Sept was a busy month with picking jewelweed and making it into soap to treat our poison ivy rashes.
There was also three weddings that we attended. The first wedding was in Pa ,held at a wedding barn. It was beautiful!
We grilled the beef brisket for this wedding. We grilled the meat in Ga on our big grill then packed the wrapped brisket in three large coolers . We left late Friday evening ,arriving in time Sat morning to the reception for slicing the brisket and putting in it cookers to keep warm.
Then we went to Md to attend two wedding ,one on a Friday a niece on hubby’s side,on Saturday a nephew on my side.
We left Thursday evening to cross the Chesapeake bay bridge tunnel,for Hurricane Ian was kicking up some winds causing an alert there. We cross safely late that night with a sigh of relief.
We had a lovely weekend ,that quickly came to an end.
Hubby loaded up some door sections from his brothers business,that he have ordered for a job to do that week. Off we headed for home never once thinking that Hurricane Ian had a surprise ahead for us.
We arrived at the bridge around 3:00 pm Monday,to be told we couldn’t cross for there was an alert 2 , that meant no vehicle carrying cargo in the back of pickups allowed on the bridge. Winds were not to subside until morning. We then decided that waiting in the truck all night was not our cup of tea, we promptly find a hotel,relaxing the rest of the evening,getting a good nights sleep ,had a good breakfast in the morning . we were on our way back to cross the bridge by 7:30 am with no problems. Here a photo of the waves.
Old house on the hill
Remember this old house ? It is here in Tennessee, nestled in the hills,it is also in need of some care. It was left go for quite a few years,with windows shot out, trash left inside…(and outside), and a small fire damage where the wood stove was.
Floor damage
We are going to gut the house down to the frame and outside wall. The main structure of the house is good, we still are pulling up the old flooring to be sure the floor foundation is fine. Here’s some more of the mess we are making.
Trashy kitchenNow we need to get some dumpsters to load all this mess into.
Some random photos from Ga and Tennessee.
Sunset in Ga.Our little camper set up while we work on the old house. At one time it
looked like this…
Until the next update in my small world… Take Care!
I’m sure glad we were able to beat the heat wave with getting all the heavy moving done! We sweated enough in 95* weather. Here is what we have been up too the last few months.
The old block house
Remember we had purchased this old home a few years back. We had problems with getting a clear title because of the sellers family issues. Finally after a year it was cleared up.
Then we relaxed on working on it for the business was consuming our time. Covid brought on at lot of service work with people calling for our services as far as four hours from home.
When Mike’s decided to serve the church in PR, we decided to get serious with remodeling the old house.
LouAnn (our daughter)is living in the old house as she will be staying on after we move on . We will be living in the RV for a bit until the new owner of the business feels he is comfortable in running the business.
Then we will be going to Tennessee to work on the old home there.
Here’s the before and after photos of the old block house.
Kitchen area
We still have a few things to do like a new entry door in the kitchen.
Living room Bedroom Bathroom
Here’s where we are …
Home for now
A fuller view..
There is yard work to do yet,and shed in back needs a new door,then the old place will look in much better shape.
Life for us is going to take on a new adventure. We sold the garage door business to a younger couple,and they are also buying the farm with it. The office and shop are on the farm so we were glad that they were taking the whole farm.
Why did we sell? Well, we started the business when the boys were all home needing something to do. They are all grown ,going their separate ways. Hubby isn’t in to hiring,just don’t need that headache,he says.
We purchased a parcel of land in the mountains of Tennessee awhile back,now we are looking at restoring the little house on the hill that has been sitting empty for a good 15 years.
Built in the early 1900’s..
The side walls were done like this.
Beautiful sturdy framing.
I started with removing the old drywall, it’s a messy job!
We will be living in our camper for a year ,first to give some assistance to the new owner in running the business,and then it will let us work on the old house at a more leisurely timeline.
Some views of the place…
I took this picture last fall, the old barn has the old logs …Steven wants to repurpose the good logs to put a little rustic log cabin up on the hill where we found an old chimney.
There’s much work to do with clean up,but it will be worth it as it is a beautiful place of wild country.
A view from one of the mountain ridges,that’s on our land.
I have a feeling that my old quilts and the old house are going to be happy to be together.
That is what happen to two old block tenant houses that were just down the road a few miles. I had been wanting to get a photo to draw the two cute little houses.. I procrastinated much to my dismay ,when discovering them were totally demolished .
It is amazing how many old buildings are left set ,some are mowed around as they slowly fall apart, others are barely to be seen through high weeds. I find them so interesting as they are like ghost of the past.
I so enjoy drawing in graphite,it seems graphite and old buildings were meant to go together. Agree ?
This is just a practice drawing
This is drawing is of an old home in here Ga ,the photo that I used as photo reference was taken by Brian Brown ,which he has kindly let me use.
Photo reference….
As you notice the House was boarded up, but I didn’t have the heart to board it up in the drawing,the house begged for some light to flow in through the windows again.
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