Last Sunday we went up to my Mom and Dad's for the day. Daddy's cherry trees are full to bursting so we went and picked a bunch. They are delish in homemade vanilla ice cream in the summer.
I love cherry pie, too, but have never made one myself. And besides I still have a whole bunch of the Banquet cherry-pot-pies I got free awhile back in the freezer.
Monday was my youngest son's 17th birthday, and this is the last week of school. He's only been having to go like 3 hours every day, to take two finals a day. Today is the last day, then he'll be a Senior.
We got started building the chicken coop I've been wanting, and finally got our tax refund check so we were able to buy the stuff to put a tin roof on the outdoor-shed-building we've been working on here and there.
Most of the building was built using re-purposed and found or free building materials. I wanted to prove that we could build a nice building for little money, if we took the time to look for or ask for or keep an ear out for people getting rid of stuff. Alot of the wood was from previous buildings we took apart, and Johnny got a bunch of nails and screws from a friend of a friend who was moving and cleaning out her basement.
He went and they loaded him up with all kinds of stuff! Including the screened gazebo room out by our pool, and the picnic table set sitting under it.
I love free!
We *almost* had free tin roofing, when John met a man one day while out testing fire hydrants who said he was wanting to have an old 40 foot chicken house torn down. But then before J could arrange it, the guy's son went and tore it down and scrapped the tin. ::Still crying over that one::
Anyway, it's been over a year and we needed to make some progress so we broke down and bought the roofing stuff. $500.00 worth, ouch!
The chicken coop is being built from completely free materials; someone posted a free coop on freecycle but the takers had to come take it down. That was right up our alley! It was more like a chicken yard than a coop, with 2x4's nailed together and all covered in chicken wire, but we've been able to cut up the 2x4's to make a little chicken house frame and chicken wired *windows*. We need to find some more wood to be able to build an enclosed yard for the chickens to be able to get out of the house and run around in. If they run free all the ol' dogs running loose in the 'hood will come eat them.
And then, last night we had to deal with this:
We knew there was a chance for severe storms, but there wasn't even a tornado watch posted, much less any warnings.
My middle son, who's a volunteer firefighter, called to tell me there was severe hail reported south of (our county seat), west of us, headed this way. Yeah, no doubt, I figured it'd happen, our garden was growing just too well.
It came up dark and the wind picked up, but then fizzled out, and it was just a steady drizzle of rain. I went out on the back porch and set a tray of pepper and gourd plants back out on the steps to get rained on.
Next thing I know, Kevin says well there went the tv (satellite goes out when there's heavy cloud cover) and the bottom had fallen out! I run out to the back porch to rescue my plants, and it was raining SO hard, and the wind was blowing CRAZY. Tree branches and clumps of leaves were blowing over the house into the back yard, some of the building stuff we'd been working on picked up and blew down the yard. I was scared, Kevin ended up having to go out to the steps and grab the plant tray.
We hadn't brought Iglesius in, so he was down there flopping around like a reporter-in-a-hurricane. He's put together so flimsily as it is, I was sure he was going to break apart and all his pieces and filling go bye-bye!
Amazingly he hung in there, stayed together, and it didn't even hail and ruin our garden. Freakin' weird, but great!
We did lose another tree in the front yard, and were without power until about 2:30 this morning.
The garden will go wild with all this rain, but unfortunately so will the grass. We'll be outside today picking up limbs and tree debris so J can mow the yard this weekend.
I've got +UPs and RRs expiring tomorrow...I need a kick in the pants.
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