Deck the Halls

My first experience with purchasing digital design.  I liked this a lot and bought the file.  Lexy helped me download and convert it to a photo file and I had it printed at Walmart.

Now I can proclaim the reason for the season.

This is the first year in a while that I haven't done my countdown to Christmas calender.  Instead I just left this one up to look at all month (like Sandra does with hers).  I made 4 of them for the sales and etsy.  People just haven't fallen in love with them like we have.

Colonial Village is set in the bay window.

My Christmas chubbies have replaced the everyday ones and the cactus has just finished blooming.

There's Mr. and Mrs. Santa Clause, a snowman and a caroler.

I love my funnel trees and the red antifreeze can makes the perfect vase for winter greens.

I change out these cloche's for each season.

Santa and his reindeer.

I have several books from when the kids were little and the classics are Morgan's favorites.  Now I get them a children's book each year for their own collection.

This little book set is from my childhood and it is one of my favorite things.

A santa from my tole painting days.

A gift from my sister-in-law that gets hung up every year.

Very old village houses came from some of Phyllis' things.

(my mother-in-law)

I like deer, and green wreaths and windows so I put them all together.  I could go on and on but these are some of the things I get to enjoy every December.



Elk Crossing

On my walk down Kerns Loop there are signs that the elk are actively moving back and forth from mountain to valley.  This little crossing goes into our upper field.

There's trails like this in several places.  When there is a frost or fresh snow in the morning it's fun to see where they have been walking.

Looks like a rig drove up here but it's elk tracks.  This seems to be their favorite spot to cross, at least on our road.  It really is quite an adventure watching them all winter.

Walking

Monday I started a new round of Feeling Great in 8.  That means I have to exercise 5 days a week.  Walking has been my go to exercise of choice.  I have a beautiful place to walk.  It's getting dark so soon though.  I got off early today so I hurried home and bundled up.

This is my "Wyatt" hat.  I got it to wear when I was talking to him on facebook a couple weeks ago.  Now it will keep me warm on my walks and I think of him (and Grayson) the whole time I'm wearing it.

I walk the loop.  It's a nice 2 mile walk to the other end of Kerns Loop and back.

After I get to the bottom of the hill near Hassingers, I turn around and head back up this little incline.  It's a nice workout.  In fact sometimes I only go to the top of this or half way down but I really need to go the whole distance.

I saw a herd of deer tonight.  Turkeys are often around, especially in the spring, but I did see some a few weeks back.  There's a tree on the corner that they roost in.  Everyday quail fly up out of the shrubs.  Morgan and I watched a little owl family earlier in the year. It's is quite enjoyable exercise.

The Long Goodbye

Moving Day.  Sherwood, Kerri, Dylan and Gareld (plus other helpers) spent the weekend moving out of Merlin's shop.  It's kind of sad.  He died in 2003 but his shop has still been there all these years.  Gareld would say "I'm going over to dad's to work on the Nova", or I'm going to go borrow dad's saw.

I'd say "does your dad have any casters over there?"  "Dad has one".  "Let's go to North Powder and park that in Dad's shop."   The times we've thought of or spoken of him go on and on.  It was a big job.

Sherwood hauled his stuff over to his in- laws place in Haines.  Gareld hauled his stuff here.  Now that it is Sherwood's and Gareld's we can't borrow "Dad's" stuff anymore.  Can you imagine how much was in that huge shop that had accumulated over 30 some years.

Everyone used this space to store things with all the moves we've all had.

Those shelves were full of a lot of treasures.  This is Dylan's project car.

The North Powder house finally sold after all these years so it forced us to all find a place for our own stuff.

It's almost empty.  There are a few more things to get but it was a long few days and the loads were all full at the end of today.

Gareld parked his loaded trailer inside tonight.  He was ready to sit for awhile and unload it tomorrow.
He came home with some good stuff.  Notice the cupboard laying on it's side here at the end of the trailer.  That's mine :)

We thought Sherwood was going top keep the cider press.  We have it!  Now we need to take care of all the apple trees so we can press some fresh cider next fall.  Maybe as part of our Shabulous celebration.

Goodbye North Powder childhood home.  No more connection to that property.

Pond Scum

Here's a spring on the property up above the orchard.  We are going to put a pond in here that will be fed by this spring. 

I took a few before pictures to be followed up with some after shots.  In a few weeks this will be a big hole.  We discovered that our well doesn't have an unlimited supply of water.  We couldn't even water the pumpkin patch like we wanted let alone have enough to water a lawn.  We put the lawn on hold for a year and we are trying this.  We will water from the pond.

Gareld will be putting a feed plot in here next to the pond.  The food and water should attract some animals. 

We did see evidence the bear has been around.

One last look before the heavy equipment moves in.

There's a chair up there.

   I mentioned a while back that we were building somethng again.  Gareld put more shelves in the storage room of the shop.  Our goal is to get everything out of the ugly single wide we have been using as a storage unit for the last three years.  I have been packing it full already.

Making use of every available space, we hung hooks from the rafters to handle our collection of chairs.
These four I got at a yard sale and we used them for alot of years in the house on spruce street.

These other chairs hanging high were Phyllis'.  Her table and chairs come in quite handy for big family gatherings.

Oh and back to the first photo...Morgan has chairs too.

Might as well use bike hooks for their intended purpose.  One day (you know how that goes) restoration projects will be started.

It doesn't take long to fill it up.  I'm going to work on this tomorrow.  I have a bazaar to get ready for.

Levittown

Levittown, PA is an interesting place.  It is a suburb of Philadelphia.  This is Monica's hometown.  Her mom still lives there in the house Monica grew up in.  A community built in the 50's, there are 17,000 homes.  There are only 5 house plans.  Monica lives in the C section.  All the streets start with the letter "c".  The houses are also all the same plan.  Almost all have been altered over the last 60 years but you can tell they were the same at one time.  The man who built it planned it as a community with churches and schools.  No streets come together at a 4 way intersection...he wanted easy flowing traffic through the peaceful setting.  Google it.  It is quite facinating.

Here's a back view of the houses.  They have that little back knockout on the second floor.

The view from the front of one of the homes in the neighborhood.  This one still has the garage.

Garage gone and porch added.

I just loved walking around looking at the differences and similarities.

Reminds me of those movies about the 60's where the men come out of every house on the block at the same time, carrying the same briefcase and getting into the same car.  They did a search during an anniversary to find a home that was completely original on the exterior. There was one house that came close but not close enough to win the prize.  The house numbers had been changed.

One house in the hood had some major renovations.  It was on Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  It really doesn't look like it belongs here anymore.  "Bus driver move that bus!"  The other homeowners on the block got to choose either new turf for the lawn or a new sidewalk.  (Maybe so it would look good on TV)

The other Grandparents, Bob and Lisa, live here.  Monica and the boys are staying here for awhile.  It's a cute house in a very nice neighborhood.  We were happy to visit them there.