I am a retired 44-year veteran of the Real Estate Assessment field. As with real estate assessing and how it applies to real estate taxes, one can make many acquaintances, but not many real friends. It was a great career choice.
It has been nearly 10 years since I reclaimed my home and my real passions within my home. I enjoy it more each day and tip my hat to those who I left behind.
Each day I try to stretch myself with the use of my computer as it relates to this site and using it to print out labels for quilts for trying to incorporate photos into my sewing. Life is so full and I know that I have room for more.
This was a perfect day to be outside and get the yard tidied up. It had been almost two weeks since we had mowed and trimmed. As Dennis was finishing up the backyards, I couldn’t resist taking Dennis’ scrappy quilt out to the clothesline for some freshening. When there is a breeze with low dew points, this is how to top off a day that had a lot of local effort.
The days leading up to the 4th of July were fairly mild. Temps in the mid seventies and dew points in the 40s. What better time to put our backs into it and do the worst first. Worst meaning “one cup of coffee” will suffice. Dennis and I are pretty independent. It takes a whole lot for us to cry “Uncle.” It may take us a bit longer than normal and we are not afraid of voicing our differences in an octave above normal . . . we stay at it until the job is done or at lease one or the other of us has wore the other down as to how the job should get started so it can get done.
We will be spending many happy miles in our rockers.
Right now we feel that our porch is just the best thing since sliced bread. It smells new, it feels new and we are avoiding the guilty stares from out cats as all of the soft cushions from the chairs have been burned. There are baskets up in the rafters of both the car and the pickup stalls that they all frequent, there are two baskets within the porch proper, and two little tufts on two chairs that humans would not be comfortable in. So be it!
Everybody gets a tricked out place on Stauffer Avenue.
Yesterday the construction crew of Stauffer Avenue tackled the multi-story birdhouse that was in need of repair. Our planning paid off and Dennis had the minimal amount of time needed to be on the ladder. Several days before we tried out our “9001 Glue” for effectiveness. We were pleased in its strength and the fact it is stated to be waterproof. We Glued the birdhouse onto the green treat plywood. After drying for 24 hours we put screws through the bottom of the plywood into the base of the birdhouse. Yesterday we put glue onto the base of the green treated post that was very stable in the garden. A piece of Black Walnut was then screwed onto the post. After a good dry time, Dennis slathered glue onto the Black Walnut before we set the unit with the birdhouse onto it and applying the screws for a tight bond.
Wearing ourselves out, we sat in our tricked out porch. We both nodded our heads, the birdhouse never had looked better. It didn’t take long a wren warbled an agreement.
Today the heat and humidity has hit hard and we are very thankful for the wise choices we made. The to-d0 list looks very short. Life on Stauffer couldn’t get any sweeter.
The baby Robins are gone and so is the birdhouse . . . for now. Over time the plywood has gotten worse than it shows in this photo, and it was listing off of the post to the north in a bad way. Dennis and I are on the project taking each step slowly. Dennis found a great piece of Black Walnut to put on the post. The bird house will be sitting on new green treated plywood. As I said, it is all going at a slow and steady pace.
Oh, so tall.
Taking advantage of a mild day with low humidity, I managed to transplant several perennials, closing down one of the far east flower gardens. The Autumn Maple Shrub and the Tiger’s Eye Sumac can now enjoy full occupancy. A bit of Round Up will take care of the Plumb Grass that was getting a bit full of itself. Using Round Up keeps it back from the Hostas, and on the opposite side, Dennis controls it with his lawnmower. I like it as a back drop to the Hostas in the east garden as it does get to be about five feet tall. In the fall the feathery heads wave in the breezes making it well worth waiting for. The birds love picking at the seeds within the heads. In times past, I cut some of the feathery heads and used it for a fall arrangement in the house. I took a break on the bench outside our back door. It was mild out, but working up a sweat is a good thing. I took time to take a good look at the Black Walnut tree right across Stauffer Avenue on neighbor Bob’s yard. It is huge, it is old, and it is more than majestic. The hip roofed garage of Bob’s that can be seen in the base of this photo is about 20′ from the base of this tree. Such treasures as this tree can’t be taken for granted.
What is not to like about a day with the temps in the low 70s. The breeze was great and made for good yard work conditions. Dennis did a bang up job of the mowing and my trimming wasn’t too shabby either. With all the rain we have had I knew it couldn’t hurt some trees and shrubs if they got a bit of a hair cut. Nothing is more annoying to the fellow on the lawnmower than getting swatted with low hanging branches. In a few days the greenery will have dried and the branches will be ready to cut down into doable fire pit sizes.
On a very bright note: Out of the corner of his eye, Dennis noticed another cat was eating breakfast with the usual gray and yellow cats. There was a white one! Snuggles was wolfing down Meow Mix. Oh my gosh! He has been gone for a month! He is very skinny and I can count the bones on his back. It took a while before he came forward for some petting. But now, as of this afternoon, neither Dennis nor I can sit down on the patio and we have a very dirty white cat draped on our laps. Oh how I wish he could tell us where he has been. It was wonderful to have our neighbor Jan come out this morning and when she saw Snuggles, she was down on her knees and yup, the little ham that Snuggles is, was right there to get some loving. Can’t have too much of that for the one that came home safe and sound.
Yes, we are ALL doing well on Stauffer Avenue.
A quiet mood on Stauffer today. For me it was a bit of putz here, a bit of putz there. Dennis continues to take water from the area north of our home where are sump pump pumps and is assisting the soil by then pumping it out into the street. It may be a long time before our yard dries out. As I walked to the east portion of our acre the soil feels spongy under foot. So much bad weather and again I say, we are so thankful as we know wet does eventually dry out.
Where there are Hollyhocks, it feels like home to me. When we brought Carrie home from the Renville County Hospital at Beaver Falls, the Hollyhocks were in the process of shedding their seeds from a bountiful blooming season. When Kevin was brought home from the Hutchinson Hospital the Hollyhocks were in full bloom all along the granary. At our South Branch farm place the milk house to the power pole was adorned with the bounty of various colors of the Hollyhocks. I am thrilled that my home on Stauffer Avenue is showing multiple plants in bloom. The stalks are over seven feet tall. Dennis helped me stake them up as the rains have made the plants grow fast and the wet soils do not want to give good support. Hollyhocks are bi-annuals and I am very thankful for the winds and the birds that have given such a great gift. I may have to visit a nursery yet this year to plant some new plants in the hopes that next year, I won’t have to be without these treasures. There are just some triggers that flood my memories . . . and they are all priceless.
In times past after my Dad had passed away, I would travel to my parent’s farm and spend time with my Mom helping her with some things. Not that my Mom could not have gotten them done on her own, but it gave us a chance to spend time together. Martin, Mom’s neighbor, happened to stop in for coffee on one such a visit of mine. I had known Martin almost my entire life. While Mom was describing something I had done for her, she told Martin I had a lot of tenacity. I had not ever heard my Mom use that word let alone that she knew what it meant.
That was several decades ago and I am here to tell you, I still have it. I had, and still do have, tenacity. It didn’t matter if was stacking bales on the hay rack in an alfalfa field in the heat of the day or at a time when the kid’s father, Orlin, and I were making a home out of a chicken cope in Texas. Get it done.
This last week I did think I was wavering. Our lawn mowing and trimming went great and Stauffer Avenue never looked finer. That night a strong thunder storm brought a lot of rain in a short amount of time. The next morning by the time I got up Dennis had already been moving things out of the porch. Yup. It, right along with the patio, had flooded and there was work waiting for us. One thing led to another and we tackled getting the mud off of the patio that surround the porch. The ground was so saturated there was no way more water from the garden hose could be used to flush it off. As the Koi pond was overflowing, I used an empty ice cream pail of pond water to take a small area at a time, and low and behold eventually the brushed aggregate was looking good. That is how the two and a half inches treated us on Tuesday.
Friday the warnings came that more storms and rain were headed our way. When all was said and done it was four and sixth tenths of rain. At Friday night, midnight, I had to put shoes on, and with my trusty CSI flashlight I walked out to the edge of our garage and shone the light off of all the water that was on the patio and right east of our house. In the morning we could see that our entire backyard was a lake. Water, water, water.
Saturday morning the patio was again tackled for a cleanup. There was no way I could stand by and not begin a cleanup. The silt was a slimy mess. Dennis had been watching the north side of our home where the sump pump takes the water from the tile around the house. The sump pump was running every 35 seconds on Saturday. With all the rain of the week, the soil could not take it away as fast as it was collecting. We were having a huge amount of standing water right up to the north side of the house. So not a good thing from what our objective is. Dennis put our portable sump pump into the midst of it and has been running the water via the garden hose out into the curb and gutter. Yesterday and today he has been on standby to periodically plug in the portable pump to take away much of the water from north of the house. Here we are today and the house pump is still running every 75 seconds.
With Dennis working with sump pumps, today was my day to tackle the two closets we have in our basement. These closets were not included in the tile job. These closets were actually a part of the old cistern that was in the basement. The floors of these closets are like a shallow dish. If there is enough seepage through the foundation they will run over and drain into the tile that goes around the perimeter of the basement, with the remaining standing water. Today Dennis helped me get the wet vacuum into the basement so I could begin work on drying out these floors. Of course, we had carpets on the floors and we consider them excellent storage spaces. I must say that over the years we have gotten a bit wiser. During this latest mess, we had one cardboard box get wet. Cardboard and basements are not a good mix no matter what.
Here we are on Father’s Day evening, so very thankful that though we are weary beyond belief from this last week, we are safe and our home is secure. Tenacity, where would Dennis and I be without it? Mom, I am here to tell you, we don’t give in and we don’t give up.
These are duck days! As I wrote on my blog yesterday, I was planning on smoking through one of my books and a few stitches today. Ya, right. Who knew that the rainfall would end up being 4.6 inches with a lot of wind in yesterday’s late afternoon and evening.
The saving grace was that the carpet had not been replaced as yet in the porch. Dennis was in and out during the rains and he said it was like opening one patio door to let the rain runs out of the opposite door.
This morning was fairly cool so I put on my old shoes and began taking the mud off of the patio. Our whole yard is so water logged, it can’t help but back up. As the water is absorbed the yuck remains. When Dennis and I were done, I went to the driveway and hosed myself off from the knees on down, toweled off, put on dry shoes and called it a good day. It is inconvenient to have to clean up after a rain, but I can do it many many times as long as I don’t have building damage or have trees that have been busted to pieces.
Tomorrow is another day and I look forward to it and everyone who the good Lord allows.
We did have a great day yesterday of moving everything from our porch to the little red pickup garage to allow the porch to dry out from the heavy rains of late. We admit it was a huge project to clear everything out to allow for the soaked carpet to be taken out. Dennis was amazed that the floor underneath was wet, but clean. No bugs alive or dead. We both slept in this morning, but there were no lasting pains from yesterday. I walked the yard with Butter Ball close behind. Each and every day there may be a change in the plants and the two of us are on patrol each day.
We enjoyed our morning coffee sitting in our favorite chairs watching our usual morning news on the television, just in a slightly different location. It won’t hurt the pickup to sit out on the driveway for a few days. We both knew that once the dew was off the grass, we were in for getting the acre mowed today. Yesterday we had drug the carpet out to the south side of the garage and Dennis was determined that it was not staying there. Tidy, tidy. Believe it or not, we drug it over to our neighbor’s burning pit and it did not take long for it be be gone. Let’s hear it for Dennis’ determination and the good will of neighbor Bob allowing us to us his burning pit whenever we need it.
Late afternoon and we now have the acre groomed and it is looking smart. 
Grasses trimmed and perennials giving a good showing. Dennis and I worked together and the mowing and trimming is completed. I am sitting here contemplating fixing supper. With sleeping late, our breakfast became brunch. I think we are in the market for fixing some burgers on the stove top with Bush’s beans as a companion.
Team Stauffer has had two great days to keep the muscles toned up.