Blacksmith Boutique

I want to introduce you to Deb Ewoldt.

She is the owner/operator of this establishment.

She makes things like this.  

And this

piece of garden art.

And this fun piece.

Deb at work in the back of her shop.  

Deb's work gear - leather gloves and apron.

In college she was a model.

Her dad was a welder in the small town of Dysart, Iowa.

One day she had a vision of this building being used by more than one enterprise.

She bought the building in 2006.

It now houses her shop, a lunch room and a classy home accessories store.

Several other shops line main street.  I think all are owned or run by women.

 I asked Mom if she had any ideas for a Father's Day gift

for Dad.  After a couple of days she e mailed me with the idea of a sign

to put in the two lots they own next to their condo.

Since buying them last year they had cleaned up the lots

and flower bed.  Mom now has a flower garden mixed with a few

vegetables for summer eating.

Dad has started referring to the lots as Hultman Park.

After Mom presented me with the idea I contacted my siblings to ask what they 

thought about a group gift.  After I got the go ahead, Mom and I made a quick trip to 

Dysart to visit Deb.  She had the perfect sheet of metal and went right to work.  

 

I think this rates a "WOW".

We have started the countdown

Sage greeting his grandpa at the Adelaide airport in 2008

Samantha has made a count down sheet for their Sydney and Iowa trip.  We on the Iowa side are counting the day too!!!  Since today is the 19th and they land at 10 in the evening on the 28, we will just have to count 10 whole days.  Ten days to wait.  Ten days to clean house, cook a couple of meals to put in the freezer, buy groceries, pick up bikes for the kids to ride from a friend, iron the pile of clothing in the guest room, clean some more, work on 4-H projects with Kelsey and Hannah, garden a bit, and maybe clean the windows that have not got their spring cleaning yet.  Plus there is office work that must not be neglected because once they come it surely will be in the "only do what absolutely must be done mode".  We also have a couple of small projects to do for some fun activities while the kids are here.

Idea one is to watch the corn grow.  Warren and I will plant a stick in the grown beside the corn field.  On the first day the kids are here we will measure the kids and the corn.  Every day or so we will again measure the corn.
The kids want to plant or harvest from the garden.  We may go to the strawberry farm if it is still open.  The raspberries are just starting so they can help pick berries.  I will have them plant something and then send updates on the growth. Do you suppose they want to learn how to weed?

Samantha Christmas January 2009 

Hannah and I will make homemade marshmallows.  They are fantastic roasted.  We will introduce Samantha and Sage to s'mores.  Aussie's do not have graham crackers and their marshmallows are way different.  They do have Tim Tams which almost makes up for the lack of graham crackers and marshmallows.

Yea, it worked!!!

I have always loved the wood panel frig.
Great look with our open kitchen.

After 20 years it was dying.  We have put off buying a new one until the day I noticed the gasket was hanging down the bottom of the frig.  For years I had read that a new refrigerator pays for its self in a few of years time in electrical use.  Yea, but you still have to pay for a new one. 

Off we went shopping for a frig. 

Three trips later we had settled on our favorite.

First off we discovered that unless we wanted a smaller frig our space was too small.

For some odd reason we had less than 33 inches and we were an inch short.

So I/we began thinking, why not buy what we really wanted if the carpenters had to be hired.

To say that I have had refrigerator envy since my friend Barb got her new frig five years ago

is an apt statement. 

I try to stay away from that envy, lust, sloth stuff but sometimes it happens.

Really I wanted her frig and for her to have a nicer one.

So we lined up the carpenters and had the new frig delivered.

After waiting one day for the carpenters to show up

the job was started.

Simple job: 

Remove cabinet above the frig,

remove the door to laundry room,

replace the door with a smaller door,

fix the bamboo floor for the new doorway,

fix the paneling in the laundry room,

build a wine cabinet,

replace the overhead cabinet,

and hope it all works, fits and looks good.

I am good with the vision.

Will I be good with the instructions to the carpenters?

Will it fit?

It looks like a touch down.

Yes, measure three times,

cut once.

Actually I think Kirk and I measured the frig three times each.

I know he measured the wine cabinet several times before putting it together.

The frig fit perfect. 

Kelsey wanted to pull off the protective plastic.

That job was harder than it looked. 

This was heavy duty stuff.

We are very pleased with the way it turned out.

Our refrigerator is so much roomer 

and I do not have to bend over to find

and get items out of the frig part.

I still have to put the items above the cabinets back in place.

And the door to the laundry room is not completely varnished

and rehung.  Jobs for this week.  First the lawn needs mowed.

A walk in the yard

The orange of the tiger Lilly is so happy looking.

I must have got two plants intertwined as today I discovered both a yellow and an orange flower.

Yesterday I had two buds.  I thought the orange would be a dull orange hue.

Oh well - even tho I am not found of bright orange I think it adds drama to the garden.

   

Pink is my least favorite color unless it has some red or blue to the shade. 

When we moved to the farm there were two pink peonies in the middle of the yard in front of the second house.  When the farm was first a homestead there was a big two story white house in front of where the newest (Matt and Malissa's) home is situated.  From the look of the drawing we have my guess is that the bushes were on each side of the path to the lane.  It took years to establish the bushes along the fence.  Peonies do not like to be moved.  I think that I dug part of each bush a couple of times before they became establish in their new home.  Two bushes in the middle of nowhere seemed so out of place and a pain to mow around.

We do not have any pictures of our place in earlier times.  This pencil drawing is one someone gave us.  It was then the residence of George Swan.  When we moved here 30 plus years ago the barn was still standing.  We were told that the barn was once twice the size as we knew it, so George must have been a prosperous farmer. 

Mother's Day Gift

From our son and family I got this hanging basket of geraniums.

I will pot it later in one of my hanging baskets as I think it looks lovely in the gazebo. 

Gosh I Love Tulips

The tulips are spent yet the memory lingers.

I suspect that because the tulip is the first showy flower of spring it is a favorite.

A Second Job

I have been working extra hours as an enumerator for the US Census Bureau.  This job is proving to be full of stories that can not be shared.   So far the dogs have been friendly, most people pleasant, and I have managed to dodge the rain and thunder storms.  The hours have been mostly late in the day, early evening and weekends.
I am thankful my farm tasks are relatively easy to complete around my usual do what I want schedule.  This census job is crimping my style. ( I have not been to Barns and Noble for three weeks.)  The job will likely only last another week or so.  

Our rhododendron was lovely a couple of weeks ago.

I think this plant was put in the ground 30 years ago.