Does a bear sh*t in...

... my yard?

According to me, yes. But others are skeptical.

So you tell me, is this bear poop or not?

Pam is the Worst Blogger Ever

Pam is not keeping up on the blog so Jill is posting to keep people up to date.
Today, Fred fished and Sherry cleaned.
Then, Fred watched TV and Sherry sat in one of the lawn chairs and watched the river for a while.

finally an update...

so Jill keeps moaning because I haven't updated the blog. But seriously, it's boring around here.

Sher cleans and goes to garden club. Fred fishes and drinks coffee.

There's been some summer planting going on. I'll try to get some pictures to post.

Otherwise, there's just not much action.

in case there's anyone out there...

yes, the river is coming up. BUT, should just be in the yard, not the house.

I called Fred and Sher yesterday to see if they were even moving stuff up off the basement floor, but they were both out. So, I guess they weren't as apprehensive as most of the other people in town.

Maybe we'll try this bloggy business for F&S again this summer... we'll see. As you know, I'm pretty lazy.

Just as I suspected

I stopped at F&S's on Friday for some exciting news. You'll never guess- Fred went fishing, Sher cleaned, and they had fish and salad for supper. Let the good times roll!

oh well, I guess familiarity breeds comfort... wait, that's not right.

In lieu of exciting activities, here's some exciting pictures.

Nice close-up

There were a whole bunch of these, but they died before I got the picture

Produce section of the SuperValue is getting a good start

"Recreational fire" with a bench that annoyed Sher

I'm hoping you can click on this and it'll get bigger.  (I tried, but it still doesn't work)

New blog???

Since the flood business has been taken care of, I clearly have not blogged. So I'm thinking of switching this to the "What did Fred and Sher do now" blog. I'll eventually get around to changing the name, but figured I'd make sure that they do enough interesting stuff to make this worth it before I went to the effort.

My concern is that every post will be as follows:
Fred went fishing. Sher cleaned something. They ate fish and salad for supper.
Seriously, that covers most days.

But I'll give it a try. (Oh, and don't forget, I am lazy and will not get around to it a lot. I'm going to work on Sher to get her to do some updating on her own. As you may remember for her previous posts, she's a hoot.)

Well, here we go,

To catch everyone up on the spring events, any day that it was nice, Fred fished and when it wasn't nice, he puttered around in the basement putting up shelves, rearranging his screwdrivers, etc. Mix that in with coffee twice a day, and it's a pretty full schedule.
Sher did these things in order of time spent; cleaned, talked on the phone, went for walks, and worked. I swear Sher cleans the rest of the family drinks (or drank depending on their wagon status.)

More recently they've been a little more interesting. Last Sunday and Monday (Memorial Day), they were in Elkader. Even though it's a bit late for mushrooms Fred found about 3 gallons anyway. A couple were Very big, one was almost a foot tall. Sher and Billie did the cemetery walk with lovely flowers from Julie's shop. (I missed it as that was on Sunday, and I didn't get there until Monday.) Fred fried fish and quite a few people showed up, but we did miss those who weren't there.

The rest of this week has been the standard, although Sher only worked 2 days because some ones' wallpaper didn't arrive on time and Fred fished a bit less because 'the river's screwed up'.


I don't have many good pictures of Fred and Sher stuff, but I do have some good bird pictures from the farm.


This is Fred's new Oriole feeder.


Close up of a jelly cup



Finches fighting at the Farm.



Oriole at the Farm.



Nuthatch? That's what I always think they are. At the Farm.

FINAL FLOORING!

The last major bit is done! Sher's kitchen floor has been installed!
The floor guy- Tim Duffy - is coming back today to do another coat of sealer and then put in a couple thresholds and trim bits.
I think after that the only thing that's left will be the bottom cabinet trim in the kitchen!
AND Sher's in Hawaii with her sister so you all get to see these before she does!
So, here's some less than stellar pictures.

Another day of kitchen business

So, here's what was going on when I got there this morning. I was a bit late, but still, they were pert-near done when I arrived. Slugs, shown below, was working on trim for the soffit (I still didn't look up how to spell that.)



Here's where we were when I left, or just about. The hole next to the fridge is where the micro goes, it needed a little stain which was still drying when this picture was taken.
Then we had pizza and chicken from the Pizza Ranch for lunch. Sorry I didn't get a picture.
Everyone left by 2 or so to get home at a decent time.

Fred and Sher really appreciate the help and someday, they'll invite people over for fun, not hard labor!

And now for the obligatory close-up flower and bird.

I am pretty impressed with my bird today.

Still more progress.

Sara, Slugs, Brian, and Shelly are here installing the rest of the kitchen cupboard!

Here's the beginning of the day,

Here's one of the beautiful cabinets that Slugs rebuilt.

You may remember from past posts that we've had some issues with the water hose that feeds the fridge. This shot should look somewhat familiar.

But a 6th trip to the hardware store for a new connector, a few snip and curses, and were were back in the ice business once again.

Here's where we were by the end of the day.

So, there's still a few soffit (sp?) cupboards to put in and then getting drawers and things back in place and we'll be ready for counters, sink, and flooring. Hopefully all of those will be taken care of over the few weeks!

And in closing, my luckiest get of the day, some Norwegian wisdom from Brian. (Warning: There's cursing.)

Let's try some video!

I'm going to attempt to load up some short videos of the events of yesterday- here's hoping!

This is some early work.

More cupboards being placed!

Unfortunately, I was the one holding the camera, but Sher made the same comment that I did. Don't let her fool you, she's as crude as the rest of us!

If this goes well, I'll take some more during the next kitchen event currently scheduled for January 17.

1/3rd of a kitchen

We have cabinetry!

Here are some cabinet pictures and such! (I'll fill in the details later, I'm typing on the laptop on the couch and it makes for too many typos!)

Jill...filling in a bit based on chatting with Pam on the phone yesterday. I'll put my stuff in a lovely purple color

New bookcase insert in the living room.

Kitchen!

Apparently in this kitchen area there was much heaving and shoving to get the counter in place. Removal of counter, filing of imaginary blockages and snags...more shoving...more filing (and with Fred and Slugs shoving there was some heft behind the shove). Then Fred said "oh, this must be it", lifted the countertop up a bit and it went right into place. Pam thinks that there may have been some farting and what not.

Kitchen [nice posture boys]

Cupboard in the dining room- it's not crooked, my picture is.

The crew... [this is Sara Jane and Slugs/Bob showing their lovely parting gifts. Sara got a trout fishing vest and trout christmas ornament. Bob got a gift certificate to Menards or similar store. They look delighted. Slugs looks like Santa in this picture]

Fish ornament.

Fred's Amaryllis (I feel I must include a flower close up.)

Stuck

I'm stuck inside today. It's icey, really icey, so I tried to find a million other things to do than update the blog but
couldn't come up with anything. It's the guilt. After a couple of days of missed posts, it's no big deal. After a couple of weeks, just provide some lame excuse about being busy at work. But after a couple of months, it's clearly just because I am lazy and I suck. So there you go.


Here's a bunch of updates and stuff.

These pictures ended up in the reverse order from what I wanted, but oh well.

This is a cardinal that was in the tree on Christmas day.
This is the tree.

This is a good shot of the damaged package of kitchen flooring. There's more coming to replace.

Here's the re-wallpapered back entry.

Here's the re-wallpapered laundry room. Same paper as the back entry.

Repaired wall in the basement stairway.

Fresh caulk by the living room fireplace. Done by Pat- that's why it looks nice.

New bricks by the garden. Bricks were from Kenny- Fred and Pat installed them.

This is the bride from the wedding I did in October. She's Melissa, we like her. She married my cousin Brandon, son of David, son of Billie, sister of Fred.

All the kitchen cabinets are done! Bob's hoping to come up a couple times in January and get them all installed. Then the kitchen floor can be put in and then they'll be done!

Oh, and food- For Thanksgiving at Billie's we had turkey and ham, along with 18 side dishes and 12 pies.

For Christmas, Sher make goose and chicken, taters, dressing, veg, and all the other stuff.

A brief interlude

I took a brief interlude from the blog, and now I'll take a brief political interlude from the flood topic.

I don't want to talk about who won, 'cause that's all over the news anyway. I do want to say that I was most impressed by both candidates speeches tonight. I felt that each was gracious and generously non-partisan.
I was also thrilled at the amazing voter turn out. I think everyone should vote, or at least have the opportunity. I think we should have a door-to-door poll so that absolutely everyone can vote. And if you don't want to vote, you have to own it and not just claim it's too inconvenient. Barring that, I think we should have a national holiday for voting.

So, no matter who you supported, I hope that you give the new guy a chance.

(Next time we'll have pictures of caulk!!!)

Why I live in Iowa

Just a quick note now that I am back to some semblance of normal.

Last Monday, I went for a ride to Prairie du Chien with Billie.

When people ask me why I live in Iowa, this is my new answer

The pictures don't do it justice. But I'll post a few more eventually.

Substitute Blogger Duty

Pam is really falling down on the job so I'm stepping in for an episode of "The Poowater Chronicles". "I" being Jill.

Yesterday, Hiltje (Sher's niece) came up and helped. Sher was not specific about exactly what sort of help, but at any rate it was much appreciated. Actually, I believe they cleaned out much of the upstairs. No small feat.

Sher is trying to locate her wallpaper record book (who DOESN'T have one of those?) so she can order the right wallpaper to fill in the kitchen bits. This is a potential project to be undertaken by Sher's much younger sister, Chris. Chris is arriving next Wednesday and will be put to work until Sunday. After that, she's on Abbie Duty.

Since Chris is just back from Africa, I don't care how hard she has to work. I'm too jealous.

Pam will be unavailable for blogging or flood duties for several more days as she is officiating at a wedding on Saturday. This is Pam's first turn as officiant and she's quite nervous. Everyone can rest assured that no matter how badly she blows the ceremony, she will be impressively shod.

That is not particularly "floody" news, but it's all we've got.

Here's a picture from the safari since I have no photos of the flood progress:

Bad Blogger- No Biscuit!

I know I am the most neglectful blogger in the family.  And since there's apparently only 2 of us that puts me in last place and as number 2.

But enough about my shortcomings.  Let's talk about what has gone on lately.  Not much since the lovely woodwork was installed.  That is until Friday.  That's when the stove arrived!

Here's a picture.

It looks really nice.  And apparently works fine, but after cooking in an electric skillet for so long, they are having trouble locating the cooking pots.  Everything is still packed in a variety of boxes so it will take a few days before they can get everything located.

Tonight they are going to Fred's 50th class reunion.  I'm sure it will be great fun.  He went to school with some great characters.

Here's a few more pictures to make it look like I've written much more than I actually have.

This is a blurry picture of my car mileage at 11001 which I though was neat.