Good Morning All!
21F @ 74% - supposed to get above 50F and sunny again. Next week daytime above 40F, still down to 26F at night. Well, that is if you believe the weather guessers.
Could not finish the stairway railings as my help left. Wife and I tried but could not get the 12 footer positioned. Need another set of hands as placement is a PITA and with it still being wet, it is quite hefty. Sometime later in the morning help is back and I will continue.
Wife's Tulips are coming up and she is grinning. Looks like they cloned themselves with a couple of new bulbettes for each original plant. Am told that there were at least 100 planted last year. Ya, Tulips up the ying/yang. I did get the electric fence around them working again so that should keep the deer at bay. She also has 'Mums in that bed. She dug a couple up to check them out and they are pretty much toast so we don't know what ( if any ) will return.
Trees: Had to take one of the apple trees out as a couple of years ago we had a really bad caterpillar infestation which killed the tree. Our Mayor sidelines as a 'tree sprayer' and we were told that it probably would not do any good with the bug type we had. So, saved the $150. The tree left is destined to be given a really short haircut this fall. This one is also loosing bark on the lower part so I suspect its time is limited. Will see what happens
next year. The Plum trees on the other hand do nothing but grow. Have 2 types of which I don't remember. I will grab a plum every once-in-awhile and chow down. Do like them at the end of the season when they are really sweet. Now if we could get to them before the deer ...
FYI: We went to the local insurance company to get a quote on Homeowners. We currently have USAA and their price seemed a little high. These people have 4 or 5 insurance companies that they deal with. All of them would be glad to quote; BUT. There would be a 'form 1' in which they would not quote the roof as it is more than 20 years old. We have metal roofs everywhere. One roof portion has a lessor pitch and some of the screws are coming up. No problem, thought I, new screws ( longer ) with rubber grommets and we should be good to go. Nope, don't matter. I would need to spend somewhere around 10K on new metal. Have been thinking on that anyway as the wife wants one color. Whomever did the original made it using metal pieces on hand ( calico ). Kim at the insurance company told me that all of the big insurance companies are not quoting log style homes; even brand new. They say there are too many things to go wrong with them. Right, this place has been here for almost 100 years with no problems. The house in the pix is a little above middle, slightly to the right. Upper left is Train Cave, bottom is old barn. Some of the other stuff is not there anymore so this pix from Google Maps is a few years old.
Later