Daniel Boone Was a Man...

When I was a child I knew exactly what Daniel Boone looked like…

Yep, I was quite the fan of the TV series starring Fess Parker.  

(Portrait of Daniel Boone in his Missouri years)

But that ‘version’ of Daniel Boone is light years from the real man.

Today is Daniel Boone Day…commemorating the day that he first saw the forests of Kentucky.  Born in Pennsylvania in 1734, he was a first generation “American” while it was still a colony.  He fought in the Revolutionary war and was captured by Shawnee in 1778 and lived with them for 4 months before escaping.

While he was a great hunter and explorer, he was pretty bad at business.  After many adventures and misadventures, he left Kentucky in 1799 and made his final home in Missouri.  He died there in 1820.

In Defiance, Missouri is the “Daniel Boone Home”, a state historic site.  Only thing… it wasn’t his home!  It was the home of his son Nathan.  However, he did visit here a lot and even died in his son’s home… so I guess that is good enough!

The lovely limestone home’s front…

…and back.

Kind of ignores the fact he didn’t live here, doesn’t it?

Looking thru the windows

Missouri was still the frontier in the early 1800s.  This is one of many openings in the house for shooting thru.

The house tour is quite interesting.  I particularly enjoyed the large kitchen.  I don’t have photos because they didn’t allow them (even without flash).

Below are some various shots I did get from outside.

It was a nice visit.  If you go, I’d recommend spring or fall.

Home Management Schedule

This week the challenge over at Mary Organizes is “Home Management”.  This week we are to do something that will make our lives easier. 

Hmmmmm… I had several ideas but most would take longer than a week to implement. 

So I decided to focus on my weekly cleaning schedule.  It definitely needed some tweaking.  

I do housework 5 days a week but I’ve decided instead of having a weekend break, I will take Sunday and Wednesday off. 

The ‘shelf’ column is in regards to my Living Room.  I have 4 large bookshelves with lots of mementoes.  Dusting them all in one day is a major pain.  So I’m going to do one each day.

The chore is to get those things that don’t fall into a normal category.  Yes… I have to remind myself to check the plants! 

Then I wrote out what I needed to do in each room.  A big benefit of having it written out is that you know what you need to delegate to other family members!  ~wink~  

It really isn’t all that hard because once a routine is established nothing gets out of control.  I’ll be done with each day’s cleaning routine in 2 hours or less.

And that I like!

http://maryorganizes.com/2014/06/home-management-the-love-home-challenge-week-5/

Birthday for a Balloon

Do you know what happened in 1783? 

The very first hot air balloon ride…that’s what! 

Two hundred and thirty one years later the hot air balloon ride seems to have soared to the top ten of most people’s bucket list.  And for good reason; it is an incredible experience.

I learned this first hand on our trip to Kenya in ’06.  During our safari on the Masai Mara I booked a balloon ride through Keekorok Lodge.  Oh my goodness!

We were up BEFORE the crack of dawn and out to the launch site.  As we arrived they were starting to fill the balloons.  

The process took quite a while under the dawning skies.

As the balloons filled they slowly shifted into an upright position.  They were firmly tied down with just enough hot air being put into them to keep them upright. 

Our group loaded up, ready for our adventure.  Himself and I are to the far left.  The others on our side of the basket were from England.

Floating along.

A shot of all three balloons in our group (the third being ours… though you can just see the rigging). 

With the roar of the burners, we went up pretty high.  There is nothing quiet or peaceful about a hot air balloon as it goes up!  The burners are loud and hot. 

But once you are ‘up’… oh my!  The pilot cuts the burners and you float along with the only sounds being the creak of the basket and whatever chatter of the people in the basket.  (Our pilot told some people to hush so the quiet could be enjoyed.  Bless him!)

We were in Kenya at the start of The Great Migration where the wildebeest and zebra head over to the Serengeti in Tanzania.  The herds were gathering and the lines of wildebeest went for miles and miles.

Without the burner we slowly sank closer and closer.  They didn’t even know we were there…

…until our pilot hit the burners to make the roar!  They knew we were there then!  Off they would run, kicking up their heels and grunting.  (They really sound like the Budweiser beer bull frogs!)

We floated along for about 2 hours with this sort of view.  Sometimes we were high up… sometimes we got pretty close to the ground.

Eventually we landed (about one hundred feet from where a hyena had been having brunch on a lion’s breakfast!). 

Oh what a day!

Score! (Guest post by Himself)

Hey...

Oh – ref the title; Teri says I should have called it, “You snooze, you lose!”  

In our cleaning up we managed to get rid of another big item – a NICE shelf unit still in the box.    In going thru everything Teri is making the tough decisions of ‘getting rid of extra’.........even if it is brand new (so to speak). 

I first asked our lawn-man if he wanted it.   He has a big ol’ workshop and we figured he could easily find some place to put it and plenty to put in it.    Making his living working in other people’s yards – mowing, landscaping and fixing things up, having more space to put his tools/items is a given.   Tough job in this heat but man, he is out there.   

Well, perhaps the heat is getting to him some... 

With a good many members of our church a bit older he has plenty of customers.   With my decrepit back and large yard which is situated on a slope by the river we are his customers too.   Teri had to hire him because I was gone during summer months and needed help.   Dan has proved himself so ‘on the ball’ and capable, hey..........the job is his.

The shelf.......

Mentioning the shelf after church two Sunday’s ago Dan said, ‘Oh, OK.....’ and that was about it.   Figuring that in his busyness he had forgotten about it, this last Sunday I mentioned it to his wife Lora.   Man.....that got a response.     Informing me with raised eyebrows that ‘Dan had not mentioned a THING’, Lora was extra delighted about it and promptly claimed it as HERS!!    Needing something just like this, it didn’t take Lora long to inform Teri just what she was gonna put in it either.    Me?   To egg this on a bit I said, ‘Hey – I told Dan!  He didn’t jump on it so it might as well go to you.’   Lora, eyebrows still up, enthusiastically agreed.   I finished with, “Could you let Dan know that he can come by any time and I will help him load it – it is pretty heavy (I’m guessing 250-300 lbs. -- hey, it is a nice particle-board shelf!)   

Well, Dan-the-Lawn-Guy showed up today...   89 degrees...

With his usual quick efficiency he had our lawn done in record time.  But man, you could see he was dragging in this heat.   Being cool lately and warming up all of a sudden, it is obvious Dan hasn’t acclimated to this yet.    In coming to the door to get paid Teri noticed a sweaty and tired Dad but said, “He is down below and waiting for you to help him load up that shelf to your trailer!”   Down he comes.

I had managed to drag/tilt-walk the shelf a couple of feet out from where it was leaning and needed Dan to put our dolly under it to get it the rest of the way out of the garage and on to his trailer.   Dan, in walking up to me gave an appreciative look at this shelving unit.  And perhaps one with a bit of regret.    Noticing this I smiled and said, “Well, it could have been a fine-looking shelf in your shed but when I didn’t hear back from you I mentioned it to Lora.  To perhaps remind you.   However, it only took one second for me to realize that might not have been the thing to do!    Dan, that wife of yours got an ‘Oh, really?’ look on her face and quickly mentioned that she had the PERFECT spot for it and already knew what she was gonna put in it!”      In hearing this, Dan, looking down, gave kinda a slow and tired nod of his head with the words, “Yeah.....she told me.....”

But to let him off the hook some I gave him some friendly advice that probably won’t work but hey, he might be able to score something out of this deal.   I said, “As you can see, it is still in the box.   And it is quite large.   If you ‘play your cards right’ and put this large shelf unit together FOR Lora she might even let you put something in it!”     Shaking his head with a smile Dan said, ‘Well, we’ll see.................”

Which means there won’t be even one thing of Dan’s within this shelf.

   

~~ Himself ~~

PS – question for the List.   For you guys who are willing to admit it, have you ever gotten something ‘for you’ but it ended up being taken over by your Lady?  

PPS – For both men and women – do any of you have trouble getting rid of something that is ‘still in the box’?   Or, like Teri, that doesn’t bother you a bit when you finally make the decision that it is time to go......

Thoughts?

Bay Laurel Leaf Creme Brulee

Out on the patio is a little bay leaf tree I bought about 4 or 5 years ago.  It spends from the first warm days until it starts dipping into the low 40s outside, then I drag it into the garage for the winter.  It sits next to the one of the garage doors and every warm winter day (we can get into the 70s in January in TN) I push it out for some sun and water and drag it back in in the evening.

It has rewarded me with fantastic growth.  This year it has been really pleased because it has really taken off.  

So I decided it was time to make some of my bay leaf creme brulee.

And since it is sooooo good, I'm going to share the recipe.  (I snap a photo of the page out of my recipe notebook as I can't find it in my files on my computer.)

DONE! The Shed is Done!

Behind this tidy exterior hid a messy secret… a shed out of control! 

When we moved in 6 years ago (the end of this month), Himself was already up in Alaska at work.  Mom and I did all the packing of the whole house; a lot in a small amount of time.  By the time we were moved in…we were exhausted.  Everything excess was just thrown in the shed.

From that time, there it all sat.  And because it was such a mess, additional things we moved out of the house/garage just got thrown in because there was no place to put it.  

Chaos…pure chaos. 

Over the years I would make various runs on trying to get it cleaned out.  But never enough to get it done. 

Until this spring…

We got busy and kept at it.  Slow methodical picking thru – weeding the junk from the good.

And it started to improve…

Now it is done!!

The back south wall.  These shelves are 3 feet deep to hold our largest items and tools. 

The top shelf holds small furniture I’m going to redo, our Christmas trees, and a few other things.

This section perfectly fits our lawn tools.

The heavy section… tiling supplies, bonsai and cactus soil, and sand for some other projects.

My ‘scrippy scrap’ wood. 

The SE corner where you saw Himself doing all that sorting.  Now my lumber rack and tile storage.  There are several projects waiting in the bottom section that will pretty well clear that out.

My lumber stash!  I didn’t realize I had so much.

The SW corner holds the ladders.  I have two large fiberglass A-frame ladders (one was in use when the photo was taken) and two old wooden ladders for projects. 

Back half of the west wall has the two feet deep shelves.  That pile of buckets on the top shelf is our drip irrigation buckets for when it gets into drought here.  The next shelf down is just misc storage tubs.  The next two shelves hold my ‘creative’ supplies. 

The front half of the west wall is the one foot shelves.  It’s just basic shed storage… paint supplies, chemicals, plant stuff … just ‘stuff’.

My metal rod and pole corner.  Another one of my stashes. 

The northeast corner is the work table… now being used as ‘sorting central’. 

The front wheel came from a tractor of Himself’s uncle and the back wheel was on the wagon Himself’s grandfather brought to ND when he homesteaded in the early 1900s.  And on the table is a footlocker from Himself’s Army days.

The east wall.  We are still working on the tools.  Once we get them all cleaned and reconditioned they will go up on peg boards and hooks on this wall. 

The trunk and pew are projects in the waiting.  As is the bird bath a friend just gave us. 

And there you have it… our finished shed!  

http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2014/06/june-before-and-after.html  

May Photo Album

I've been so busy this month I've not taken many photos over what I actually need.  But I do have a set I haven't shared.  One of my prickly pear cactus decided to bloom!  (I never knew the flowers had stickers on them too!)  The flowers are so beautiful but they only last for one day. 

But with my photographs... they will last forever!