(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Time to start a new chapter in our life!

While growing up, our family moved often because my father was in the Air Force. I have not considered houses as emotional objects. They come and they go. However, I had a tiny bit of sadness when I finished cleaning the acreage house for the new owners. Thinking about the years we spent living in it and remembering so many happy occasions there. 19 years of my life was spent in this house. Before that, the longest I had lived in one house was 3.5 years.

The sadness came and went quickly however. I am very excited for the new family moving in and wish them many years of happiness in this home!

Our new permanent residence is at the lake! And you will find me drifting around on it often...

Thanks for visiting!

My life is in the trash

Wow, it feels like forever since I've been able to post something on my blog! Life has just been crazy these past few weeks and I wanted to check in and just say "howdy!" and let you know that I am still here! 

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I am a web designer at my regular job. (A job I love!) After working for many, many, many months on a new website -- it was launched on Wednesday, August 3.

Not 10 minutes after I 'hit the switch' to launch the new site, I had to run home and sign papers -- because our acreage sold!

Yay!!!

Since that day, it has been non-stop work. Moving out of a huge house we have lived in for 19 years is one thing -- but add to it a barn, an extremely large metal building, and a 19-year-old daughter heading back to college -- it became very time-consuming. Especially trying to move out in less than 30 days. Then add the new website and all the changes/additions/corrections that go along with it...

I was literally working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for nearly a month with almost no breaks. Running back and forth between the acreage house, the lake house (our new permanent home), my office -- and the Goodwill donation store which is 25 miles away.

The only day I did not spend working was last week when I helped our daughter move back into her dorm at college to begin her sophomore year. The 6 hour round-trip was a welcome break from everything. I spent about 4 hours at the college. Helping her move things into her dorm room, a quick trip to Walmart for some necessary items and we had lunch together. As sad as I am to see her leave again, I know she is excited to get back into the swing of things at college. That makes me happy.

And now... we are done... all we need to do is wait for the closing day.

Here is a photo of the giant dumpster we had to rent to clean out the barn and metal building:

This thing was huge! It held a LOT of stuff.

By the time it was picked up, it was completely filled to the top.

Yep -- our lives were in the trash. Literally! LOL!


Thanks for visiting!

Four little kittens

A few months ago, a stray cat started coming around our property. A very pretty little black cat with a white spot under her chin. She was a little bit tame...  I tried putting food out for her and she would come near me to eat it -- but she wasn't overly friendly. So I continued to put a little food out in the mornings for about a half hour. She started showing up during that time to eat the food.

I named her Stella.

She disappeared for quite awhile and I finally decided she had moved on....

One night a couple of weeks ago, I spotted black cat slinking around outside and on a hunch I yelled "Stella!" in my best Marlon Brando voice. heh. And to my surprise, she came running towards me! It was definitely my Stella.

And she was obviously nursing kittens.

For 10 days I tried to find those kittens and I finally gave up. I don't know much about cats but I didn't think she'd roam too far from them, but maybe she did? She did her job well, keeping them extremely well hidden.

Last week, I happened to catch her slinking around again and saw her crawl under one of the buildings on our property. It's a big metal building that holds equipment. One corner of it has became a "catch-all" for junk that needs to be thrown out, recycled, given away, etc.

I followed her into the building (I used the front door instead of crawling through the hole) and looky what I found:

Yep -- FOUR kittens (that I now have to find homes for)! I am going to guess they are about 4 weeks old. They're so tiny!

Their cute little tails stick straight up into the air! I'm really more of a "dog person" but have to admit that little kittens are some of the cutest things ever to exist.

I am quite tempted to keep them all!

(And just in case someone is wondering: yes, all cats will be seeing a vet and they will not grow up to reproduce again!)


Thanks for visiting!

A sad day in Lilac-Land

The east side of our acreage property is lined with 45 lilac bushes. They are absolutely gorgeous when in full bloom during May! 

It is hard to tell from these photos, but the bushes are approximately 10-12 feet high. They were planted by the previous owners. When we first moved here, I wasn't too happy about lilac bushes because I never cared for anything "lilac-scented." My opinion changed immediately the first year we arrived because the scent of real lilacs is amazing! 

Each year (from the time she could walk) my daughter cuts bouquets of fresh lilacs in May and we enjoy them indoors as well.  

Lilacs just beginning to bloom.


The past two winters have brought a tremendous amount of snow to NW Iowa. It was very heavy snow and as it blew in and piled up each time, our lilac bushes were buried. 

Then as the snow melted this spring, we realized that the lilacs were severely damaged after being crushed by heavy snow. We considered every possible way to save them without cutting them all the way back, but the damage was so bad, we had only once choice. Cut them back.
  

Lilacs last year just starting to bloom. 45 bushes here, each one 10-12 feet high!

Lilacs this year after being cut. It'll take a couple of years, but they'll come back!

The view driving up to our property. The lilacs wrap around the trees. One tree in the corner has died -- we couldn't even see that tree until the lilacs came down.

One more view. Dead tree is hidden back in the corner.

Along with the 45 lilac bushes, we also cut back 32 dogwood shrubs! These were also crushed by the snow this winter. They were about 8 feet high.

Thanks for visiting!

In John Deere Green... on a hot summer night...

The "John Deere Green" song always gets stuck in my head whenever I see a tractor anywhere. Which is everywhere these days as the farmers are all over the place. Lots of planting going on. The other night, the tractors were planting the field around our acreage until well past midnight. They work hard!

Hubby's choice of a lawnmower is John Deere. We have Hubby has approximately 3 acres to maintain and the poor lawnmower (and the hubby) takes a beating each week with all of the hills and trees on the property. So, about every 6 years, we welcome a new lawnmower into the family. 

Out with the old... in with the new...

New mower even has a twinkle in his eye...

The old lawnmower will go to the lake. It will keep running for many more years but it just can't take the hills at the acreage anymore. We have yet a 3rd lawnmower in addition to these that we keep at additional property we have on the lake and it's 18 years old.

I just had to include the Joe Diffie song in this post -- I'll be singing it all day now! Enjoy!

 Thanks for visiting!