Busy Day

We were up early once again for our morning walk and following breakfast, spent a little time in the shop trying to decide where to put everything John hauled off the trailers yesterday.  I had a 10:30 a.m. appointment in Bemidji for my annual eye exam, so time in the shop was cut short for today.

John went along with me as I knew the doctor would dilate my eyes and I wouldn't be able to see to drive home.  I had no changes in my eyes and am good to go for another year.  When we left the clinic, we stopped at the bank, filled the gas tank, got the car washed, and then headed to BK for some lunch.  From there it was a quick stop at the grocery store for several items and then back on the road home.  

We had a little over an hour to relax before heading out again to Erskine to watch Hanna and Rachel play volleyball.  Both girls played well even though their teams lost.  

Rachel returning a serve

 

Hanna returning serves

While we were home this afternoon, John picked some tomatoes from the garden.  We'll have to get busy soon making some Salsa.

 

Slightly Cooler--Only Slightly

Dark clouds were building up in the west when we left the house for our walk.  We felt a couple of rain drops before we made it home and about a half an hour after we returned, the rains came down.  We are in desperate need of moisture, so this was greatly appreciated.

By mid-morning the skies cleared and the humidity was on the rise once again.  John and I spent the morning in the shop getting items moved around and in place for the sale.  After lunch John started hauling some items for the sale off the storage trailers.  I worked on listing a few more items on ebay.

After supper we headed up to Clearbrook for the first football game of the season.  The Bears had trouble holding onto the ball and those turnovers lead to their opponent scoring.  The final score was 21-14.  Sam played the entire game and even had to fill in at quarterback for several snaps when the regular QB was out with leg cramps.  Even though the Bears lost, we had a good time watching the game and visiting with folks.

Getting ready for pass

 

 Raising hands to show no pass

interference

 

Hot Weather Still Hanging Around

John and I got up early this morning so we could get our walk in before the sun made it over the horizon.  It was 70 degrees at 6:30 a.m. with pretty high humidity.  Walking once the sun is up is out of the question as the temps take off and it's just too warm.

Right after breakfast we headed down to the shop to do some more cleaning and sorting.  John removed the desk, filing cabinets, etc., and got the entire office cleared.  I worked on cleaning computer keyboards and monitors and got them ready for pricing.  Our plan is to start going through and setting items out where we want them for the sale.  I have completed the wood inventory and have that all priced.  We are slowly, but surely, making headway.  Matt stopped over this morning to give John a hand hauling wood off one of the storage trailers.  This is wood they want to keep and had to find another place to store it as the storage trailers are going on the sale.  

We took a quick break after lunch and headed into town for our annual hearing test.  I passed with flying colors, John has a slight hearing loss in one ear.  Not enough to warrant hearing aids at this time.

John did a little more work in the shop when we got home while I worked in the office taking care of end of the month finances.  Hard to believe our sale is just a month away.  Where did the summer go? 

Its Begun

Yesterday was pretty quiet around here with the usual Sunday routine.  The weather was so hot and muggy that the only place to be was either in a lake or in AC.  Since we didn't have the lake, we settled for the AC.

This morning John was up and out bright and early to work with Matt finishing up his current job.  I spent my day taking care of some household chores--laundry, giving the kitchen a good cleaning, and a few other things.  We are to the point in the shop where we are starting to set up for the sale.  I have been making some signs with pricing for the wood left in inventory and bagging up spindles, shaker pegs, and other smaller items.  I will also list a few more items on ebay.  Today we sold the last of the lamp cords--started off with 120 of them.  We have been listing the items on ebay that we feel have a better chance of selling there than on our sale.

The title of today's blog refers to the sports season.  Late this afternoon John and I headed up to the school to watch Rachel and Hanna play volleyball.  The only problem was the girls played at the same time but in two different gyms.  Thank goodness they were right next to each other--just walk out one door and turn right into the other.  The teams play two games and if each wins one game apiece, a third game is played.  We watched Hanna play a game and then ran next door to watch Rae before going back to watch more of Hanna.  We ended up missing quite of bit of Rachel so we need to come up with a better system for viewing the games next time.  Rachel is playing 7th grade VB while Hanna plays on the C team.  Hanna also played on the B team which is similar to junior varsity.  They will play again tomorrow and on Friday.  Then we throw in Sam's first football game of the season on Thursday evening.  He just found out he'll be the starting safety on defense.  Along with all the sports, we also have an eye exam and hearing test scheduled for this week.  What were we thinking?

Rachel (5) returning the ball

 

Oops!  Ball went out of bounds.

 

Hanna tips the ball over the net.

 

  Getting ready for the serve

 

Hot Weather Continues

John and I overslept a little this morning and paid the price by having to take our walk with the temps and humidity a little higher than we would like.  As the day progressed, it only got worse and the forecast is for this weather to stick around all through next week.  Thank goodness for AC.

Today the Clearbrook Bears had a football scrimmage in Argyle, MN. which is about two hours north of us and maybe 60 miles from the Canadian border.  Since the weather was miserably hot, I wasn't too thrilled to go, but John sort of talked me into it.  I must say it was HOT!!!  I don't know how the kids could stand playing in their pads, helmets, etc.  

There were approximately 16 teams from the northern part of the state.  Four games were going on at the same time on two different fields.  A game consisted of 15 snaps on offense for each team.  In between the offense and defense, the JV teams each got five snaps of the ball.  Sam played varsity and in one game intercepted a pass.  In their third game, he was quarterback and threw for a touchdown.  As soon as the final game was over, we didn't waste much time getting back into the car and turning on the AC.  We stopped at Arby's for some supper on the way home and finally got back around 7:30 p.m. after leaving a little after noon.  

Just a little frustration after being overthrown

on a pass play

 

 

Running back the interception

Hard to believe the 2013 school sport's season is starting.  We just put all the games on our calendar and it looks like we'll have a pretty busy September going to volleyball and football games as well as getting ready for our big sale.

Ralph called to remind us to send along some tomatoes with Dave and Valada when they return to Brackettville.  Thought I'd give him a little preview of what he can expect.

  

 Here is a sample of our tomatoes

 

 Our grapes are beginning to ripen--will

be another bumper crop this year

 John standing next to our giant sunflowers.

This was taken over a week ago and they are

even taller now.  Don't know if they'll head

up since they went in so late.

 

Easy Day

John and I were up early this morning so we could be ready for the Acme Tool guy who was coming to check out our machinery.  Gerry arrived right on time at 9 a.m. and we spent the next several hours in the shop running the different machines for him while he looked them over.  He took plenty of notes and told us we would be better off selling a couple of them locally, so John will move those into the sale area tomorrow.  Gerry said he'll let us know what value he feels the rest of the machinery has and suggestions on the best way to sell it sometime next week.

This afternoon John did more work in the shop and also some cleaning around its entrance.  I worked in the office getting some files cleaned out and organized along with readying more ebay sales for shipment.  Our evening was pretty low key--just watched some NFL and a few other favorite shows.

A Little Cooler Today

The warmer temps and high humidity of the last few days finally gave way to slightly cooler temps and lower humidity.  Since John had to work with Matt again today, he was certainly glad to see the change in the weather.  This break is gong to last only a few days and then we'll be back to the hotter weather again.

We have been selling some of the left over parts inventory on ebay and yesterday sold five items.  I got those things packed up and headed into town this morning to get them shipped off.  I then went to the local grocery store for some fresh produce before returning home.  This afternoon I did some baking and made a nice stew for supper.   All in all it was a pretty quiet day.