Back At The Lake House And Trimming Trees

Hello everyone…it has been a very long time.  I will give everyone a quick recap and then we can move onto our current projects.

We spent the end of spring and summer in Tennessee.  The kids were very busy this year doing their own thing so sadly we didn't get to spend as much time with them as we did the previous year.  Yes they are growing up.  We still had our Sunday breakfasts and will continue that when we are there.

Since we didn't have any projects going on we made a few trips back down to the lake house and also our annual trip to NY.  In doing so my garden suffered as I wasn't there enough to baby it.  On the other hand Nicole's garden did well and she had a bumper crop of tomatoes.

Mike also had a hernia operation so that made it impossible for him to do anything physical.  He is fine and doing well….but really he had to do it in the summer with all of that yard work, lol.  He's just lucky he has me to pick up his slack, lol.

We had a good trip to NY and I spent time with my youngest niece in the kitchen.  She loves to cook and I try to teach her a few new recipes each time we go up.  We made lasagna, French bread, and homemade apple pie.  She did very well and loves to make the French bread on her own now:).

Our last week in TN Nicole and Ella helped me at the Library Carnival again to benefit The Imagination Library.  We had a fun time.

After all of that Mike was READY to get down to the lake house so we could get some jobs done.  I think he missed his tools.  So here we are….down in hot(you know "I" hate the heat) Florida working on the outside of the house.  It's a good thing too.  Since we were not busy this summer both Mike and I put on some weight(him a little, me a lot).  We will get back in shape in Florida…eventually:)

First up….get the trees cleaned up.  We called a few companies to come in to give us estimates.  Only one called us back…guess who got the job!

The one that did call us back actually started that afternoon.  It has been a long time since any trees were trimmed on this property.  Granted this property was not as bad as some of our other horrors, in other houses, but they are really big trees.



Mike has been itching to do some work so I let him do some of the easy stuff.  Digging in Florida sand is a piece of cake compared to TN.  We are doing our usual maintenance free type plants with some color:

Not bad…now we have to order the rocks…ugh!!  We still need to build some shutter type awnings for the small bathroom windows and get rid of the brick on the left and find a match to the right window.

Our trees guys are here with a bucket truck:

They also have a chipper so that they can chop up the debris on site:

One of the guys using a pole saw to trim the hanging moss.  This will give us a better view of the water:

And he is back up in the bucket cutting the big branches that are hanging over the garage:

Much better…the garage roof is saying "ahhh":

Trimming the palms:

Looking better:

The banana jungle.  We will slowly work on cleaning that up:

Showing Niki a bunch of bananas.  Niki is sadly showing her age now and it's good to see her outside with us.  Then again it could be that people are there and she is just nosey, lol.

Aww…look at that cute little truck:)

And our rock is here.  Eww!!  I'll fill the gardens a little at a time since I don't think Mike is ready to push a full wheel barrow around yet.

The ugly wall has been driving Mike nuts.  He wants to take it down and we need to since we plan on having a patio put in.  Getting ready to knock it down:

First blocks down and not so hard to do:)

One side down:

A little help form the jeep since we can't get the posts out:

Yay…it is almost down and what an improved view we will have:

That was our first week here.  We cleaned up the block mess and I got most of the rock in the gardens.

Next Monday I will tell you about our Spanish Moss.  I will post a story each Monday and on Thursdays I will do a recipe so my niece can follow along.

I hope you enjoyed this update and I will write again next week.

Gotta go…Mike is already outside working.  We got two pallets of sod delivered and I need to go.

Lisa