Gray November

 November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear.
- - - Sir Walter Scott "Marmion"

 

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
- - - Thomas Hood

 



November always seemed to be the Norway of the year.
- - - Emily Dickinson



November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year.
- - - Louisa May Alcott

 

How sad would be November if we had no knowledge of the spring!
- - - Edwin Way Teale



 



It doesn't look like much does it?  But here are the more recent pictures of cleaning up, fixing up, replacing

 

Here is the big guy working on the holes in the garage

 





the windows from inside,

the old, pretty ones, with the charming wavy glass

 



And the new, state of the art, no wind or rain or anything is getting through these, refinance the house windows.

Not going to lie, I will miss the old widows, the little spring thingies that held them open

 



the pretty wavy glass

But on the plus side, they ALL open.  I realized there were 3 windows that we had NEVER opened in this house!  Next time I'll show you my new kitchen sink window.  It opens! and no cold air comes in!

Plus, the big guy knew how much I loved those old windows so he saved a few of them for me.  Now I get to plan an art project around them!  

Aftermath

And everything stopped for a while

I meant to write about the wonderful anniversary party our children gave us, but right now it's all I can do to put one foot in front of the other and keep my chin up.

Early last Wednesday we had a tornado rip through our area of Wisconsin.

Unfortunately we were right in it's path.

The weather service says it was an F-1 which is the lowest grade of tornado.  I for one never want to encounter anything like this again, F-1 was more than enough for us.

 

Here is  what our homestead used to look like.

 

This is what it looked like the morning of the tornado.

I'll be downloading the really "after" shots soon too, here it looks like a war zone, now it looks like a lumber camp.

Here is the beautiful old barn before.

 

Here is what is left of it.

See this big pine tree?

There is a truck under there somewhere...

there it is!

yes, it was totaled.

As was miss V's car.

Other damage includes two windows and two rooms in the house, several holes in our fairly new metal roof, a hole in the garage where the tree that is on top of the truck ended it's run, dents dings and a hole in our new camper, the barn completely flattened, another outbuilding damaged, and worst of all, 60 trees.  Some of those trees were really good friends.

But, if you know me at all, you know that I am a pretty positive person, so here goes the list of blessings.

Jim and Miss V safe and unharmed despite the fact that he was closing one of her bedroom windows when a branch came through the other one, me not hurt, the dog and cats unharmed- a bit skittish, several apple trees unharmed, another special tree unharmed, one very old chestnut tree damaged but salvageable and still standing, so many friends and family who pitched in to move trees and help us clean up without us asking once, power back on, one old lilac still standing, indestructible hosta plants, heavy work gloves, people stopping by to extend their sympathy on the loss of our beautiful trees, an undamaged porch, family and friends who cried with me, and then asked if it was okay to start making Wizard of Oz jokes. 

Life goes on.  I will probably miss some of those trees every day that we live here, but I will be glad for having them for as long as we did and grateful for the beauty and shade they gave us.  And we will replant and make our homestead beautiful again.

 

Camping fun!

In June, the big guy and I went to Perrot State Park.

we camped with Kona

The big guy kayaked with Kona!

Okay, in all honesty it was a little stressful for him, but I had a great time!

:-)  Kona was a good girl, sitting in the front...

until a duck flew up from the river...

then I heard some stern and loud commands.

She did listen and remained int he kayak.  

We'll pause for a relaxing flower picture now

and a bit of a lie down

and perhaps a glass of wine

yes, that's better.

 

Now, we'll take her hiking

 Good girl.

the dog, not me

 Really good girl.

Mississippi river scene

 

and a sneak preview...



Some HOUSE work going on at the green mansion

Here we have dad and "son" working on tiles.

It sort of looks like they are doing some weird yoga doesn't it?

I was teasing Trevor that he really looked like that. 

It was great having his help, and some good father son time for them.

 

Think someones back was getting tired?



 

Meanwhile the flowers are flowering nicely and I hope to get some more good pictures of them all.

This particular basket was given to me by some lovely ladies I work with.

My clinic sites were combined so I will no longer be working at their site to do my records and they said they will miss me.

Gosh I miss them already too!

Just a picture of the gardens as a sort of before, I plan to take pictures throughout the summer again to see how much things grow and fill in.

These planters are already much fuller and lovelier.

 

The big guy and I are headed out for a week long camping trip and leaving the cat babies and the plants in the charge of the lovely Miss V.



Happy May Day

 

I wish these pretty flowers were from my yarden this year already,

but since we still have a wee bit of snow in some of the shady areas, it's not

even likely any time soon.

The grass is starting to green up, and the trees are budding.

 

the birds are busy with nest building so we know

it won't be too much longer.

My wrist and elbow are healing, a bit too slow for my taste, then I remind myself that

as long as I'm still healing I get to be off work.

 

yup, that helps! 

This past weekend we trimmed our bridal wreath hedge WAY WAAAY back

to encourage some new healthy growth, and we raked and raked the yard.

and of course by WE I mean the big guy did 99.99% of the work.

I discovered rather quickly that one armed raking is not comfortable.  My back began explaining

this to me by the next morning.

But I am nothing if not supportive.

I can hold tarps, fetch tools, make dinners, make tea and bring ibuprofen for his aching back!

I'll attempt some one handed picture taking soon.