Log deer with plans.

Log deer completed. Several more to make. Plans hubby and son used to make these cute log deer are posted. Click on diagram pic to see full view of plans.

a study in orange

loving orange in our garden......

mexican sunflower.



black-eyed susan vine.



blackberry lily.




plain ol' marigold.



lanterns at night in wire basket.




i'm a sucker for orange.....(and blue too). but that's for another day.

doin' the deck

human backhoe and i are always in the middle of a project. projects are what we share inorder to spend quality time together. it is......us. we spend our time together in really constructive ways.....:)

one of this summer's projects was repairing and restoring our back deck. here it is in all it's grey mossy glory earlier this year.



and here it is after powerwashing, making repairs and finally staining the deck by hand with paint brushes, 2 coats worth....no rollers or sprayers for us home remodelers. we love working on our hands and knees in 90 plus degree heat...oh yeah. took us about 2 weeks to do the project right. plus we were hit with a few rain showers along the way that we had to wait a day or two for the deck to dry to resume where we left off on a previous day. such is life with the midwest summers.




a few more pics from the deck. love toffee twist sedge grass. here it is with diamond frost euphorbia and plain old orange marigolds.




finally paper lantern balls in an antique wire chicken egg basket. look at that lovely new cedar wood stain from cabot. it was a good semi transparent stain to match our log home. we should be good for another 2 years......til we do it again.



deck staining.....lots of rewards.....but very little time to enjoy it before you have to do it again. here's the product we used to stain the deck with.....took us awhile to find the right color. you know it was harder to pick a stain color than it was to name our children.....


(cabot's semi-transparent acrylic stain in new cedar)

now we can enjoy our backyard and watch the trees change to this pretty soon.

this is where we left off........

....over three months have went by without any blogging. it has been a whirlwind of a summer with several trips to lake michigan and florida. and inbetween the adventures.... lots of gardening...here's where we left off in april.....in the lull after the daffs and early tulips have bloomed.....



then the whites of may appear ......old fashioned white peonies and a slew of wild daisies.....





then we have june, a burst of magenta daylillies and monarda.....




and now into late july.....



it is amazing how the monardas and karl foerster grasses have put on such a show for most of the summer. and now the yellow rudbeckias take over. can't say i have a favorite time in my gardens, i love each moment for what it is. this garden is the one everyone who visits sees first....it lines our driveway. i hope it feels as welcoming to guests as it does to me each time i return home from our travels.

long time.........no blog....spring has sprung!

mud season

.....it's here.





well the pleasures of living on an unmaintained, for the most part, gravel road in the country can be celebrated as of this past week.





thank goodness for 4 wheel drive...it's the only way in and out of our road and will be until things dry out.


come some dry weather ....some major changes will have to be made. deferred maintenance prior to our moving to sweetwater bend will have to addressed. can you tell i am not too happy? do you think i will ever get all this mud off? there is simply no reason to run it through a car wash.....until june.

enter sweetwater bend at your own risk.....road under deconstruction....



meanwhile, crocus popping....woohoo! thank you dear lord!

the architect and the non-soaring entry foyer

our entry foyer. not a huge space, as in the open echoing spaces that are pretty much in every new home today. this is, after all, a log cabin kinda place. since we moved here a year ago....i have kept thinking i wanna open up this area.....make it vault way up to the roof line. but the more i have lived here, the more i have enjoyed the coziness of the log cabin. i appreciate the coziness here more than any other of our previous homes. i am not sure a soaring space is appropriate any more to our cabin. our home is not so much grand as it is warm and inviting. this home wraps itself around you. a smaller foyer just fits. it welcomes you in from the wide open country fields and woods that surround us here. a cavernous open area would not. it may not be much, but it fits us at this time in our lives.






there are a couple special things i have in the foyer right now. one is this cut glass crystal vase given to me by a dear friend many years ago, it was her grandmother's. at this time it is filled with the pussy willows brought in from outside to force 2 weeks ago. they are starting to really open now. spring.......aaaaah!




and then there is this architectural sign. it was another find, found about 10 years ago from a antique shop just east of columbia, mo. i didn't know anything about the sign when i bought it. i just liked it and knew hubby would too. when i brought it home, the human backhoe, hubby, recognized the street name on the sign as being probably from st. louis, as he had lived there for most of his life. we both did some internet research and found out that h.g. hargitt was an architect from st. louis(ding,ding,ding....hubs was right) and that he worked with glass structures during the 1904 world's fair. hargitt invented a version of the first safety glass. here's a pic of the the 23 acre palace of agriculture building from the fair. in this palace alone, there are 147,250 panes of glass, all 18 x 25 inches.






and see that phone number on the sign .....



the 4 digit phone number (forest 3439) on the sign seems to date the piece to prior to the 1905, as this is the way phone numbers were written in that era.

here's a bit of history on 4 digit phone numbers that makes me believe that this sign dates back about 100 years:

4 digit phone numbers like “1244 Main” lasted until dial phones happened in the 1920's. those with the exchange first, such as this sign's, were used before 1905 or so. to make a call you would pick up and talk to an operator who would connect you to the exchange.



it was so amazing to research and learn the history surrounding this piece. i am assuming this sign was displayed somewhere in st. louis around about the early 1900's. quite a find by a history buff like me. and to think i bought the piece just because i liked it, but now i love knowing a bit about the history of the sign. and i love my cozy, warm, inviting, non-soaring entry foyer that has a bit of history in it.

forcing in feb

we hit over 30 degrees today!!!! i was so psyched that i went for a 5 mile walk/run in my carhartts and tennis shoes....hehehe. when i think of carhartts i always imagine a big burly guy wearing work boots....not a tall girl in tennis shoes....:)

since it is the first of feb and i am itching for outdoor activity, like everyone else, i headed out to the garden to cut some stems for forcing. i was amazed that several shrubs look like they could burst into bloom if given a couple of days of #1 sun(just haven't seen it much the past month) and #2 just a teeny bit of warmness. here's a few of the shrubs that looked good for forcing.




1. purple sand cherry.....hard to see buds in this pic. i hate to say it but this isn't one of my favorite bushes. ok...really didn't hate saying that.....it was already here when we moved in tho....ugh! if it wasn't in an out of the way spot it would have been long gone. we'll see how it does with forcing.....must have at least one good saving grace, right?

btw.....see all those scratch marks on the back of the human backhoe's garage wall? never noticed them til this pic. looks like this stinker of a bush is planted way too close to that wall and is vandalizing the garage. it really does need to go!




2. weeping pussy willow....love love this plant! planted right by our mailbox so i can see the first signs of spring immediately. this little guy has a few buds just beginning to open already. you can see them if you look real hard......:)






3. my favorite early blooming magnolia....the star magnolia. just stunning when in bloom. these buds look like they are gonna burst anyday....but that isn't gonna happen for at least another 6 weeks.




let the forcing begin.....wrapped in plastic and headed to the cool basement. forcing works best in 50-60 degree temps and indirect light. also added some bleach and flower food to the warm water in the vase. should be ready to display around valentine's day.



here's a pic from grit.com...i hope to be making something similar in next week or so.


linking to.......

brightest winter moon

tonight is the brightest moon of the year.

special effects from picnik include softening and matte.

human backhoe's xmas present

this was hubby's last minute christmas gift.....a 16x20 framed poster of our first snow of the season, with some editing from the picnik.com website. what a fun site to play around with. made the poster online xmas eve morning and picked it to be framed xmas eve. nothing like a last minute gift from the heart. love you h.b.

white stuff......ain't it pretty

yeah!!!! we finally got a bit of snow. not a lot, but enough for a white christmas that's for sure.


let's start from the front porch and head around the house.








around to the side yard.





think we should head down to the lake?





ahhhhhh.....beautiful. i could stay here all day if it wasn't so dang cold.....




let's head back up to the cabin......


looks like human backhoe is feeding the birds with a little bit of help.




think he is a bit warm-blooded?

come inside and i'll share a few xmas goodies....












merry CHRISTmas from sweetwater bend........