Month: November 2021

We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Pam cooked a turkey roast in the crock pot and baked a fabulous rhubarb and strawberry pie. (Pie was served warm with vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice cream.) Several other “fixins” were prepared as well including mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetables, and various fruit dishes. It was a good day for eating (and football games)!

The rest of the week’s activities were pretty low-key. We continue to put up Christmas decorations and have almost all the outside items put up. A few inside “window” lights have been put up and the place is starting to look good when evening falls and all the lights come on. There are still a few more “window” decorations to go.

A larger shopping trip was in order so we headed for the Walmart in Decorah. Over time we keep a list of items not available locally, both hardware and food items. For example, I use agave liquid as a sweetener as it has fewer calories than sugar and is better for my Type-2 diabetes. It is not locally available. Another food item we like is McVities Digestive Biscuits, another hard-to-find item that the Decorah Walmart stocks. A number of smaller items also made it to the list, so it was a good time to go shopping and stock up.

Although we found the items we were looking for, many empty shelves were observed. Supply chain issues affect even Walmart, it seems. The same is true for online-items. I ordered a pair of winter “Bean Boots” and some lined jeans. The boots may not be available until first week in January. (The jeans will be here before Christmas.) LL Bean said there was a chance the boots would arrive earlier — I just hope I have them on my feet before the worst storms of the winter hit NE Iowa.

The week’s other activities were pretty minor. Now that all the boxes have been removed, Pam is swabbing down the storage room in preparation for Becky’s visit. I continue to go through some of my slides and negatives — to take a journey down memory lane and re-acquaint myself with what I have and where things are. Pam’s work on the Solstice (Christmas) cards continues. A bit of frustration arose when I tried to use an Avery Label return address template on the computer; the template did not match the labels even though it was downloaded from the Avery site. A couple hours of “tweaking” was needed to produce acceptable results.

Today will be another lawn clean-up day as the City of Elma will be hosting a Christmas Parade tomorrow (Sunday) and I want the place to look its best. This should be about the end of leaf season, or at least I hope so. Normally this part of Iowa has snow by now but we are looking forward to a week of mild weather – for December – with high temps in the low 40s for several days. OK by me as this will help out with the cost of propane which we use for heating. (The price of propane is up almost 30 percent this year over last.) The rest of the week should be pretty quiet for me, with no major projects planned.

Photo Archive

From the fall of 1991:

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

We take our time with exterior holiday decor, aiming for tasteful. Admittedly, Heart House has the perfect mix of porch spindles and flower bed fencing to stage lights. Others in town use the Midwest standard of “decorating” by lining up every garish lawn ornament in a row and flipping the switch. To each his own, I guess.

Hoping the “warmer” temps stick around for weeks and weeks.

Happy Trails.

This week was punctuated with a number of small events and work on smaller projects. Most of these fall into the “just living” category, but take up time and energy. One such event was COVID-19 related; we went in for our Moderna booster shots this past Thursday.

A notable event: Our oldest cat, Velvet, became quite ill. She had not been feeling well this last week, so we took her to the vet for a check-up. This revealed kidney failure. After a few days of treatment at the vet with no response, the decision was made for “V” to be euthanized, not an easy thing. We will bury Velvet in the garden when we bring her home tomorrow (Monday.)

Velvet was, as are all of our pets, a rescue animal. She had a genetic problem with her right rear hip, requiring specialized surgery during her kitten period, leaving her with a permanent limp. Vets along the way gave her little in the way of long-term survival chances. V lived to 14, a ripe old age for a cat, and had a good life with us. V never knew she was “handicapped” and required few accommodations. She was a feisty cat (just a few weeks ago giving Elmo a lesson in manners); we’ll miss her rough-and-ready purr and upturned tummy to rub.

One project completed was the laundry room wall. Pam finished putting up the wallpaper and trimmed it with decorative red ribbon. While we are still waiting on the plumbers to return and finish the drain and job sink installation, the wall looks pretty good!

Other routine tasks took up our time. Pam is moving ahead on the holiday cards, but is at a phase that requires hand-coloring of some elements. She works on batches in the evenings. Due to the NE Iowa USPS sorting machine being destroyed in Waterloo last November by the Postmaster General, Pam knows she needs to have solstice cards in the mail around the first week in December if there’s any hope of them being received in December.

The end of leaf season is approaching. I did a couple clean-ups this past week and the volume collected is gradually reducing. Most of what I get now is blowing in from neighbors’ yards. I anticipate a few more sessions will be needed before the snow flies as I like to keep the fence lines around the dog run and garden clean of leaves that blow up against them. These days lawn work is my major outside task, along with filling the bird feeder every other day.

Holiday preparations began this week. A shopping trip procured goodies for our Thanksgiving meal, including a boneless turkey breast that will be the main course. Pam says a pie will be baked for dessert. (Pie is a special treat for me.) The weather promises to be cold, with a high of below freezing, but we will enjoy the day.

One of the reasons this post is being produced on Sunday rather than my usual Saturday is we began putting up Christmas decorations yesterday. Saturday was a nice day — for November — with temps in the upper 40 degree range and very little wind, making it an ideal time to start our preparations. Decorating before Thanksgiving is a break from our tradition of putting up decorations the weekend after the holiday. Here in Elma, there’s a holiday parade down Main Street the last weekend in November. Since Heart House is in a prominent location on Main Street, we make an effort to have our lights and outside decor in place for the parade.

We concentrated on the front porch; the east and south sides will be addressed later this week. Here is a photo of the front porch as a work-in-progress.

I spent some time going through my collection of old negatives and more slides, coming to the conclusion that I am missing a box somewhere. I have a gap in coverage from 2001 to 2003, more or less. This will require me to get up in the attic of the garage and going through some boxes in storage there. I thought I had grouped all my photo stuff in one place, but I must have missed a box somewhere. I hope I can find it.

A memory upgrade for my Mac was ordered and arrived. I had been working on the original factory 16gb and decided to move up to 64gb. This has resulted in a much-appreciated faster processing of photos and video clips. A few winter clothing items will soon be ordered, such as a good pair of boots for me, and a couple of holiday gifts (which we hope will arrive as scheduled). The rear brake pads for the truck finally showed up so I will set aside some time to get those installed.

Pam’s sister Becky has a moving day scheduled for November 29 so she will be joining us by the end of the month. Most of her home goods will be kept in storage except for the items she needs to use on a daily basis. We’re thinking it should be fairly seamless to integrate Becky and her cat, Vanna, into our home. We are looking forward to having both of them here. (Pam has several indoor winter projects and could use another helper!)

The upcoming week will be busy. We’ll be putting up more decorations, preparing for Thanksgiving and hoping the plumber shows up to finish the job sink and washer line drain. I plugged in the heating tapes for the washer; we had hoped to have the move done before cold weather set in — making the heat tapes unnecessary. Always a Plan B…

Photo Archive

From a trip to the Pacific Northwest in 1989.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

For about the 20th time in the last few decades, this weekend I once again had the euthanization discussion with a vet. V will be the third cat buried in four months here at Heart House. We moved to NE Iowa with 8 indoor cats, and now have 3 indoors. My feline friends are rapidly aging out — of them all, V will be remembered as one of my favorites. Feisty and stoic were good traits for her; she did not let genetics stop her from having a full life with us.

Holiday preparations: I have learned to secure the outside holiday decorations at 2-3 points right from the start, so as not to be standing on a porch in a December wind chill trying to tie down flapping decor. The wind, it does blow in NE Iowa. Similarly, cards need to go out sooner rather than later under the current USPS regime. This year I have designed quite an intricate card, requiring many hours of cut-and-paste.

Happy Trails.

With cold weather ending outside activities, our focus moves to a couple of major indoor projects. Work progressed on the laundry room wall and the upstairs guest bedroom. A few other tasks occupied some time as well.

I had completed the patching of the laundry room wall and Pam decided to move ahead with installing wallpaper on it. (Wallpaper is easier to apply before the installation of the job sink and relocation of the washing machine.) This is work still in progress; here is a photo of the wallpaper taped in place to check alignment and cut openings for the outlet and plumbing features.

Pam plans to complete the initial fitting and then install the paper permanently in a few days.

The papering job, while large, was not the only indoor project we took on. The wire shelving Pam had ordered for the guest bedroom arrived so we moved ahead on that project. The shelving (2 sections) was assembled and items arranged on them. That really opened up the room by getting boxes and other items off the floor.

The timing was good as we received word Pam’s sister Becky has accepted an offer on her current place and may be joining us later this month. We are looking forward to her stay. However, clearing up this room revealed another renovation project we had hoped to avoid: window replacement for that room is now on the “To Do” list. As we found in the snug on the first floor, when the previous owner installed a large window air conditioner in the second floor window, it really messed up the window framing and trim. Nothing is salvageable. We’d hoped to simply remove the old A/C unit but now it’s time to talk to Bob the Builder about replacing the entire window. It’s the route we took in the snug and it turned out very well.

On a more mundane level, I put new front brake pads in the F-150 truck. During this job I discovered the insides of the front tires were wearing faster than the rest of the tires, indicating an alignment was in order. An appointment was made with the alignment shop and the truck is now correctly aligned. A new pair of tires is scheduled to be installed this coming Tuesday. The current front tires were put on 6 years ago, well before we began moving, and were due for replacement even before I found the alignment problem.

Along with doing another leaf pickup, outside activities included putting up our winter bird feeder. An amazing number of birds have shown up to take advantage of the free food. As many as three blue jays have been on or around the feeder at the same time, a red-headed woodpecker is a frequent visitor, and literally dozens of smaller birds are at the feeder at any given time. I was not expecting this quantity of birds so early in the season.

A recent trip to the local farm supply store secured more black oil sunflower seeds and a bag of seed mix so I can keep the feeder stocked. At this point I am refilling the feeder every other day.

Moving back inside, I finished re-wicking and cleaning a couple of my old kerosene lamps. My lamp fuel arrived and soon I will fill one of the lamps and light it up to see how it works. I don’t want to have fuel in more than one lamp as the wicks can get crusty from the evaporation of the fuel. One lamp for occasional or emergency use will be fine.

I took the following photo of our three dogs, along with Velvet, one of our cats, sleeping in the corner of the library. Velvet took over one of the beds so JoJo had to sleep on a blanket on the floor. Such ignominy.

Photo Archive

I have a few family photos to post this week along with a photo of Thor, our first dog.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Cold winds blow across NE Iowa. I’m slowly making the transitions — keeping drinking water unfrozen + monitoring heat in the catio for the feral cats. It’s a bummer putting a coat on Blondie when she goes outside. Ugh.

Happy Trails.

With the advent of colder weather we’ve moved to working on inside projects. These are not as broad in scope as our summer activities but are things requiring attention.

One of these projects is the repair of the laundry room wall where the new washer and job sink lines were run. (These are not yet functional, we are still waiting for the plumber to return with the correct drain connections.) The job is a bit frustrating as I am trying to fit a sheetrock panel into a lathe-and-plaster wall that was not straight to begin with. Once I am done Pam plans to install wallpaper on that wall to cover the patch and other imperfections.

I have found I can put on only one layer of “mud” each day as each layer takes a full 24 hours to dry. Another layer or two, followed by a final sanding, and Pam will be ready to wallpaper.

Pam’s sister Becky may be staying with us into the winter months, as she is selling her place and looking for an apartment. We have offered our place as an interim place to stay while all this comes to pass. Preparations include going through the storage room closet with the aim of relocating “stuff” to make that room a functional bedroom. A few items were tossed (“why did we move that”) and other things (cat and dog supplies) were moved to the basement. Pam has ordered several wire rack shelving units, on wheels, to get other boxes off the floor and make room for small pieces of furniture such as a floor lamp, small desk, and twin bed. That work will continue for a few days yet.

No other work has been done on the plumbing project, and it may be delayed even further in light of some bad news we received a few days ago. Scott O’Brien is the owner of O’Brien Plumbing and Heating, the local company who has done much work for us. They installed our central air, new water heater, garbage disposal, repaired some other water lines, and are scheduled to install the shower in the upstairs bath. Scott’s wife was killed in an auto accident this past week, leaving him alone to raise his 3 children. The news is a blow to the community as both Scott and his family are well known and respected. Scott is active in the local fire department and did snow plowing in the winter months when other plumbing projects slowed down. While we don’t have all the details, we know Mrs. O’Brien was killed in a head-on accident that occurred on a gravel road near Elma. Our hearts go out to the entire family.

Other activities during the week were low key. Another lawn clean up, maintenance on the truck, cutting back the remaining flower beds, putting temporary patches in the upstairs bathroom floor, Installing window inserts in our smaller windows, and a general catching of our breaths were all on the agenda. It is good to have a patch of down time.

Pam continues to work on our holiday cards. Given the slowness of the mail these days she will need to get them mailed in early December — a bit earlier-than-normal deadline.

One point of interest: We have been receiving many positive comments on the progress of our house painting. From the teller at the bank, people at the lumber yard, and a couple of our neighbors, many people who came into town for Trick-or-Treating saw our house and made positive comments about the updated look. Good to know and helps renew our resolve to continue on.

I have a couple old kerosene lamps that I have decided to re-wick and get into working condition. I decided to go with a lamp oil for fuel (to reduce or eliminate the oder normally associated with kerosene). Shopping on-line, I was taken aback with the shipping charges. Fuel cannot be shipped by air so ground shipping is the only option. Charges for the same 64 oz Aladdin Lamp Oil range from almost $10.00 (the fuel itself is about $15.00) to $21.00. Adding a second container added only a couple dollars to shipping so I ended up ordering two containers from the company with the lowest shipping. That should take care of my “fuel needs” for a long time.

We are in the process of setting up a streaming TV service. The cable Pam subscribed to when we first moved to Iowa has gone up in price and down in channel offerings so we are looking at alternatives. I am experimenting with Fubo TV running on a Roku Ultra device. It takes some getting used to. The biggest drawback is no “Back” or “Previous” button on the remote. Both Pam and I use this feature frequently. You can go back, but it takes several clicks on the remote to do so. Still, for half the cost of regular cable, (now up to almost $120.00 per month) we may learn to live with this inconvenience. I have been learning on my TV and will set up Pam’s TV a bit later. We are currently in the free trial period and will have to make a decision shortly.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have scanned many of my 35mm slides and posted the photos here. This week I decided to expand my scanning to cover 35mm color negatives. (A few are included below.) As my collection of negatives is quite a bit larger than slides, I will need to develop the skill to “read” a negative and scan the most interesting ones. That may take some time but I plan to make the effort as winter weather arrives.

Projects for the upcoming week include putting new brake pads in the truck, getting the snow blower up and running after summer storage, finishing the laundry room wall patch, and numerous smaller tasks. While the scope of projects has narrowed there are still plenty of projects to keep us busy.

Photo Archive

The first two photos are from 1991 and are of upgrades we were making to our home in Daleyville, Wisconsin. These are the first scans from color negatives that I have made.

These next two photos were scanned from 35mm transparencies (slides)

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

For about a day or so this week, I actually felt as if I was retired. Didn’t do much, slept late, fooled around on the computer. So that’s what retirement could be like!

By all indications, it will be a full house for the holiday period here at Heart House. We’ll see what this old house can accommodate.

Happy Trails.