I know it is almost Spring, but there is just nothing to get photos of just yet. I searched my blog for “Fall” stuff, and couldn’t find anything! Why not? I live where the Fall season is usually stunning, but this past Fall I was busy moving into my new place and besides that, Fall was not very stunning. I hate to say it, but we missed out on some great color that we usually see. So, between being busy and not seeing any scenery that caught my eye, I didn’t get any photos. I guess that is why there are none up on my blog.
So I’ve added a shot I took when I lived near the lake in Antrim, New Hampshire (named after Antrim in Ireland – Happy St. Paddy’s Day!!!). I lived there for three Autumn seasons and every one provided glorious color so I took loads of photos. I’d walk the dirt roads and the narrow (and bumpy) lake road, and sometimes travel the Girl Scout Camp road – always on the lookout for bears! – and I usually took my camera with me, no matter what the season.
I have pictures of deer that I got just a week ago, but haven’t uploaded them yet, so please enjoy my Fall pics in Spring.
Short and sweet post today to show off my favorite snow, white, and winter pictures.
I took these myself over the past years and they were all taken at different addresses, back when I lived like a nomad. I’m so glad those days are over, but it gave me the opportunity to check out parts of the state I would not have ever known so well. Some I am glad to be away from, and others I miss.
And I miss my cat, Richie. That picture was taken at my last rental on the back porch. I couldn’t believe the cat stayed outside while the snow covered him, but he was a hunter and couldn’t tear himself away. It made a cool photo.
Just about this freezing time of year, I usually begin to make up batches of homemade suet to feed my backyard birds. I bought some beef suet at the local grocery store and stuck it in the freezer for winter feeding and now that it’s January and finally getting quite cold, it’s time to give the birds a treat.
My recipe includes adding peanut butter and stale crackers, cornmeal and just about any other thing the birds might like to the store bought beef fat. I usually add some old bread (kept in the freezer too) and flour to hold it all together and then cool it in a large, foil pan.
Personally, I don’t like to add seeds. I keep the seeds in separate feeders.
Once it’s firm, it can be cut to size to fit your suet feeder or placed in a mesh bag. I only put one piece out at a time and freeze the rest, just in case some animal comes and takes it in the night. I had a fox eyeing the feeder one year.
Just a word of warning – your birds will love this and eat it up quickly! The squirrels will like it too, of course.
When I bought my house, I knew there would be much to do to make it livable. While I was busy shelling out money for garage doors without holes in them, siding that wasn’t rotting off the walls and fixing the leaky basement, my tub was slowly peeling.
Someone (before I bought the place) had given the downstairs bathroom a quick makeover by slapping some white paint all over the tub and shower area – it’s even on the tiles. As we began to use that shower, the paint began to peel. It was impossible to clean the tub without pulling the layer of paint off, and the whole thing had become almost unusable and tremendously disgusting looking.
The house was built in the 1970’s and as I found out (and you can see here) the tub/shower had once been gold. In fact the guy who came out to give me an estimate for the refinishing said it looked like it had been refinished twice already.
So what’s your option when your bathroom looks like this? You can re-do the entire thing and rip out the old – but bathtubs won’t fit through doorways, so how do you get a new one in when they are usually installed when the house is built? Well, not without a lot of mess and huge amounts of money.
The only other option is to refinish the existing one. A company called “Miracle Method” did mine. It was suppose to take one day and ended up taking two full days. (Apparently my tub was one of the extremely gross ones.) Then one day (24 hours) for the job to cure. Fortunately I have another bathroom upstairs to use.
I had to pull off the wood strip along the base of the tub, take down the shower curtain rod (which was screwed into the tile) and have a plumber come out and remove the faucet, handle, etc. (He had to return to put new ones back on too.)
It was a messy job. Sanding down the tub caused white dust to fly everywhere and even though I took everything I could out of the room, I had to wipe down the walls and floor afterwards – after the horrible smell went away which took about 3 days.
It cost me a little over $1,000 for this, but I am happy with the results, even if the tub is not like a normal tub. It’s more like a paint job on a car. In fact the guy who did the job said it would hold up best if I applied Canuba wax to it occasionally! I also have to be careful when cleaning it. So, it’s not like a new tub, but like a “better than what was there” tub.
New England's Narrow Road 