The Big Tree

Thanks a lot Parshall Tree Care Experts! 

Just about a week or so ago, we were having high winds, down here, in the Holler. Steve and I were standing up by the garage and noticed the big Maple was moving in two different directions!! We looked up. Way up. Higher than Steve could get a picture! The top of this maple had a split that could come tumbling down in the 35 mile an hour plus wind!!

Who ya gonna call? Parshalls out of Traverse City. The freeze warning for heavy equipment, on the roads, had just been lifted.

We had just done logging about four years prior. They were going to take this tree but at the last minute Steve and I wanted to keep it because it was so huge. The logger said it was worth $1,200. We said oh well we want to keep it.

We should have taken the money and closed our mouths. At the time we didn't realize that the tree had a split starting at the very top. We couldn't see up that high!

But there is a good ending. We now have fire wood for next year, we heat with wood, and we have two twelve foot, seven feet around, logs that can be put through a band saw to make one inch thick boards!!

Now the question is, do we have enough for a new kitchen floor?

By the way, these guys did a fine job! 
Parshalls Tree Care Experts 231-409-1295

 

Just Last Week It Was Easter!

It was just a week ago that I was shopping for a center piece to use on my Easter dinner table. I had gathered three, four inch pots, of spring bulbs, to put in a basket I had purchased at the Nashville Antiques and Garden show in February. The flowers were blooming way before Sunday. Would they last? They did! But I bought backup tulips anyway!

The guest list was small. Uncle Ray, Steve and I. The menu was typical. Ham, baked beans, potato salad, Jello, all men love Jello, and a fresh fruit salad. 

The dishes, I used to set the table, have a story. They are Autumn's Delight by Johnson Brothers in England. Many years ago my mother won on a horse, Victor Flanagan, at Hazel Park raceway. She quickly drove over to Pontiac Pottery, on Telegraph Road, and, with her winnings, bought place settings for eight. She and her dishes have been gone for forty-seven years. 

Then, just this year, my husband took me to an Antique shop over by Bay City. We looked around and what caught my eye? Seven dinner plates on a shelf. I immediately scooped them up. All I had was her platter. I felt blessed to have found them. Who wouldn't want their mother's china? I also was able to buy eight, Cape Cod water goblets at another shop! That had been her pattern for glass ware. So I set the table for my mother. 

My mother died of cancer, forty seven years ago, on April twelve, nineteen seventy seven. 

To have found these plates and glasses was a blessing for me. 

Happy Easter.

 

The Wild Feathers and The Will Hoge Band

 

These guys play well together! For the last song of the night all the fellers came on stage and performed.. 

This band is so qualified. Their playing is right on.

Look at all that gear!

My son, Christopher Griffiths on the bass.

Thom Donovan on electric guitar.

Will Hoge, singer, songwriter extraordinaire.

This is how it goes when you take a picture of the drummer!

There we go! Allen Jones plays the drums.
I feel like I am shooting the "Blue Man Group"! 

All this music happened in Columbus Ohio last Saturday.

Seven hours down, two pieces of pizza and Jack Daniel's on the rocks. The lengths I go to hear the band live! 

We Are Not Heading South This Spring!

A little bit of sunshine goes a long way!

 To make a long story short, we are not heading south this spring. Steve and I are in the process of remodeling our lower level and he fractured his ribs, in December, so we are getting a late start.
 

To make up for lost time, we are staying north.

 We are painting the guest room and having fresh draperies made and a chair and ottoman reupholstered. This is "team marriage" at it's finest! But it will be worth it! 

I love blue and white, so fresh.

We have started gutting the bathroom, making room for paint and tile. Blue and white!! The rest of the lower level, other than the guest room, will be a glorified mud room. With a dart board and comfy chairs in front of the wood stove!

This was last winter's project but the contactor, Steve, broke his leg! Now it's this winters project, except it really is this spring's project!

 If there are anymore setbacks the whole mess will be hired out. 
And "you know who" is leaving for Florida!!

We'll get her done. 

 

We Don't Call Her "Big Blue" For Nothing!

A pretty day for a ride in the truck. Due west are the Manitou Islands.

Down the center of the peninsula we drive. On our way, into Cedar, to buy fresh smoked hotdogs.

Sidetracked by the shoreline. Had to make a stop, at Good Harbor, for a walk in the fresh air.

It was a blue day! The sky and water. The islands and the moraines. All are just a bright and sunny blue.

It was twenty eight degrees with the wind eight miles an hour out of the east. We walked into the wind first off so the walk back was a "breeze"!

We determined which stone was worthy of taking off our gloves to pick it out of the water!!

What do you do, for fun in the sun? We bundle up and go for a walk on the beach. Gulping the cold air and smiling in the sunshine.

The shore of Lake Michigan never disappoints.