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).