITTLE PRINCESS DOING WHAT SHE NORMALLY DOESN'T DO.........
in the pics, she is just hanging around watching, normally she would be the one painting, but her mom wouldn't let her stand in the bucket and paint, so this old man had to do it.

So enjoy the pics....




Yes John, that is the shirt you sent JC, on nice CofC days, she wears it. I asked if she wanted to move to Florida... No way, they have hurricanes down there!
LOL



and a final picture to show that YES I do read instructions every so often........


So while you all are down in blue hair, birthplace of speed land, we are up here in the great Ozark mountains, really enjoying and

CELEBRATING LIFE.......

Another Chamber of Commerce type day

Yes fellow country men, today was another Chamber of Commerce day. Perfect cloudless and hot with a breeze to keep you cool.

So after a long night of uninterrupted sleep (we put the dogs in the garage and closed the doors = so they didn't bark all night).......

I awoke at the leisure hour of 8:00 am and after a breakfast to die for = the barngoddess1 made bacon, eggs and toast with strawberry jelly, and a couple cups of that good ole coffee, it was time to hit it.

Now I have a ton of things on the honey do list..
and last night the team (Me, daughter, granddaughter, and wife) put up some thirty bags of corn... yep, as soon as I got home from the money making work, the four of us went to the garden and pulled corn cobs off the stalks. Don't know how many cobs we ended up with, but there were several 5 gallon buckets, and the big blue pail that normally holds water for the critters.
JC and I stood in the new breezeway, and pulled the husks off the cobs, getting all the danged blasted jap beetles off, then sent them inside to wife and daughter to start the process. Then after sitting in pots of hot boiling water, then into the ice bath, I cut the corn fm the cobs. We finally put the bags of corn into the freezer about 9:00 pm and got to sit and relax.

So this morning, it was working in the garden again, this time restaking the tomato plants = we have the wire cages, but the wind blew half of them over last night, so T posts to the rescue. we also pulled all the onions and hung them from the fence to dry out....
here are some neat pictures of that event:


of course a closer view:


after that, JC and I headed off to support the #48 Nascar team buying more items.
Now I have to admit that I like Lowe's better than Home Depot. Lowe's give Military active duty and retirees at 10% discount... yup, 10% off, all you have to do is ask when checking out, show your id card, and they take it off. I don't know if Home Depot does that, but the couple times I've asked, Depot said no...

Anyway, two windows and a new door and we were headed home. JC and I have this thing about shopping at the Republic Lowe's vice the Monett Lowe's. When we go to Republic, we can always stop at DQ on the way home for an old fashioned ice cream cone. Sure worth the trip.

Anyway, got the door hung, got one of the windows hung, got the roof caulked and ready for the roofing paper and tin. So tomorrow comes early again, and after the morning prayers, will be on the roof putting the finishing touches on.

Jeep and Long Roof, you are missing a grand ole time here. Did hear from #10, and she was helping The Bus paint and clean at one of his houses. She is glad to be back in MO instead of blue hair land, but wait till Jan and Feb to hear her say that.

So everyone out there enjoy your weekend. We are....
and at my age, I am very thankful that I still have the energy to accomplish the jobs I want to tackle.

and everyday I get up, while drinking that first cup of coffee, I

CELEBRATE LIFE..............

Fun, More Fun, and the Most Fun

So I haven't been blogging lately because of all the fun we have been having out here on the farm.

Life seems simple enough that complications develop that just make us realize that not everything is delivered on a silver platter.

Take a tree for instance.....

Now trees are used for several different functions depending on where you live.....

Joyce Kilmer used trees for a poem that I remember memorizing as a youth..
I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree,
etc etc.......
poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.

The Bus has trees so he has something to do after the storms blow through - namely picking up all the limbs and hauling them to the dump. In fact, the Bus has to do this so often, that he has borrowed my trailer to travel to some far off place and pick up a dump bed for his old Chevy 2 ton. He will post more on that later.

The Long roof fan uses trees to keep his longroof from blowing away during a hurricane. Evidenced by this pic.

Now we have had plenty of trees here on the farm, and a lot of those trees were unceremoniously removed when the tornado came through. But it seems some of the trees just don't cooperate, and we have to remove them the old fashioned way.

This hawthorne for example:


So after cutting off all the branches, and evaluating the stump left, I decided the best way to remove the stump of this wild tree was to place a phone call to my friendly dump truck driver Fred. So Fred sends over Steve with the backhoe and 3 hours after I called him, the stump is gone, in fact, two stumps are gone and the Little Princess and I seeded, fertilized and watered and we are waiting for rye to grow.
A pic to show the results:


So with the trees gone, fence repaired and the horses back in where they belong; the Little Princess and I started on our next project.

Just a little building that won't take toooooo long. Now if the LongRooffan and the Jeep were here, this project would be finished by now. But the Long roof is out watching races with the Jeep down at the birthplace of speed, the Bus is painting, and JC and I are building.

Now the last time the LongRoof and the Jeep were here, we built this Coop

well to be exact, the Little Princess, the Jeep and I built the Coop while the Long Roof ... well you look and decide:

So this year the Long Roof isn't coming up, so we know we can get this project done sooner than later.

Of course we had Derek's help yesterday, and he was a great asset to our project.

To let you know the scoop: We have a detached 30 by 40 garage about 16 feet from the house. Years ago we poured a concrete patio between the two and have used it for our hot tub. So the Barngoddess1 has been casually mentioning that it would be nice if that area was covered, so we could use the hot tub in the cold of winter, or during a rain.......... Yep you guessed it....
The Little Princess, along with the Barngoddess and Shark's angel and her friend Derek have been busy:

Here is the view of the new wall from the highway:


and a couple shots of the construction from around the back:

and a look at the wall


Now the Little Princess and I are working diligently on this project so it is finished by the time the Jeep gets here on his annual trek to MO.... why????
so we can play golf and have fun.....

Jeep and Long Roof, you are both missing out on a lot of fun.....

But we are really Celebrating life while we improve our lot.

So off we go to work some more on our little project.
More later.