A Little Progress

So I cobbled together this temporary fence to keep the canines contained while some cement was coming for the new deck.

The contractors arrived and removed the steps, and 

prepared a little pad for the bottom of the steps-I like to think of it as a doggie doormat. It's about 6' X 8' or so. 

And here comes the cement!

It was a good day to be outside-not too hot, not too cool.

We've been waiting since last year for this work to get going.

After the derecho, we had damage to the deck, so we decided to upgrade a little with the cement. 

It will be so nice to have a sturdy place for the bottom of the steps. Plus maybe the dogs will leave a little dirt out there instead of tracking it all in.

It didn't ake much time at all and they had the cement all dumped in.

They worked it all out -doesn't it look great!

The view from the dog containment fence!

We're looking forward to more work in a week or two. Some of the lumber supplies are on order, so we're waiting on that to arrive. More to come!

Houses...it's always something

So my old mailbox has been bumped a few too many times, it was wobbly and barely hanging on to the post, despite my hammering it back in place every few weeks. So I ordered a new one....a CUTE new one.

It was pretty easy to install, I had to shorten the post a few inches-sawsall to the rescue! And as I was laying on the ground to tighten the lag bolts, I thought for sure someone would stop and make sure the old lady wasn't in trouble. But it's all good-took about 30 minutes to get it all done.

Cutest mailbox on the block!

So Bean is now homeless...they are staying with us for a week or so, 2 of the kids are at Gramma K's house and one is at Dannie's house until they close on their new house in North Liberty. SO this beauty is living in my yard for a little while.

It needs some new wood and maybe a new part here and there, but isn't it gorgeous!  It says Des Moines Park Swing on the arm sides. Jean was gifted the swing from her grandparents who live in Des Moines.

I just love the way it looks. They don't make em like this any more! I'll be sad to see it go to it's new home in a week or so.

So after the Derecho we had some shingle damage, so the insurance adjuster came out and took a look and said, yup, you need a new roof. 

See those chalk marks on the roof of the garage? Our guy was up there quite awhile and it sure made it look bad! From the ground it didn't look bad at all, but once he marked the bad spots, WOW! So we have that to get taken care of next. It really is always something!

Clean Up

 

SO DD came and helped me with the last of the branches in the neighbors yards.

Jean & Ben helped me on Saturday-my friend loaned me a little chain saw to cut up the big stuff-it worked great!

Ben took over the saw and we all moved the branches over to our yard. I'll let them be piled up for now. 

The neighbor's garden really took a hit. They were an older couple and they both passed away recently, so I don't really know if their family cares about the garden, but I feel better having the tree out of their yard.

I'm thankful that we only had the one big tree part. SO many other folks had a lot more damage to their trees.

Now I have a pretty big burn pile for the next backyard bonfire.  And I'm so glad to hear that my folks got power back!!

Here's A New Word.......Derecho

 

So, on Monday we had a derecho. A derecho is an inland hurricane.

de·re·cho

/dāˈrāˌCHō/  

We had winds up to 100 mph in various places in Iowa. Thankfully, we had very minimal damage compared to so many. But no power!

One big branch on the deck, a few shingles and roof damage too.

Heavy rain and the plants are all blown over. Our neighbor lost a lot of tree branches. Look at the horrible damage just North of us in Cedar Rapids-https://www.thegazette.com

One big branch in the backyard, hanging in the neighbor's garden. 

Quite a few branches next door too.

I'll need to get someone over here to saw this one up-it's a little too big to drag down. But the bigger problem is no power!

After the storm passed the dogs were glad to be outdoors-they weren't so happy during the storm though!

I had high hopes when we saw the line workers across the street on Tuesday evening. They cleared a lot of branches off the lines, but still no power. I guess the wind got the flagpole too-it's a little leaned over. I tried to get ice on Monday night with no luck at all-sold out everywhere that was open.I got ice on Wednesday morning and re packed the fridge with bags of ice-because isn't the fridge just a big cooler when there's no power?

Finally on Thursday morning we got power!! Unfortunately I just was not bale to keep the fridge below 40 degrees for awhile when I couldn't get ice. So it's time to empty the fridge....deep sigh!

Out it all goes! I used a list from the Iowa Extension service https://www.foodsafety.gov. 

To be safe, I was ruthless. I thought hubs was going to cry. 

It's so hard to throw away food!! Most of our produce was still fine and most hard cheese was still good too. 

 Here we go, a nice clean fridge ready to re fill. And the freezer...oh my goodness.

We had so much in the side by side freezer.

But here we go, all cleared out.

We'll be fine-we have lard, bread and lemonade. So then on Saturday morning I made a run to the dump to dispose of the frozen food trash. I felt like I couldn't wait for an entire week in the heat for trash day because I just knew the food would be rotting away in the trash can outside. 

SO Jean and I loaded up a pick up full and hit the landfill at about 7:30 Saturday morning! And look almost no line to wait in-the early bird does...well no worms, but anyways, We have power, we're safe, and I hope the folks get power soon too!