Wow, it has been a year since my last post. Hard to believe. Once again it is June but it is the year 2012. It has been a very eventful spring .... first I took down the glass shower doors on the upstairs bathroom. No more doors and what a breeze it is to bath the dogs and clean the tub. I am looking forward to picking out a cute shower curtain to brighten it up in there. I learned how to unwire the hot tub and freecycled it. The pump broke a few years ago and so we drained it for the winter thinking we wold get it going again in the spring but over the winter the pipes had frozen, guess we should have blown out the pipes, so it has sat for way too long not being used. I wish the guy who took it a lot of luck getting it repiped and working. We had the bathtub refinished in May. It looks beautiful now! It was a very smelly process but it was worth it. Then I took down a rickety old metal shed that we inherited when we moved in 30 years ago. What an eyesore it was. I am so glad to have it gone. I also freecycled all the old metal. I dumped out all my old flower pots(about 15 of them) and freecycled once again. Then I began the process of clearing a space for a new raised garden bed. Rich made me one for Mother's day and it got planted with beans, peas and radishes. I also got a smaller raised bed and planted peppers and lots of herbs. I resurrected the Earth Boxes and planted them with tomatoes. Time to clean out the shed and make room for a bunch of stuff being stored in the garage. That took a couple of days, again a lot of trash and a lot of freecycled things. Don't you just love finding old things that have been stored for years? They feel like new treasures all over again but they come with wonderful memories attached. This was a fun job despite all the hard work. Then moving all the reindeer and reindeer making stuff and food storage to the shed to get them out of the garage. Now more cleaning out of the garage and clearing out the left side so the mudjackers could come and raise the floor and landing in the house which had sunken about 8 inches. Mudjacking is fascinating to watch. In goes the cement and up up up goes the floor. When the floor can go no farther you hear the cement pop. They lifted the downstairs bathroom a little too so I have a couple of tiles that they drilled through to replace. Now we can get the old floor on the landing replaced with the beautiful laminate that we had put in the kitchen last summer. I am so excited! Benny came today to measure so he can give me an estimate for the work. The big garden got tilled on Memorial Day and planted with 4 varieties of squash, three varieties of cucumbers, melon, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, lettuce, and an artichoke! Plus we still have the rhubarb growing in there. So every other day is watering and weeding day. I have had a barrage of snakes this year. Today I actually had to reach down into the bottom of the pond and grab a snake out of it. The fish were all swimming crazily trying to stay out of its path and unfortunately all the tadpoles have sadly become lunch for this pond swimming snake. But, that little pest will not be coming back ..... I took care of him.... now I have to catch the one I saw this morning over by the beans ....... Several years ago my dad planted 2 evergreen type bushes in the front of the house. They were not supposed to get more that 2 feet high. This year they reached the 10 - 12 ft tall mark so I chopped them all up and got them ready for the chain saw. We still need to get them out and plant something much smaller. The vines I planted on the side of the house about 15 years ago have grown over all across the front of the house and so they too got chopped away and hopefully corralled for the summer. The front deck will be re-stained this week and the back door will get a little touch up painting. Then I am going to paint the bathrooms. A valve in the back of the refrigerator sprung a leak so I replaced that and then the copper pipe sprung a bigger leak ..... did I say flood in the dining room? Brother..... we had to have a plumber come and install a new pipe for the ice maker water. I sure am glad to have my ice maker working again. The clunk of the ice being dumped and the swish of the tray filling up again is such a welcome noise. Today I cleaned out the dog run and got rid of 2 old falling apart dog houses and trimmed tree branches. Brandon wants to build a kids playhouse in there but I may have to get a chicken coop and a couple of chickens for fresh eggs. Do chickens eat snakes? I found discarded snake skins among the stuff I was cleaning up. Maybe the chickens will keep the snakes away ..... (I should be so lucky :) ) Right now I am listening to big thunderstorm outside and hail pounding the house.... I am worried about what it is doing to my gardens outside. Talk about anxiety!!!! I don't think I will sleep tonight with all the worry over my new little plants. On the bright side, I won't have to weed and water tomorrow ..... In between all of this I made an afghan .... love it, love it, love it ..... and a jokerboard! Any one else want a joker board? I will make you one $23.00 you buy the cards and pegs, $33.00 I buy them. Happy spring!