This Old House

    

 Once a upon a time, back in 1987, a young married couple set out to buy their first house. They looked and looked trying to find the perfect place. They desired to live in a small town. They wanted a quiet neighborhood, with a large yard. After many, many weekends of driving around and looking at houses, they found the place they would call home. A house build in 1944 with a large yard, fireplace, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The first time they went inside the house, the previous owner was baking bread in the oven and the house was full of primitive antiques. The couple just knew this was the house for them. The wife had big ideas of renovations for the house and just knew that her husband could make her dreams come true. They bought the house and have lived their for the past 26 years! They have added on to the house, build a barn, painted, removed walls, installed hardwood floors,renovated bathrooms, and landscaped. Their children have grown up there and learned many skills as they have helped make improvements over the years. This year the house will be 70 years old and so they decided it was time for the old girl to get a "face lift", so they have been working hard, along with their two sons, to make some improvements...

The front of our house before

Here is the north side of the house before

 Here is the after photo! We put cedar shake shingles on the gable ends of our house. Rob and the boys spent hours cutting each shingle. It was like making a quilt. Then Rob stained and sealed them. I love the way it turned out!

 We are still working on a few more projects. I hope to post some of the results soon!

My Adventure with a Stray Cat

This is how I have been feeling lately

On Wednesday morning I went outside to hang some clothes on the clothesline and left the back door open. A stray cat that had been hanging around wandered into our sun room The poor thing could not find the door to get out and started throwing itself against the windows. It was totally freaked out and being the animal lover that I am, I decided to try help it get out. I grabbed it with a towel thinking it might scratch me, but never even considered that it would bite me...and it bit me HARD!

I dropped the cat, (who some how found the door) and ran into the kitchen to the sink to see what damage was done. I quickly realized the bite was pretty bad and the wound was bleeding a lot! I yelled for help. (Thankfully Rob and Andrew were both here)

Well the Eagle Scout in Rob kicked in, and after he accessed the injury, he decided we needed to make a trip to urgent care. After they cleaned the wound and gave me a tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics, I was informed that since it was a stray and had no shots, I had to be treated for rabies. I was not a happy camper!

 Animal Control came to the house, the cat had to be trapped and quarantined for 10 days and I had to start the shots immediately. Arrangements were made with the Health Department and I got 5 shots the first day! Not fun! I have had to go back in for shots every few days and as of right now I have had 8 shots (including the tetanus shot) and have just one more to go...yeah!

What I have learned from this experience...

1) Do not EVER try to catch a freaked out cat.

2) Freaked out cats bite really HARD!

3) Rabies shots make you feel really sick.

5) The folks at the Health Department often get a bad rap...they have been absolutely wonderful!

6) Being married to my Eagle Scout is pretty awesome! :)

Rain Chain

I wanted to share a project that my son made for me. It is called a Rain Chain and this is how it works. When it rains, the water runs off the roof and down the chain into the "catch basin". (In this case we used a terracotta pot with river rocks in the bottom.) The pot helps the soil from eroding and the water goes into my lily bed. It was pretty simple to make and I think this looks a lot better then a traditional plastic or metal downspout in this spot on our sun room.

Here are instructions on how to make your own Rain Chain.

Shared at
Raising Homemakers 
New Life On A Homestead

A Bump in the Night!

Last Saturday at 4:30 am I awoke to the sound of our HUGE oak tree hitting the ground. The whole house shook! So we jumped out of bed and headed outside in the dark to see what happened. By the light of day this is what we saw. Thankfully it missed the house, but unfortunately it completely destroyed the boys Youth Fair Citrus Tree Contest orange trees. The other casualty was our really cool rope swing that was hanging from one of the limbs. The mess is almost cleaned up now, and a load of oak will be taken to Peebles BBQ which will open next weekend. So if you eat any Peebles BBQ in the near future, it might just be smoked on our oak. :o)

Back to School

Next Monday my children will be starting a new school year. Matthew will be in 12th grade and Andrew in 6th. This is an exciting time at our house. Buying school supplies, ordering curriculum, and the excitement of new things to learn. For Matthew, this is the end of his homeschool years. When we started this journey, I had no idea it would go so quickly. It has been an adventure for all of us! I feel very blessed that I have been able to have my children here with me all of these years. I am truly thankful that I have had the opportunity to spend my days with these two amazing young men.

Our New Adventure

Robert A Stevens & Associates, Inc
"A Standard Of Excellence"
Surveying and Mapping, Consulting

Our newest adventure does not involve packing a suitcase, boarding a plane, or planning an itinerary. It is the launch of Rob's business. He has thought about doing this for a while. In fact, a few of our friends (you know who you are!) have encouraged him to do this for quite a while. So here we are, working together as a family. I must honestly admit that we have had to make a few "adjustments", the boys and I have been here during the day all by ourselves for many, many years. So if you think about it, please pray for us as we embark on this journey, this might be our biggest adventure so far!!

Goodbye Grandfather Oak

When we moved into our 1940's house 21 years ago, we had 8 beautiful oak trees on the property. They were home to birds, squirrels, frogs and lizards. Hey, we have even spotted a possum or two up in our trees! In the past few years we have lost a few of these grand old trees. The first was lost to a tornado. The 2nd was diseased. And the third one was uprooted during the summer of 2004 when Hurricanes Charlie, Frances and Jean visited central Florida. Recently we lost yet another of our trees. A beautiful Live Oak. We were amazed at how quickly this majestic tree died. It was located behind our barn right next to the blueberry green house. To make things even more fun, the power line ran through part of it. We realized it was dangerous and had to come down. Here our a few photos of what is left of this "grand old gentleman" that once provided shade and shelter. I guess the good thing is that we will have plenty of firewood this winter.


Matthew,

also known as "Chain Saw Man" is ready to get started.

Andrew climbs the tree!