Month: September 2023

We had a couple of notable events this week, but our activity level is declining. Because of that, I will have an announcement later in the post.

The highlight of the week was a visit from our friend Kathy Powers. Visiting Iowa relatives, Kathy made the drive from western Colorado to spend some time in the Midwest. She visited us with an overnight stay, the second time she’s slept at Heart House. This time, the Quilt Room features new windows that actually open and allow fresh air to circulate while guests sleep. A HUGE improvement.

We enjoyed the visit and having company. It was interesting to catch up with Kathy and exchange stories and tales since our last visit in 2021. Much has happened at Heart House and in Colorado since then.

Several posts back I’d mentioned a visit from Sharon and David Stute, grandchildren of Frederick and Gertrude Stute who once live in Heart House. Sharon had asked us to do some follow-up on the cemetery where her grandfather and grandmother were buried, with an eye to doing some maintenance around the head stone. Sharon received permission for us to fill in the settling area around Grandpa Fred’s stone, and we did that work this week.

The cemetery had a few small piles of dirt at one end of the field that could be used for fill. Once I had the new dirt in place, Pam applied the grass seed and watered the area with two containers of water she had brought along. Watering the area for the next couple weeks will be necessary, until the new grass is well established. (Unfortunately, there is no water tap at the cemetery.)

Last night NE Iowa received some very welcome rain which should help the new grass seed and – perhaps – revive some of the extremely dry lawn around the house. More rain is in the forecast for tonight and continuing into tomorrow morning.

And now on to news about the blog and website. I’ve been blogging for almost 15 years, and have tried to do a weekly post during that time. However, I’m no longer as active as I once was, and the number of projects taken on is declining. I’ve decided to cut back on the frequency of blog posts, putting up new content only when something newsworthy happens.

Serving as newsletter, photo gallery, and diary, the blog has been a good way to let friends and family keep up with us over the years. That will continue. For example, I am heading to Colorado in a few days and will have something to say about the trip when I return. There will be one more “bucket lift” weekend to finish the house painting. After that, though, life will be mostly routine — lawn clean-up and snow removal, not exactly scintillating topics.

I will also be removing many of the Galleries that I have created over the years. Many are getting stale with no or few updates since they were created. A few will remain, including the Videos pages and possibly the Heart House gallery (which needs to be updated), but others will be removed from the web site. I will be able to view them from my Mac if and when I want to revisit them.

I will be leaving the Videos pages up for now as they get some hits and I occasionally add new material. Over time, though, I will be removing a few older and less-interesting clips as well.

I’ll post again after my return from my upcoming Colorado trip. I am looking forward to viewing the fall colors and, new this year, attending the annual Appreciation Dinner the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office puts on. This year the dinner coincides with my visit, and I am looking forward to attending the event.

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

Pam’s Penny

Mostly I seem to be entertaining kittens these days; the “Three Amigos” are very time consuming at three months of age. And, sadly, Heart House is not really set up for kitten fostering. <sigh>

Happy Trails.

The past week was rather uneventful for us. Routine jobs were the order of the day after last weekend’s bucket lift work, including some yard maintenance and a few other projects. A few photos are included to show activities around the yard.

Pam transplanted some ferns and began to cut back garden and flower plants. The phlox were cut back, as were the sunflowers and blackberry bushes. All were at the end of their summer cycle of life, made a bit shorter by the lack of rain this year.

The hydrangea bush is in full bloom. The flowers emerge white then turn pink.

I finished work on the porch decks, including replacement of 5 spindles in the end railing. The new wood needs to be painted yet, a task Pam says she will take on while I am gone to Colorado in a few weeks.

The power company guys arrived and removed the orange guards from the power line near the house. We are pleased to see the guards gone.

The grass seed I had spread on some fresh soil has just begun to germinate. Hopefully the new grass will fill in over the next few weeks, eliminating potential muddy spots that the dogs would walk through, bringing mud into the house.

Other chores were mundane. I cleaned up my work bench, went to Mason City for a haircut, did grocery shopping, and stopped by the Elma library to get copies of a couple pages from a book on Elma’s history.

One afternoon I took out the pressure washer and cleaned the truck then turned my attention to blasting a few places on the garage where birds had managed to land some droppings. One thing about the red paint: It shows off bird poop rather well. A cleaning of the doors and walls, particularly on the alley side, was in order.

Mostly we did routine tasks and recovered from the long work days of last weekend. Going forward, the next couple weeks will be similar, nothing exciting on the agenda. Lawn maintenance will pick up as more leaves begin to fall and other plants will be cut back in preparation for winter. We will have one more bucket lift weekend but that is not on the schedule yet.

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

Pam’s Penny

At least the temps are cooler. Kittens are growing fast, and have tons of energy at three months of age.

Happy trails.

This past weekend was busy; we rented a bucket lift. Painting was on the agenda, and we worked on the east side of the house. Photos below will show our activity.

We began with the area over the east porch. Pam and I both worked on this section; I did the broad areas and Pam did the detail work below the power line on the south ends of the boards.

Most of my work was done outside the lift and standing on the porch roof. This proved to be hard on the backs of the legs due to the angle of the roof.

In the next photo I have completed scraping the surfaces and am beginning to paint under the lips of the siding boards. The bottom painted board and a short section to the right of the photo show the new boards that replaced broken siding.

Pam took her turn by doing the detail painting required to finish the wall.

The lift we rented this time (a NiftyLift TM34T) was a bit smaller than the one used previously. This worked to our advantage as I could move it with the ATV instead of having to use the truck. This made positioning the lift much easier.

The area over the east porch went pretty well but took more time than we had expected. The same could be said about the area over the front porch, particularly the NE corner window of the bedroom and under the gutters.

The areas we worked were over porch roofs, and I decided to use the shop vac to pick up loose paint chips on both porches. Here I am with the shop vac in the bucket lift, cleaning the NE porch roof.

After two long days of scraping, vacuuming, and painting, the house looks like this:

We ran out of time to make it to the north side of the second floor – so – another bucket lift weekend may take place later this fall. One reason the project took longer than anticipated was the inclusion of doing white paint around the windows over the front porch. The additional scraping and painting of this trim, which was really needed, made for a long day of east side work.

I’m very pleased with the progress made, particularly over the east porch. The siding repairs, coupled with the new paint job, really improves the overall appearance of the house. Pam will get a work order started with the power company to come and remove the orange guards that were placed over the power line (installed in June).

Another project was undertaken as well. A couple years back I had replaced porch decking on the front (north) and side (east) porches, but I had not gone far enough and both decks still needed work. Now a work-in-progress, new tongue-and-groove wood was added to both decks. This photo shows the front porch with the spindle sections, which need repair as well, removed to fit the replacement boards.

Now that cooler weather has arrived we can begin a few more outside projects. Undertaken, but not shown, is a project to fill in areas where truck tires from the painters and such made depressions in the lawn. Several bags of dirt were spread in these areas and grass seed put down. I will have to see if we can get the grass to grow with the drought conditions NE Iowa is experiencing. Frequent watering will be required.

And a short note about my blog. A problem with posting videos in the blog is they can be difficult to find if one wishes to view them again. I’ve added several Antique Power and Frito’s Kittens videos to their respective Videos pages, as much for my own organization as well as providing a spot for anyone to view them again. (Frito’s kittens are part of the Cats page.)

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

Pam’s Penny

I was so hoping the house painting would be DONE this weekend, four l-o-n-g painting summers into renovation. I guess it wasn’t a realistic expectation. Suffice to say both Himself and Myself are somewhat comfortable being in (and, in his case, also out) of the bucket lift on roof areas. (Comfortable once a person contorts body parts to both enter and leave the bucket itself, which is a gymnastic-quality endeavor.)

Frito, the mom cat in the catio, was successfully spayed and now has her freedom. She chooses to stay in our yard and make the catio her home base. Frito will be a fierce mouser around the house foundation, but also will be more aggressive stalking squirrels and birds over the winter than I will like.

How can it almost be time to start cutting back dead plants? The Grandpa Ott morning glory seed “harvest” is going well [prior to stripping those vines from the climbing structure]. Sunflowers appear ready to deadhead. My Indian corn is pathetic, not sure there are useable cobs of any size after this dry summer.

Happy Trails.

This post contains another “kitten” video, as Pam let Frito’s kittens out of the condo for the first time. Yard work included raking up more acorns. We took a couple of road trips to check out areas in south-east Minnesota. The Ford 8N tractor is running and moving under its own power. New temperature records were set, and more heat is on the way. A few medical updates will round out this week’s news.

Frito’s kittens are growing rapidly and needed more space to run. Pam decided to let them roam in the parlour where she can keep an eye on them. Run time is 2:55.

The kittens had a vet appointment this week for a wellness check and received their first round of shots. They are all healthy and very active! If anyone is looking for a house cat, these three are cuties.

Some yard work was done. Pam cut down spent hollyhock stems and weeded north flower beds. I raked more acorns and mowed the lawn, picking up some of the oak leaves that are beginning to fall. Projections for fall color were published, and due to lack of moisture this year, the fall colors may be pretty drab. Leaves are tending to just turn brown and drop. We are already seeing this happen. Below is a shot of the dump trailer with the latest batch of acorns mixed in with other yard debris.

Ford 8N update– In my last post I mentioned I wanted to get the tractor running and off the trailer. I was able to do this and the 8N is now parked behind the catio and covered with a tarp. It is not running well, mostly due to old and crappy gas, and I will occasionally work to get it running better.

Medical updates. Pam had a follow-up appointment to check the healing process of her forehead incision. The healing is doing very well and any scarring will be virtually unnoticeable when healing is completed. The discoloration around her eye is slowly subsiding, so recovery is well advanced.

The results of my last blood work at the Mayo Clinic were posted to my account and look good. PSA level remains very low and my testosterone levels are beginning to recover. As long as this trend continues I will be in good shape.

We took a couple road trips to check out areas in Minnesota; Pam is investigating a potential future home on water or with a water view. At the moment we’re just checking on a few properties that sound interesting. The results so far have been a mixed bag.

For example, the first place we looked at (with no water views) was an old commercial building. Not for us, and we cannot believe some of the prices people are asking for properties in remote locations. At $80k, this place was listed for quite a bit more than we paid for Heart House and really is a dump.

Our second trip was more enjoyable, as we found the small town of Lanesboro. Located in the Root River Valley, this artsy town is quite attractive and featured this view of a falls on the river.

Unfortunately, we won’t be taking any drives the next few days. Weather over the Labor Day Weekend is projected to be among the hottest of the summer, with new records expected to be set in the four major cities around us: Rochester, Mason City, Albert Lea, and Austin. Temps are projected to be near or at 100 degrees F. We will be working on inside projects, for sure. Our lawn is burning out and is very brown and dry, particularly in places that get little or no shade.

I am going to close with a couple random photos of Stirling and Reese. Their antics, and those of the other cats and dogs, keep us “entertained.”

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

Pam’s Penny

My sister asked me would I be sad to see summer leave and the flowers die. Well, the flowers are already dying, due to the heat. The watering schedule I have adopted concentrates on still-blooming flowers, as well as deep moisture for trees and shrubs we’ve spent good money on these last four years. The poor hollyhocks and Grandpa Ott morning glories are already in the seed production stage, with the random flower blooming now and again. Local weather reports NE Iowa is experiencing the driest summer in 50 years. We sure are.

Kittens are a LOT of work. Yes cute, but full of energy and curiosity. I think these three, in cahoots with Elmo and the Terrible Two, could deconstruct Heart House in a matter of days.

Happy Trails.