What's Behind The Barn?

The million dollar question.

A lovely rock fence.

A silo and old seed planter.
The last of the old planters we actually used.

A lovely morning behind the barn.

The building on the left is our
Machine Shed.
My dad kept a lot of his tractors and goodies in there.
We just have always called it the Machine Shed.
We are going to be redoing that sweet little building soon.
I have gotta take pictures of it and show you how much it needs to be revamped.

Here is the basement and doors of the barn.

We have a fence where we will be getting chickens next year after we build a coop.
So excited about that.
Growing up we always had chickens.
My mom would make a few dollars on her egg money.
My dad would take the eggs to work and she loved the little bit she made.
I still have her egg weigh machine. It sits in our kitchen.

This is from the field

Hope your week is going well!

Cheers,
Shel

Do you have a Favorite Number?

                 Do you have a favorite number or numbers?

For me I have two I love

Yep these are my 2 faves.

I have them all over my home.That is my mom and dad in the picture.
I took a small pic and had it blown up to poster size.
This picture was taken on their honeymoon.

Five is my fave because we have that many in our family

 3 because of my 3 sons. Yep just like the TV show
 My Three Sons.
We actually met Fed Murray years ago at our Country Club.
He came every summer and we saw him and his family.
I have red hair and one night they were sat by our table,his wife tapped me on the shoulder and we started talking about the color of my hair. Go figure why people talk to people?
They had adopted a set of twins and they had red hair as well. Their daughters were lovely as well.  Fred came home every year to Beaver Dam because that is where he grew up.

Yep love'm both. Not just the 5 and not just the 3. I cannot pick a favorite.
That would be like asking if I love one of my boy's more than the other.
Couldn't do it..no sir re bob love'm all equally.

&

I love you equally! I do not discriminate against other numbers I just love these 2.

So do you have a fave?

Cheers,
Shel ♥

Are you a Morning or a Night Person"

Morning or Night?

For me hands down morning.

Because of things like this.

Fog

Fog with sun

Love the way the corn looks in the morning with the fog.

Our valley looks so mysterious and when you can't see the train but you
can hear it through the fog...what can I say but ahhhhh.

Our flag looks so majestic in the morning with the
sun coming up.

Beauteous!

Goodnight Moon!

Something to think about isn't it?
Sometimes we just need to stop and think about nothing but how lucky we are to get up every morning an have another day on this earth to enjoy.
I mean really enjoy, stop, breath, take it all in and
smile that you got another day.

Have a great one!
Cheers,
Shel

We opened 2 new Etsy Stores

This is my new one.
We opened it because on our HighPointFarm one we sell bascially just antiques with a dab of art things or re-vamps as I like to call them.
In this shop we make
Cowhide Stools
Cowhide Benches
Cowhide Piano benches
Chalkboards made of:
Old vintage picture frames
Old Globes
Old Clip Boards
We made Coasters from:
Left over cowhide and wood
Vintage Yardsticks
We revamp old baseballs into bookends.
We make hat or coat hangers out of old baseball bats.
The list goes on and on...my mind just does not shut down.

This is our son's shop.
He moved home a few months ago from California and has not found a job yet.
So I helped him open a shop and it is doing really well. He has his own ideas as far as what he wants to sell and so far so good. With a little guidance from mom. I really do try and just sit back an watch. However when you all are living in the same home 24-7 it just becomes so easy to walk 20 steps to  my office and bug me.
He'll get the hang of it an will fly.

Well I hope your week so far has been a good one.
Short weeks just seem to zoom right by.

Cheers,
Shel

Have You Ever Made a Banner for Your Store or Blog?

Have you ever made a banner?

I started to learn more about it when I opened my 2nd Etsy store.

I hated the way I made my 1st one. 

I printed my name off the printer and laid it across my rug and took a picture.

Can you say tacky? 

Yep it was very icky and cheap looking. But it was all I knew at the time.

To be honest I had no clue what a banner was much less how to make one.

So I went to the Etsy forum and read what other people had used. But I still had no clue what to do

sooooo....I just goggled a simple question and Boom there was the easiest  way to make a banner.

Below are a few I putzed with and in the end I choose 4 that I liked and added.

I used Gimp. It is free and everyone knows free is good. I followed a gal's 2-3 min description on how to do it on You Tube and bang in less than 10 mins I made a awesome banner.

The You Tube Video I watched was:

Fast and simple etsy shop banner using Gimp.

Yep just type that in and make one of your own.

Easy Peasy!!

This is from my blanket store name

Wanted to incorporate the barn

Blanket store again 

This is for my new store on Etsy.
I took a picture of my rock wall one morning and thought ummmm.
I think it turned out great.

This is the banner I did for my mother store.
It is the top of our silo next to the barn.

This is my son's store.
That was my old bike leaning up against my machine shed.
That bike is over 40 yrs old.

This was for my blanket store as well.
Oddly I cannot find the banner I ended up with.
But you get the drift.

Now go off an play to make a banner for your awesome blog or Etsy store. I plan on playing more with the banners when the seasons change etc.

Now I need to know more about how to make my blog more appealing and worth coming to see.

Have a great rest of the week.

Cheers
Shel

Eating at The State Fair

And so it begins.
2012
Wisconsin
State Fair

Our tickets to the fair

Every year our 1st stop of  things to eat are
Saz's sour cream fries...my personal fave
and deep fried potato chips.

1st bite

This was suppose to be spicy Hot deep fried chicken.
Was not hot, but It was good!

Deep Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly
Really really good.
Our Middle son gets it every year.
I had a bite an loved it!

D always has to have a strawberry sundae that comes from our county.
He calls it supporting our township.
I call it soothing his sweet tooth.
I am the savory gal
he is the sweet guy. No pun intended.
Makes for a good relationship.
I bake he eats. LOL

D has always has to support the Lion's Club of New Berlin.
Loves his corn!


We did not exactly eat our way through the fair but we did our share.
Is there something you just cannot pass up at your local fair?

Have a great Labor Day Weekend
and eat yourself silly!
Cheers
Shel

Four Generations of Crap In the Barn

                                              

               Are you all ready to see some mess?

Me neither but it has to be done and done it will be if we want to get this VRBO/Wedding barn going.

We have dates because of so many things coming up in Wisconsin in the next few years. Plus we want to do this for retirement so it has to begin.

This is what 4 generations of crap looks like.
My parents left this for D and I to clean up.
 Can you say thank you? Mom and Dad. They had fallen ill before they even got a chance to start the clean up. So it fell upon us. You have no clue how many times I opened and closed that barn door because I just could not face it.

This is to the right of the barn where we are going to put our VRBO
Isn't it apealing?
Don't u just want to sleep here?
Phew...

I call showing all these pictures  a cleansing for me.
You can't address it unless you see it for what it is.

The upper loft is there where we are putting beds..again how cozy!!!! It has tons of old old hay there and gawd knows what other creatures or things live up there.
Ugh

I have lived here 5 years..my parents lived here 45 years.
We needed to clean the house and gut it to live in it. So guess where it all went? 
Yep into the barn, it was added stuff that was already in the barn from past generations of stuff. 
Then you have kids moving in an out and leaving their things in here over the years.
So it is stuff upon stuff upon 
MORE STUFF!

Have you ever gotten to a point where you have cleaned something so many times you just stop?
She raises hands jumping up and down screaming
"ME, ME ME"
I have to confess that it has been 5 years and I have tried. 
I really have. But then I come across something of my parents, I fall apart and I have to leave. I close the door and pretend it is clean in my mind.
However I have decided that I want this as a wedding venue and a vrbo an I have to get stronger and just do it.

This is some of the things from the inside on the lawn.
Lovely isnt it?

My youngest son gets credit for doing this, he did it 
all by himself I helped a little. An I mean a little. Every time I went out to help he yelled. So I left him alone. I come to find out later he was grieving for his grandparents who he was VERY close to. He cried and threw things and yelled out loud (at me at times). But in the end he was good!

After cleaning the whole right side out he began the daunting task of going to the top of the loft and started to throw the crappy hay down to the open space. We believe the hay was over 40 years old.
Ughhhh...
If you have ever taken care of ill parents you will understand that your energy goes to ALL of that and everything else JUST does not matter. You just want what precious time left to spend with those people you dearly love. And you selfishly want them to live 4-ever.
At least that is what I wanted!
So everything else went on the back burner.
With no regrets.

Here is that sweet sweet boy!

He worked over 8 hours on this side alone.
Bless his skinny boney butt!

This is the next phase...ughhh

Some of the hay!

We are going to put this on the field.

I am standing on a huge desk taking these few next pictures.

I ignore the look and just visualize the VRBO.
In my head it looks awesome!

If u are following this blog you will see the transformation of this barn.
SO thanks for checking us out and keep coming back and seeing our progress
slow maybe at times but we have a 2-3 yr plan and we are going to do it.

Thanks
Cheers
Shel