Riley Moore

FINALLY I did something besides work this past weekend!! Y'all know I am working on  hiking to as many of the Waterfalls in SC as I can in my lifetime...Ive been working on this bucket list kinda thing for about 3 yrs NOW...last yr I only did a couple and this is the first one this yr..

RILEY MOORE FALLS

                            

NOT a tall waterfall but it sure was a wonderful one! The hike is 3 miles RT. Some red mud was involved! The dogs loved it...and so did my sister and I.  WE missed having our old hiking gal Indy...but she was with us in Spirit for sure as she always loved the water.
The falls is 100 ft wide and 15 ft tall and in summer there's a decent swimming hole...the water was COLD and is probably always cold as its fed by the Chauga River



When I binged the river Trout Fishing was mentioned...this river is 31 miles long...
Camping is permited in this area...IF Only we had known we would have planned to spend the night on the river...Maybe this one will be revisited..

 

A dark cloud came over but nothing could ruin this wonderful day so WE wished it away...

AND It left...

Part of the wonder of hiking in an Oak Hickory forest is the wild woods flowers! WE saw some beauties...several trilliums, jack in the pulpit, and others!!

                     

                   

Hope everyone had a great Mothers Day...I enjoyed mine!!!

PEACE

Spring Showers

Today we have blowing rain...yuk! We've had rain for 2 solid weeks now and maybe ONE hour of sun in all that time.  I havent updated in a while...

Mom went back to Colorado with sister when she left, since Im working all the time and sis is retired it seems logical that Mom will get more help with her for now..So off they went two weeks ago.  Mom continues to amaze me, she is 89 this yr, just had a terrible bout of illness, lost 8 lbs of body weight and in the end decided YES, I will make a cross country trip and move to Colorado for this summer! IS she amazing or what? This photo is last Mothers day when she was eating a BANANNA SPLIT..Ill wait to see what they end up sending me of her doing this mothers day upcoming.

Work continues on the old house....my friend came to help me this weekend, in fact she is sleeping off our after dinner drinks while I type this..lol THE dogs got me up early to go fetch a squirrel to new hunting grounds as one had sprung the relocation trap..SO off in a blowing rain in my PJ's with a trapped squirrel I went...holy cow.

                                            

Before and after the removal of the old awning Blue tarps are to keep some of the rain out until the new screen and MY own NEW design of awning is put up...and a fan make over is in progress...

Some spring flowers have been fun to watch around the yard and we had a redstart visit last week...

   

Sadly we lost another member of our family my dear dog friend Indy (whom Ive written of many times when I went to dog sit her) was laid to rest last week she has been fighting old age for a while now and took a sudden turn for the worst...she has been laid to rest here at my place with her old buddy Spanky...

Next weekend NO WORK and all Play I promise!!

PEACE

the Latest..

ALthough it may seem I havent made much progress, dont forget I work full time!!  Wish I had something other than WORK to share but thats all I seem to be doing lately...as the work continues on The Old House.  The weather will soon come into play since Spring is normally short in these parts we go right into HOT...really hope to get a lot of the outdoor work done before it turns so hot...

meanwhile I will enjoy working outside while its spring..

It took a while but we finally evicted the family of squirrels that was living in the porch attic...and the pack rat from the tool shed! HE was up in the rafters...what a messy nest... I didnt get any photos of those pesky critters but we relocated all safely. 

I removed the awnings on the end of the porch because the wood underneath was water damaged, and bad.

 and that is where the squirrels chewed their way in, so with that removed we put back new wood.  I dont plan to put that awning back up...

We peeled the screen wire back its going to be removed and the porch uprights painted, then new screening

The gutter has to be reinstalled.,,,I was thinking of making awnings from some of the redwood scraps I have and corregated acrylic roof panels instead of the metal...that way water can't blow in when it rains and yet light can get in....SO thats next on the list AFTER we finish painting the entire roof overhang and the porch itself! I think it would give a more modern look to the old tired porch

I had to get WAY up there to paint his gable end...the fascia board, and soffet Im learning these new terms..this gable end is done, that was hard!! THERE's 2 more gable's to do one involves getting UP on the roof again...not looking forward to that.

more painting to be done at the front too...

Got a sunburn for my trouble, tomorrow I'll be on the shady side I hope!

I sprayed the English Ivy with Round UP..it seems to be dying, I have more to spray I wanted to see if it would work, it took about 3 weeks to start dying.  The label says it only kills what you spray it on, so I have to move some things before I spray the rest...

Meanwhile my annual flower seeds have sprouted and soon they will be ready to plant in the yard! I save plastic food containers that have lids to start my seeds, the Zinna seeds sprouted in 3 days! The lettuce is also up...

AND i found this unique  junk shop buy, a tiered unit that cost all of $5...its very sweet looking!

I do hope to get in a waterfall hike sometime in May, around the 10th if all goes as planned...and thanks to all of your well wishes to my Mom she is much improved and watching her favorite Western Shows as I type this!!  That makes me HAPPY!!:o)

So that's what Ive been up to lately!

PEACE

Throwing Rocks and Mud Slinging?

Maybe its Spring? A warm weekend, some rain helps bring things out...

Mom has been really sick she relapsed and I spent Thursday night in the ER with her...but I refused to have her admitted to the hospital...Older people go into hospitals and come out feet first... got some good drugs for her and brought her home to recover in her own bed....and she has improved..still a long way from recouped...but on the way we think.  I was able to get some work done in the little sunny room I am re-doing...this little room is approx. 6 x 8.  I put down the wood floor last week, it had been carpet and sub floor...

THE vent is kinda  in the way since there was a built in window seat in front of these windows...I removed that.  I guess I should have moved this vent..but I don't think Its going to be a problem...I wont be staining and finishing the floor until all the sheetrock is hung, mudded, sanded and the trim applied. I will sand it when I sand the floor in the adjoining room. 

My sister and I have never done sheetrock, but we figure it cant be that hard!! SO we hung it...

IT was hard work, and we still have to put on tape and 3 coats of joint compound, then sand that off, and put up the trim around the windows, ceiling, baseboards, etc. The other rooms in this house have quarter round molding in the corners no tape so IM planning to do that and not try taping corners I figure Ill be doing good IF I can tape and "mud" the straight lines.

Annie is bored with all this Make Over crap!!

Another project is IM trying to evict a squirrel that is living in the screen porch attic...I set the trap UP in the attic....I really hope I catch him, cause he is chewing holes in the soffit of the porch!!!

I'll keep you posted OH and there is the Pack Rat in the old tool shed...he is NEXT!!!

HOPE your spring is moving right along!!

PEACE

THE proof is in the small details...

I guess y'all are wondering what the heck Ive been up to? Sorry Ive been MIA around here..just so many hrs in the day and I spend 8 working, 8 sleeping, and 8 just goofing off I reckon!

SPRING tomorrow--yeah! Hope we have a longggg spring...summer is normally brutal here..

I am still working on the old house...it took me 2 days and 5 tubes of caulk up on the tall extension ladder to get all the windows caulked outside.  Another regular maintainance project that had been neglected for the past 13 yrs. I dont like going up the tall ladder but I have no choice!! Im also getting ready to caulk around the eaves in prep for painting it.

(this was once foundation plantings, now its gone WILD)

The house has 16 windows that I caulked...the old sunroom has 10 MORE windows that need MORE than caulk...so thats a whole project alone.  Some of those will be replaced completely!!

What Im caulking is the crack that has opened by around the window trim like this one.

after the caulking its much better...and it keeps the rain water from getting into spots that cause ROT to happen....this one needs to have the screen straightened and some clean up too...that looks like old rust from a window AC that used to be in this window....but its MUCH better with that big crack gone!  Im gonna try Mr Clean Eraser on that rusty spot..

Another crack filled here--- ..while the weather is warm but not HOT I plan to tackle some of the outdoor projects, I can always paint indoors with AC when it gets hot so I will soon begin the painting of the trim around the roof...and fixing up those bad windows of the old sunroom.  That will be one of the major fix ups of this house. 

ANYONE who has a good idea of how to get rid of English Ivy please Im open for suggestions...its taking over!

I've almost finished putting in that floor in the new Sun Room! Its a sunny room so Library doesnt really suit it.. and the Wall Paper is COMING down slowly...my sister is here visiting so she has been helping.  I will get some photos of that this weekend! Every little thing I do makes this old place a wee bit better!!

PEACE