Getting Ready For A New Driveway and Patios

This is going to be an exciting day.  It's time to make things right on the outside of this house.  It only took 50 years but today is the day for a driveway up to the house and a couple of outdoor patios.  This job is too big for Mike and I to handle so we have to have a crew come in.  We will be happy for them to show up and so happy for them to leave, lol.



Framing out where the driveway will be:

Cutting up the grass:

The grass has to go before any concrete can be poured:

Up to our new front door:

Getting ready for a small patio and BBQ area outside the kitchen door:

Breaking up and taking out the old concrete:

Coming in with the bobcat to take the old grass out:

Dumping any old grass and old concrete in the dump truck:

Ready to level it with some fill dirt(sand):

Building the driveway up:

Cutting out the old concrete section for the old(original) garage doors:

Mike and I were going to rent a jack hammer and tear up the old walkway ourselves but once we heard the price for tearing it up and removing it we couldn't turn it down.  It would have taken Mike and I a few days and some real back breaking work considering how thick it was.  Gotta love those machines:)

The driveway is leveled out:

The walkway and new stoop is in place:

Working on the old small patio which was a bear of a job even with the bobcat:

That slab is a monster and Mike thought we could break it up…ha, ha:

They broke it in half and hauled it away:

The last piece:

Framing out for the new patio:

Getting rid of the walkway:

UGH…it is always a big mess before you can get it cleaned back up:

Bye bye…all the rip up is finished:

After two days work we are ready for the concrete:

It will be nice to be able to drive up to the house and not drive on the grass:

Hmm…looks like Mike and I need to order some sod:

Definitely:

Mike doing a little clean up before on the dusty mess:

Now we have to wait until tomorrow which is going to be a bog day.  The concrete trucks will be rolling in and the pumper will be onsite.  It is going to be so nice….and clean:)



I will show you the pictures of the concrete work next Monday.


Have a great week….

Lisa

Everything Braided Bread

This is so good and a very easy bread to make, and it looks pretty too!!

What you need:

  1 package (1/4 ounce)baking yeast
  3/4 cup warm water (110° to 115°)
  1 cup warm 2% milk (110° to 115°)
  1/4 cup butter, softened
  2 tablespoons sugar
  1 egg yolk
  1-1/2 teaspoons salt
  4 to 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  1 egg white
  2 teaspoons water
  1 teaspoon each:
  coarse sea salt , dried minced onion, sesame seeds and poppy seeds
 

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add milk, butter, sugar, egg yolk, salt and 2 cups flour. Mix it all together for a couple of minutes.  Stir in enough remaining flour to form a firm dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide dough into thirds. Shape each into a 20-in. rope. Place ropes on a large greased baking sheet and braid; pinch ends to seal and tuck under. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°. Combine egg white and water; brush over dough. Combine salt, onion and seeds; sprinkle over bread. Bake 22-28 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.



The ingredients:

Place the warm water in a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast on top and give a quick mix with a whisk….let sit for 5 minutes:

Add the warm milk, butter, sugar, egg yolk, salt and 2 cups flour and mix:

Slowly add the rest of the flour(as needed) to make a dough:

Take the ball out of the ball and knead for 6-8 minutes on a floured service.  Add more flour as needed so the ball is like elastic and not sticky.


After 6-8 minutes but the dough ball in a greased bowl:

Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm place for an hour…until the dough doubles.


Once that is done:

Punch it down, take out of the bowl, and separate into 3 balls:

Roll each ball into a rope that fits your pan:(it will get smaller once you braid it)

Grease the pan and braid your bread, pinching and tucking the ends in:

Take a pice of plastic wrap and spray it with cooking spray.  Place on top of the braid.  Bring the pan to a warm place and let it sit for 45 minutes until doubled:



Mix the egg white and water and brush over the braid.  Sprinkle the sea salt, onion, and seeds over the top:

Bake in a preheated 375° oven for 22-28 minutes:

This bread was very good.  The only changes I may try for next time…increase the yeast a bit and make two smaller braids.


Enjoy!!

Spraying The Spanish Moss

I know I really love how creepy cool the Spanish moss looks but it is so messy.  Mike got tired of us picking it up off the lawn every day.  He checked into it and found out that it is safe to have it sprayed.  Eventually the moss will turn black and then disappear.  We will see.

We called a pest control company to do the job.  Our trees are so big that once again we need extra equipment to get so high. 

Here is the truck with the mixture for the trees.  It is safe for anything else and they made sure to spray on a day where it would not end up in the water.  We had a nice light breeze blowing inland. 

Spraying and saturating the trees:

I won't bore you with a bunch of pictures of the same thing.  Let's just say they sprayed all of our Live Oak trees and it took them almost a full day to do it.  Now we will see what happens.  We have so much moss on the trees that it was becoming a problem during heavy rains and wind.  The "wet" moss added too much weigh to the big branches and put stress on them.  Before we had big limbs down in the yard we decided to treat the moss.

Mike and I have also been trying to decide what to do outside.  This house is surrounded by water and is more than 50 years old.  In all that time no one added a patio.  It seems almost crazy so that is the next project we need done.  Mike and I have been getting some estimates for concrete patios, paving and pavers.  We also want to add a new driveway to go up to the house.  In preparation for that we need to take out our old stoop:

And we moved it to the dock where it is quite a high step up:

And moved it again to make the step up easier:

The new "front" of the house is ready for a new stoop and walkway.  

The back is now also ready for a patio:

  

Niki and I playing with the bananas again:

We also added a bug zapper for the midges(blind mosquitoes) that we have on the lake.  Thankfully they don't bite but there can be a lot of them.  We decided to hang it off the boat dock but over the water.  We are hoping to attract the midges away from the house and also feed the fish at the same time:

Taking Niki for a boat ride.  What a face, lol.

That's all for now.  Next week is a big week.  Two new patios, a walkway and stoop, and a new driveway.  

Have a great week.

Easy Chicken And Rice Soup

Here is one recipe anyone can make:)  Just in time for the cooler Fall weather.



Chicken and Rice Soup

Ingredients:
10 cups chicken broth(any kind you want)
1 onion chopped
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup sliced carrots
1 Tbl parsley
1 bay leaf
1/2 ts black pepper
1 chicken breast chopped
1 cup instant rice(I used brown rice)


Combine the broth, vegetables and seasonings in a pot.  Bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.  Stir in the rice and continue to cook for 5 minutes.  Add the chicken and cook 5-10 minutes more.  Take the bay leaf out and serve.




The ingredients….I used chicken bouillon cubes:

Chop the vegetables:

Make sure you use a different cutting board(for sanitary purposes) for the chicken and chop it up:

Follow the directions above to cook.  And here is a nice easy bowl of soup:

Just a quick and easy soup to keep you warm.  You can also add noodles instead of rice.

Enjoy!!

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