Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Probably one of my most enjoyable and unforgetable Christmas gifts I ever received was this very original Santa! My Aunt Mary Szekely gave it to me years ago. She was in her 80's when she gave it to me and Debbie tells me that Aunt Mary was so excited to give it to me. She laughed like hell every time we played it. No question her sense of humor was terrific. So, this is a fond memory of Aunt Mary and all the wonderful Christmases we shared together! Enjoy!!!! (i love the laugh at the end!)

Happy Holidays - making nut roll

Never tried this before but we'll see how taking a movie with the new camera pans out. The movies look great on our computer but this is all new so bear with us...... if you can see it, let us know!

D2

The Great Wall(s) of Bowville

As promised, here are a couple pics of the new raised bed garden “retaining” walls. Overall they are finished. Just need to backfill behind the wall with the last of the left over AAC block remnants and then fill the rest with wood chips… once again, called “hog-fuel” out this way... Love that!

We like the walls a lot. It started by wheelbarrowing the stone to the garden, then mixing mortar in five gallon buckets and wheeling them in to the site. Then the fun began of piecing everything together. It's like a puzzle. Even built four sets of stairs and clad them with stone too. Each stairwell has two flower boxes on each side, also made of AAC block and stone. Hey, why not? Only a few more hours of work but well worth it. It was a fun project overall. I love working outside- rain or shine. It also was like a giant outdoor art project...like I can't even remember when I last did anything artsy... I miss that.

Deb intends to plant some crocus bulbs in the flower boxes now, and by springtime we should have some nice flowers. Very cool heh? I will be planting garlic bulbs tomorrow and by July we should have a load of fresh garlic.

All for now kids… Love ya, D2

Property wildlife

It’s almost mid November. Where does the time go? Well, I can actually tell you in great detail but for now I’ll just say we have been non-stop since coming back from Florida. Our main event was going back down to Portland to finish emptying out our house. Good Grief. We took the train down, got picked up by Matt and Rachel, and stayed with them for 3 days. God bless those two! We had a great time with them…going out to eat, listening to JVA, and having a fab dinner at their house with Rachel’s parents. Wonderful people!

The other side of it was a lot of work again. Cleaned out our basement, took stuff to the dump, and then rented and packed a 16ft rental truck. Much to our surprise we filled it!!! Drove it back along with the little 1973 BMW I bought a few years ago. Great fun. So, now everything is out of the house and it is up for sale…. Interested?

Now for the good stuff. Recall that my little lamb, Debbie, gave me this wonderful camera for my retirement. I have taken 4,787 photos since July 30! I just love it. And, our property has had some wonderful visitors… not the human kind. Check it out. Deer, Cooper’s hawks, woodpeckers, and most recently a Great Horned Owl! It's kinda funny how things go. When I am outside on the property, or maybe working outside, if I see wildlife I now have the time to go back to the house and grab the camera. In the recent past, I would have never taken the time to go get my camera. But now, I don't feel rushed and I am taking the time to enjoy the property. It is so different. I love taking photos and now I have a camera that allows me to shoot the photos the way I have always imagined they should look. I am just getting used to the camera but these aren't too bad for starters. Enjoy!

Bout time heh?

Well, hello everyone. Here it is October and I am finally finding an evening or two to write a few lines about our summer and early fall experiences here in Bow. What follows below is a snippet of text and photos, that we hope you will enjoy “twofold.” 1. If you were kind enough to come out and visit us, you will see yourself in “action.” And, 2. If you couldn’t make it out, you will see what we were up to most of the time.

It was a crazy few months for sure. Believe it or not, from about July 1 through, September 5^th, we had nearly 50 days of overnight family and friends!!! It was unbelievable! There were times when I dropped a folks off at the airport for their departure flight, and later that same day I picked up people coming in!! Deb was washing sheets and putting them on the bed just in the nick of time…lol.

Oh yeah, as of July 30 I was officially retired! WOW! Hard to believe but I’ll pass on all the details. Suffice to say I love it although with all our visitors it did not really sink in….but it is starting to now for sure. Ok, scroll down and enjoy. As you know, the way this blog works, as you go down, it will go back in time.

All work and no play is not the way to live. Deb and I have done a bit of recreation too. We play badminton in the driveway…no idea why but we both love doing that. We also climbed Sauk Mt. – a nice 4 mile round trip hike that rewarded us with fantastic fall colors and picture perfect mountain scenery….. We also took another 4 mile hike up part of Mt. Larrabee which is located about a 5 minute drive from our house. Great hike, great views and a place where people hang glide. The day we were there we got some pics of folks taking the plunge….tempting heh? And, for what it is worth, we had a fair amount of snow up high this past weekend so who knows what our next hike may be like?

And, Happy Halloween! Gotta love the country life here. Pumpkin stands along almost every road. I got ours for a whopping $1.00 per pumpkin with proceeds going to the Bow booster club!

So, all in all, think we been busy? Have a look and see what you think. We think its been a blast!

Fall Yard Projects

Been a great fall season. We decided to try to knock out some major projects before winter sets in, and are working on them as we speak. First, we decided to try to use up the last of our left-over AAC block, by using it as a “framework” for our raised-bed garden walls. To date we have the wall glued together and then plan to clad it with left-over rock from our masonry heater.

And, we just finished cladding our retaining wall next to our garage. Recall, I built the retaining wall with AAC block and it has been waiting for us to put on the finishing touches. For amateurs we thought we did a fine job. First time for everything heh…. We just recalled how our heater was built and tried to mimic what we remembered.