Apple Trees

I worked on pruning Dad's apple trees yesterday. There were lots of suckers, and trimming them was easy with my brand new reciprocating saw. The trees are dwarf, so we have them pruned down to about 10 feet high. It took me about 2 hours per tree and I got both of them done. The kids came out and cleared the branches away, and tossed them over the back fence. They were troopers!

It has been a nice trip. It has been especially nice to see Kyle. He has been a little careless of late and hurt himself a couple of times. It seems he got a wood carving set for Christmas. He was carving something when the very sharp chisel slipped and cut the base of his thumb on his opposite hand. That was before I picked him up. And last night, he was racing his Uncle Kirk, and lost his footing and skinned his knee and hand. (He may have fallen so that he could have an excuse for losing a footrace to a man 20 years older than he is!) - Just kidding Kyle.
Anyway, Kyle must be in that clumsy stage at 15.

My brother and sister asked all the kids over for a "sleep over" last night. I don't know how much sleep they got, because they haven't come back yet. I'm pretty sure they all were hanging out, watching movies and cutting up most of the night. I think they had fun though, even if they are sleepy today.

A very good holiday visit.

Wonderful Wednesday

It was a great day hanging out with my family. It made that drive on Tuesday worth it! My uncle came down, and my brother had retrieved my grandmother from her house, and we all were enjoying each other all day. My folks had laid out a snacky spread on the dining room table, and we snacked all day long. The kids amused themselves, or hung out with us and generally had a great time. My niece is 5 and she had a wonderful day! It is so good to connect with family.

Dad had purchased some firewood, and Mom asked me to build a "little" fire. I tried to keep it from getting too big, but sometimes it is more difficult to maintain a small fire than a large one. I managed pretty well, and it was warm and toasty in the family room all day.

Conversations ranged from current events to old family stories. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have all of them around.

Today will be a slower day, with Dad taking Granny back home, me and the kids doing some apple tree pruning, and just hanging out after that.

Boxing Day driving Hell

I left early to go pick up Kyle. I figured I'd get to his house about 3, and we would get to C'burg around 7 ish. Boy was I wrong. Driving around our fair nation's capital is a nightmare, during the day. The traffic was stop and go from Telegraph Rd all the way to Fredericksburg. But by that time I was committed to that route. I think I won't be going that way again. I'll take 301.

Anyway it took us about 3 hours from DC to get down to pick up Kyle. We got Kyle at 5 and then had to drive from Fredericksburg to C'burg. Wow. Lucky for us, the ride was much easier after we got out of Fredericksburg.

Now I'm happily visiting with Mom and Dad, with 3 of the kids with us. Mary and Tori should be arriving today, since Mary wasn't feeling like driving yesterday. It must have been fate or some other sense that she had, she really wouldn't have enjoyed the drive yesterday. We had to take two cars since we have 6 people coming down, and only 5 would fit in either car...

Looking forward to visiting with Kirk, Melissa, Jessica and Granny. Mom says that Uncle Glenn could make an appearance too!

Merry Christmas!

I'm so excited that it is that time again! Time to visit family and reconnect! I am so looking forward to seeing all of you soon!

Love,

James

Good Weekend

It was nice outside. Mary and the kids and I didn't get into anything huge, just lots of small, simple things.

Samuel was playing around with the tennis rackets at the community college courts.

Miriam went to a couple of church parties this weekend.

I built two more garden bed frames.

Mary committed a few neatnesses around the house.

Samuel and I went to see the movie "Eragon". It was pretty good, but we agreed that we liked the book better.

Made dinner. Ate dinner. Life is good.

Mary and I went to the movies.

We took in Apocalypto. This was Mel Gibson's action movie set in South America, just as the white men arrived. But it wasn't about that. It was about one man's escape from certain death, and saving himself and his family. I thought it was very well done and recommend it to you.

After the movie, Mary and I went to a bookstore to get a book for Eliza's host family and then we went to Michael's to get Eliza 3 American flags to send as well. Do you sense a theme here? We have been doing lots of shopping for Eliza, and very little for us.

We went to Home Depot and got supplies for building the first garden bed frame. I'm going to see how quickly I can get them done, then we will be in business.

For breakfast, I made chocolate, chocolate chunk with pecan muffins. Absolutely fabulous!

Quiet evening

Just a quiet evening at home. A nice fire in the fireplace, some hot tea, and a good book.

Now we need to stay warm! Really glad that we still have electricity tonight! If we didn't we would be very, very cold!

It could be the cold, but I've been having some trouble focusing on things lately. Trying to get up the energy to get the house projects started just hasn't been doable. So I think getting out the tools and scoping out what needs to be done for the project is in the cards for this weekend. Oh, and resting up for the beginning of the holiday season!

Clean out the fridge/freezer soup for dinner.

Well, I've been saving little bits of veggies, rice, wheat berries, for quite some time. I took it all out of the fridge, tossed it in the big pot, added some soup mix, a can of crushed tomatoes, and some chopped celery, a few spices and, drum roll please... "Dinner"! It tastes pretty darn good and will be ready for whenever anyone wants to eat. I think I'll make a batch of corn cakes to go with the soup.

I think this weekends project will be to make some garden bed frames from 2x4s and pvc hoops. I'll go over to Home Depot and get some 2x4s and some deck screws to put them together. I'll also use some clamps to hold the hoops on the 2x4s. I may need to rig it so that it doesn't blow away, so some extra PVC stakes may also go with it. I'll post later how that goes.

Mulching leaves

All of those leaves that I've been collecting and depositing in the back yard are now mulched. I took the electric lawn mower and went at those leaves. Now they will not get blown around by these wind storms that we've been having.

I spent an hour at Home Depot this afternoon getting Mary's Christmas present. I built a light shelf set for her. It has 4 lights, and 5 shelves, and she can use it to start seedlings for next spring. She was very excited about it.

I know, it was early, but with all that will be going on around Christmas, I thought it would be a good thing to get it done when I had some time to set it all up for her.