Adventures in roofing and bees with some music.

TJ Windows adding a new roof to our home, pic. taken by
Justin Hartley

 So let me start off by telling you this past month has been a plethora of excitement!  I would like to say we, after a year of dealing with a tarp for part of our roof, got a brand new shiny roof!  It is so exciting we couldn't contain ourselves, Justin broke the zoom lens on our camera taking so many pictures of the progress from tarp roof to new roof, it took them three days to replace, removing one layer of ceder shakes and two layers of shingles and having to replace some of the decking and having to replace the trim.  Most of it is done except some specialty pieces that have not arrived yet.  But it has rained a few times since we have gotten a new roof and it sounds wonderful!

In addition to getting a roof Jerid got a therapy swing for his room.  It took a few tries to get the swing to get it up but with my Dad's help and a few 2x4's a piece of our old bunk bed from when I was a kid it was put up.  We think he likes it because he has used it allot and has helped us help him with some of his anxiety and gives him somewhere else to hang out in his room other then his bed.

Jerid also has already had a couple of weeks of summer day camp at Mount Olivet Rolling Acres and summer school so far so good, no major upsets. Except he has been not wanting to swim.  For the last few months he has been not wanting to go to or be in a pool, water parks he's been cool with but swimming not so much, I don't know if I should be worried or not.  It's not his usual behavior.

Now for some other news...We went to ConVergance this year as we do in most years, Justin has made some prints of his artwork as greeting cards and I made a quilt for the Art show, he sold a couple of cards with the print of Straganona vs. the flying spaghetti monster.  I sold my Tardis quilt.  Which as always is great news!  We also got a long time friend to join us, she was very reluctant but in the end she was happy and met new friends along the way.  

The sad part is we have decided that this is our last ConVergance, do to the fact that it is a longer con and there for more money.   Also trying to get care for Jerid for two night requires the caregiver to take him over the fourth of July weekend.  Though my Mom and Dad have been taking him he has been proving to be more and more challenging for them to take him, besides I really am sick of the same arguments every year of, "I didn't know I would be taking him for Fourth of July weekend for the rest of my life."  So we are on the look out for other smaller cons that we can take him with on or one that doesn't fall on a holiday weekend and is not a four day con.  I could rant allot about it but the end result is the same.

For the weekend after ConVergance we planned a "Interplanetary folk  music festival", in our back yard.   It has been thrown around to be an annual thing.   That isn't the fun part, so the Monday after Con, we had swarm of honey bees in our house, we thought it was do to the new roof.  We had bad boards and hornets nests, birds and squirrels, so Honey bees are not too surprising, we thought they were trying to find a way out, well to our surprise they were trying to move in.  Tuesday the queen arrived.  Two of the musicians have extreme allergies to bees.  So we had a few bee keepers, one was a contractor who keeps bees on his off time and the other was the head bee keeper from the Mustard Seed,  that were interested in getting them out of our walls but apparently once bees move in it takes allot for them to want to move out.  So we told everyone about the bees, and told those allergic how to get to the nearest Hospital from our house and staked out with caution tape where they hive was and had the out side concert anyway.  Which turned out to be a beautiful day with only one flash flood warning and one set moving into the house then moved promptly back outside since it did not rain and only one person who was rushed to the hospital, do to a broken arm, not the bees.  Eric and Lizzy who came all the way from Iowa that they had a lovely time and would love to do it again.  So that is counted as a win!

We are now awaiting the specialty supplies to get the bees out, by removing the outside boards and digging into our walls then hopefully they will be removed by next week.    Way to late for the festival but better late then never.  

As for knitting I have been milking a the same projects as last time with an addition to starting to spin again.  I had gotten a lovely fleece from my friends the Beth and Jon and Alpaca from Missy and Jerry, so I've been taking my time to learn how to clean fleece and make it into roving.  It has been quite the Adventure.  

Also since the new roof we have been doing more cleaning of the up stairs I am hoping that my future sewing room will be cleaned out and ready of fixing by fall.  

Justin is still working on his illustrations for his  kids book,  'There is more to Life then Monsters'  he is on his second illustration and it is looking amazing!  To see any of his art work check his Ogsnartsarts on Facebook. 

I would also like to say that the shop will be open this weekend starting on Thursday til Sunday please stop by.