Patio Furniture Saturday, May 9 2009

We had wicker patio furniture that rotted.
Lately, we’ve been on the hunt for some “new” vintage metal patio furniture.
We didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so we’ve been looking around at flea markets and yard sales.
A few weekends ago, we found the cutest vintage patio set at a junk shop down in North Carolina.
It was covered in rust and who knows what but we thought it had a cool design on it.
We got it for a verrrry good price and after Dad sanded off the rust, we spray painted it black.
Now it looks brand new.

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Strawberries! Saturday, Mar 21 2009

We’ve been very busy with gardening lately.
Yesterday, Dad bought us 3 vintage strawberry planters and today he bought us GORGEOUS strawberry plants at the flea market.
Daddy was extra nice and even helped us to plant the strawberries (they were difficult to get through the openings of the pot).
The plants already had large strawberries growing.
Hopefully,  they will stay happy & healthy!

 

 

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A New Garden Path Saturday, Mar 21 2009

Lately, the backyard has been giving us a headache…we’ve been trying to figure out what to do back there.
We decided that we want a garden path put down leading to what will be an “English cottage garden architectural salvage window bench” piece (it’ll make sense when we blog about it later…as in when Dad and Owen build it).
We have TONS of rocks all over our property which was perfect for creating the path.
Owen hauled the rocks for us and Dad made the path for us (in his usual professional manner).

 

 

 

To the right of the path we’ve decided to plant different varieties of hostas, ferns, fairy lilies, and other shade plants.
As soon as there’s no more chance for a frost, we’ll get to planting.

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Snow! Saturday, Mar 21 2009

Now that you saw the rat post…we thought we’d show you some other pictures from when it snowed a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

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R.O.U.S. Tuesday, Mar 3 2009

Here is another “ew” post.
For the first time since we moved to VA, we got snow that stuck.
Ariel & Owen went outside to play in the snow.
When they got to the bottom of our driveway (looking for pretty things to take pictures of) they found this:

This my friends is…a rat.
It was a big as a small dog.
Ew.

The neighbors had warned us about really long rats that come out of basement toilets (good thing we got rid of ours!).
We thought they were exaggerating. Apparently not.

Adri thinks his claws look like Saruman’s fingernails (you know? when he looks into his crystal ball thing?).
Ariel thinks it escaped from the set of Princess Bride…

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Pecans Tuesday, Mar 3 2009

A few weeks ago, we were baking Grandma a 3 layer dessert for her 81st birthday.
That same morning, we purchased a bag of pecans for the crust of the dessert.
When we opened up the bag…lo and behold! They were hairy!
It was one of the nastiest things we’ve ever seen in our cooking experience.
The nuts had spider webby things all over them!
It was ew!
Here’s a picture.


ewwwwwww!
Mom returned them to the grocery store (they were grossed out too) and got a new bag (and a different brand!) of pecans.
Happy Birthday Grandma!

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Turtle RIP Friday, Feb 13 2009

Sad news.
Ok…so we bought this WAY cute moss covered cement turtle statue thing last year from Old Time Pottery.
It was SO cute!
Sadly, the other day while we were taking a turn around the backyard, we found turtle dead.
Orange dead.

Ewwwww!
Turtle has orange insides!
What is this madness?!
We like tuttles.
Turtle RIP.

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The Black Gate Friday, Feb 13 2009

We’re calling this post “The Black Gate” …and we don’t mean to Mordor.
That would be a bad day.

Daddy surprised us this week by purchasing a black fence and gate for the “cottage garden”.
It matches the black fencing that we put in the back yard.
We’ve begged Dad for the last two years to take down that nasty white vinyl floppy over fence in the cottage garden.
He listened.
It looks SO good! Of course, it won’t look way good until the gardens are blooming.
Thankfully, our menfolk put up this new fence when the plants are not in bloom – otherwise…our flowers may not have survived.

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Celthix Concert! Wednesday, Feb 11 2009

We love to go to The Daily Grind in uptown Martinsville for some yummy coffee drinks!
On one visit, they had a display of cd’s by a group called the Celthix (check out their website and purchase the songs..you won’t be sorry!).
We figured that with an awesome name like that, we’d be sure to love the music.
We love every cotton-pickin’ song on the cd!
We love Celtic music and folk music and this group does a good combination.
The variety of instruments used is amazing, but the singing makes the cd!
Now go buy it!

After missing a couple of their concerts, we finally got the chance to see them perform last weekend (at The Daily Grind!).
This group is SO much fun to see in concert!
They played for almost 3 hours and we were sorry when it was over.

We are SO excited because we just found out that they’re going to be performing again in a few weeks!

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Insulating the Attic Wednesday, Feb 11 2009

Ok…so Dad nearly passed out when he opened our last electric bill.
That was so not a fun day.

Ever since, Dad has been desperately trying  to insulate every inch of our drafty old house.
Dad and Owen decided to put insulation underneath the house back in December.
The crawl space entrances in the basement are very small.
Here is Owen getting on his insulation gear.

His outfit sorta reminded us of someone…

A few weeks ago, our heater died.
Dad had some men come out and install a new heater in the attic.
Our attic space is only a few feet high and not really an “attic” at all.
Noticing that there wasn’t much insulation in the attic, Dad did what any handyman would do in this situation…
He decided to rent a huge insulation blower thingy from Lowe’s.
Thankfully, Josh and Owen were willing to lend a hand.
We love having men around to lift the heavy machinery.

Adri wants to know WHY the door to the attic had to be her  room?!

Dang that’s a lot of tubing.

Dixie wasn’t so sure about all this…

This thing reminded us of a computer from a 1950’s sci-fi movie (with all the lights and tubes and stuff).

Dad bought a ton of the insulation (that expands to 18x the package size), but ended up needing only 4 packages.
When you rent the blowing machine at Lowe’s, if you return it within 24 hours, the rental is free.
So for about $100 dollars, Dad was able to insulate the attic.

Here is Dad going “green”  (pink?).

The opening to the attic…which only Owen could fit into.

We are eagerly anticipating our next electric bill…
well in a hopeful way.

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