That's not SNOW

Timothy and Sandra were in Kanawha on Sunday painting on the roof and back corner of the building. They had to squeeze it in between rain. Tim said he will finish up on another date. He used an industrial shiny white to reflect the sun and give our store top a crisp clean look. We are so excited to get this done. Thank you!!!

We are sad to find out we have no septic tank but glad to quit looking. Jody and Gerald Pardue came over to talk to Tim and they told him they may be able to help us with a solution that is economical and requires a bit of back hoe help from Stephen for installation. We seriously thank God for cousins and kids.

Michael and Timothy made pictures for us. Someday when we are all settled in and the store is finished maybe we can look back at these and chuckle.

WHEN is the question

Friday night Bill and I made a quick trip through lightening that made the sky look like it formed a jigsaw puzzle inorder to get a quick start on the last bit of painting on the cedar and trim. We finished it up and headed home not even stopping for a visit with my parents because the thought of driving through that again was more than we wanted to deal with.

While we were painting the mail lady stopped to say hi and ask when the store would be open. It was good to see her friendly face but we have no answer. At one point we thought we knew but experience has left us sure we do not. We did promise we would post a sign on the door with the future opening date as soon as we knew when that might be. I hope no one is holding their breath.

We have a list of to-dos as long as all our arms put together and everytime we tic one off we find three to take it's place. I am an obsessive list maker. But with no store resurrecting experience I can list all I want the cows will just not be comin home till they are good and ready.

My having an agenda for each of our work days has left a long list of unfinished todos in its wake. Some items will be last minute but most of the inside store construction primarily covering the inner walls with shelving and constructing the free standing shelves for the asiles will be done on our next long work weekends ie 6 months. While we are between these work days we have purchased several sturdy furniture items for the interior of the store.

Fortunately for storage purposes our last two children are moving out giving us a bedroom for storage and also one for the sleepovers that may happen occasionally:0)

We continue to be on the outlook for the best recipes we can find and talk about how to pull this transition off continues. Somehow we must transition from Bills job to the store so all kinds of how to do this ideas are floating around to be discussed and discarded. Somewhere in there is a college graduation for our youngest and training for us on how to run a store.

I think it may be possible to predict our store opening by the end of next spring but that too can change.

NO ONE WANTS TO OPEN THIS STORE SOONER THAN I DO

The inside of the store will contain 3 tables and 13 chairs. There will be a cabinet for kitchen items, one for linens and clothing items, one for office/school supplies. The remaining areas are shelving, peg boards and baskets and pails filled with items such as garden, hardware, cleaners, tools, auto, feed and pet supplies. In addition we hope to have a small toy display mounted on the wall and a book case with books, movies etc. Just like Mr Whittle remembered, "some of everything".

Groceries will have an area all to themselves. I know the new stores have you zig zagging all over the place to find something for dinner but I hate that ploy to make you spend more time in the store. If you want to sit a spell we will be tickled to have you, but no need to keep a feller who is in a hurry to get home. It is just honest and fair to make a store easy to use. Hangin' out should be a choice.

104 and climbin'

When it came right down to it we just couldn't remove all that history. So we cut out all the rotten wood and replaced it with cedar that is as close as todays cuts would allow. Seems that during the past 40 years boards got thinner and narrower.

Arriving at the trailer Friday evening we had the unpleasant surprise ants had found their way into our trailer and about 3AM Bill is hopping around the trailer yelling ants are in the bed. I flip my pillow over to show him it is all in his head and there are three ants doing a square dance so we spent a good bit of the night stripping the bed and spraying until the fumes put us to sleep. At one point Will who is in the bunk above us leans down and tells us to

turn out the light and go to sleep.

That sent Bill and I into a fit of giggles to think we have been telling children to turn out the light and go to sleep for years and at last they are having to tell us!

Mary Frances is training her horses for the State Fair Showing, Stephen has been so busy he can't look up with all the rain causing double the mowing and Timothy is working many weekends trying to get painting done now that it finally dried out, this left Mike and Will to help us out.

I can truthfully tell you I thought we might melt. The weather man forcasted 102 but the thermometer said 104 and we believe it. At some point we were brushing on half paint and half sweat. Needless to say we did not get everything finished. The plan is now shifting to next weekend when we hope to finish the painting. We will only have 2 days so I doubt the posts will get tackled.

Jody stopped to say hi and brought some zucchini bread. She has offered to slay the poison ivy. I think she is a professional so it was a wonderful offer. She said Gerald's mother was sharing family information with her so we will be able to fill in more blanks on the family tree. I look forward to her information. Bobbie Easterwood has also offered to supply information to some of the areas of her family branch. The Easterwood family has been a blessing to us. We continue to pray for Vic Easterwood's health.

Family Facelift

We are contemplating what a new face will require. Hopefully we can complete this transformation in one weekend but considering our past experience we anticipate a mostly done situation at best.

Here is the plan:
We will remove the old siding from the front of the building. This siding holds many fond memories for our children and it has set off quite a debate.
Do we try to rescue and treat it? Do we replace it with more cedar siding? The answer is within the siding itself. It is very rotten, having not been treated for a long time and not savable. The price of new cedar siding is out of the question. This leaves us with new siding and we have opted for real wood not man made.

Before we can put on the new siding we will put up insulation and the new siding will be added over this. Then we need to frame out the windows and if we have time cover the posts with 1x12's.

All this bare wood needs caulked, primed and painted.

Estimated costs run around $500.00. Home Depot sent us a 25 dollar gift card and no interest on charge purchases coupon. Our orange card had faded to a sort of dingy peach color so they sent us a new one of those too. When I was a kid there was a song
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/ernie-ford-16-tons-lyrics.html
...It went something like this...

16 tons and what do you get

another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me

cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the home-de-pot store

OK, I changed it a bit but you get the idea.

I am studying marketing and purchasing. I walk in Kroger and Walmart trying to learn by observation. Just how tall should a shelf be and where should it be placed. Does a store that sells more in a day than we will purchase in 6 months really have anything in common with our store? Truly I probably learn more from what a consumer needs to know than what the conglomerates are doing.

Like this 10 things your grocery store doesn't want you to know article.

http://health.msn.com/print.aspx?cp-documentid=100165289&page=0

It is refreshing to know our baskets will have fewer germs and be washed more often than any large stores.

I have been trying to come up with a friendly restroom sign. Something that says:

One at a time,

both sexes,

one at a time,

you need a key and

it is up front

where you need to sign for it and

oh by the way,

please leave it clean and

if you are from the city

we have a whole FYI about septic tanks for you to read and

we hope you have not wet your pants by the time we actually give you a key.

still trying to chew what we bit off

Seemed like a simple straightforward task. We had Michael with us for help. However the third day came and went with the inside front wall still not near finished. How can painting one big flat wall barn red be so difficult? I guess the 99 nails in the wall, sanding, priming and two coats to cover were daunting enough on hind sight. The removal of the hog wire which had three coats of paint where it wasn't bare metal and the spray painting both sides which took an unbelievable 2+ cans to cover each side in sizzling heat seemed to last forever. I think it entertained the citizens of Kanawha though. The hog wire had to be cut with the grinder, another slow task not considered when we allowed four days. If you look closly at the goggles the guys are wearing you will notice one pair is usually worn playing racketball, a bit of improvising on Bills part:0) The framing out of the inside window was way easier to draw on paper than to execute. The two panes of new glass are still on the floor because Michael suggested they were safer there, so will put new glass in on another day. Seems empty buildings attract stray bullets like a bee to honey. There is a good bit of white painting to do on the 4 inch trim around the door but most of the difficult work is finished. One nice feature of the new window frame is it is installed with screws which makes it much sturdier and removable so washing the glass is easier.

We got a visit from Mr Easterwood, a cousin. He told us he hunted rabbit and squirrel all over Kanawha when he was as young as 10 and visiting his Grandparents, Ambrose and Opal Boulware. It reminded me about the banana candy Opal always kept for my mother. I guess we will carry banana candy. Opal was like that, always kind and willing to go out of her way to please. It was the tradition of hospitality that drew people to their store and made them linger. He also told us about the original store on our site burning when Charlie Hart owned it. He was a welcome sight on such a grueling work trip.

We waved to Gary Stewart as he passed on his mail route Saturday. Gary is another cousin, Grandson of Ernest Boulware. Gary has gone out of his way to make us feel at home and it is much appreciated.

We did check out the Sears store, where we priced AC window units and other appliances we will need. Window units should run about $400.00 each if we can find them on sale. Our goal will be to prep holes to set them in next spring so they can be purchased before the heat hits in the summer. Sears is one of the few places that will service appliances in this rural area.