All Decked Out

As promised, here are the pictures of the deck that J.D. built this summer. Of course no project is complete around here unless the boys add their touch to it.



Seth put in about 20 minutes and decided that he was "tired". He came in for a drink, a little TV and of course a litle cat nap.



I think what really tired him out more than anything else was having his big brother for a foreman.




Riley takes his work quite seriously and will work until he drops. He has been that way since he was big enough to pick a hammer up and carry it around with him.



After putting in his day's work he told his Papaw not to do any more work on the deck until he can come back to help him.

I am very proud of all the work J.D. has put into our ridge top home. He even built an Adirondack chair that I found the pattern for online.

As I look around here at all of the improvements J.D. has made to our home in the 5 years we have lived here, I can't help but wonder if he realizes how very much I appreciate him and everything that he does.

I have told him how much appreciate him, but still I wonder. I trully have been blessed to share my life with J.D.

I think all that is needed now is a bottle of wine (coffee if you prefer) and a fire in the fire pit that kids gave J.D. for his birthday. If you happen to be in the neighborhood stop by and join us.

Blessing to you all !

Time For Grass

The house and yard looked so much better once the bulldozer had done it's work. Now comes the fun part. It was then time to plant that grass seed.

I even found a spot to plant a small flower bed in the front yard.

Planting the grass seed wasn't a simple matter of throwing the seed out and letting the rain and sunshine do the rest of the work. (Laughing at the thought of something being done simply around here). Before the seed could be planted all of that dirt had to be raked, groomed and smoothed out.

This wasn't a small job either because it also involved picking rocks (most times big rocks) out of the dirt and chopping roots with the hatchet that were sticking up out of the dirt.

I couldn't begin to tell you for how many months we picked up and dug rocks out of the yard. I had begun to think we hadn't created an ordinary yard. No, I was thinking we had created one heck of a BIG Rock Garden.

But look at the end results. We have Grass!! Pretty Green Grass coming up every where we looked.

With the yard cleared and grass growing where once there were rocks, brush, tree stumps and briars it is time to look around and decide what our next project will be.

No problem...... We can do that! We needed to find a solution to our laundry situation. If I had a preference I would prefer to have a wringer washer, but as hard as we tried to find one, there just was none to be had in this area. I tried going the laundry mat route, but that was a 30 minutes drive one way to the closest one. I would sooner haul the clothes to a creek and beat them with rocks than to deal with an hour drive to do laundry. There was no place in this house to hook up a washer or to plug in a dryer. Again, no problem...... J.D. got his tools together, some material and enclosed a section of the porch in the back. He ran the electric, fixed me up with a water source and all of a sudden there was a laundry room.

Next came our plan to add a bigger living room and a master bedroom on to the house. J.D. got on his computer and drew up the plans on his Auto Cad program. That meant doing away with the existing side deck and the side entrance to the porch . Guess what!!! No problem, this is just another example of what this talented man that I am married to can do. Until he got this small deck built, he had put up a few temporary steps from the porch. There were no hand rails and when the grand daughters would come out to stay over, poor little T~Bear was so unsteady and shaky going up and down them. The next time she came out after J.D. had finished the deck and steps, I took her straight to the deck to show her what Grandpa had made for her. She took it all in with wide eyes and a great big smile and said. "You know Grandma, my Grandpa is a Genius!" I certainly agree with her on that. He is that and so much more.

Tomorrow we will stand back and watch the room addition become a reality. Until then wishing all a blessed Friday!