stepping up

This post is for my tool and equipment geek friends.  Yes, you know who you are.   I'm about to start work on the window trim around four very high windows in the stairwell, and of course I want to do it safely.  I thought about scaffolding- very safe but expensive and time consuming.  Then I discovered this new ladder with adjustable legs which enable it to be stable on my stairs, or outside trimming trees on steep terrain.  So the only question from my not-so-tool-enchanted friends may be "Tell the truth, you designed these windows up there just so you could buy another gizmo, right?" 

Fab Four Reunion

The last time we were together with our friends Milton and Katherine was at there place a few years ago... before the devastating hill country fires nearly wiped them out last year.   This year the wildfire situation looks a bit better than last year,  and our friends are looking better than ever.   They came to our Wimberley place yesterday and the four of us did some catching up on the many experiences we've had since our last time together.   Since Milton is a fellow architect we can talk endlessly about anything remotely related to buildings.  Hopefully not so much as to exclude our very intelligent wives from the conversation.  The next visit of the fabulous four of us may be back at their place, with the excuse of looking at Katherine's recently built garden "rooms", from which we hope to learn more about native landscaping to apply in our own yard.  But really they are just fascinating people to be around, so gardens or not  we want to keep in touch!

A Grand Grandson

Our grandson Braden spent a weekend with us recently, one of many visits he has made.  But different.  This time he flew in from Dallas all by himself, and we truly loved being able to spend real quality one-on-one time with him.  We are pictured with him at the Blanco River which we access from our subdivision, where he had a blast skipping stones and looking at fish.  Braden is a sweet, sensitive, athletic, and all-around wonderful six year old who we want to spend a lot more time with... and our Wimberley place has built-in attractions to help lure him there as often as possible.  And I'm scheming all kinds of Paw-Paw concocted attractions to sweeten the pot for him.   More on that in later posts!

sit a spell

On the upper deck we've long had two plastic chairs for hanging out and enjoying the view.  Not exactly inviting for a nice long and relaxing sit.  And whenever high winds came up they would go flying around the deck making a racket.  We are now announcing the grand opening of this new sit-a-spell bench to replace the plastic chairs.  They also allow people to sit close and snuggle, so Ann and I need to test out that feature soon!  We'll have Braden visiting next weekend so we'll see if the three of us can all squeeze in.