long, long summer

I was sick for most of the summer, unfortunately, but I did manage to get the porch rails primed. I've washed off the inside boards around the porch ceiling (what DO you call those, anyway?!) and we have just two more boards to scrape and prime before we start painting with the trim color, cream.

We do still have to wash off the house walls and caulk the cracks (there's a special mortar caulk for brick walls) before we can start painting the house itself. The body color will be a very pale blue.
It doesn't show very well in this pic, but I've started priming the back porch and rails also.

We had the roof patched this week--big relief! Now we can start on patching the wall where the bricks fell.

It's funny about walking the doglet. When I lived in Phoenix, I always walked on the sidewalk and she walked in the grass--it was almost always dry. When Gryph and I lived in apartments here, I walked on the sidewalk and lady walked in the grass. Even if the grass was wet, my feet stayed dry.

Now we have a house and I walk her in the yard.

The WET yard.

In my little canvas shoes.


Aren't weeds funny things? These think they are flowers. Dunno what they're called, but they tried to eat our gas meter... not so good! Anyhow, I take them down periodically with a weedeater, but dang... they come back thicker than ever! How come veggies don't do that?


No matter what it looks like, I promise you this next pic is not of Autumn leaves. Those are mushrooms! And that wasn't all of them, either; they were scattered in a diagonal spread near the oak tree. Makes me wonder if a dead log stayed there for several years! Anyhow, when these get broken open, they're a sickly sulfur yellow.


Know what this is? Amazingly enough to me, it's ivy blossoms! I didn't know it would do that!

Here's another pic to give you an idea of the scale. We thought this tree was dead because it was so smothered in ivy, but it leafed out and grew vigorously this year.


I owe you pics of the rest of what I've done with my summer, but I want to block them first. I'm happy to say I have two Yule gifts finished already, except for the blocking! And while it's been nice to have hours for uninterrupted crocheting, I really do hope that Fall's cooler temps will allow me to get back to work on the house repairs and painting.