The Home Improvement Summer of 2011

My beautiful accent wall in my living room, dining room, thanks to my youngest son and his wife and the missionaries and my visiting teacher and her son!
Ever seen a round zucchini that looks like a pumpkin? I hadn't either. Someone gave this to me out of their garden.
Brent removed all the deck railings to be replaced. However, with the major painting project inside, he wasn't able to replace them. Tomorrow the missionaries will be doing that as their service project for the week!
The bare naked railing supports waiting to be covered!
Bare naked fence waiting for some stain!
New stain does wonders for the look of a fence and protects for years to come. We had not stained it in the 17 years we have been here. I did not realize how expensive stain was. The Elder that sprayed it did a great job. His long sleeved white shirt is now polka dotted with stain. It will be his permanent work shirt, I'm sure!This is a picture of the fencing before the Elders stained it.
We paid our Home Teacher to replace this gate post that had rotted out and we are thrilled with the job. We just have to cover it with some soil and re-plant the grass there.
Some of the decking flooring needs to be replaced. So, while the Missionaries are replacing the deck railings, they will replace the flooring as well. I'm confident in these Elders' ability because they just helped tear down and replace at deck for a member of the ward. They have borrowed his nail gun and saw. They know how to do this project!

We bought a box of beef steak tomatoes from Wenatchee. Frank loves the beef steak and we can't grow them here. The weather is never warm enough for long enough. We had to make our trip to Wenatchee worth it. I also bought some raspberries, but they are already tucked away in the freezer for freezer jam.
We bought some apples in Wenatchee and some people in the ward gave us apples. I will make freezer cinnamon applesauce.
Rex Helton's wife gave me a box of huge, roma tomatoes. They grow them big in Wenatchee. I asked her where I could get a box of tomatoes and she said, "right here in my garden. I just picked them yesterday! We were thrillled! After giving a lot away, I am ready to make Pico de gallo. I have a great recipe that is super delicious.
This is what is left of 2 twenty-five pound boxes of peaches. The rest were frozen for peach smoothies and cobblers when the weather is rainy and cold. Comfort food at its best!
My geranium plants have done the best this year! Fred Meyer was giving away free Gold Bond potting soil if you brought your own containers. It had the compost and fertilizer already in it.
They just continue to bloom and bloom and bloom! I think I will try to over-winter them in the garage. Another lady in our ward does that every year. And each spring she has geraniums before any one else.


Frank took this picture with my I-Pod and accidentally put it on video, so you'll hear his voice. This is Uncle Rex, and Aunt Ella. She is 82 and he is 85. This is John Frank Helton, Mom's father's son from his second family.