Busy Times

 SO I got the burn pile under control! The first burn took us down pretty well, but look here!

We're down to the ground! No more brush pile here!

There was a small mishap with the lawn mower....my hose is now about 3' shorter now than it was before. 

When I went to Albion, I stopped at the Presbyterian Church. They are now closed. They were having a yard sale. It's a sad thing, but is getting to be a common occurance. This was my childhood church, and I loved the windows.

And the big organ-it never was used as I remeber it, but I heard that it does operate. 

This stereo set up was used to play carrilion music-from LP records- through speakers in the church steeple. It was only on a few special occasions, like Christmas, but the music sounded so cool as I remember it anyways!

It's a really beautiful sanctuary, I hope it gets sold to someone for a venue or somehintg.  The curved pews are so pretty. 

They have pew cusions now! That's an improvment-you'd think that would get some folks into the seats!

The small office rooms all have stained glass windows too. This was a Sunday Schol classroom for awhile when I was a kid. 

And here's the problem...

With only a dozen or so people in church any given Sunday, you can't even pay the electric bill with that attendance, let alone pay a pastor.  It's a big loss for the community-there is no church now and no school. That's a death toll for the town I think, lucky they are not a bad location for commuting for work in bigger towns. 

ANd this guy was being helpful and using the magnet roller to pick up nails from the brush pile ashes. He's pretty good help. 

And very busy help too!

The water is always a favorite-it was crazy hot the last few days.

Time to upgrade from the triccyle-he calls it his e bike-I've got a new bike ordered for him!

It's Springing

 

There are some signs of Spring going on now.  See the lonely tulip, and the violets too? 

The real sign of  spring though, is this....the automatic dog water dish is out! 

It's been a tough winter in the backyard, we've got dog holes that you could bury a body in!

It's been pretty dry now for a couple of weeks.

Next thing you know it will be time to mow:-(

SO I got  this little tiller to till up the dog holes!

It's just a little electric tiller. The reviews on line and videos say it will do the trick though.

I put it together-now to wait for a little bit of rain, probably Saturday. Then I'll post how it works out.

We had Affordable Heating & Cooling out to check the AC unit. As they have told us for the last two years, our unit uses the old, bad kind of gas, and can't be readily fixed if it breaks down. We've kind of had it on our "that'll be next" list. But for now it passed all the Maintenance checks.

And there's the burn pile-we need to have the backyard bonfire pretty soon, but it's too dry this weekend. Soon though!

Backyard Time

 Well we had planned to burn the wood pile, but it rained a lot, so we had hot dogs in the house and then went out and had smores and beverages with wood from the store in the fire bowl.

 These little pyromaniacs got the fire going....

 after a couple of false starts.....

 There we go! Nice dry wood from the store is the trick to a good fire today!

 It's always fun to have the kids get the fire going-kind of a science experiment for them!

 And time to relax for the rest of us!

I  Love to toast the marshmallows! Jean is a marshmallow burner I think!!

 Dannie and her friend John, Jean & Ben and the kids, and 5 dogs....just right!

 With the Covid going around it was good to see the family all at once-they are all over occasionally but hardly ever all at once. We are all well so far-hopefully we'll keep it that way!

 And lookie here, the little tomatoes are coming on like gangbusters! They are delicious to eat too!

The full size tomatoes aren't doing much, only about 4 tomatoes on the pants. We'll see if they make it to eating or not.

Annual Backyard Bonfire

 Bob is approving the beverages for the backyard bonfire!

 It's been a week of hard work for everyone-so it was nice to relax, and have a beverage and roast a hot dog and have a s'more!

 Just grown upa this year...oh and a few dogs!

It was perfect weather-no rain for a change!  We're real hard core partiers....

 It got to be about 10 and we were all ready to call it a night!

 The marshmallows were wonderful as always, and the family is always a joy to have all together!

 And there's just a few cans and bottles to pick up in the morning!

Backyard Bonfire Time...late reporting!

So I had quite a pile of stuff in the backyard burn pile-mostly branches and pallets. Yes, that is Ringo on top of the pile...he figured out how to be king of the hill!

 

Anyways it was time to burn it down! So I had some good help to get ready....Dannie mowed the lawn like she always does, with some help....and Poodle helped too-she kept the toys gathered up, and

Ringo was helpful and ate the apples that are falling from the apple tree next door. 

  

See there was plenty of fuel for the fire! It was a perfect day too-warm and still. It was a really fast burning, hot fire!

 

We shoveled coals into the fire bowl so we could roast hot dogs and brats and of course make s'mores! We stayed out until past dark, it was such perfect weather.

A few days later Dannie used the big magnet we borrowed from Dad to pick up the nails left in the fire area. 

 

There was a lot of dang nails-burning pallets will do that!

Now she won't have to worry about getting a flat tire on the lawn mower!