More of Grandpa Dale's Junk

Some recent (and forgotten about!) photos of the junk tractor on the Ioka property......more pics of other junky machinery and outbuildings to follow at a later date. Don't want to forget this stuff--truly!

Cowboy Dressed Up for his Debut with the Cows!

Uncle Jared has been teasing Grandma about her paint horse, Cowboy. He says that only Indians can own paint horses because they speak the same language as paint horses. He kept asking me what kind of Indian I spoke to Cowboy. So as a way to tease him back, I decided to paint a handprint on Cowboy's bum like the Indians used to do with horses. It was pretty funny to see the bright red handprint on him. Everyone that saw it laughed and thought it was great. Jared was only mildly amused by it. He's a tough egg! Anyway, thought you might enjoy seeing Cowboy and his first performance with the Ioka cows. Enjoy. PS The first picture is of Aunt Shaley on Cowboy. We took turns riding him over the couple of days that we were doing cows.

Grandpa Dales's Junk

These are a few pictures of some of the old machinery that Grandpa Dale has lying around in Ioka. They are talking about tearing down some of the old buildings and hauling off some of the old equipment in Ioka. Thought I'd start taking a few pictures so we can remember some of the old stuff that he treasures. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say.

The Ioka House

We worked our poor little finger bones almost all the way off this past weekend! By the time Saturday evening rolled around, I could barely make a fist with my right hand as it was sooooooo sore and swollen from holding a paint roller! We had lots of sore muscles in other places as well from crawling around on the floors and climbing up and down on ladders. We took lots of Aleve and Ibuprofen to get us through the nights!! We did however, get LOTS done on the house. All the rooms now have paint on the walls. We got all the painting done except the pantry, the bedroom closets, and the floor boards throughout the house. Sounds like a lot but really the bulk of it is done!!! (By the way, the house DIDN"T have floor boards when we started!) It looks pretty good. I wasn't sure on the color choices but after getting a room or two done, I've decided I really like it. The front and back doors need a color too but haven't decided as yet which color to put on them. The little house is proving to be not so bad! Still need kitchen countertops and flooring in the living room and the two bedrooms yet. At least it feels like we are on the downslide. The living room will have hardwood flooring (which we already bought and took out to the house) and the bedrooms will have carpet. I've started watching the sales for the carpeting. It should end up all looking halfway decent when we're done with her!! The neighbors keep thanking us for cleaning the place up and hauling so much junk off. Guess that gives us an upper edge with them when we finally move out there!! We'll remind ourselves of their gratitide when we're wondering if it was worth all the muscle aches!!

Pictures to Prove We Actually Work--Not Just Tear Apart!!

We're finally getting to the put-back-together phase at the little house in Ioka. We have installed new front and back doors; laid tile in the kitchen, laundry area and bathroom; painted ONE wall in the kitchen--the wall where the lower cabinets go; and installed a new toilet and vanity and new faucets in the bathroom. We bought wood flooring for the living room this week and took it out so that it can "acclimate" to the temperature of the house. We need to finish installing the lower kitchen cabinets and do some serious painting but I'm excited that things are starting to actually come together instead of always demolishing stuff! In the next few weeks we also hope to start laying the new hardwood flooring in the living room. Always busy but at least we are starting to see some of the "fruits" of our labors!!! Notice Grandpa's technique for hanging cabinets!! What a crazy man to use his head for supporting the weight of cabinets while Terry screws them to the walls. Grandpa and Grandma stopped by for about 30 minutes and man oh man, we put them right to work! PS--we took them to dinner afterwards so their efforts didn't go without some payoff!