Rustic Fall Porch

I enjoy Fall, but this year has been quite warm and our poor trees don't know if it is indeed time to color it up or not.  So I thought I'd get a start and hope the temp will drop a little soon so the trees will fallow.  Our hillside is so pretty when the leaves change.

Found the turkey pot that I thought would be fun and then added other finds from around the house.

I love using burlap too (all year round).

I love this cabinet that I found to keep "porch" stuff in.  My husband and younger daughter thought I was silly because when I bought it, it had this horrible cheep looking FAKE ivy and birdhouses painted on it.  But they certainly went quiet when my sander did.  Now they think it's cool.  And I Love It.

This is my table topper for my porch table.  I used these cedar post left overs from my fence for tea lights.  I forgot to put the light in and turn them on before I took the picture, but hopefully you can still picture it.  And then I used a fall garland to lay around my homemade cedar post "candle sticks".

My husband drilled little holes in the tops just big enough and deep enough for the tea lights to sit in.  He is  helpful, but fills he must give me a hard time first!

Using my burlap again, I just love burlap.

Question: When is Frame not a picture?

Answer:  When framing a House, or Garage.

This is our Garage and Porch being framed in steel.

A clear day, which this year has been a little more wet than the last several years, which is a good thing for the land and plants and yard, but not for building.  It really makes you torn, we definitely need rain, however we really need to get the house built.  Hmmmm, what to wish for?  Both? Is that possible?

Times a Moving On

It seems like yesterday and yet like forever all at the same time…..We finally started building.


Once all the "plans" have been done and redone and yet pondered on again AND again, you start the next stage… foundation.  This is the beginning of the framing for the foundation.

Then they pour…..

And then it has to cure…….

And while these pictures make it look as though it was a matter of a few days…..IT WAS NOT.  We have remodeled homes, built one with a builder, built our little barn living quarters mostly ourselves except the foundation and framing.  But this is a new endeavor to build a whole house.  We have been dreaming and envisioning of this while living here for 12 years (if not longer).  The plans took 4 years, we went through several versions, then all the quotes and decisions and re-decisions took another year, then we started!  Only to find out the drop of of the land to be graded we figured was about a foot to a foot and 1/2 was actually approximately 4 ft.   Next came the halt of foundation to decide on Piers.  Some were as deep as 20 ft.  Hmmmm…. All means delays of course and then…..The normally dry hot summer of Texas especially after several years of being in a drought and record breaking number of days for 100 degrees or more, this year……once we started……rainy…..  But then again that wasn't the only delays.  If you want to be your own builder, the hardest part (and we heard this before many times) is getting your contractors to show up and work!   Never understood that…don't they want to be paid?  Anyways…so it goes.

What??

And they wonder why we hate construction.

BUURR, IT'S COLD OUT HERE

Freezing Rain isn't fun, but can be Pretty.

There is Nothing Like Rain

Love all the color, especially the green,
since we usually don't have it for long.

A new section in my landscape that has really
been successful from all the rain.

Everything is so pretty when it rains

Flowers bloom and leaves are green.

The temporary Fish Pond makes a wonderful water feature.

My dry creek bed is a feature I enjoy when there is no rain.

Working on my landscaping.  I like the process of the idea to conception,
 to watching the plants grow better than I had planned.

Having a little fun with my landscaping.

After years of mowing weeds to look like we had a yard,
this year... we actually have a real yard.

When you just don't have time to get to the lake to fish.....

Texas Style

No, not really....In taking out the pond, we had to take our Koi fish out of the pond and move them to a temporary "home" until we can build a new pond.  We hadn't cleaned the pond in awhile so it was hard to find the fish as the water was draining.  But take a look at my husband's attire..LOL.  He is wearing a t-shirt that says "Just Do It" and camouflage shorts, with a different camouflage  print rubber boots and drinking a beer.  He cracks me up.  Even one of our dogs enjoyed helping to locate the fish, while my husband scooped it up in a net, then my daughter would take it out of the net and put in a bucket.

"There it is daddy, get it!"

We would then carry the bucket to the "new" location and she would take them from the bucket and put into the trough.  17 Koi.  It was a long evening and a funny one.  The fish would freak out with the moving bucket and occasionally would jump out!   But we got them all transferred safely.

Home Safe and Sound