Did It Again!!!

It's been 20 days since I last posted on our blog.  But - I been busy.  I know - I know, you've heard that before but it has been rather busy here these past few days.

 Lest we forget - the 10th was Mother's Day so I got Cathy a dozen yellow roses.  I usually get the peach colored roses but this year I thought I'd do something different and therefore special.  Cathy was in a baking mood this past week and heated up the kitchen, much to my delight.  She baked two loaves of bread and two apple pies.  Ummmm!

Nope - I didn't take pics of the bread.  I'll do that the next time.
  I've been helping my buddy Bob clean up around his new home here in Tennessee, mostly weed eating and getting some firewood split, just in case.  The previous owner left some Beech wood blocks in the driveway so I took them over to my neighbor's (Joe) and we split them on his hydraulic splitter.  While Beech is the best firewood in this area, it is very dense and tough as nails.  It's very slow burning, gives off a lot of heat and leaves very little ash.  Needless to say you don't find a lot of it anymore.  Then I started working on Cathy's kitchen cabinets.  They've taken a beating over the past few years.

As I'm sure you can tell, the cabinet door on the left has been refinished.  Trouble is, with the weather lately being on again off again rain/cold, I haven't been able to finish more than one at a time.  Usually I would just pull them all off and sand them in the front yard but not lately.  In fact, just today I finally finished the top drawer and right cabinet door but that was because I got them stained yesterday.  I polyurethaned them in the back room in the house.  This polyurethane is water based  and had very little smell like you would normally get with a petroleum based product.  Easy soap/water clean up too, made by Rust-oleum.
We've had critters on the move again in our area:

This dude was out hunting for a mate and headed for the pond just below our house.  From the looks of it, he just came out of a mud bank up the mountain.  Apparently these female snappers aren't too discerning ladies or this guy would be sporting a cleaner look and maybe some better smelling aftershave.  Speaking of mating - It must have been in the air_-_-_-_-_

 Tom was out strutting his stuff on the hillside just below the house.  At least he dressed for the occasion and probably smells a whole lot better than the other critter did.

If you look very carefully in the lower right hand side of this pic, you'll see the hen he was courting.  Hum - she just don't look all that much to me but then who knows turkeys.
Cathy has started her physical therapy for the shoulder replacement and the exercises leave her pretty sore in the evening.  I remember those days from my knee surgery.  Anyway - the health care group decided she should avail herself of the back therapy they offer - so she did.  Actually it was probably the best thing we've done lately.  It will help strengthen her back muscles and probably help restore her stability on her feet.  I'm hoping we can start walking like we used to a few years back.  We used to walk about 2 miles 3 times a week and if you're familiar with this part of Tennessee, it ain't level country.  We'd start going down hill for about an eighth of a mile, then about one and a half miles of semi-hilly log road, then another eighth mile up hill and the remainder sloping down to the house.  I gotta tell ya - the grand-kids found it to be quite a hike and they're in a lot better shape than we are.

 I gotta get my licks in on the weather - about two weeks ago we started to actually look like we were into spring but oooooooohhhhhh nnnnnnnoooooo - Mother Nature throws us a curve.  It's been raining off and on and the temps have dropped as low as the 40's.  Today it was 54 when I got up at 0600 and by 3pm it was up to 68.  Right now at 8:35pm it's 53.  Good sleeping weather but you just can't make any plans - like maybe going out on the boat on the lake for the day.  Actually I've noticed that our humming bird population is really small so far.  Maybe they know more about the weather than we do.  They're probably way down south waiting for the warm weather to start.  I've only seen about 3 hummers so far.  Guess I've rambled on enough for now. Later - - -