Ahww, how cute .. twins! This mamma and her babies are showing up almost every evening, to nibble on the new grass that's coming up (a little) now we're watering.
According to Pat she's here almost every year and almost always has twins!

They're careful, but not overly impressed with all the activity around here.                                      
And boy, do we have some .. activity, I mean!                                                                                   Ronnie, Sam and Andrew have finished milling the wood for now, there's more to do but it's newly cut and needs to dry first, and are now working on the stairs.                                                                     Here's Ronnie drilling holes in the risers:

This wood is the Black Walnut that the guys felled a while ago ..

                           Sam and Andrew did the de-barking ..

James in the meantime, sprayed the texture on all walls and ceilings, and primed and painted the wall in the living room where the stairs are going to be:

Like this:

It turns out not to be as easy as they thought it would be, and keep running into some smaller and bigger problems, but slow but sure, they are winning the battle .. (when all is said and done this is going to be one expensive staircase!).
James finally got a somewhat larger crew together at the moment (Austin is back from 'the girls', and Jesse decided to return since he can't find any other work) and the roof is now finally starting to look like it might be finished one of these weeks ..

                                     

Here's part of the crew at coffee-break ..



And here's the boss himself .. and James too .. breaking for coffee in the 'tent':

We're mostly outside in the mornings when it's still cool enough, but most afternoons are getting to warm for me (around 90F) and I'll flee inside where the ACs are doing a good job keeping us cool.
Talking about inside, I've wanted to change the look of the room somewhat for the summer, and ordered blue slipcovers for the couch and some pillows and throws. They finally arrived:

The bedroom also sports new blue accents now, instead of the red. I even managed to find little blue lamp shades! I think it looks a little 'cooler' .. perfect for summer.                                                            I'll change everything back for the fall and winter.
As for the continuing saga of the fruits around here, I picked some of the largest and best tasting wild plums and, after blanching them, froze the whole lot. I think they're going to be syrup somewhere down the line ..

And those apples I picked at the river ..

They became applesauce! They turned out to be a rather soft and not very juice apple, but rather sweet  and quite delicious for apple sauce (with a little help of some cinnamon, lemon juice and extra sugar):

I think that has to be it for this week. Good 'nough, I would say. Things are moving along a little faster at the moment (yeah!), which is nice for a change.                                                                              Ronnie, Andrew and Sam and Pat will be here for another week, so hopefully those stairs are going to be finished, and the roof will be almost done too. Wow, we're getting somewhere!
Oh, by the way, I got the money for my (canceled) flight to Holland back!

With all the stories about problems and only able to get a voucher, if anything, we were a little worried but Delta came through. It only took a 5 minute phone call, no questions asked and all the money was refunded (well, it took a week before it was back in our account)! Kudos to Delta!