Last night Sarah, Emma and I wandered upriver. We had been planning to visit this used clothing store that is closing, but it was… closed. So we stopped in a few places. On the way back home, i notcied a car pulled over and a couple people peering off into a field.

Well, shoot, I’m driving so I’m pulling over. I grabbed my trusty camera and headed over to the couple to take the shot below and a half-dozen others.

The guy next to me had his camera in the trunk and it didn’t zoom well I guess. A couple other cars stopped to look, but a few peeled away with a “Geez, it’s just a moose,” attitude. Whatever.

So we were almost home and I see this:

I pulled over so Sarah could get the first shot (the camera was in her hand) but when we went down the road further we realized there were more people watching and it would be a good show. So I pulled over to a dirt road that turned out to be a direct route to the field they used for launch. We had a great chat with a guy who turned out to be the pilot’s dad.

I took about a hundred pictures and a half-dozen videos I have yet to upload, including one of landing. Then we cheered and clapped when he did land. We and another family (of Mennonites) walked down into the field for a chat and a million questions. Emma even gave him a free hug.

We talked over one another as the sun set behind us, having made a new friend.

Did I mention it was awesome? Because it was.

Click on any of the pictures to go see the rest. I’m making the entry short because the house is empty with Ron and the girls on some sort of secret mission, and I have some work I really REALLY need to get to.

All cold and empty and neglected. Poor house. So we bought it – rescued it really, loving it and now fixing it up. Admittedly, we haven’t got very far yet and there’s still boxes everywhere. But look at it now.

Doesn’t it look happer? I mean, even despite the better lighting and the still-falling-apart-ness.

I love you house. It’s okay, we’ll have you all better as soon as we can. Starting when the mountain of snow melts. (We’ve made lists. Lots of them.)

I mean, we did pick this house in this spot for some pretty good reasons. I’m uploading more pictures, so be sure to click on through to Flickr and check them out.

Ron and I are running errands today – in and out of the house, up and down the highway. He stopped in to the hardware store earlier to pick up a load of pellets. While there, he asked about window prices. We have a whole lot of them – 19 or 21 are all the same size, all original, all pretty darn cold what with the single pane of wavy glass. They are 2 feet by 5 feet. Large. They all need to be replaced. But the hardware store has a decent price for one, a lot less than we thought – about $300. That was the good news for today. (There’s 39 windows & exterior doors in total – most, if not all, will be replaced.)

While running wires again last night, we figured out a couple things. The holes in the joists where the wires ran through were made with a hand drill. This was evidenced by all the chunks of wood chips which were half circles and slightly angular. This also explained why the holes were not quite level. Made it hard to pull on the wires.

So I was comforted a little, that eighty-some-odd years ago, some guy in overalls had to contort himself across the floor, just like we were. Except we were undoing all his hard work and replacing it.

Inside the floor, between the joists, is the aforementioned wood chips, some dust & dirt, some plaster chunks and the occasional bit of interest, like that tag we found. This time, I found a neat square of plaster face down almost under the wall. Must be from when they cut the first hole for the first lightswitch, I thought. I flipped it over and noted there was a bit of brown paper, or wallpaper backing, obscuring what was underneath. I gently pulled it away.

Original wallpaper. Faintly art deco. The only down side is the piece is so small.

At least it’s better than what I found in the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom which is a DIY bad dream. The tileboard is installed sideways in there, and yes, you can tell. The floral sprays every other tile are certainly sideways. In one spot, since it goes up the wall halfway, I can pull on the edge a bit to reveal the wall underneath.

I kinda wished I hadn’t, for there was the wallpaper of the renovation before that. Brace yourself, it was probably from the late eighties, early nineties. It is hunter green and cream plaid.

I think we’ll leave that room for a while.

***

We will be off to Aunt Boo’s for the afternoon, so here’s hoping Uncle Leroy will give us lots of blog fodder. Or tomorrow I could tell the story of Grandma Betty. She’s not our grandma and her name’s not Betty, but there you have it.

Poor Emma is confused. Halloween is tomorrow, and it is in fall. But it only snows in winter, right?

Pictures forthcoming. ETA:

I trhink I like the bottom one better. Click for bigger, and to see the more pics from the past few days. The snow is mostly gone now.

Ron made the stained glass window insert, Carl did the window frame. We replaced the ceiling material and scraped the original trim on the ceiling, we replasted and repaired the walls, ripped out the closet the previous owners put in this alcove, and refinished the floors.

I’d say it was totally worth it. You can click here to see the whole set, or just look at what we started with.

Bonus shot of Pinkie Tuscedero:

See?

This is a few minutes after Meaghan noticed the sky getting really dark and remarking that she should bring in the clothes. Around a minute after I took the picture and while we were standing there, the tree in front of us blew over.

No really!

It was very exciting for a while. And nerve wracking. Especially after we realized these jokers would be driving up to come take Sarah away.

It’s been really really quiet since they all left though.

And then Ron got a new toy.

Actually, I shouldn’t call it a toy. Really, out here in Lawn Central, it’s an outright necessity. The man is skinny enough; he does not need to sweat off more pounds pushing a mower around roughly 3/4 of an acre of unlevel ground to get out lawn mowed. I’ll leave it to him to tell the story, as it’s a good one, and he’s now the proud owner of an old and crotchety lawn tractor I call Stanley. (The model is a Roper. Heidi says we need a weed whacker named Helen.)

Only problem is – other than the tires, the muffler, the battery hookups and the carburetor – the body needs work and is rusty in a few spots. In fact, when he got it from the guy, he had said he’d give it a quick paint job and touch up the rusty spots. It wound up looking like he’d cleared out the last of his red and white spray can collection and just made a few quick passes.

Ron and I were out looking at it one afternoon, pondering what to tackle first, when he pointed out the paint job and the need to have it redone. Before I knew it, in all seriousness, I blurted out, “Yeah, there’s that place down the road that paints farm equipment…”

And then he had to giggle at me. “What should we go for? Flames? Something in pink maybe?”

Ahhh life in the country… it never gets boring that’s for sure.

Edit: Ron is looking for guesses as to the paint color he picked up.

2c flour
3tsp baking powder
2TBSP white sugar
1/3 shortening
1 egg
2/3 c milk

Put baking powder & sugar in flour. Cut in shortening. Beat egg & milk. Mix with flour. Roll dough out – it’ll be sticky so flour or grease.

Spread 1 TBSP butter or marjarine (soft works well) on dough and sprinkle with 1/2 c brown sugar mixed with 2 tsp cinnamon. Roll up and slice. (I roll it out to around 8×12 and cut 12 rolls. The secret is to not roll out a huge rectangle.) Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

A thirty year old recipe still tastes as good today. In the picture above, I put each one in a muffin cup instead of flat on a pan. It held the sugar in more so there wasn’t burnt sugar all over my pan as much. Ron says it makes them easier to eat on the drive to work, too.