Michael and Savannah on the move....

Michael and I were on vacation at the beginning of September, as part of our annual anniversary trip. Of course, true to my usual form with the photo uploader, I've got these pictures out of order, and I can't seem to correct it. However, here's a little pictorial.What's missing (and will appear in another post later) is our stop at my Mom and Dad's and pictures of the Greenbrier, which we visited our first day in Lewisburg, West Virginia. We took a bunker tour, and walked through rooms oppulently (if eccentrically) deocrated by Dorothy Draper (I have bathroom pictures on my phone, which will appear here soon...I know, you're thinking, "Pictures of the bathroom, girl? Are you kidding?" Hey, this isn't just any bathroom. Each stall was a luxury suite on par with, if not slightly above, the bathrooms at Harrod's in London). But more on this later....in the meantime....pics, pics, pics

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, in Charlotteville, Virginia.
It was our first stop on our way to vacation....

Oooo! Now we're suddently in Greenbank, WV. Depicted here is the the 2-acre
wide sattelite at the National Radio Observatory (NRO).
This was as close as we were permitted to get with the digital camera. In
the so-called "Quiet Zone" around the NRO any digital signal is
banned so that it does not interfere with their search for and investigations
of space frequencies.

Michael at Droop Mountain,standing with one hand on the 14th
Pennsylvania Cavalry sign.



Droop Mountain's Overlook Tower



Us in the Droop Mountain Tower.



Look! We're back in Charlottesville again.
(%^#@& pic uploader. Why you no work?)
 Michael at Monticello in front of a huge tulip
tree that they removed to protect the house from
damage.



Me in front of the fish pond at Monticello. This is where
they put the fish caught elsewhere that would eventually
end up on the Monticello table.

The gorgeous gardens at Monticello

Michael in front of more of the beautiful Monticello gardens!

Okay, now we're in Cass, West Virginia, where we got on
Shay Engine #6 and rode to Bald Knob with a stop at Whittaker Station.

Michael and me on the open train car.



The beautiful landscape we traveled through. We were out from about 12-5.



The Cass Company Store station. Logging once kept Cass a going concern
until the late 60s/early 70s.

Michael at the Bald Knob overlook tower. The view was
pretty amazing, and we could see the NRO sattelite from
there, even though it was 4 miles away.

All the News that is News...

Michael getting into the berry area to harvest
blackberries. There haven't been enough to make
a pie, but I suspect there will be next year!

I'm SO excited that we got a building! We don't have fifteen million things
stuffed into the garage now. Six things don't fall down when I pull the mower
out. Hooray! I've since made curtains for the windows.
Pictures of those to come. 

Our building has a skylight! Oooooo....

And shelves,darling. Look, there's a half loft, too!

Today is hot pepper jam day. It's a tradition in
the Guz house, dating back to our
"Pre-marital Hot XXX Pepper Jam" of August 2006.

Frothy, no? It's vinegar, sugar, and pureed peppers.

And we're filling jars!



Loading up the canner, kids!




Seven sweet little jars of hotness. All sealed.




Pretty.



New pictures of good things!



Michael started making candied Kielbasa for 4th of July....
It was for the sauce that we used our own horseradish
(pictured in the post below!)



As he cuts Kielbasa, two beggars will slices onto the floor....

Savannah made sour cream cupcakes with
watermelon frosting...here they are, baking

The garden and berry bushes, early July

Every bird house on our property is filled with little chickadee families!

The new planters we got at auction



These are now planted with pink portulacas...

 

Some amazing clouds Michael saw at work...they're
streaked with rainbows!

I repainted the storm door...um, is it too loud?

Our Own Horseradish!

This weekend, Michael made horseradish from our own
2012 crop. Stay tuned for pics of how we'll use it first!

Rhubarb pie, apple trees, kite flying, fabric design!



It's rhubarb pie season!
Strawberry rhubarb (left) and rhubarb streusel (right)





Our front porch, with blooming roses not yet sampled by the deer.

  

 

Our new granny smith apple trees, locked in like
the gold at Fort Knox.





Our volunteer walnut trees, repotted for 'nursery' growth.



Michael getting our horned owl kite ready to fly.

Kite flying!

The kite actually flaps!

Michael checking out our cactus blossoms.
Believe it or not, all that cactus came from a potted plant
I had in my college dorm freshman year. Really. That's
like...18 years ago. Uh, wow.

Jasper Johns, napping. 



I've begun designing fabric, too.
Above is "Serpent Stars".
You can find more designs in my Spoonflower Shop.



Above is "Sea Stars", also available in my Etsy art
store: http://www.savannahschrollguz.etsy.com/

It's a New Season....

Thanks to the unseasonably warm temps this year,
May has become swarm season. Michael caught 2 so far.
Both came from the top bar hive we have in the garden.
The first clung to a t-shirt he uses to tear fabric strings
from. The second swarm clung to a blackberry bush limb.
Here Michael is situating one swarm in hive boxes. Later,
we transported them onto the hill with the rest of the ladies. 



Spring = time for general homestead upkeep, kids.
Early on a Saturday morning, I was out with
my electric sander, taking the cracked varnish
off the front door. Although it was after 9 a.m., Michael stuck his
head out the door and said, "Good Morning, Little Marvin"
since my Dad is notorious for running loud power tools
well before 8 a.m.. Oops.



And the interior door, rehung. Yep, it's Smurf blue.
We had intended it to be a little darker, like Delft pottery,
but we like it. It's happy and different than anything anyone
around here else has.



Our salvage house door has been turned into a new garden
gate. And not a moment too soon. The old one fell to pieces
and I had to bag it up for the trash....really, in pieces.



We've moved the beans this year. They are where the corn
used to be. Michael is stringing hemp twine so that the vines
have a natural medium, up which they can climb.

And the very first strawberries of the season!
We had them on cereal this morning.