We had an amazingly warm December and early January which enable me to accomplish lots of outdoor clean up. That's our Bob in the photo above taking a beer break with me on a warm day. Bob and Ernie love to spend the day in the sun when the weather is warm enough. They love laying in the pine straw mulch I've been putting everywhere.
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The weather turned cold and snowy in mid January and drove me inside. A good opportunity to work on taxes, house cleaning and this website. It has been great fun organizing pictures and seeing the progress we made since 2006. But. i'm now ready to get back outside and look forward to the warm weather they are predicting for the next week. 

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Gary has started working on converting our front screen porch into a dining room. He is moving out the side and front walls by approximately 2 feet. 

Gary will also remove the wall with door between the kitchen and screen porch. In the photos below he is insulating the part of the wall that will remain. 

We get some pretty sunsets during the winter months. I love the bare trees against the sky. 

​Our deer, turkey, squirrel, chipmunk and many different bird friends appreciate the corn we put out for them during the winter. We enjoy watching them out of the bedroom window in the morning. 

We took the 4 wheeler up to the top of the mountain to look at three old mica mines when Bobby Phillips daughter, Janet, came to visit in March. The mines are basically big holes in the ground and very deep. They once produced a lot of mica and it was quite an operation with giant cranes and elevator shafts down into the mine. Bobby and friends made some good cash collecting cast offs as a young man. 

Daffodils and Hellebore start to bloom in early March and by mid March many trees and shrubs are sprouting. I love this time of year and have planted over a thousand spring bulbs and add more each year. It seems like we are also sprouting turkeys! Gary is happy to have warmer weather for his project. 

Things have really popped by the end of March just in time for Easter. The Cleveland Select pears that line the driveway were especially nice this year. 

Pictures below are from mid to end of April. I sure love my spring blooms.

May started with a visit from my college roommate Susan. We had not seen each other in more than 50 years. Yikes! I had many problems with my lawn mower and ended up having to buy a new one. Mowing is one of my favorite outdoor activities and it is challenging because our land is so deeply sloped. I needed a really good mower that would pull up the steep hill and ended up buying a Walker which I love.
The pool is how I cool off when gardening during the hot summer months. Ernie has a mini pool next to mine. In the barn I have a well stocked mini fridge. 

In mid June I went on a hike at Roan Mountain with friends Paul and Tim. The rhododendrons were in full bloom and spectacular. The lush moss and fern filled trails were also beautiful. So many unusual plants and rock formations. I thought one rock looked like a Manatee. Paul is photographed in front if his favorite rock. 

June twentieth floor down and the wall between the kitchen and new dining room is down! 

I decided to try something new for my tomatoes this year. We stacked big concrete blocks in the parking area by the bus barn where they would be close to the cabin and a water source. I put a drip water system to each planter and to the two topsie-turvy hanging planters. Tomatoes were happy at first but ended up getting blight as usual. By late July they looked pretty sickly, but other things were doing well. 

While tomatoes were struggling, other things were doing well.

The dining room was completed in mid July. Paul and Tim gifted us a spectacular set of eight dinner plates to celebrate. In early August the dining room got good use with a visit from our friends Jim and Ann and their adorable Jack Russell Henry. Following that we got a visit from my sister and June and husband Nick. August was a busy month. 

Scenes from summer below. Gary is cutting up a third of a big pine tree that broke off and put a dent in the Honda roof. I'm as crazy for sunflowers as I am spring bulbs. 

And suddenly it's October. After finishing the dining room Gary went back to working on his wood shop in the barn. We also fixed up the barn porch and that is no a favorite spot for cocktails. We had a second visit from Janet and then "Aunt" Suzie, a favorite of Bob and Ernie's. Suzie and I had a hysterical time fooling around with Snap Chat. The dogs were besides themselves with joy when "Uncle" Herb joined us for the day.

October was very dry and we started to have lots of smoke in the air from forest fires to the south. It was pretty scary. You can see the smoke in some of the pictures below. Bob and Ernie got a new friend in mid October when the Sigler's adopted Happy, a very handsome Boxador! (Boxer/Labrador mix.)

At the end of October we headed to Rochester for a visit in our "new to us" Suburban. We also took the big box trailer and brought back a big load of furniture that we will eventually use in the cabin after we remove a wall and turn the porch into a proper living room. After the trip we got to enjoy a few more fall days on the barn porch before closing it up for the winter. Paul and Tim gave me lots of pallets that I used to hold back the eroding bank in the barn parking lot. I stuffed them with leaves. Its working out pretty well. And then it was Christmas and time for a Happy New Year. 

More to come in 2017!