Hallway / Laundry Room

The last unpainted paneling in the house is.... finally painted. Whew Hoo!

Aaron thinks this is the most improved room. I think whatever room we did last is the most improved - it's a moving target.

Anyway - what we did was take everything out including the wire shelving, clean, prime and paint the paneling and the cabinets. Then put the stuff back in along with a new-to-us chest freezer and some new plastic baskets.

Here's 6,000 words worth of results:













* the following picture was doctored using a photo editor because it came out way too dark. And you might notice in another picture that there was a flourescent light in the room before (note - it's not there in the after pictures). This just emphasizes the drastic difference in how dark the room was before and how bright it feels now.

Thank You Dave!

My friend and coworker, Dave, recently gave us a fireplace insert / wood stove. Actually - I forced Dave to take some money for it, which, unfortunately I have yet to actually give to him (sorry Dave!). And we brought it home and cleaned it up and put it in. And now with all the fallen trees on our property - we can heat our house for next to nothing.


Here is the before picture:



Brass knobs (before and after):



In progess front view:



In progress top view:



And... After...

New carpet

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves... (note you can click on the pictures for a bigger view)

Delilah

I'm gobsmacked! My friends Bryan and Patricia surprised me with a baby sheep today for my birthday. Gobsmacked I tell you! I came home from fishing w/ my hubbie and my dad and found a book on raising sheep. What the... I thought. Then I looked out into the field and there she was with a purple bow tied around her neck. What a little angel she is. I promise there will be more posts soon with more pictures.

Speaking of....

...my husband, the dork. He's been busting his hump trying to keep up with all the growth in the front field and yard. It's really too bad you can't see more detail in this picture because he is freaking covered in grass. We seriously sweep him off before he can come into the house. What a cute dork.

Flower Beds

We've done some major work to the flower beds. Most of the work was taking out all of the weeds. The beds haven't been touched in over a year, so they were pretty out of control. This first one is the walk up to the front of the house. We added this edging that keeps all the mulch in place. And yes, that's Aaron working on his new toy - a Stihl trimmer. What a dork. :-)















This is the bed in front of the house. Aaron made a walkway around the the patio, but it's not quite finished yet. We'll be edging that with railroad ties and then fill with pea gravel. Like our tractor there? It's a John Deer and the farmer who rides it is one happy s.o.b.

April Showers

Ok, so we've had a ton of rain and a most of it coming from some intense storms. For the most part it's been pretty damn scary, but it is fun to watch the pond fill up and see the waterfalls form. This was the biggest so far - you can track it a good way up the hill.

Summer Cut

Rolly & Sam got their summer cuts yesterday and they are sooo handsome!

Rolly is the one in the front and Sam is looking away. It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of both of them at the same time. For some reason they go nuts when I have the camera out. Silly dogs.

They're not mine, but boy are they cute

Here are a couple of pics from Patricia's house. First the llama's then one of the baby sheep. Too cute!

Gizmo

Let me start by saying Gizmo is ok, but last week we weren't so sure that he would be. Last Saturday he started exhibiting some very odd behavior and was very depressed, which is completely unlike Gizmo. He's usually very outgoing and meets everyone at the gate, but last Saturday he wouldn't come out of his house unless forced to. So, we brought him inside to watch him and after several hours realized he couldn't urinate. He was "posturing" as the vet describes it, which means he was stretching out his back legs (kindof like a dog does to stretch) and contracting his abdominal muscles to try and urinate. Poor little guy just couldn't go. So, we called the UT Large Animal Hospital (part of the University of Tennessee) and they said to bring him in immediately for emergeny surgery and not to pick him up or carry him by his stomach (might rupture). Yikes! So, we rushed him down there and he got an ultrasound on his bladder which showed some small masses so they prepped him for surgery and gave him some amonium chloride to break up the crystals. While waiting for his time to go into surgery (a cow in distress was first on the cutting table) he pee'd. Yeah! So, they decided to wait and not do surgery and by Monday he got to come home. But Tuesday night he stopped peeing again, so we brought him into the house and watched him overnight. Man he's one lucky goat. Our bathroom was like the Four Seasons for him, but he still couldn't pee. So, Aaron took him into the hospital and they watched him for a few hours, but he started to show more signs of distress, so they did the surgery. They've called every day to let us know his progress and he's doing well. Yesterday he pee'd on his own through normal means (not through the tube). It sounds like we'll be able to pick him up in the next couple of days. We all miss him a lot here, so we can't wait. Here are a couple of pics


Seriously, how cute is this goat?





















This is Gizmo posturing. You can also sort of see the area they shaved on his neck for his IV and such.

Finally.... Some pictures

Here's the front view of the house taken from the front field (where the baby goats live now)


Here's a side view of the front porch and entry. There's a hammock there - I love to lie there in the sun!





And finally a picture from the loft. If you turned to the right you would see the big windows from the first picture. We've now taken out these folding doors on the left and put in nice sheer white curtains that give privacy and allow light. I'll take another picture when the horrible green carpet gets replaced. Hopefully that will happen this summer.

Hallelujah H2O

We have hot water in the kitchen! Whew Hoo!!!

Thanks to American Leak Detection for finding it and Wayne Oldham for doing a great job re-routing the hot water line to the kitchen.

Now, on to more household projects!

The Babies Are Here!

Yippee!! Gizmo & Widget are here at last! And they are soooo sweet! Widget is a little shy, but Gizmo is my new best friend. When I go out to play with them he just chases me all over the place. Here's a pic of them climbing on my back - they just love to climb up there and lay down - I guess I'm pretty warm. :-)