Had breakfast at the firehouse, followed by a nice ride.

  Not much new and exciting here…MacGyver has been busy working on our screened front porch.  Neither one of us can remember the last time we painted it, and we knew that we needed to put new screens on (those mosquitos now know where every hole is and they are lurking behind the bushes, watching and waiting.)

 

I keep forgetting that right now,we don’t have screens on one side, so Dennis can paint and rescreen them.  We keep leaving the front door wide open, which is how we usually do it…I kept wondering why we had so many flies in the house…Luckily, no birds took that open door as an invitation!

We sooooo love our screen porch.  No matter where we live, some kind of screen room is a must for us..We spend many a morning having our coffee on this porch, not to mention breakfast and dinner. This porch was originally just wood posts, floor, wooden steps and had a railing of wood around entire porch…It wasn’t screened in, either.  My hard working Dennis laid every brick on this porch, and that brick wall of the house too. We used the same brick we used on our fireplace inside. He also made the screen frames.  This is the only part of our house that doesn’t have siding on it…Sometimes I wish it did, especially when it come time to painting.  Did someone say PAINT??? ME, PAINT???  I have an owie!!!  Actually, I did a lot of the painting the last time we did this…But this time I have a good excuse.   (I suppose I could paint with my good arm , my right arm)…I am, after all, right handed…So far, I haven’t been “in the line up”, but I have a feeling this will change soon.

 

While basking in the sun the other day (HEY! CUT ME SOME SLACK, I HAVE AN INJURY!)  As I was saying, while letting the healing sun act as therapy to my injured arm, I was determined to find a way to keep the birds from using my fountain as a bird bath..First of all, I HAVE an actual birdbath in the front yard, h…e…l…l…o!  Secondly, I always add a little bleach to the water to keep the rocks from growing green fuzzies.  This would be just fine, except that when the big fat Robins take their bath there, they throw water EVERYWHERE, and especially on the plants I have next to the fountain.  Did I mention I put bleach in the fountain???..Oh, yeah, ..anyway, we all know how much plants cannot tolerate bleach water thrown over them on a daily basis!! They tend to get crispy. Back to my story, I had a brain spasm while contemplating the fat bathing birds.  I remembered that I have a TON of neat rocks from all over the Southwest, and very pretty ones at that…AND..very much BIGGER than the small ones in the fountain. So, I dug them out and placed them all over on the top of the fountain, hence making it almost impossible for any bird to “wallow” in the water and throw it all over.

Now all I had to do was sit and wait…wait for those dirty birds to show up…And, it didn’t take them long…

GOTCHA!!! (insert evil laugh here) I WIN, I WIN, I WIN!!!…..YES!! (As you can see, I was a little excited here.) OK, I got it together now.

  Sunday morning Dennis and I went down to a breakfast they were having at the Sandwich Fire Dept.  It was being put on to make money for the Renegade Regiment (the school band) and I was really hungry for some good ‘ol scrambled eggs, pancakes and sausage…I am an eggaholic. The flaggers (I have no idea what they call these ladies) did a routine for we who were there…

MacGyver has toothpicks for legs…..My legs are bigger around than his…and I have “kankles” (fat ankles)..As you can see by the photo on the right,we were some of the first ones there…and I was sooo hungry..

 

When I went through the line I only took one pancake and 2 sausages.  I am an egg girl and I fully intended to load up on scrambled eggs…Alas, I had misread the ad in the paper..It was just a pancake and sausage breakfast ..not an egg in sight.  SAY WHAT?????   I don’t mind a pancake, but GIVE ME A PLATE OF EGGS, AN OMELET, ANYTHING THAT CAME FROM A CHICKEN..FRY IT UP ANY OL’ WAY….BOO HOO HOO!! …That pancake and sausage was really VERY good, though.  Guess I”ll  have to get my egg fix by making me some deviled eggs to have with our dinner.

  After our breakfast, Dennis decided we should go for a ride..So, I sucked it up, dried my tears, shook off my nasty eggless mood, put on my “big girl panties” and agreed.  We drove about 15 miles West of Sandwich, where MacGyver and I are land barons…..The year Dennis retired from Cat, (1994), we were seriously thinking of building a  house somewhere in the country.  We purchased 6.1 acres South of a little town called Paw Paw (or, 2 paws, as we locals like to call it). 

There is our land.  Those trees at the back are around a little creek…We own a little slice of  heaven on Honeysuckle Lane.  Honeysuckle Lane is a dead end road and there are about 6 lots on it, all of them are about 6 acres or so.  Some are vacant like ours, and a few have homes on them.  We have a local farmer who farms our land every year…This year is corn…Yep, got us a farm, by golly!! (just use your imagination and picture Barney Fife pullin’ up his pants by his belt and saying that)

Above, left, is the house next door to our lot…and on the right is the one across from our lot.  Well, things have changed as often happens , and we will never build anything there…Illinois is NOT where we want to build.  We have been approached by a few people who wanted to buy this property, but “Baron Dennis” won’t sell.  He’s one tough cookie…He says it may just be the best investment we ever made!! I concur. And you know what they say, “There’s one thing about land..they aren’t making any more of it!”

OK, I intended to make this short and sweet, and it turned out neither. This week, our Zionsville, Indiana kids come in Wednesday night and stay until Sunday..We are all going to the Heiser’s  house in Sugar Grove for our granddaughter, Taylor’s, graduation party…HEY!..I JUST MIGHT POST SOME PHOTOS, IF Y’ALL TWIST MY ARM!!!