An Easy Day

After a hectic weekend, it felt good to have a quiet day around the house--we didn't even step foot in the shop.  John and I decided to take a break and wait a few days before clearing away the items left over from the sale.

Matt stopped in for a visit on his way home from his dental appointment to find out how the sale went on Sunday.  After he left, we got busy and made two batches of grape jelly.  There are still plenty of grapes left on the vines, so it looks like we'll be making more grape juice tomorrow.  

After lunch we headed off to Bemidji to make a bank deposit, pick up more jars for canning, and do a little grocery shopping.  By the time we were finished with our errands, it was almost supper time, so we stopped at BK for a quick meal.  This evening was Clearbrook's homecoming coronation and Hanna was one of the ninth grade girls nominated for princess.  I'm sorry to say Hanna didn't win for her grade, but she looked every inch a princess this evening.

We're Done

In spite of an all day rain on Saturday and several other big events going on in our area, we had a good turn out for our sale and sold a good portion of the big items we had for sale.  JD, Joanne, and Matt came to help and stayed until noon.  It's a good thing we had their help as it was pretty hectic with folks asking questions and needing help loading their purchases.  John and I handled the sale ourselves Saturday afternoon as business slowed down.

John and I were up bright and early today so we could be ready for anyone who came in the morning.  Business was much slower this morning but picked up this afternoon.  We were able to sell all of the remaining small equipment and machinery as well as all of the furniture items.  We can say our sale was a big success.  Now we have to go through what is left and decide if it's going in storage to sell next spring or to the dump.  We hope to get that job done this week and get the shop buttoned down for winter.  Our fall has been spectacular as far as the weather is concerned.  Here it is the end of September and we haven't even had a frost.  I think that's gong to change this week.  Looks like we will hit the mid to low 30's overnight with daytime highs in the 50's.  The heavy rains of yesterday just about stripped our Ironwood trees of their leaves, but everything is full of georgous color.  

John picked more grapes late this afternoon, so tomorrow will be jelly making day.  Maybe we'll even try to make a few more quarts of grape juice.  It will feel good to get back to a normal life again.

We're Ready

After three and a half months of clearing, cleaning, and sorting, we are finally ready for our big sale.  A few people called today asking if they could come today as they would be out of town over the weekend.  We said "Yes" and sold some of our larger shelving units, paint shaker, drill press, and several smaller items.  The only job left is for John to put up the signs along the highway in the morning.

This afternoon we made a quick trip to Bemidji to do some banking and picked up a couple of pizzas for tomorrow's lunch as we'll need to feed the folks helping with the sale.  After a quick supper, we donned our rain gear and headed up to Clearbrook to watch Sam's football game.  He had a great one with a total of 195 passing yards, threw for four touchdowns and two extra points.  The game went down to the final seconds and the Bears lost with a score of 36-37. 

Tomorrow we'll be  up bright and early for the sale.  Hopefully a good crowd will show up in spite of the weather forecast which calls for rain all day.

One More Day

John worked with Matt yesterday morning while I headed to my PT appointment.  My therapist reviewed my exercises and decided not to make any changes to my regimen until I can get back to my normal routine once our sale is over.

Today we worked on getting the rest of the items priced and doing some final tweaking.  The guys who came on Sunday, and bought a lot of our items, came today to pick up everything.  While they were here, they decided to buy John's table saw and quite a bit more.  They certainly got our sale off to a rousing start.

This afternoon we went up to the school to watch Rachel's final home volleyball game.  The Bears won two out of three games and Rae did a good job with her serves scoring several points.  

A Day Out of the Shop

This morning John left bright and early to help Matt with a job and I headed off to Bemidji to do some banking and to pick up a couple of things needed for the sale.  The rest of my day was spent catching up on end of the month finances and taking care of a few household chores.

Today was Rachel's 13th birthday, so Sara invited us for supper this evening.  We had a delicious meal, but didn't stay to visit for long as the kids and Sara had homework and studying to do.  It felt good to take a break from the shop today.  John will help Matt again in the morning and then we'll be back at it again tomorrow afternoon.  

Almost At The End

John and I have been pretty busy over the last several days.  Last Friday was major grocery shopping in Bemidji and then off to watch Sam's football game.  The game was over an hour and a half away, so we got home pretty late Friday evening.  The Bears won 42-8 and Sam had a great game with an interception and scored some extra points with a pass and another reception.  He played over half the game at quarterback and it looks like that will be his permanent position on offense.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we sold all three trailers, so the entire day Saturday was devoted to getting them emptied.  We made three piles--burn, to go to the dump, and sell.  Very little was kept.  Matt came over and spent the morning helping us get this gigantic job done.  I'm glad to say by the end of Saturday, they were 90% empty.  Also, on Friday morning we got a call from one of our neighbors who was interested in our pickup truck.  He came and looked it over and decided it was exactly what he was looking for so now our old truck is gone.

Our piles of trash and junk

  

We received another call Saturday from a gentleman who owns a cabinet shop in a town about 45 minutes north of us.  He said he was interested in one of our machines and could he come out Sunday afternoon and look it over.  Since the sale is fast approaching, we worked all day Sunday pricing items.  Matt, Sam, and Hanna came down to unload the remaining big pieces of wood off the trailer and got all the trash loaded into our little trailer so it's ready for the dump.  While we were in the shop, the two guys from the cabinet shop arrived and John and I spent the next four hours showing them the machinery and different items we have for sale.  They ended up buying a piece of machinery, just about all the wood panels, drying racks, carts, and much, much more.  They will be back this week to pick up everything they bought.  John and I spent this morning (Monday) moving their items to the loading area and then had to re-arrange things to fill in the gaps left by the items they are taking.  The rest of the day was spent pricing.  We only have one more shelf full of hardware to price and then some bigger items.  Then we will be done.  Next we just need to tweak a few things, get signs up, and figure out the traffic flow on the driveway.  After four months of preparations, we are just about ready for the big day.  Here are a few photos of our finished project.

 

 

Home Again

John and I were up bright and early this morning for the final leg of our trip.  We left Bismarck, ND a little after 6 a.m., stopped at McDonald's for a quick breakfast, and then got on the interstate for the straight shot across the rest of ND.  We were about a half an hour from home when we decided to stop at the DQ for some lunch since groceries were a little on the short side at home.  We did pick up some milk in town so we could have breakfast in the morning, but didn't get anything else as we'll do a major grocery run tomorrow in Bemidji.

It didn't take too long to unload the car once we got home and while I unpacked and put things away, John cleaned the ashes out of the outdoor furnace and got it running again.  We were just about to head off to Clearbrook to watch Hanna's volleyball game, when a strange car pulled into the driveway.  The gentleman saw our sale ad and was interested in our storage trailers.  He ended up purchasing two of them.  We also had two calls about them and this evening we sold the last one.  What a blessing to have them gone.  Now we have to get busy and get them cleaned out so they can be hauled away.

John and I met up with Sara at the school and watched Hanna's games.  The girls didn't fare too well this evening and lost both games.

After playing volleyball, Hanna then played in the Pep Band along with Rachel and Josh.  
 

 

 Hanna is in white shirt, Josh, playing the

trombone, is sitting right in front of her, and

Rachel is playing the flute (she is second

from left with her head tilted to the side).

 

Night in Bismarck

John and I got up a little earlier this morning so we could say goodbye to Caleb before he left for school.  We then spent a little time visiting before we hit the road for home.

We were on the road for about half an hour when Amy called to update us on the little boy (Jackson) Noah had bumped heads with yesterday.  She saw Jackson and his dad in the hallway at school and said Jackson looked just find until he smiled.  He's missing his two front teeth.  His dad told her that by the time they reached the dentist's office, the second tooth had completely fallen out--a search of the playground didn't turn up the other missing tooth.  Noah still has a pretty sore head and has to take it easy for a couple of days.

The weather was perfect for traveling with sunny skies and very pleasant temps.  We pulled into Bismarck around 4 p.m., checked into our hotel, and then ate a nice supper at the Ground Round.  The restaurant was only a couple of blocks from a huge mall, so John and I spent the next hour walking around and ended up doing a little shopping at Scheel's.  Tonight was the first episode of Survivor, so we made sure we were back at the hotel in plenty of time to watch it.  Tomorrow is the final leg of our journey to Bagley.
We hope to get home in time to see Hanna play volleyball at Clearbrook.

An Exciting Day

John and I were up in time to see the kids off for school and then spent the next hour or so visiting with Amy while Dave was gone for a meeting.  We needed a few items from Wal Mart, so we got cleaned up and headed off to the store.  When we were finished with the shopping, it was just about noon, so we treated Amy to lunch at BK.  We were in the middle of our meal, when she got a phone call from the school.  Noah had bumped heads with another kid on the playground and had a gash on the side of his head.  The bad news was the other guy had a permanent tooth completely knocked out and another one loosened.

We gathered up our meal and while driving over to the school, wondered how Noah was doing.  When we arrived at the school, we all went inside and then John and I waited while she went back to speak with the school nurse.  She soon returned with Noah who was as calm as could be and wanted to stay in school for the afternoon session.  The nurse suggested taking Noah to the Emergency Walk In clinic to be checked out for stitches and possible concussion.  It didn't take long for Noah to see the doctor and after much discussion about antibiotics and possible staples for the gash, it was decided to do nothing but treat it with a special prescription ointment.  The doctor told them that any injury caused by the human mouth has a strong possibility of becoming infected, so that's why he opted not to do stitches or staples.  After returning to the house, we all rested for about an hour and then it was off to watch Caleb's football game.

The schools here in Gillette are a pretty good size, so at Caleb's school there are two 8th grade teams--A and B.  The A teamed played first and then Caleb's team took to the field.  The Warriors lost by a score of 6-0.  It was a pretty good defensive battle and we really enjoyed getting the opportunity to see Caleb play.

 Caleb is number 6 and plays defense

John and I will head out sometime tomorrow morning and hope to be home Thursday afternoon.

 

Making More Grape Juice

John and I brought a cooler full of grapes with us so this morning after the kids got off to school, we started the process for making grape juice followed by grape jelly.  This project took the better part of the day and we finished up just before the kids got home. 

Amy made us a delicious supper and after everyone ate their fill, we all loaded into the Yukon and headed off for Noah's soccer game.  There were several different games being played at the same time so there was plenty of action everywhere you looked.  This is Noah's second year playing and he really enjoys the game.

We are having a fun visit and enjoying spending time with the kids.  Tomorrow we watch Caleb play football.  Tomorrow will also be my last chance to beat Noah and Isaiah at UNO.  Those two are very crafty players.

 

We Made It To Wyoming

We pulled out of our driveway a little after 8 a.m. yesterday and, after driving for seven hours, stopped for the night in Dickinson, ND.  This was our first longer road trip in the new car and I must say it was a much more enjoyable drive than it would have been in our little Honda.  After checking into our motel, we rested up for a bit and then headed across the road to Applebee's for some supper. John and I then spent a couple of hours walking in the Dickinson mall and WalMart before heading back to the motel and calling it a night.

Our plan for today was to arrive at Amy's in time to meet up with them when they got home from church.  We arrived right on time and only had about a ten minute wait before they got to their house.  Since today is Caleb's 14th birthday, we took everyone out to Godfather's Pizza for lunch and then returned home to watch football.  They have the Direct TV football package, so it seemed like we were able to watch some of just about every game played today.  We had a fun day visiting and catching up on what has been happening with everyone over the summer.  John bought a cooler full of grapes with us, so tomorrow we'll probably help Amy make some grape juice and watch Noah play soccer. 

Hectic Days and Late Nights

John and I have been keeping pretty busy over the last two days.  He has continued working with Matt while I have been working on pricing items for the sale and getting ready for our trip to Wyoming.  We also attended volleyball games on Thursday night and didn't get home until after 9 p.m.  Tonight was Sam's football game and another late evening.

In between those two activities we managed to get some Salsa made and take a final swing through the house to see if there was anything else we would like to put on the sale.  We did manage to find a few more items and took them down to the shop to be priced after we return from our trip.  Our sale ad hit the first paper this week and we had a call today asking about our storage trailers.  We know the interested party, so even though we will be gone tomorrow, they will be stopping out to take a look at them and then will call and let us know what they decide.  If they should want them, we will have to get busy getting them emptied as soon as we get back.

We plan to be on the road before 8 a.m. in the morning with our overnight stop planned for Dickinson, ND.  We're looking forward to getting out of town for a few days and taking a break from all the sale preparations.
 

 

Beautiful Weather

Finally, a day with cool temps and low humidity.  We were up nice and early for our walk and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise.  As we walked, we saw signs of the coming autumn--leaves beginning to turn and flocks of geese heading south.

John and I decided to make grape juice today, so following breakfast, we got busy with the preparations.  John took care of stripping the grapes off the stems while I got the jars, lids, and other canning items ready.  We worked all morning and got 21quarts made by lunchtime and then had to take a break as I had a PT appointment in town.  When we returned home, we got back to work and made three more batches of juice ending up with a grand total of 45 quarts.

Our sale ad hit the first paper today and we have already received a couple of calls concerning the truck and machinery.  Hopefully that's a good sign that folks are interested in what we have for sale.

 

A Little Cooler

Our temps were much cooler today which made it much more comfortable to get some chores done around here. 

John had to help Matt once again, so we skipped our morning walk so he could get to the job site on time.  After he left the house, I headed up to Sara's for a haircut and then returned home to prepare a couple of ebay shipments before driving into town and dropping them off at the post office.  I spent some time this afternoon on the phone and emailing and got the sale ads finalize as to the various papers and dates of publication.  Now we can only hope folks will read them and come.  We did some major clearing out around the house over the last couple of days, and now we need to get those items set up and then have a final push to price everything.

When John got home, he spent some time in the garden and picked a five gallon container of grapes.  Grape juice is on the agenda for tomorrow.  We have to get them all picked and processed as we'll be heading out of town on Saturday to spend some time in Wyoming visiting with Amy's family.  

No Title For Today

I had a colonoscopy this afternoon, so I think everything knows what I have been doing since yesterday afternoon.  Enough said about that.

Due to my test, John and I stuck pretty close to home yesterday.  We watched the opening weekend of the NFL and pretty much vegged out.  My appointment wasn't until 1:15 p.m. today, so we spent most of the morning cleaning out our upstairs storage closet where we found a few more items for the sale.  John and I headed out a little after noon and drove to the Out Patient clinic.  Once I was done, we stopped at Perkins for a meal since I hadn't had anything to eat since Saturday evening.  Needless to say, I was hungry.  From there we made stops at the bank and Target before heading home.  We'll be glad to get back to our normal routine tomorrow.

Late Night

I didn't post last night because it was so late by the time we returned home from Sam's football game.  The game was over an hour and a half away and started at 7 p.m.  We picked up Matt and Sara, stopped and ate at a Subway, and arrived just as the game started.  The evening was very hot and humid which made it rather unpleasant to be standing outside.  The Bears won big time.  Sam had some nice runs and almost scored a touchdown but was stopped at the last moment by a shoe string tackle.  He was able to score on a couple of extra point runs. By the time we got back home it was almost 11p.m. and both John and I were ready for bed.

This morning we took our walk and then spent the morning doing some pricing in the shop.  JD's family stopped over to set up some of their things they want to put on the sale.  While they were here, Matt and Hanna also stopped in.  Not much work got done after that as most of the time was spent visiting and discussing JD's first week of teaching and the football game.

Our weather has been just miserable with extremely high humidity.  The forecast calls for cooler temps beginning tomorrow with hopefully some rain.  Our preparations for the sale are moving right along and I think we'll be ready in time.  This week I need to contact a couple of more papers about placing an ad and then that job will be done.  This evening John picked all the apples off the trees, so now we have to decide what to do with them.  Tomorrow or Monday he'll be harvesting the grapes and we'll be making juice.  Not too much happening around here.  It seems like our summer was consumed with the sale.

 

Busy Day

Following our morning walk and breakfast, John headed out to meet up with Matt to give him a hand on his current job.  Matt is finishing a room in his customer's basement and needed some help installing a new window and cutting and maneuvering sheets of paneling.  While John was gone this morning, I kept busy finishing up the laundry that I started yesterday and putting out my fall decorations.  Our schedule is going to be pretty hectic over the next couple of weeks, so I thought this would be a good time to get that task out of the way.

When we dropped the sale information off at the local newspaper the other day, we asked them to lay out an ad and then give us a call so we could look if over.  This afternoon, Tom, the editor, called and told me he emailed three ad examples along with the costs for publishing.  He did a great job on it, so now we can hopefully meet with him tomorrow, decide in what papers we want our ad, and get it out next week so it can run several weeks prior to our sale.  This will be a big job out of the way.  That just leaves us with a lot of pricing to do and making the final decision if anything else needs to get on the sale.  After three months I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

John and I ate a very early supper and then headed up to the school to watch Rachel and Hanna play volleyball.  Both girls were winners this evening.  The remainder of our evening was spent watching the first game of the NFL season.  Thank goodness football is back!!  

John did some harvesting this afternoon and wanted to show off the fruits of his labor.

Cooler Temps

After missing our morning walk yesterday due to my early doctor's appointment, we got back to our regular routine today.  During our trek down the road we saw our first flock of geese heading south.  Even though the temps cooled off today, the next few days are suppose to be in the mid to upper 80's.  Looking at the extended forecast, this should be the end of the warm weather for quite a while.

Yesterday I received my third back injection and that was the last I can have for six months.  The doctor's office will check in with me in about a month to see how I'm doing.  If things don't go well, I think I can have what he called a maintenance injection.  The doctor is also sending me back to PT for an exercise/stretching program to help with strengthening my back and hopefully that will keep the nerve from being pinched more and keep the pain levels down.

We didn't do any work in the shop today, but John removed more items from the storage trailers while I did some catching up on household chores like laundry and cleaning.  I also baked some bread and made an apple crisp from some of our apples.  The grapes are just about ready for picking, so making grape juice looms on our horizon.  We just have to fit it in between VB and football games and pricing. 

Finally Finished

Toward the end of last week John and I decided we were going to stay home this entire holiday weekend and make a huge push to get the final sorting, cleaning, and setting up for our sale done.  We have worked steady over the past two a half days and I am glad to report that we are 99% set up for the sale.  We even did some pricing today and wrote the ad that's to go into the paper.  Once that's published, the dye is cast and the sale must go on ready or not.  I must say it's a big load off of us right now.  We'll be very busy this month attending volleyball and football games so we needed to get this chore done and out of the way.  We are also planning a quick trip to Wyoming to watch one of Caleb's football games and to see Noah play some soccer.

I placed a few more items on ebay that we felt wouldn't go on our sale and they sold within an hour, so now that's less pieces to unload.  Our grapes and apples are just about ready for picking, so we are now free enough to concentrate on canning for the next week or so.  We head to Bemidji bright and early tomorrow morning for my third back injection.  I think this will be the last one for now.  I am so thankful for the pain relief.  Hopefully now that the sale is set up we won't be spending so much time in the shop and can get our regular lives back.