Down Come the Christmas Lights

Today we had such beautiful weather for a January day in Nebraska.  The temperatures were up to the mid 40s and we had no wind, nary a breeze.  If you live in other parts of the world you might not think this is so unusual but here in Nebraska we hardly ever have days without wind and a lots of days of very windy weather.

John decided this would be a good day to remove the lights from the windmill that we put up the first part of December.  You remember this photo of the lights taken at night, I posted about it on Dec. 16.

It is a good thing John can climb the windmill to put them up and take them down as I don’t like heights.  So far it doesn’t bother him to climb up and down and when that time comes when he can no longer do it maybe we will have a volunteer.

The star is the last of the lights to come down.  You get an idea how tall the windmill is when you see John standing near the top.  Oh, by the way the blades have been removed from this windmill years ago but John and I would like to get it restored at some point as all the parts are here stored away.

The Star Comes Down VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The star is an outline made out of metal and the string of orange lights is taped to the metal.  It is all held up with bungee cords and electrical tape.  I really have a hard even watching John do this job but he calmly goes about the business of dismantling the lights and storing them away in the Quonset for another year.

I hope you all don’t think I have forgotten you since I have posted  for a while – I just have not had anything to write about.  I have not done any sewing but have been reading another joy in my life.  I do love books in any form - the written word and audio books so cherish time that I get to read and .

Do stop in again as I have another purse/bag stewing in my head and I have been pulling fabric from my boxes trying to decide what fabrics and what design/pattern I want to use.  Remember I am giving a program on the tips and tricks of purses/bags for my quilt guild in a couple of weeks so have quite a few bags to show but would like a couple more with different techniques.  I have some samples for the program made already but need to do a few more plus make an outline of the items I want to talk about in my program in the next two weeks too.

So until later...and I hope it won’t be too much later until the next post.
Lynn

Testing, testing, testing…..

If any of you have happened onto my blog in the last half hour you might have seen some of my test blog posts that are now gone.  I was trying to figure out how to post a photo that would link you to another blog post so posted, looked at it then deleted it.   I needed to see if it would work so tried several ways to do it and think it will work now.  I am trying to get my pages on finished projects and tutorials to be just photos that you click on to take you to the post on that project or tutorial as right now they are a mess.  Think I have it figured out now so I can start fixing them.

This is also a test.  Click on the above photo and it will take you to my last December 20 blog post.  This post shows and tells about the Christmas lights my husband puts up on the windmill each year.  We have them up again this year and it looks so pretty even from miles away.  Enjoy!

Oh, by the way if it doesn’t work please let me know so I can do some more experimenting.

Lynn

Merry Christmas

Since you are probably not going to be driving by our house this Christmas season I want to show you the outside lights we put up each year. This first photo is the large lighted tree shape you see as you approach our farm. Since we live in a fairly flat part of Nebraska you can see the lights from 7-8 miles away. It has become such a tradition to have it up we had people from the area worrying and asking if we were going to put it up this year as John didn't get it done until about a week later than he usually does. The lighted "tree" is actually strings of large lights and a star on the top of the windmill in the yard south of our house. John has continued on the tradition started by his dad many years ago and puts the lights up each Christmas.

John has simplified how he puts them up the last few years to make the task easier and fewer trips climbing up the windmill. He extended the width of the base of the windmill with 2x4 lumber pieces and has wrapped the strings of lights around long ropes then he carries half the strings up to the top and hooks them to the windmill with bungee cords and then climbs back down and hooks them to nails with bungee cords on the lumber at the bottom. This keeps the lights away from the metal windmill supports and makes a wider "tree". With the winds we have here there were always a lot of broken bulbs when they were banged against the legs of the windmill but now if they go out it is because they burned out so that was a good improvement. Most times he can get it all done with three trips up the windmill, one for the star and two for the lights strings.

I took the above photo from the family room window while inside the house and you can't see the star as well as you can when you are driving by on the highway. I put lights and greenery on either side of the sidewalk so those are the lights you see at the bottom of the photo. We have all the lights on timers so they run from dark until about 1 pm then have them turn on again about 5:30 until 8 am so people going to work can enjoy them too.

Last year at the after Christmas sales I purchased a bunch of plastic candy canes with lights inside. They look real pretty all marching down the sidewalk and light the way to our front door. By the way that shine on the sidewalk is ice. Most people come to our back door but I am hoping it will melt before I am forced to try and chop-scoop, what ever to get it off.

As pretty as these candy canes are the wind keeps blowing one or two down occasionally. These two have been laying on the ground for a couple of days. John has been too busy and I just don't want to go out and do it in the cold but need to get them up today again so they will all be looking pretty when our family arrives to celebrate with us. We do have a plan to change how we stand them up next year so hopefully that will solve the problem.

Warm wishes for a safe and happy Christmas where ever you are.

Lynn