Awwwwwgust

It has been a long time since I was really happy to see a new month arrive but I am happy to see August.  Usually when August arrives I'm a little sad because it is the last full month of summer and because my girls will be going back to start another school soon.  But not this time.

June was busy.  We began with a five day trip to the coast which is still the highlight of our summer.  We had a tremendous amount of fun.  After that we came home and got busy on projects.

We pulled weeds!  Boy howdy, did we pull weeds.  So much rain had fallen and they were plentiful.  We built a new gate, we built and added a handrail to our front porch, we expanded the chicken's pen area and added on a whole new section, we revamped the chicken feeder so they couldn't tip it over anymore and then we cleaned out and reorganized our garage.  And let's not forget about our new compost bin, which is working fabulously by the way.  We cut up a huge pile of scrap wood for our fire pot and stacked it in the backyard.  Plus the girls and I made stars.

And I did a lot of work on Laverne (makes me very happy!).  June was quite busy.

But July was nuts!

For one thing we've had a ton of company.  Not only did I entertain friends, like we normally do for meals and such and hosted an afternoon of pinochle with my girlfriends, but in July we had a total of 15 days with overnight guests.  For us, that is a lot and definitely not something we do very often.  I'm glad we did though.

During that time I didn't take any time off, except for 4th of July which is a paid holiday where I work.  In fact, I actually worked quite a bit of overtime last month, which I hadn't realized until I was looking at my pay statements..  In between guest visits, when I was not at work, I was in constant project mode and one weekend we kept on working on those projects even while guests were here.  Stuff needed to get done and I am super happy with everything we accomplished.

Our backyard is all cleaned up and looking really good, finally.  Our front yard doesn't look too shabby either.  I got the pond cleaning up and running and when the pump conked out I fixed it and got the pond running again.  The chicken coop has been repaired, shored up, re-roofed, cleaned, and the pen area expanded.  I bought  the chickens a new galvanized water feeder to replace the plastic one that broke last winter.  We replaced one of our broken fence posts that snapped last winter.  We spread out composted chicken manure on the lawn to add much needed nutrients to the soil (that's why we compost!).  And I managed to repair a few things around the house too.  And I did a couple more projects on Laverne!

The girls and I have cooked, baked, cleaned, done laundry, and grocery shopped.  I spent an evening mending clothes that were piling up on my sewing table and even managed a quick sewing project which netted me a few handmade gifts.  I think I know why I'm feeling a little tired these days.

Even with all that we have accomplished thus far there is still so much more to get done.  But now it is August so we start anew.  We were talking about it the other day and we have such a strong feeling of pride in what we've done.  I can really see how my girls feel that as they've learned new skills and done more to help out.  They are really going to do great when they have homes of their own.

Have any of you had a project filled summer?  What are some of the things you've been doing this summer?