Normal summertime in Eastern, NC - Hot and muggy!
Duane has been clearing out a lot of underbrush in the woods surrounding the house. Makes it look very nice.
We've had a lot of sporadic rain so everything is nice and lovely green.
And neighbors let me come pick the last of their sweet corn....yum.
The last of the blueberries for the season, I think....
And now I have enough jam for a couple of years!!
And enough berries left for a fresh cobbler. Very summer-y!!
Garage update....almost finished! The epoxy floor coat went on yesterday. It's very humid here so I've got the dehumidifier running in the adjacent room. We'll do another coating of the epoxy and then let it sit for a week or so before parking cars here again. That's it for now...just little chores around the house otherwise.
It's that time of year again! My two remaining uncles hanging the banner at the community center in Leicester (NC not UK!)
My mom does most of the organizing for this reunion but turnout has gotten pretty sparse over the years - I guess this happens as extended families move out of the area and lose touch.
Always fun to look thru the well organized photo albums from years gone. This was my parents in 1986. My dad passed away not too many years later in 1993. Oh they look so young!!!
Mom and aunt looking thru old newspaper articles.
Beautiful day, good food.
My younger brother and my sis-in-law. Fun to visit. (Didn't get a photo of my other brother and sis-in-law for some reason...)
Uneventful but rainy/stormy drive back from Asheville to Pittsboro.
Really happy to see my mom gain back some of her strength after all the chemo and radiation! Not 100% yet but much better!!
The lead acid batteries were at the end of their life…barely holding a charge. The new battery is lithium and is wonderful. Very light compared to the old batteries, the cart is a real speedster now! Imagine this space holding the original 6 batteries.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal dumped a lot of rain !! No real damage but a lot of woody debris.
A bunch of really nice fireworks but a little too early for optimum viewing.
We sat up in the golf cart at Dick and Lindy's for the show - then we we were invited in for a visit and fresh blueberry pie!
On the continual home-repair front, Duane is addressing some rot at the base of one of the basement doors. We've done this several times on various doors. The wooden brick molding that comes standard with every exterior door is just not up to the task of exposure to wet conditions.
So Duane removes any rotten wood and replaces it with a combo of "plastic" wood and/or Bond-O. No further rot can happen! All good for another 20 years (hopefully)
Not a lot of noteworthy happenings lately! Just more house chores - mainly stripping the garage clean in order to repaint the aging cement block waterproofing. This means bleaching for mildew then etching with muratic acid to remove anything left. Then we’ll paint the walls and floor.
We did wander over to check the progress on our neighbors construction.
Going to be an interesting house….
Pretty cool…looks to be extremely sturdy!
Second attempt at blueberry pie. Doubled the sugar…added some ice cream. Pretty darn good!!
I know you’re probably getting tired of me talking about power washing!!!
The ramp at the hangar was very moldy too…can’t even remember the last time this was power washed....
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All nice and bright now....
I think we're done for now.....still hot and sunny. Outside activities are done in spits and spurts....typical Eastern NC summer.
Yep, it's hot! just 96 degrees right now.....
Still working on getting all the concrete and buildings clean from a couple of years of neglect.
Our garden shed is particularly "mossy" since it's in heavy woods.
But a gallon of 10% pool chlorine and a bit of pressure washing makes it bright and nice.
Next is tackling the bigger garage concrete pad. It's pretty badly moldy.
We ordered this little gizmo from Amazon - and it really works!!! It has rollers and evenly distributes the power-washer spray. MUCH easier/faster than using the regular spray wand. You can really see the cleaned concrete in this shot. (there is still a lot of "dirty water" left on the surface that we'll eventually get around to hosing off.)
This is as far as we got before the hot temps and sun have us retreating to the a/c....maybe finish this up this evening after the sun is a a better angle!
Project of the day - start power washing. According to a quick blog search, we last washed the house 2 years ago.... (First had to go over to neighbor Pat's and borrow his big gas-powered power washer.)
In addition to the house siding, the sidewalk is dirty and moldy.....
Late in the day, the shadows make it hard to see but the house is clean and the upper sidewalk is nice and bright again!
The sidewalk has a few streaks where the wand starts/stops. I may go over this again tomorrow.....
We ordered a little round power-washer attachment from Amazon to tackle the garage concrete pad. It will be here tomorrow so we'll continue once it arrives. Hopefully the gizmo will make it easier to clean the large surface of the garage concrete.
Preparing the jelly, jars and lids....
I got quite a few jars. Tasted the leftovers - quite good and a bit tart.
I held back enough blueberries to make a pie. I am NOT a pie baker. Thru the years I've just avoided making pies because they always turned out gummy or dry or yucky....I think I just didn't read the directions well, mostly about keeping the butter cold and not handling the dough with warm hands. But I decided to try to improve my skills.
Nothing unusual - just flour, pinch of salt, cold butter and cold water.
Pie filled and ready for "lid".
Since I figured out that I left my rolling pin on the boat, I ended up using an empty wine bottle to roll the crust. Worked pretty well - not beautiful but shouldn't affect the taste!
Baked for a while at 425°F. Then fabricated little protectors for the edges from foil. Then continued baking at 375°F.
