The Beasts in the Yard

Minneapolis has had some really nice weather this last week.  All our animals love being outside. Here are some pictures of them enjoying the warm weather.

New Blog Name?

If we don't start work on our house soon I may have to change the name of this blog to "the Ghetto House." Last week we came home to find the bottom of our screen door had fallen off. The Byerly's deliver guy laughed and asked if it was a new doggie door.  I thought about changing it, but our plan is to open up the porch, in which case we will not need a screen door there, so I don't want to have to buy one now if it is only going to be for a couple of weeks.  

Our neighbors who have all seen the inside of the house at some time all realize how much work we have to do, so hopefully they won't complain to the city.  

As far as getting our loan, we just sent the plans to the loan officer and are waiting for an appraisal.  We decided to have the floor of the tuck-under garage dug out so that the whole space meets the height requirements for a bedroom.   So this way we get appraised as a 3 bed/2 bath house instead of a 2/2.  

In the picture is Buster warming himself up this winter.  It was one of his favorite spots when it got really cold outside.

Spring is here

Our lilac bushes have buds on them and everywhere else I look there are signs of spring. Finally!! Seth has started working on the garden.  He has his own blog with his progress at toilinthesoil.blogspot.com.  He is planting all kinds of plants; tomatoes, beans, peas, onions, garlic, herbs, chili peppers, rhubarb, carrots, radish, celery, broccoli.....and that is all I can remember.  At least we are not doing the CSA again this year.  If all goes well we may have to distribute stuff to other people, because there is no way that the two of us will be able to eat all those veggies.

We are slowly making other progress toward fixing up the house.  We have a contractor with a really decent estimate.  Now we are waiting for th

e FHA guy (not completely sure what to call him) to finish his write up and then off we go to the loan officer and appraiser!  We are keeping our fingers crossed that we get the amount we want.  Then I really will have a lot to blog about as things start moving.