Monday, November 28, 2011

Setting the Light Pole Rivir Ranch Style

On Thursday night/Friday morning, Spencer and his buddy Grant came over to go Black Friday shopping with us. When we came home from shopping on Friday afternoon, Spencer and Grant offered to help Carl set the light pole. So here are a bunch of pictures show you how the guys set the light pole....

First up was to hook up the post hole digger to the tractor. Of course it takes three guys to do this task.
 They got the post hole digger hooked to the tractor but the auger didn't want to attach very easily. There solution...

Spencer stood on top of it while Carl beat the auger with a hammer. They eventually got it attached.

The post hole digger was bent so it wouldn't dig a hole straight into the ground. After deciding that they couldn't bend the post hole digger, Spencer thought to just shim up the tractor a few inches to straighten it out.


It still wasn't perfectly straight so Carl and Grant had to put a little muscle on it and that worked well enough.


They finally got the hole dug, next was putting the 30+ foot telephone pole into the hole.


The pole was big and very heavy. The placed the telephone pole into the hole 'Iwo Jima' style.


They crept their way closer to the end and got it in the hole.


But it was really crooked.


Again, their solution to get the pole straight...


Once they got the pole set straight the packed the dirt all around it. It's not going anywhere now.


When we built the house we knew we wanted a pole light so the electricians left a roll of cable for us on the side of the house to use for the pole light. Spencer and Grant trenched in the cable for us. You can't even see the trench, they did a nice job.


So they got the pole set and the electrical cable trenched up now they need to get the light and cable attached to the pole. Again, their solution....use the deer stand.


Carl harnessed himself to the pole and climbed his way to the top. It was really windy that day so he was a little wobbly up there and the pole isn't really wide enough for the deer stand to grip really well but he made it up there.


He didn't take any tools up with him while climbing so the guys sent up a box with the light and some other parts.


Carl did a little work up there but still needed the drill. Send it up...


Carl got the light hooked up.


And just as he was about to install the light in it, I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking and stepped on the one and only light bulb. Needless to say he wasn't very happy with me then.


So we are almost done, we still need to get a new light bulb, install the the electrical box to the base of the pole and attach the cable to the pole. Carl gets to make another trip up the light pole in the deer stand this week.


We borrowed Carl's Dad's trailer to haul the pole over to our house and when we were taking the trailer back to him on Saturday we blew a tire on the trailer about 8-10 miles from their house. We stopped and called his Dad to see what he wanted us to do but he said that we would be ok and just keep on going. We took it slow and made it to their house eventually.


It's always an adventure when working on the Rivir Ranch and setting up the light pole was no exception.


Monday, November 7, 2011

Crafting

This is my second year of setting up a display at various craft shows in the area. So far I've set up at three craft shows this year and all of them were pretty successful. I really enjoy making all of these little treats so that makes it even more fun. Here was my display this year and some of the little things that I made.




Gardening Season is Over

Our first garden on the Rivir Ranch was quite a sucess. We harvested alot of vegetables this year and were able to preserve alot of them too. But all good things must come to an end, so Carl ripped out the tomato and pepper cages and cleared off all the dead plants. Then plowed over the whole garden to get it ready for next year. He also plowed up an additional 20-30 feet on the end to make our 2012 garden even bigger.


Carl's New Truck

Carl has been eyeing a new truck for awhile and on Saturday he finally got it. He traded in the Trans Am and his old truck and got a 2008 Chevy Silverado z71 truck. It's an awesome ride!

On Saturday, I had a craft show so I had to use his truck to haul my display and items to the craft show. Carl came to the show with me to help me set up but later left to go to check out this truck that he had seen last week and checked out onlne. Well the craft show was open until 3:00 in the afternoon but the car lot was only open until 5:00 and I had the truck 40 minutes away.  So Carl text me and said that he was on his way to help tear down my craft show booth so that we could make it back up to the car lot with the old truck to trade it in for the new truck by 4:00 because it takes some time to process. And sure enough, we left the car lot at 5:00 with a new truck loaded down with all my craft show stuff.

Here is Carl driving his new truck off the lot.

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Friday, October 28, 2011

Another Tree at the Ranch

My birthday is next week and I've been asking Carl a million questions about my birthday gifts. He never gives any hints (boo) but he did tell me that he has one gift that he needs to give me early. I love getting presents early. He said he would give it to me over the weekend but he went hunting on Saturday and didn't get home until late so I didn't receive this mystery gift, then on Sunday he went hunting again and didn't come until late that night too. So when he got home around 10pm on Sunday, I was asking him about my birthday gift that I hadn't got yet but that he was going to give me soon. By now it was around 11pm and we were getting ready for bed, he was still being vague about the birthday gift when I was continuing to ask a bunch of questions, it's bigger than a bread box, doesn't have a motor, can't be wrapped easily, etc. Then he says, you want your birthday gift now, and of course I say yes. He says, ok put your shoes on because its not here. What does he mean its not here, as in it is not on our property but is accessible at 11pm at night...yes.  By now, I'm thinking 'Really Carl, we have to drive to it (remember we don't know anyone in our town that could be hiding the gift either) at 11pm on a Sunday night. So we get our shoes, coats and a flashlight and hop in the truck. We drive down our rode and stop near a woods. Carl gets out of the truck with the flashlight and begins walking towards the woods and asks if I want to come too. I, of course say No, I'm not going in there, it's not even our woods. So on he goes in to someone elses woods to apparently get my birthday gift. A few minutes later he comes out of the woods with a big willow tree. I've been wanting a willow tree for quite awhile and really wanted to plant it the year the house was built so I was really happy to get the tree. But really who stashes a willow tree in someone elses woods for three days...Carl.

So we planted the willow tree in the back corner of the property in a low spot since willow trees need alot of water.





Here I am with my new willow tree. I've got a shovel in my hand but who am I kidding, everyone knows Carl did all the work and I watched, hahaha.



Then Carl staked it up so the strong winds on the Ranch won't blow it over. Thanks for the tree, hubby!



Planting Trees on the Ranch

We planted our first trees on the Ranch a few weeks ago. A lady at work planted the seeds from her Cleveland pear trees and brought in a bunch of little saplings. The Cleveland pear tree is similar to a Bradford pear, it doesn't produce fruit and is a nice medium height tree. You typically see them in rows lining drive ways. Anyways, we planted ours along the left side of the property (as you are looking at it from the road.)

When you are working with an engineer, every thing has to be measured. These trees are evenly spaced from each other and in a perfect row parallel to the property line.



Then he dug the holes to plant the little trees.


Then, in went the trees and in a perfect row.


We were glad to plant some trees in the year the house was built. Someday that little fact will be interesting.



Thursday, October 27, 2011

Hello Again

Wow, I fell off the blogging trail. Now, I'm back to fill you in on our October happenings. Here are a few highlights.

At the beginning of October I went to Indianapolis for a business convention. Since it wasn't too far of a drive Carl visited me over the weekend and we went to Fogo de Chao. It's one of our favorite restaurants! It's all you can eat meat and it is the best meat you'll ever have. They give you a card that is green on one side and red on the other, when you flip the card to green the gauchos will start bringing you meat and they won't stop until you turn your card to red. After awhile you do have to turn the card to red and breathe a little (and unbutton your pants, haha). Here is Carl with one of the gauchos and a huge piece of steak.


My little sister just finished up the volleyball season and we went to several of her games. Suzanne is pretty much a rock star at volleyball, just like me, haha. Basketball season just started so we're looking forward to those games.



Then we went down to Carl's Alma mater, Purdue, to watch them get creamed by Notre Dame. No further elaboration needed.



With the heat wave that came through the middle of October, one of my pumpkins bit the dust and I had to haul him over to the compost pile. The rest of the pumpkins still look great though!



And the garden was still going strong in October. It was turning out tomatoes and peppers like you wouldn't believe. We've canned so many tomatoes lately, I'm not sure how we are going to eat them all. Just this week Carl canned up 7 quarts of stewed tomatoes and 7 quarts of pasta sauce in addition all the other things we canned earlier this summer.





October is also the start of deer season so Carl has been over at his parents hunting on the weekends quite a bit and I'm participating in a few craft shows the next two weeks so I've been spending a lot of time in the craft room.  I'll be back later with some more of our October adventures. 

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Pickin' Pumpkins!

It rained all weekend at the Rivir Ranch but it cleared up for just enough time to pick our pumpkins on Sunday. The pumpkin  patch was quite the success, I had over 80 pumpkins. I'm working on decorating the house, inside and outside, with all of them.

Since it was muddy outside, I put on my big rubber boots with shorts...yep, I know, stylish!



We picked all the pumpkins then used the tractor to haul them up to the house. It took us four trips. And since we didn't want to drive on the new grass, we went all the way around the around yard and up the driveway. Carl drove and I rode on the fender, I'm sure the neighbors were starring.


We also had a bunch of other things to pick in the garden - tomatoes, jalapenos, green peppers, watermelons, zucchinis and squash. We have alot of squash, I'm not sure what we're going to do with all of them yet.




Monday, September 26, 2011

It's a New Season

The seasons have changed from summer to fall and doesn't just mean the temperature outside, the new tv shows begin tonight. The new tv shows on TLC begin tonight and I've got the DVR ready. One of our favorites, Cake Boss, returns along with other shows that I watch. Carl refuses to watch Little Couple, 19 Kids and Counting, Sister Wives, Say Yes to the Dress, DC Cupcakes and more. Me and my reality tv...sigh. But since we do love Buddy and his famiglia on Cake Boss we drove out to Hoboken, NJ, in March to check out the bakery.





We waited in line for over two hours before we made our way into the little bakery where it was even more crammed with people. The bakery is just like it seems on tv, except smaller.

Here is Carl checking out the fondant layer cakes. At $45 a cake, it was a tough decision but we couldn't pass up the chance to try one of Buddy's famous fondant cakes.


We made our way to the end of the counter and Grace came out to the front of the bakery. Carl and I were both a little star struck and didn't know what to say to her, so all we managed to say was 'Hello' and where we are from. She probably thought we were really weird, oh well. We didn't get to see Buddy but we did see Mauro, Frankie and Joey in the backroom.


There weren't any signs labeling all the goodies and it was so packed with people that you couldn't go back to pick anything out but we did manage to buy some lobster tails, cannolis, a cupcake, cream puffs, crumb cake, 7 layer cookie, Mexican wedding cake cookies and a fondant layer cake. 




We ordered the blue fondant layer cake with the bow and they asked if we would like to have a message written on it. So I said "Sure, write Carl loves Lindsey." They took the cake to the back room to have the message written on it, the girl came back with our cake and it said "Carlo's Love Lindsey." Oh well, guess that's close enough. The cake was pretty good and the fondant was better than we expected. We were just glad that we got to have a slice of fondant cake made at Carlos Bakery.


We had a fun time visiting Carlos Bakery even though we didn't get to meet Buddy. I'm looking forward to the new season of Cake Boss and the other TLC shows this fall.