Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home--PLEASE!!

I thought, for some reason, that since we made it into October without the annual ladybug infestation, we were in the clear for this year.  Sadly, I was very wrong.  The LB's made their appearance a couple of days ago and are everywhere.  If you go outside in the warmth of the afternoon, you soon have them all crawling all over.  I've heard that the LB's live in the soybean fields eating the aphids and once the soybeans are harvested, they need to find a new home.

The last two days we have been busy working on our fall chore list.  John got the last of the tomatoes out of the garden and dug the potatoes.  His potato crop was pretty impressive this year.  The grape vines have been cut back, the oldest strawberry plants pulled, and the garden tilled.  It's now put to bed until next spring.

These potatoes weighed over two pounds each

 The forecast is for cooler weather, so I think it's safe to start putting the shorts and other summer clothes away.  I have been spending some time cleaning out the closet and getting our fall and winter gear out.  The weather has been warmer than normal, but one keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.  These days can't last much longer.  The leaves have passed their peak as far as color goes and are falling at a rapid rate.  Won't be long before all we'll see is bare and brown, but for right now we are still enjoying our beautiful flowers.  I took some more pictures today and found we had many bees and grasshoppers resting on the blooms.

 This guy liked posing for the camera

We had a major sports conflict this evening.  Hanna had a volleyball game at home while Sam had a game in Grand Forks.  John and I split up with him going with Matt to watch Sam play and Sara and I watched Hanna's games.  Tonight was Parents' Night at the volleyball game and Hanna presented me and Sara with very beautiful yellow daisies.  Next week ends the fall sports season, so we'll have a nice break before basketball starts.

Painting A Floor

Over the past couple days John has spent much of his time clearing our two car garage and preparing the floor for painting.  Today the weather was perfect for doing the job, so that's what we did most of the morning and early afternoon.  He had bought a paint that is specifically made for cement floors and there were several steps to the preparation of both the floor and paint and today we were finally ready to get the job done.  John rolled the paint on while I followed behind spreading special chips that give the floor some color and prevent slipping.  Now we have to wait a couple of days for the floor to completely dry and then John can start setting up his new shop.

This afternoon, one of the guys that purchased two of our trailers came over and started the process of getting them ready to haul out of here.  They jacked up the trailers, checked the tires, and then put boards under the wheels so the trailers won't sink in the soft dirt when they are pulled out.  They will be coming sometime over the next few days to start the process of moving them out.

This post is from Tuesday evening.  Got distracted and forgot to publish it.



 
 

Rainy Days

We've had plenty of rain over the past two days, so outside activities have been greatly curtailed.  John got our two car garage completely cleaned out with his boat, four wheeler, tiller, and lawn mowers now stored in one section of the old shop.  

Following the sale, our office looked like a tornado had hit it, so I spent most of Friday sorting through stacks of paper, getting them organized, and getting the desktop cleared off.  

Today we spent the morning in the shop sorting through the few items left over from the sale and deciding what could be kept for another garage sale and what could be thrown away.  We got all the tables down and have a pile of things to take to the dump next week.  JD and Joanne stopped down this morning to clear out what she didn't sell last Saturday, so now the shop is pretty clear and just needs a little more organizing and it will be ready for winter.  Our weather is suppose to be a little nicer next week, so we hope to get all the outside jobs completed then.  

Missing Package

I found out through an email from ebay that one of the items I shipped a couple of weeks ago was not received by my buyer, so most of my morning was spent trying to track the package and sending emails to my customer.  The package should have been returned to me, but I haven't seen it yet.  I stopped at the post office this afternoon, talked to the postmaster about the missing package, and was told they would get back to me in a day or two.  I can tell this is going to be adventure getting this problem resolved.

John kept busy cleaning out our two-car garage.  His plan is to turn it into a little home shop so he can have a place to putter around.  Two years ago we replaced the all the windows, re-insulated the entire building, and put up new chip board all around, so it should be a nice shop.  His next step is to power wash the cement floor and give it a coat of paint.  This needs to be done pretty soon as the weather is getting colder and you can't apply the paint if the temps are too low.

This afternoon we headed off to watch Rachel and Hanna play volleyball.  These were away games, so we traveled to a town east of Bemidji.  This was Rae's final match of her 7th grade season and she did a fine job.  Hanna's team played much better this evening and won both of their games.  She still has a couple of more games left in her season.   

No Wind But Cooler Temps

John kept busy this morning unhooking our shop's air compressor.  A gentleman called last night and told us he was interested in purchasing it.  He called again this morning to confirm the purchase and said he would be here by 11:30 a.m. to pick it up.  He arrived right on time, it was loaded onto his trailer with no problem, and off he went.

We also had a call from a business owner interested in possibly purchasing the rights to the name Uniquely Wood and manufacturing some of the items we made.  After the compressor was on its way, John and I spent several hours meeting with James.  We have a lot to think about and will get back in touch with him in a couple of days.

In between all this action, I managed to get a couple of loaves of bread made and John was able to clear out the old shipping area and get our boat moved down to the shop for storage over the winter.  We are slowly crossing off items of our To Do Before Winter list.

Making Juice

We had a beautiful sunny day, but the winds were so strong you couldn't get anything done outside.  Since we stuck in the house and still had a bucket full of grapes left over from jelly making, John and I decided to make more grape juice.  There were more grapes than we expected and we ended up making14 more quarts of juice.  Since our weather is expected to turn colder later in the week, John got the rest of the tomatoes out of the garden.  Since the kitchen was already a mess from making the grape juice, we decided to give tomato juice a try.  John found a simple recipe on the internet and we now have 12 quarts of tomato juice.  Today's efforts finished up our canning for this year.

This afternoon a couple of guys who were at our sale on Saturday came back to look over our dust collecting system.  They decided not to purchase it, but ended up buying several other items that were still here.  We are slowly but surely getting rid of the leftover sale items.  After they left, we headed up to Clearbrook to watch Hanna's volleyball game.  They had an off night with their serves and only won 1 game out of 3.  Hopefully they'll play better on Thursday.

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.