Birthday Coupon

For Judy's 70th birthday, Ann and I gave her a coupon for 10 hours of our labor. Yard work, cleaning, moving furniture, cooking, hauling stuff, transplanting, washing windows, whatever she wanted us to do. The coupon was worth $1000! but not good with any other offer and not redeemable for cash. Ann and I showed up last Monday with our grubby clothes, pruners, clippers, a shovel, wine, food, and lots of energy. The deal was she had to put us up for the night (slumber party!) so we didn't have to cram all the work into one day. We got to work digging up hostas and transplanting them in the front bed. Then hauling split rails to form a fence, moving an air conditioner, mulching, then lots of sitting on the porch drinking wine.




I love this fish and convinced Judy that it needed a better place than leaning against a tree in the woods.




Judy's son is 'storing' his old car behind her cabin.


I call this one, "Seen Better Days."


This very old bird house was lovingly built long ago. It even has copper gutters!


The wee top of it.


It sits on the edge of the woods with a couple other hand made bird houses. Judy said the birds even use them!


Judy made this parcheesi board.


Her father is an accomplished artist and she inherited most of his brushes.


This is pretty fuzzy but it's such a cool metal lobster above her sink.


The following day we woke up to a thunderstorm. She has a metal roof and the rain sounded so soothing, I just wanted to stay in bed, wrapped in my bedding. But there was work to be done! I got to do my favorite thing, a room makeover. We rearranged furniture, and Judy has some great pieces to work with. This is a new addition so she wasn't totally moved into it. It's now comfy cozy with a nice conversation area.


Her father's paintings hang on most of the walls and it was fun coordinating furniture and other pieces to go with them.


Judy is an artist herself and carved this figure when her boys were young.


Didn't do anything to this arrangement as it was perfect. It's in her kitchen. She uses antique chests for storage.


After taming some wild cables to the TV and computer, pulling out a window frame (Judy did most of the swinging of the maul), a bit of painting, and some final tweaking of the living room, and eating an amazing veggie tart that Judy made for us, it was time to say good bye. That's Judy on the left. Can you believe she's 70?!!!!! She is totally awesome. She bought this cabin way out in the country a little over a year ago and along with her son, does a lot of the work on it. It was basically a hunting cabin, very primitive. It's now a lovely home, worthy of an artist.


On the way home, we pass this falley downey barn. See how close it is to the road?! I love the look of it.