We interrupt this dry saga...

...to announce there's remodeling goin' on! But then, I guess you could say that remodeling has never stopped going on here. Why, just last month, Handyman invited the Hayfield Owner over with his tractor--that has a backhoe on it. Handyman has tractor envy. Fortunately, Hayfield Owner is a generous soul, who lives nearby, and has a bucket on the front end. Even more fortunately, Hayfield Owner is a firefighter, which means when he's not saving folks from tall buildings (in our town that would be 3 stories), he's H-O-M-E-, just itching to do something fun!

And you know, to guys fun means dirt; So last month, they dug out the old oil tank next to our front door...Handyman says that Hayfield Owner is a "surgeon" with that bucket. And for that I am thankful, since he was up-close-and-personal with the foundation of our house! Those two men were like boys in a sandpile and of course, if you're gonna dig out an old oil tank, you'll have to hoist it somewhere--so one of them hoisted the durn thing and the other one backed his dump trailer UNDER the tank, and hauled it away and stimulated our economy.

The fun just never ends here...and then WHILE YOU'RE AT IT (the most expensive words in remodeling), you might as well rip out the front sidewalk that people have been complaining about for SEVEN years...

So, we don't have a sidewalk anymore. And before we put in a new sidewalk, that pine tree might as well come down. It was planted way too close to the house and has outlived its place. But we'll need another evergreen in that spot, and soon! And we certainly should bring down that unidentified, overgrown celery near the front door. And once that is gone, those solar panels from the 70's will be way in our face, so that'll have to be dealt with. And once we don't have those things to stare at anymore, it'll become very obvious that the chimney cap is in disrepair. And once we're up on that peak, we'll really want to replace that skylight on the backside...

But for now, let's just stop here and go put a window in the dining room. Nothing like tearing out drywall after church...

more pics to come!