Plans for the Future

 This whole plan starts with an amazing Mother's Day gift from my son. 

Over the years, along with another flood, it's in need of more than just a new coat of paint. As I start thinking and planning, I end up with more ideas than will ever be possible. Perhaps you've seen the Elf Houses of Iceland. 

I have to dig out a lot of ground behind the bench for these, and figure out a retaining wall behind them. Most of them are built into a hill, so that should help quite a bit.

I laid in some steps last spring using unopened bags of Quikrete. They also seem to need some retaining properties, as they are already beginning to shift. Instead of digging down to make them ground level, I just leveled the ground and laid them on top. This was apparently a mistake of sorts. Yes, that's Kayce at the top. He's also a huge fan of my little hideaway. Farther north of the steps, I also plan to make a terraced Fairy Garden. I still have to do some research on whether Fairies and Elves get along in a small community, so that could hinder the process. 

Up here closer to the tree will be a Fairy House. I haven't decided if it will be up in the tree or on the ground. Again, more research. I've seen both. I'll have a bird feeder pole around here as well, so she'll have to learn to share one way or the other. Since my cats follow me out here, it's probably best to have it higher in the tree. I believe the Elves will be able to hold their own, from what I've read so far. 

This is from the top of the hill looking down. I have a whole slew of hostas I plan to plant down this hill to frame in the fairy garden and terraces.

Looking south, I have a sloping path that leads up the hill and down to "The Point" as we've always called it. It probably needs a better name, but that's what it has for now. It would be fun to make this a stony path. 

So here's the actual Point. Normally, there are two cricks running here, and this is where they merge. This has been the driest fall and winter we've had since we built in '05-06, and the first time these have been empty since then. The smaller crick coming in from the east is usually minimal, which makes it an easy spot for frogs to lay eggs. The boys had lots of fun with tadpoles over the years.

Here's the path up the Point, and the path back down to the Pink Bench. Again, steps and stony paths would be amazing!

Probably best I do some of this before the water comes back!

Here are the materials I've collected for the project. Several landscaping stones, bricks and concrete chunks. Lots more concrete chunks available if I need them. I might also talk to my landscaper friend and see if any of her clients are getting rid of old stuff when she redoes their projects. 

I also have some trails that are starting to slope downhill, and they're getting hard to mow. It might be time to figure out some retaining walls that have better retaining properties than these old 2x4's! But the dreams never end, do they?

My Stars Aligned!!

It has been many, many years since I've had so much good occur in one afternoon! I've wanted a nice campsite out back for many years. I have my trails and peaceful places out back, but those have changed over the years. When we got here in '07, I had a few trails around hundreds of sunflowers and saplings, then the boys started paying attention to where I was going and they started clearing more trails and making more open spaces. A lot of clearing finally started happening in 2010-2011. They had a really nice open area and a nice trail down the "island." I didn't know they were calling it that... I found that out later! They acquired an old dryer drum and had themselves a great spot for campfire cookouts. In fact, two of our best family times occurred right before the flood in the Spring of 2011. They had been working really hard getting things cleared and knocked down, and then invited everyone to a party that we had very little food to sustain! Morgan called everyone back and had found they had enough odds and ends to hold the cookouts, so we did! We have never regretted that. It took us a whole year to rebuild and come back after the flood, but then we knew how important the campsite would be. Michael works for a landscaping company that came out and totally reconfigured our land so that we have berms and proper drainage to keep us a bit drier through the wet seasons. What a huge blessing that has been! There was a 22 year old kid that loved nothing more than moving dirt, so he and Mat got the campsite exactly the way we wanted it! That's when definitions came into play and we started calling it The Point, since it's not really an island!

Anyway, after the flood, we continued to lose trees that had just been too waterlogged to continue. The worst one just came out this spring. It was absolutely huge and had broken at the top and was just hanging there. Again, some guys that loved nothing more than taking down trees were coming by and needed my dad to weld a door on their excavator. They took out the big tree, but they had to take out about 7 smaller trees around it to get to it. That's when I lost my really great main trail. I also lost my only redbud to the flood, so my guys bought me three new redbuds for Mother's Day to get my trails started again. This sure has been the spring and summer for planting new trees! We planted more than 24 trees around the property and have hardly had to water them at all.  

So back to the campsite: Mom found some landscaping blocks for 40 cents each and was starting a firepit in her yard. It was a little painful that her dream was coming true so much faster than mine, but I suppose that's the reward after your kids aren't home anymore! But after she got hers done, she sent Mat after the rest of the blocks for my birthday. There were 138 left! When he picked them up, someone was there with a skid loader and they just picked up the whole shebang and loaded it into his truck! And here's where my stars really aligned: About 10 minutes after I got home, Anthony and Kolton stopped by and Mat asked them if they would come help unload them. I followed them out there and we all decided that we'd just arrange them as we went instead of piling and rearranging later. We got them the way I thought I wanted them, and then Mat asked them if they'd be willing to go get a load of sand by a farm on the river to fill in between the blocks. While they were gone, I got the garden pavers that we've been making every year at family camp and arranged them within the bricks. As the boys got to the sand piles, they met up with the owner and his scoop! He just scooped them a load of sand and dropped it right in the back of Mat's truck! While they were gone, my dad showed up with his chainsaw to start taking care of all the big branches of the downed tree that we've been mowing around all summer. When the guys got back with the sand, Morgan and Kolton helped me with that, and Mat and Anthony helped with the wood. It was dark by the time we were all done, and I was certainly sore, but I am just so pleased with the way things are going! We still need one big bonfire to take care of the huge brush pile, but that's supposed to happen soon.  

Love my family, love my land!!

A Christmas Angel

Although I never take time for my blog any more, I wanted to stop and say thank you to an angel who blessed me this week.  

It was an overwhelming gift, and very timely.  In an effort to feel a little more worthy of such a blessing, as well as an effort to pay it forward, my first purchase was to bless a shut in who couldn't make it to church yesterday.  I just wanted to stop by and say hi to her, but since you chose to bless me, I chose to buy her a little something to let her know that folks are thinking about her and that we are blessed by her presence and saddened by her absence.

So, dear Angel, I really hope you're reading this and know that your blessings are very well received!

Mallory's Very Close Call

Pretty hard to believe she walked away from this one.  She was on her way to choir today, from home to Sidney.  Gravel has just been put down on the east side of a bridge along the baseline, and unless you remember it's there, this is what can happen.  The bridge just has enough rise to hide the gravel from east bound traffic.  It was very loose, and at a normal speed for the baseline, Mallory hit the gravel and lost control.

After she spun on the road, she went in the ditch sideways and flipped, landing right side up.  She saw a lot of smoke, so she quickly got out of the car.  She decided it was only the air bags smoking, so she went back for her phone to call me.  It was in the back seat with the stereo.  Eeek!  It took a little while to get ahold of me, but the boys and I jumped in the car and took off.  At one point, Matthew mentioned that a second accident wouldn't help us much.  Yeah.

There are her skid marks going into the ditch and her car being pulled out.

The sheriff actually said we could take her home before the wrecker got there, so we did.  Grandma was just getting off work in Nebraska City when this all happened, so she came straight over.  About the time I pulled in the driveway, I noticed Mallory still holding her key, so I got her in the house and tucked in for Grandma to take over and ran the key back to the scene.  We watched her poor little Honda get loaded up and hauled off.

We let her rest for a little bit and then took her in for a check over.  She had some full body X-rays and found her neck a little messed up, but generally in good condition.  We had X-rays from a year ago to check them against, so that really told us a lot.  They checked her over for a concussion and were fairly satisfied that she didn't have one.  She has some bruises appearing here and there, including a nice shadow of a seat belt, and for that I am extremely grateful!!

Languid

Just feeling down today.  The family's apart and I seem to be pining away for them!  Not intentionally, as if anyone ever is, but even with two rowdy boys, the mood is down.  Even a tax refund check didn't lift spirits very long, even though it covered a lot of bills!  Well, one really big one and a smaller one, anyway.  I should feel amazingly uplifted... but still... just a bit sad.  Haven't really had enough time since losing Bonnie, either.  And then the weather... ugh... who isn't depressed by that??  It's supposed to be spring, people!!
Well, we have lots of plans for tomorrow, so I'm hoping we'll be too busy to feel down in the dumps.  

Happy Sweet 16 Mallory!

 Well, it's been quite a day!  My little Mallory turned 16 years old.  I don't know how slow we seem to think time should go, but I think it should be slower than this.  Maybe something more like first grade.  First grade seemed to take FOR.EV.ER.  Why not the babies??
Anyway, she's on her way out to California now to see her other grandma, and she is so excited.  They have been talking about this for a couple years now, and she's finally on her way.  Pastor Norm showed us flightaware.com, so we've been watching her flight since AWANA started tonight!  She has a few more minutes to go!
But anyway... we did other things today, too.  She started off in band.  I had texted the teacher that this was her birthday and it sounds like they sang to her, too!  Then, after band, we met up with her and went to the courthouse to get her driver's license!!  Always an amazing rite of passage!  At that point, she was free to drive herself home, but she instead chose to drive her daddy home.  She's so funny!
Well, I'm sure other things happened today, but they have faded.  Thought I'd post one more photo that shows once and for all that she truly did receive my good looks!!  

Another Tuesday

My daughter was absolutely thrilled yesterday when she caught me on my blog again.  I don't know why!  We were on the couch last night having some good "girl time" while the guys were at Scouts.  She's been working on some stuff for her dad lately and she was working in front of the TV last night.  They are trying to organize an inventory system that is actually published by their supplier, and the data is entered on an iPad.  Michael knows what he wants it to do, and the girl-who's-had-an-iPad-since-they-came-out is trying to make it happen.  They are quite a team. 
This morning has been less than bright.  We're all still pretty down about Bonnie, and that makes it hard to really accomplish anything.  They say that they got school "done" but that's all a matter of opinion.  They might also be taking advantage of the fact that I'm not feeling up for my normal fight, either.  Probably a good day for a big family project or something.  A couple things I know I should be doing, but it's so hard when you're just feeling SO SAD.  Maybe I should be looking through my scrapbooking stuff and make sure I'm ready for camp.  That's coming up soon.  Never soon enough!  Mallory's planning on going with me, so that will be fun.  Not sure she knows that we'll probably be taking her car!  Oh, well.  Maybe she'll drive for me!  Either way, it will be fun and couldn't possibly come soon enough.