How It's Going: Looks Like We're Done...

....for this year, anyway. 

No, Castle Aaargh is not done.  But you knew that already, didn't you?

It sure does take a long time to throw a stone house together.  We're still going to do some more stone cutting and preparatory work, but I think we're going to be towing the old mortar mixer back to the machine shed for the winter.  

Carl trying to go faster with the stone cutting on Saturday afternoon.

  Though the weather on Saturday was absolutely gorgeous, we didn't run any more mortar this weekend since it takes up to three weeks (or more, depending on weather conditions)  to cure completely.   I've done some reading and there's some debate out there about cold weather masonry.   Some say the so-called 'magical temperature' the mortar should not be subjected to is less than 40 degrees before it's fully cured.   Well, we've had a few nights down below freezing already and the last thing we need is unsound mortar. The last mortar we ran was a week ago, so I hope we're ok with that stuff.  Ok, it won't be the end of the world if we have to chip it all out next year; just a shame, that's all.  Maybe we'll be lucky, but anyway, we've decided not to tempt fate.


There we were, on Saturday afternoon, working on cutting stones for the big pillar where the round window will go.  I was on the inside whacking rocks to size and shape with a hammer and chisel and Carl was doing some grinding. 

I sorta feel like we're abandoning the project, though rationally, I know better.  We'd put it on the back burner for so many years and it was a challenge to see how far we could get in a month and a half, but now the race has been called off and there's a bit of a let-down.   It's not like I don't have other stuff to do; the whole garden needs to be put to bed for the winter, I have bulbs to plant, apple trees to wrap up against rabbit damage, a garage and barn to clean up, a chicken coop to clean and winterize,  and if all that gets done, we still have the stone wall in the Formal Garden to finish up, too.  That's a dry stack wall, so no mortar to worry about curing.  Whoopdedo, what am I worried about?   I guess I won't be bored.

Ann and her daughter were here on Saturday afternoon to help for awhile, and Ann picked up the camera and took some candid shots of us in our Native Habitat.  See how she was stalking us from the trees?  We never know who's watching.

Dusty.............good thing Carl wears a mask. I was upwind, luckily.

Chipping away at rocks is slow-going work.  I wish I was faster at it, but it is satisfying in it's own way when the rock breaks the way you want it to.  Not so satisfying when it lands on your foot after breaking into two or more separate hunks, though.  

Whack away at a rock and then check the poor thing for fit, pick it up, and bang away some more, knocking off the bits that don't play nicely with the course of stone below.  (Just thought I'd throw in some technical terms in for good measure.) 

Our little dog, Pudding, is often lying in the sun, waiting for me to get done working.  On Saturday she wanted to go in just before sunset, and came to ask me if it was time to quit yet.  Pudding is a little bit camera shy, so Ann's photo was a great capture of our little eleven year old dog.  Pudding used to be Ann's dog before she came here to live with us almost three years ago, and we love her so, it's hard to remember a time she wasn't part of the family.

We worked right up until dark on Saturday night and then I started a campfire so we could cook a few hot dogs and call it supper.  We had company stop in right at dark, Richard and Emily and their adorable little girl, Courtney.

Richard and Carl examining the work so far.

Look who we put to work:

Carl handed Courtney a hammer and she was off to work.  Check out her grip!

First she had to examine the rock up close, looking for the best angle.

 She's working on her technique here........

(And yes, that's a real 20 ounce hammer!)

Look out rocks, we have another young rocker on the job now!

(Child Labor Laws are strict, but as long as we provide our youngest workers with a break for naps, we're not in violation.)


We ended Saturday night playing cards with our company.  I'm always beholding to anyone who stops in to see us; thank goodness they can overlook the mess our house is perpetually in.  We're spending so much time outside trying to get Aaargh done that I neglect to do much in the house we actually live in except cook meals (the slow cooker is a blessing) do dishes and sweep once a day.  Once the snow flies, I'll have plenty of work to keep me busy for another solid month just doing some deep-cleaning.  Not that I'm looking forward to it, mind you.  Growing up as a tomboy, I'm not thrilled with being indoors.


Just a few more views of the garden before I end up ripping it all up:

The River Bed--looking tired.

Formal Garden---Profusion zinnias and Victoria salvia still blooming

The Escarpment---mums still doing their thing

On top the Quarry Hill

The waterlilies are in need of cutting back and raking out of the puddle, but I leave them until just before the water freezes up so the fish have somewhere to hide from the herons that keep coming in for lunch. 

 Amur maple leaves....I'm having a hard time pruning this tree to any sort of shape, I guess I should have left well enough alone and let it stay multi-trunked.  It wasn't an expensive tree, but I think it's time I retire my loppers and leave the poor thing alone.  

The rudbeckias are still blooming, bless their hearts.  

The Inca marigolds are also looking happy in places.

'Sunkist' and 'Smaragd' thuja occidentalis with a miscanthus thrown in for good measure.

And finally, (yes there's an end in sight to this post) Chocolate Eupatorium providing a foretaste of the white stuff to come.  

Every time I walk by the eupatorium I feel happy, at least this is one chocolate that's not a no-no in my life.  

Time to face the music, Winter waits for no one.  

We gave it our best shot...now it's time to get all those pallets off the lawn and out to the Back Eight.  And we'd better find a tarp to cover up the walls.  There's always next year.  

(We can still whack a rock or two yet, though, before the snow flies.)
 

On Sunday afternoon it rained so we went bumming  to an honest to goodness Real Quarry, so stay tuned for that post. 

 A Granite Quarry....oh, be still my heart!

How It's Going: New Rocks!

As Charlie promised, on Friday afternoon, our new rocks arrived right on schedule.  Click on the arrow to view the action!

There was only one glitch; Charlie thought there would be approximately four loads, but unbeknownst to him, the contractor for the new house being built decided to use most of the rocks for back-filling the basement, so by the time Charlie got there, only one load was left.  (I don't think I'd want big rocks for fill around a house (and can you imagine trying to dig a hole to plant a tree?) but oh, well, us beggars can't be choosers.)  We got the biggest rocks, though, and that was great, though we mourned the burial of the other beauties we saw at the construction site on Monday.  

There's Carl, up on top of the pile right after it was dumped with Joel in the background.  Joel and Allison were here in time to see the spectacle of the rocks being dumped.  It is really something to see and feel; the earth literally moves when the stones hit the ground and the noise they make sliding out of the steel dumptruck box is akin to a whole mess of fingernails scratching a chalkboard.  Music to my ears and a delight for the senses.  (Ok, so you have to love rocks to know what I mean.) 

This is so easy compared to bringing rocks home one at a time.  We have been known to poke around in road construction sites, especially up in Waupaca when they have to blast to get through their beautiful red granite.  The road crews leave piles of it everywhere, and we have hauled many a rock home on our trailer after come-alonging it up the deck.  Having stone delivered feels like cheating, but it sure is fun.

Of course, Ma and Pa have to pose on top of the pile.

And, of course, Joel had to climb the windmill tower to get a good aerial view.

Right away, Carl and I pick out our favorites and start to dream about what we will build with this new stuff.  There's everything from flat limestone to round granite boulders in this pile, so it will be alot of fun to explore the contents as we pull it all apart. 

But, we interrupt this pipe dream and return to our previously scheduled project:

Do you see it there, in the middle of the picture?  

Ooops....where did it go?  Joel decided to take a look around the east side of the farm....looks like the corn is ripe, doesn't it?  Our farm extends all the way to the next road on the other side of the corn field,  ninety-eight acres total.  This is the east forty pictured.

Oh, there's Castle Aaargh.  We plumb forgot about it for minute there while we were basking in the joy of new rocks.  But duty calls: Dutiful Carl went back to work on the job at hand. 

I didn't.  I wasn't done basking just yet.  Did you ever see the pictures of people posing with their dead deer/moose/bear/trophy-sized carcasses in the paper?  Did you ever hear of the 'Boone and Crockett' records?  I think if you shoot an antler-y thing, you have to have an antler-spread with more than fifty points, or if it's a bear or some non-antler-y thing, it has to weigh a ton or something to break a record (ok, I exaggerate) but anyway, I was goofy again and told Joel to take my picture holding one of my trophy rocks:

Seriously, this is a trophy and I done killed it.

The trick is to Look Serious as you hold your trophy's head up off the ground, usually by it's antlers.  Well, this rock didn't have any antlers, but I did my best to look serious anyway.

Ok, Serious Looks don't last long with me...

It would look more impressive if I had the biggest rock in the pile on my lap, wouldn't it?  And doncha just love them happenin' knee pads??

Charlie told us about some more rocks a lot closer to home than these were, so that night we took a quick ride over to see the new candidates just before dark.  We're not sure, but we think we may be getting some more rocks, so maybe I'll have a chance to get into the Boone & Crockett record books yet with a trophy! 

In the meantime, Castle Aaargh is calling our name.  

Quit dreaming and get back to work!  The castle won't build itself, ya know.

I sure hope there's more of this in our future, though.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Fertilizer Friday: October 21

 

Here it is, Fertilizer Friday again over at Tootsie's.  Be sure to see all the gorgeous gardens she's sharing this week, ok? 

Not much of great beauty is blooming here now, so what I'll do is tell you what's been going on and throw pictures of what's left in the midst of the tale as it unfolds.  (You know I'm long-winded, so the pictures will relieve some of the boredom.)

The last few days the weather hasn't been very cooperative at all, we've had high winds at times, drizzle, and temps in the upper 40's.  I didn't spend any time at all cutting stone for ol' Aaargh, though I know I should have.  Instead, between rain showers, I started cleaning the garden up for winter.    

The River  Bed is only partially cleaned out though, try as I might, I couldn't yank out all the annuals just yet.  The zinnias did give up last week, so they're history, but those 'Inca' marigolds are still carrying on along with the 'Victoria' salvia and the begonias.  The 'Red Rooster' grass in the urn reached some pretty amazing heights, too.  The sedums will be the only thing left in this bed except for the Serbian spruce on a stick when I finally make up my mind summer is over.

But not yet.

 

Mums are still blooming, so they're safe from my Cleanup Crusade

  At first I was using a wheelbarrow for the clean up, but you all know how far a wheelbarrow goes when you're removing hundreds of hostas, annuals and other perennials from the garden--not very. It was full after only a few feet of yanking out and cutting back.  I had to become more efficient, I'm running behind here.

Yup, that looks like Fall, all right.  No denying it.

  My second thought was to use our little garden trailer.  Well, after a trip to the barn, I could scratch that plan, the lawnmower I use to tow it with had a dead battery.  The battery charger was up at Mom's and in the interest of saving time, I decided against going up to Mom's to get it.   I gave up and resigned myself to using the wheelbarrow until it became apparent I'd be spending most of my time wheeling load after load from the garden to the compost pile in the Back Eight.  Yeah, I can use the steps for my Five Mile Crusade, but sheesh, I have to get some work done and this wasn't very speedy.  

Gray, blustery days for the most part, with sunshine here and there for most of the week.

That's when I decided to use our little car trailer.  It has a one ton capacity and with the gates on the side, I could fill it up to a height of three feet before it needed dumping.  I hopped in my car to tow it and drove down our back lane and backed up to the trailer where it was parked out by the windmill. 

Black-eyed Susan vine is still amongst the living yet, too.

That's when yet another problem popped up;  Joel had lent out a canoe to a friend several weeks ago and when he brought it home, he left the canoe sitting upright on top of the gates of the car trailer.  Well, I thought, I might as well take the canoe back to the shed where it belongs, so I bent down to lift the trailer's pole off the ground to hook it up to the car.   Wait a minute, I couldn't budge it for the life of me.  Well, I'll be......why is it so heavy? 

No, I still didn't dig the sweet potatoes yet.

I gave the canoe a shove, expecting it to fall off the trailer and was surprised when it didn't even budge.  Well, what the?.......but when I peered inside the canoe, I figured it out.  We had over three inches of rain (maybe more) since the canoe was propped up on the rails.   And, as a result, a canoe-ful  of water.   I cannot tell you what a 17' Coleman canoe weighs when it is literally half-full of water, but I will say this for it, it is heavier than even I am!  I'm surprised the old wooden gates on the trailer held up to all that weight.

You gotta love rocks, they look good no matter what season it is.

 So, no big deal, I thought, just dump the water out of the canoe and get on with your day.  I wrestled with that thing back and forth and couldn't get it to tip off the side of the car trailer gates no matter what I did.   (A hidden camera would have been a fun thing to have, wouldn't it?  Just picture me wrestling with a boat.)

The Knockout roses are throwing up their last blooms out in front of the house.  Poor things, I neglected them entirely this year.

   I was just about ready to bail the canoe out with my trowel or poke a hole in it and drain it the 'easy way' when out of frustration I gave it one more mighty shove, "Mess with me, huh?  That's what you think!"

It moved then, yup, it surely did.  The back of the canoe fell off the gate and the whole thing tipped over sideways, spilling directly into the trailer instead of over the side.  Talk about a tidal wave!  It was a blustery 42 degrees out with a sharp north wind which really didn't feel very good after receiving a cold shower for my troubles.   The canoe was empty now, I was wearing most of it.  Time for a wardrobe change. 

After changing to dry clothes, I finally was able to get a lot more done.  The car trailer holds a lot of stuff.  Let's see, what else there is to show you.....

Miscanthus in foreground (and a rock or three, ha) along with petunias, salvia and blue castor beans in the background.

I didn't yank out all the petunias yet.  The 'Bubblegum' supertunias by the White Lady statue are still looking good.

At times, we had brilliant sunshine only to fade immediately and switch over to pelting rain. 

Ernie the Urn looked good right up until Wednesday; the high wind and rain finally did his 'Bubblegum' petunia planting in.  Look at the woods across the road in the background, we did have some spectacular color for a day or two, until the high winds. 

If you look real close, you can see Rufus the Rooster and Ashley the hen at the base of Ernie.  Rufus is noisy. 

The hyacinth beans are setting their pods and still blooming.  There are a few brave bees out and about, too.

The fall color on our little Korean maple was pretty this year, but not as stunning as it had been other years.  This was about as good as it got; it never turned to the fiery crimson it can achieve.

So, that's about it for what's still blooming, though the 'Fresh Look Red' celosia, 'Autumn Joy' sedums and blue castor beans are still looking fairly good out by the road.

I'm afraid things are really and truly winding down for 2011.  Denial will get me nowhere.

On Thursday afternoon, the weather turned really ugly, though I'd worked right through drizzle earlier in the week that came and went, this drizzle stayed and everything was wet.  So I quit trying and decided to surprise Carl by being in the parking lot when he got out of work.  Carl rides to work with our son, Dave, who just bought this a few weeks ago:

Yes, our 21 year-old, six foot tall plus son is now the happy owner of a used diesel Volkswagen Beetle.  He's getting a lot of teasing about it from the boilermakers he works with, "Oooo....look at the Girlie Car".....but he doesn't care.  45 miles per gallon makes him a happy Girlie Car Driver.  And, did I mention it's a diesel?  He loves the growl. 

So, I showed up at their work and had to blow the horn at Carl who did not see me parked in the lot.  He was surprised, though, and I'm always happy to see that smile of his which lights up my day considerably.  We went on a little ride out in the country, which is our most favorite-est thing to do.  Usually we look for rocks and/or rock work, or just plain beautiful scenery and even though it was misting at times, we found all of the above in abundance.

Check out this bridge:

 And then this church turned town hall; loved the mix of rocks and the skilled placement:

 And this really tall church (can you imagine how long it would take us to build that??) :

 Look at that masonry, really different from my joint-raking methods:

We were driving up a hill on a country road when we spied this gem:

What's in there? Turn around, Carl....let's check this out.

Wait, can it be?  A Stone House??

Why, yes, it is!  Admittedly, it's seen better days, and could use a new roof, but it's still standing.   

Oh, the stories this old house could tell....we would have loved to go closer to the ruin, but it was private property and it was starting to rain again, so we behaved ourselves.  We were both touched by the sight of the building-- abandoned, but still sound.  Maybe our Castle Aaargh will last a few years, too.

Even now, in the sunset of it's life, that old stone house in the cornfield was beautiful in our eyes.  (This was the sunset last night from our moving car....Carl stopped so I could get a better shot and right at that point, the battery died.  So, this blurry image will have to do, but look at the color!)


And, I know I should really quit writing since my camera battery died and I ran out of pictures to stave off your boredom,

BUT

I have to report on an exciting thing that happened on Monday....our friend Charlie (who is the person responsible for digging the Quarry back in the day and the geothermal excavation and for   loading and arranging to haul all of our big rocks to us over the past nine years) asked if we would be interested in some more rocks.  He was digging a basement in a very stony area and the owner doesn't want them.  (Can you imagine not wanting rocks?  Ok, you probably can, but I can't.) 

"Why don't you guys go and take a look at them and see what you think," Charlie said.  "You'll have to pay for the trucking cost, but that's it."

He gave me the coordinates and since it was raining, right after work on Monday we drove the thirty miles to go see the Orphaned Rocks.  Oh, be still my heart (and phooey, I forgot the camera) look at 'em all....(ok, you can't see them since I forgot the camera, but trust me, there were lots and lots of them.)  The flat limestone isn't as big as most of ours, but still in the 200-500 pound range, and there are some amazingly big round granite boulders (oohs and ahhs are appropriate here, or smelling salts, I was feeling the start of the vapors, surely I was, swoon, swoon.)

These rocks simply MUST come here to live. 

I called Charlie while we were standing there in the midst of them all and asked, "So, which ones do they want to part with?"

"All of 'em," was the answer.

"When?" was my question.

"Hopefully by the end of the week," (this is the end of the week, Anticipation is killing us!) "Or by early next week (ok, I'll wait as long as it takes) at the latest," Charlie said.

Carl refuses to get his hopes up, he thinks the owners will change their minds.  This is a disturbing trend in Carl-land.......normally I'm the pessimist and he's the optimist......gosh, I guess it's true, you do get like the people you live with. 

So, you say, do we really need more rocks?  Yes.  We really, really, REALLY do.

 And, believe it or not, I just received a phone call five minutes ago : 

"The first of the rocks should be there by 1 PM today.  Will you be home?"

Oh, YES, we'll be here!

(Gads, I have to figure out where we're dumping them!!!)

While I'm running around in circles, you just head over to Tootsie's and see gorgeous flowers blooming in the yards of people who are not insane, ok?  She's always got so much beauty to share!
 
'Til next time,

Karen