Blood, Sweat and Cuss Words

Welcome back to SRH. The story of our lives lately is still clean up from the ice storm. It is taking much longer than we wanted, but we are doing it by hand and with chainsaws, small wood chipper, and hand tools. We only have to focus on the drive way and the sides. Rick picked out logs to make garden beds to line the driveway. Can't be lined with trees anymore, so I will line them with sunflowers. It is going to be really pretty. My sister will have to agree too. That is her favorite flower. Our next step was to reclaim out flower beds. The right garden is the bulb garden that I already planted out. The left garden we went ahead and seeded it with a hummingbird flower mix. Then did a top dress of fine wood chips.

To break up the monotony of clean up, and we have been doing side projects. We have some serious mud pits and muddy areas. In the mud pits, Rick use the auger to drill several holes to get the water to drain. We will almost get them drained and then it decides to rain again. We also mulched up some pine needles to put over the ground in front of the cabin and added a couple stepping stones we already have to stop so much crap to be tracked into the cabin. When I sweep in there, the dust pan in full. You would think we lived in a barn.

We received a couple of items for free from our friend and neighbor. We now have an outdoor swing. It was a little rough and needed some love. The top was bowing, so Rick shortened it a bit and flipped it the other way. He also changed out all the screws and angled the bottoms of the legs. I sanded the whole thing, and we stained the whole thing with used motor oil. It looks so good. We also got a free antique hand plow. We are using that to decorate in our herb garden area. We faced the swing towards the fountain in our little pond and our herb beds. It is turning into a lovely place to sit.

We had to go digging in the conex again. We had a few things we had to find. While we were trying to find those items, we found our solar lights, so we started lining our driveway. I am so looking forward to the day, when we can fully unpack and we can get the shelves set up in the conex, and be organized. It is such an ordeal to find things.

We have been stacking the 4 foot logs into piles. We offered them to the ladies. With all the downed trees, we will have enough wood for years. We are so over trees, but we still have to clear the left side of the driveway. We used some of the logs to line the outer part of the circle drive. Rick added the solar lights around that too. It looks awesome. We also have been chipping away all the dirt from the root balls to fill the holes back in, plus filling the sunflower beds and patching mud holes in the drive way.

We are happy to announce that we are expecting a grandson in August. We are so happy for our daughter, son in law, and lady bug. They all wanted a boy, and they are getting one. My daughter Allison threw that a small and cute gender reveal party. We obviously couldn't be there, but my daughter made it fun over text to us. We plan on coming to Michigan in August. We are hoping to be there for the birth, but as long as we get to snuggle the baby, that is all that matters to us.

So, you know our friend Ty, who just got married, he ended up in the emergency room, because he was not feeling right. Long story short, he ended up getting transferred to a Nashville hospital and put on the schedule for a triple bypass. We spent over a week taking care of their dogs, cat and chickens. That is what you do for friends.

We got our new solar panels put in place and hooked up. It is good to being living on solar again. Now if mother nature would cooperate and give us sunny days. The bulb bed it loving this beautiful weather we have been having. We have been working in t shirts and jean. We have been in the 60's and 70's. The beds have started getting blooms. Also the majority of my winter sowing jugs and sprouts in them. Some of our strawberries and plumes. Our garlic is coming up nicely. Lots of our trees we planted have buds. The crab apple tree is pretty. We have growth on our raspberries and blackberries. This makes me very happy.

We took a few low keys days this week. We have been working so hard, that Sunday we cleaned the cabin and took a nap. Monday we ran some errands then took a nap. Today we install the stones under the swing legs. Cleaned the pond with our new net. Planted our 4 new berry bushes. We got a screaming deal at walmart. Rick fixed our wagon. That thing is awesome. We have had it since we bought the property up north in Michigan. We have used it alot. We chipped some more today. We have almost the whole circle drive done now. I worked on picking up sticks and things. The right side is almost done. We really want the front to look great, since on east side of the property looks like hell. We are evening removing the trees the company dropped when they built our road and drive way. It is starting to look real good. but there is a down side. Due to the fire a few weeks back, the fire marshall deemed that our roads need to be wider, so Landstruck with be cutting in 4 feet on each side. So, essentially we will have more mess to clean up. I am not going to complain because we will have wider roads, and they will be scraping and applying rock. Hoping it will be a much smoother ride.

Well folks, I should probably end it here. I do want to say, in just a few days will mark our 6 month anniversary being here. It is hard to believe. It seems like we are spinning our wheels, but we know we have accomplished a lot. The ice storm really set us back, but we will get there. We have to remind ourselves that we are in a much better position than some out here. In a few weeks, I will start planting stuff in our garden. Now we got to refigure out how we are going to build our chicken shed. Take care everyone. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read our blog. We will talk to you soon.