End of Season Garden

With all that's going on, I am so far behind in my garden.  This is crunch time for spring blooms, wildflowers and perennials need to be seeded to get roots in place, pansies and violas go in, lettuce needs to be seeded, the list goes on and on.

Rose of Sharon still in bloom

Colorful leaves are starting to fall

These are perennial seedlings I started two months ago that also need to get in the ground, hollyhock, lupine, lanterns, chicory and foxglove.

Foxgloves are in and will be a beautiful spring display IF rodents, rabbits or dogs don't mess with them and that's a big IF!

And with Roman sticking his tongue out at me, I think he's letting me know that fresh dirt means foxgloves will be history soon.

Violas waiting to be planted

As for rescue, this is Rambo who we got out of a Georgia shelter, into boarding, and is hopefully on his way to his foster in NC after biting at the boarding facility.  A lot of frantic calls coming in this morning.

This is sweet little Elvis from Memphis, TN (yes, I named him Elivs, what else?)  He's so easy going that we wish all of our chows could be this nice.  He will be on his way to NY in a couple of weeks.

Elvis might not make it to NY, the foster's 13 year old daughter loves him.  I have not been on the ground working with dogs as much lately, it all seems to be on the phone and computer, but lives are being saved!

Bathroom Surprise!

Guess what I found under these ugly bathroom floor tiles!  Yes, a 3-inch concrete base.

I started chipping away before the tile guy was to come and do an estimate to re-tile the floor in a concrete-looking tile. 

The black is just the plastic that the tile was stuck to and was coming off with a wire brush. Tedious work for sure.

You can see the tile I wanted, matte concrete finish, which I now don't have to buy "if" that's a big "IF" we can get this white concrete off down to the gray concrete and buff it and seal it.  

Unfortunately, the tile guy doesn't do concrete and with me taking up the old tiles and buying the new tiles, this tiny 30x30 sq. ft bathroom was going to cost $700!!

So this weekend we bought the tools to start working on this floor and I told Ricardo and Paco that I would be calling them to lay tile once we messed the floor up. Could we really get away with not paying for the floor?  We'll see!

Jake and his brother were here all week painting outside and inside.  This is the bathroom I scraped, sanded, and painted for a month, and it looked so nice when finished.  Then a month later the paint started to bubble and crack.  Jake put in the retro exhaust fan, which I now have to get an electrician to hook up because the wiring is so old in the attic he didn't want to mess with it, so here we go again, the electrician is two months out.

Ben sanded and skim coated with joint compound and then primed with oil base primer, so it's now ready for me to paint yet again.  This is the smallest room in the house and has taken the most work and money.

Outside is a mess with paint chips everywhere and stuff everywhere and putty on the windows.  I swear the more "help" I get the more work I have to do when they leave.

In the end it's worth it to have it look so nice.

I didn't let them paint the wood shed ceiling. I love the old whitewash, wish I had that everywhere. Kind of like Joanna Gaines with her shiplap t-shirts. I need whitewash t-shirts!

So I have spent this week washing windows, painting the bits they didn't paint like gates and columns and organizing the wood shed.

I still have the windows and doors to do a second coat on.

I think they are tired of seeing me at the paint store.  Tom is mixing up colors that are not on charts, but I am tweeking and trying to get the perfect "brick" color.

The wood shed is ready for wood instead of a bunch of stuff stored.  We have that tree that fell in the pasture, so next on the list is to get Jason to split it and bring it on up for the winter.

Our side door into our bedroom.

At least there are pretty things in the garden, the camellias are starting to bloom.

You would not believe how wonderful these tiny little ileagnus flowers smell and we have thousands!

Udders, Udders Everywhere!

So . . . I get a call Friday night from my friend Debra who is working at her county's state fair, she is a food service inspector, and tells me if I can get there on Saturday, we can get as much free goat's milk as we can carry out.

At $15/gallon, no need to ask me twice!  I went through the house like my hurricane namesake and found as many plastic jugs that I could empty into Ball jars and pails with lids.

Left the house at noon on Saturday for my two-hour drive to where the fair was, and didn't get home until 10:00 that night.

We both felt bad for the goats having to carry that load all day long until judging.  They have to have full udders to be judged.  I asked Debra if all the judges are male . . . my joke went over her head, she was tired.

Last year the judging started a lot earlier and once judged, the goats are milked so they can travel home, but it was slow going and instead of 3:00 milk didn't start coming in until 5:00.

It was a hot day, and even hotter in the barns, but the goats were a lot of fun and there were so many different breeds.  I can see why people like them, they are very friendly and have personality!

These little guys were the first milked.

This guy is sound asleep.  Guess it's been a rough day for him, too.

Debra fell in love with a goat named "Arie" or maybe Arie fell in love with Debra!

These two!  Debra is so cute and tiny and photogenic.  She even looks good in 88 degrees!

Now she is thinking of adding goats to her farm.

Sweet faces

They all dress in white for the judging.

Blue-eyed beauty

Goat or camel?

We spent hours back in the milking room.  

Well worth it!  Debra also got milk the night before.  I think I got about $150 worth, maybe more.  We are going to have a better system in place next year and maybe another freezer to store more.  There is another show in a few weeks in another town . . . maybe?

Taking in some sun

It was a fun day and I got to spend a lot of time catching up with Debra, which we don't get to do too often living a few hours apart, but we are in constant contact regarding rescue.  The next day she commented that we didn't get a photo together.  I do everything I can not to get my photo taken lol.  What we do for our dogs!