3 dollar chairs

We need new chairs at the kitchen table.  Period. We. Need. New. Chairs.

Our current chairs are probably 75+ years old.  So is the claw-foot table. That's the problem with antiques, they are old. Our current chairs are a Windsor style and we've glued them and screwed them and they still keep falling apart.  The legs want to separate from the base.

 

Every time we go shopping or to the thrift stores, I always look for chairs. The ones I like and the ones that match the beautiful, old, kitchen table are made the same way and have a tendency to fall apart the same way. 

One of these mornings, Walt Kowalski is going to end up on the floor because his chair is going to collapse while he is putting on his work boots.  I don't wait to be there when it happens. 

So this weekend Grammy and I went to an antique-fleatique event. It happens once a month from May through September.  Antiquing is like shopping at the thrift stores, you go with an idea of what you are looking for but sometimes you can't be too specific. Otherwise, you'll be looking forever.

My idea was kitchen chairs that won't need glued every Saturday.  I didn't even care if they matched. I also didn't care if there were 4 of them.  I really only need 2.  (If you come to our house, we'll find you a chair.  I promise.)

One of the dealers had a dozen chairs in a line.  All different shapes, sizes, and colors. Three of them even matched. 
The price tag said $5 each.

It was getting hot and sunny out.
As the morning quickly becomes afternoon, the crowd thins. Dealers know if they don't sell it, they have to pack it up and take it home

I liked the chairs.  I found a level spot on the grass and tried each one.  They weren't bad.  Not too shaky. The color didn't match. The padding was terrible, but could be replaced.  They weren't new, but they weren't 75+ years old either.  Probably more like only 50 years old.  New in comparison.

He made me a deal I couldn't refuse. 3 chairs for $10 AND he would help me carry them to my car.
I couldn't pass up the deal.  Grammy even got in the action.  She liked a different chair he had.  A folding wooden chair. $3.

We came away with 4 chairs for $13.

Here's one of them.

 

 

I started with a scrub brush, some laundry detergent, a little purple power, and added lots of scrubbing.



 

I actually scrubbed off the stain!  Actually, I just scrubbed off the varnish, which was ok.  They cleaned up nice. Even the cushions. 

I scrubbed off 50 years worth of old varnish, sticky finger touches, Thanksgiving dinners, lots of spider webs, and LOTS of mold from being stored in someone's basement.

The stain is a little more red than our kitchen table, but for now that's ok. 

All that's left is to add the felt pads to the bottom of the legs and see which cat likes them best. 

Crops

I got my first crop of tomatoes!

We did container gardening this year.  The containers are sitting in the driveway where they get the most sun and the last deer traffic.

We've also got several banana peppers and a habaneros. 

There are 4 Roma tomatoes and 5 Grape tomatoes in this photo:

 
The Romas are normal Roma size, 3inches. The grape tomatoes are GIANTS. I have never seen them get so big!  All that rain in June and July, I suppose.

Of course Walt Kowalski got in on the action, too.

He loves putting faces on fruit or with fruit.  He's the fruit. 

YooHoo

We hadn't seen YooHoo in a few days. 

We still left food in her bowl in the evenings.  It would be empty in the morning, but with a neighborhood full of stray cats, (Free to good homes! Would you like one?) we didn't know if she was her eating the food or the cats were eating the food.

Walt Kowalski said that when the bag was empty, he wasn't going to put any more out until her saw her.

Last evening there was a ruckus at the back door. 

Guess who is back!

Just when you think your raccoon is gone, she appears.  Hungry like she's never eaten before. 

Crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch

That's a lot of crunching.  She's extra hungry.

Wait a minute.

Did we just see another, smaller, head pop up from behind our YooHoo? 
 

We did! It's YooHoo number Two! Slightly smaller than mom.  More fearful than mom. (That's good) Just a cute as mom. 

The pictures are so dark.  We moved the bowls away from the back door in the summer because of ticks and fleas. They were just outside of the light from the spot light at the back door and it was especially dark because of the a big storm coming.

Another Chimney

Remember the first chimney we removed? Need a refresher? Here's the link: Tricks or treats or bricks

We have another chimney to removed.  It has been on our to-do list for a while now, but the weather hasn't been dry for several days in a row, so we've been waiting.  Now it's dry and boy, oh, boy is it hot. 

There isn't much sticking out the top. Only about 4 feet.  But the roof is very steep.

 
The first plan was for Walt Kowalski to get onto the upper roof from the lower back porch roof.

 
He looked and tried.  Then we looked and tried a different angle.  Then we looked some more.
Getting UP wasn't the problem.  Getting DOWN and getting down quickly was the concern.

We had ropes and braces and boards.  We even started to put boards on the roof for him to "walk" down. The 3" screws we were using weren't log enough. The previous owners put a layer of plywood over the old roof, then shingled.  Walt Kowalski needed 5" screws to go through the 2x4, shingles, plywood, and hit a stud in the attic. This was becoming too difficult.

So the chimney stood another day and back to the home improvement store we went.  We were looking for ideas.

 
We found it.  A vent.  Instead of removing the chimney from on top of the roof, he would cut a hole in the roof for a vent and remove the chimney from inside the attic. 

 
Much safer. More steps for me to carry the bricks down, though.  But not falling off the roof is always in my agenda.

 
We have the chimney removed just under the roofline. We also took a few minutes to brace the remaining chimney in the attic, because when you look at it from below, it had a lean.  It always had a lean.  It looks like someone cut the hole in the roof at the same time someone was building the chimney and they didn't talk so it was off by about 1 foot.  

Kinda funny, but not surprising. 

Stay tuned for more.

Mulch, mulch mulch

Walt Kowalski, the busy little ant that he is, is preparing for winter.  With the hot weather, he wants to get more firewood stacked near the garage to dry and season. 

But there is a tarp covering the woodpile. 
But there are 30 bags mulch on top of the tarp.
But the bags of mulch are for the front hill.
But the front hill is covered with weeds and vines.

It's a process.

We've been working to clean off and clear off the front hill. 

What starts as this:

 

 
Gets to this:

 
And ends with mulch.  It looks good.  Several cars have even slowed down and beeped.  We are taking those beeps as "You're doing a good job! It looks nice!" instead of "Get off the road!"

Now Walt Kowalski can stack the firewood.


During one of our breaks this little finch stopped by the bird feeder.  Along with the cardinal family, he and his mate come everyday.

 
I think he heard me get the camera out and said "Wait! Get my good side." Hello, handsome.

But the funniest of the day was the butterflies.  They are all over the flowers on the front steps and never fly straight.  This one would land for a few moments on a marigold, have a drink, then do a circle around my car.

He didn't do it just once, he did it at least a dozen times! It was too funny.  Walt Kowalski said 'What did you water those marigolds with?"

Dinner on the patio

This summer my goal was to try making something new for dinner once a week. I took a chapter from the Dreadful Chef's cookbook (Thank you Miss Brenda).

I failed at the once a week part, but we have tried many new dinner recipes this summer.

The pineapple jalapeño salsa was a HUGE hit.

The salmon cream cheese dip was only ok.  (Too salmony. Not dippy enough. The ratio of salmon to cheese was off. I'll try it again though.)

The frozen hot chocolate was delicious. (The first try, not frozen enough.  Second try, we licked the glasses clean and were sad there wasn't more.)

The hushpuppies didn't happen.  (I forgot about the batter in the fridge. I ended up making them into very dry muffins to use with chili in the fall.)

The sweet spicy meatballs were delicious.  (I sweetened the Sriracha.)

The creamy buffalo chicken pasta was good.  (We had to warm out of the pot, but cold would have been good, too. cold requires even more advanced planning. )

There was something else I tried that Walt Kowalski and I ate but weren't thrilled with it.

Then there was the *almost* cooking disaster last week. It was HOT outside (and inside), so I didn't want to turn on the oven, but I wanted a nice dinner for later in the week. I put a beautiful roast in a heavy pot, covered it with red sauce and put it on the grill to cook. Then we turned on the air conditioning, watched the rainstorm move in, and sat inside in the cool.  Ahhhhhhh

And I forgot about the roast on the grill.

4 hours later, I went to the laundry room/garage and could smell something wonderful cooking.  "Mmmmmm, smells like someone in the neighborhood is cooking sauce. OH MY GOODNESS IT'S ME!"

Crap crap crap crap crap.

I opened the lid of the pot to find a 1/2 inch of charcoaled red sauce on the bottom of the pot and the roast "stuck" to the sauce. 

I peeled the roast out of the burned pot, trimmed off a few really burned pieces and, surprisingly, it had a wonderful smoky flavor.  I added another jar of sauce and let it "soak" in the sauce for a day and it was delicious as pulled beef on sandwiches.

It took me two days to scrub the pot clean.  Walt Kowalski said "Are you still scrubbing that pot?"  (Baking soda and boiling water)

Last night's dinner experiment was Salmon Burgers.  To quote Walt Kowalski 'What's so bad about regular burgers?" Nothing, but we need to broaden our dinner horizons. And a few Omegas are good for you.

1 can of salmon, 1 egg, parsley, pepper, lime juice, and bread crumbs.  Stir stir stir. 

There was probably enough for 3 burgers.  I made 2 HUGE burgers cause I didn't want any leftovers.  (working on no leftovers is another goal.)

After they grilled, the kicker was a spicy mango salsa to go on top of the burgers. Add a side of grilled potatoes. Yummy

This is not my photo, but is a good depiction of our burgers.

The other thing I've learned is to try new foods when I know Walt Kowalski is especially hungry.  After patching the driveway, working on the front hill, and mowing the grass he was starving and ate everything.

He said it was very good and he wouldn't mind having them again.  Just a little smaller in size.

HOT HOT HOT

It was HOT this weekend.  Really hot.  Super hot. 

Did I mention it was HOT?

Just because it was hot doesn't keep us from filling our days. 

Saturday felt like we did it all. 

Ran errands around town - bank, market, egg store. 
Did chores around the Cat Ranch - scrubbing litter boxes, cleaning, mopping, laundry, dishes.
Worked at the front house - removed more lathe.  Filled the back of the truck full!
Worked at the Cat Ranch - removed shrubs, trimmed shrubs, raked the front hill
Did more chores and laundry
Had a fire and drinks with the neighbors.

Laundry.  Where does it all come from?!?!  We are either the cleanest people or the dirtiest people.  I say the same thing about soap.  Didn't I just buy soap? Who is using all of this soap? Hand soap, dish soap, bath soap.  Once again, either the cleanest or the dirtiest.

When I see the laundry, we are the dirtiest.  Work hard. Play hard.  Get dirty.

(I should put that motto on the fridge.)

One of my chores was switching to the summer comforter on the bed.  The winter one needed de-furred and washed. I also had a pile of slippers in the hamper.  In the winter, we have a pair of slippers in every room.  In the summer, I like to wash them all and thin out the heard. 

With the hot and sunny weather this weekend, it was perfect slipper washing weather. I sent them all through the machine and then set they all out to dry in the sun. I did the same with the clothes on the line.  (Walt Kowalski just shakes his head at me.)

The weatherman said there was a slight chance of a passing rain shower.  With the hot and humid weather, it's always possible.  Around 4pm, we saw a few clouds forming.  They were nothing to worry about and headed around us to the North with one rumble of thunder we could hear in the distance.  But for us, the sun was still shining. 

Then there was a single rain drop.
Then another rain drop.
Then another rain drop.

Then before we knew we were running for cover from the major rain drops!

OK, I had our phones and my camera sitting out by the garage, I have two clothes lines full of clothes, and the front steps are covered in slippers drying in the sun.

Electronics took priority. Walt Kowalski was cleaning up his toys, too.
Clothes took the next priority.

Slippers had to be sacrificed.

 

By the time I got all of the electronics and clothes inside, it was raining so hard the slippers were soaked. No need to rush now. 

 

You can see the sun is out! Crazy weather. HUGE drops of rain.

 



 

As fast as the rain came, a few minutes later it was gone. I grabbed a basket, spin out the slippers (again) and restarted the drying process.  *sigh*

The reward was snow cones.