M O D F R U G A L – Page 14 – Budget Minded Modernist

My Sprinkler Brings all the Fawns to the Yard…..

Triple digit heat and no rain for weeks has our woodland friends gasping for a drink. We’ve started running the back sprinkler at dusk (no water bans yet) and it’s been drawing in a show every night.

This drives Otto nuts, and he’ll scare them away by barking through the window, so he has to be crated while we watch the wildlife and let them have a nice long drink. When they are up the hill, he’s cool with them, but when they come in this close, he gets territorial.

Oh, and if you ever wondered if fawns lift a leg, or what not…the answer is no…female dog style squat.

The fawns aren’t the only visitors to the sprinkler in the evenings.Â We’ve had baby owls too….I can’t seem to get a good shot of the “wing spread shimmy” they do in the water. I really need to take a photography class!

Good idea wildlife. It’s too hot to be outside without water, so the CC picked up a mister at Lowe’s for $16, and it has made a huge difference. We love it so much that we now have plans to install a hidden misting system so we can be outside all summer without keeling over.

The lady Vizslas love this shot……..

Catching Up

There’s so much, yet nothing really to share these days.

We took a trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to camp…you know how much I love the mountains, and these are no exception. We took a few back roads through some small towns for fun…and to avoid driving through Pigeon Forge.

I love the architecture of the observation tower at the top of Clingman’s Dome. Designed by Hubert Bebb and built in 1960, it is still a wonderful way to enjoy the views above the treeline.

As the highest point on the Appalachian trail, the 360Â° vista, if you’re lucky enough to get it without full cloud cover, is absolutely breathtaking. We had a cloud roll in and envelop us completely at one point, but the winds were strong enough to move it through so the show continued.

It may be a bit shabby, but I hope they continue to preserve such a well thought out and functional gem. I worry it will be torn down and replaced by something…else.

I woke up to see Thing Two had rolled off his air mattress in the night….

Campfire time = glow bracelet fun.

The CC taped a bunch of bracelets to a hiking stick to create the glow staff of cool……

The weather was perfect, not too hot with evenings cool enough to sit by the fire. On the last day, the Things hit up a roadside ice cream stand and the next 5 days at home were, well..pretty awful. Both of them down with food poisoning. Everyone is fine now, but it was rough for awhile. In the middle of all this, Otto decided to throw up some of those hickory nuts he seems so fond of… in our bedroom. I may have briefly considered running out of the house screaming.

Upside: A fawn was born in our absence, as we spotted a newborn in our compost pile the day after we returned! Baby owls are out and screeching pathetically.

I am a bit down though, because of this.

I guess it’s time to pack up the outdoor cushions until October. Summer is over already and we’ll be stuck inside with heat advisories the rest of the time school is out down here. Luckily we plan to visit somewhere cooler before school starts again, but I’ll miss our time outside in Nashville.

Exterior Tour Update

I realized I hadn’t added anything to the exterior tour in quite some time, so I updated with a few new, and a few familiar shots to get it current again. See the whole exterior tour here.

Treehouses

Seeing as we’re a bit partial to treehouses, we were really excited to go and see the Treehouse exhibit at Cheekwood Botanic Gardens Thursday night. There was a competition held among local designers and architects, and the best seven submissions were chosen to be built. Each treehouse is designed to represent one great work of literature.

All of them are extremely well done, and they are a joy to visit. I had three that I gravitated to more than the others.Â I’m betting you can guess which ones.

There is a full explanation of each work represented by each treehouse here.

First up is The Giver

Walden Treehouse

Conch House

The Rainbow Fish

The Jolly Roger

Up and Down Again, A Hobbit’s Tale

Ocean of Notions

If you are a local, or coming to the area…check it out. They will remain on the property until September 3rd 2012.

Outside

That’s where I’ve been all these weeks.

While it’s a clichÃ© to talk about the weather, it matters here. We’ve had cool evenings with low humidity, and we know that there can only be a few seconds, last gasps if you will, of this Spring-like weather left before Summer rolls in. For the rest of the country, Summer IS outside time, but down here? Unless you’re in a pool or creek to cool off…notsomuch.

The sticky, humid, broiling, bug infested Summers of the South force everyone indoors, since sitting motionless in the shade, or after sundown may still cause profuse sweating. Ah, 95% humidity…I know you’re coming, and I’m not wasting time. Not. One. Single. Moment.

We installed some outdoor string lights, and it has made an enormous difference in our evenings.Â We can see to eat without lighting 20 candles and I don’t have to wear a headlamp to take the dog to the bathroom.Â It’s the little things….so here’s just a few snaps of where we’ve been spending all our free time.

Cool nights make for good treehouse sleeping……

I’d say we have eaten 70% of our meals outside this past month….and cooking them out there too.

Happy Summer!

Firewood Shelter Update

The CC has all but finished the shelter.Â It’s super simple, but it will make this whole process of retrieving and storing SO much better. We are debating staining the wood, or just leaving it to grey down.

We already had the 2 log racks with these brown covers, but it just never really worked with the wind and rain, especially once the wood got low. The cover would sag and hold water etc…

He’s been talking about wanting something better since we moved in, so it was time.Â Now our wood can season over the summer in its new, fancy house. The Woodhouse? Woodshed? Yikes! No, it can’t be that. There’s no switching or woodshed treatment here, even if it is Tennessee.

Anyway, here’s how it went.

So once the roof was up, you could still see the ugly of our air units.Â Plus the wind and rain blow straight into this direction, so we cut up the old tarp that used to be on the log holders and added grommets to make easily removable walls to the structure. We left the sides open for air circulation.

Excuse the mess all around..it’s a work zone!

Those side brackets give it extra stability from the wind.

Shall we peek inside?

Just as this was getting finished, the electric company cut down a Hackberry tree in our front yard and left the big pieces of wood laying in our grass for about 5 days. The CC decided it was a good opportunity to refresh the stumps at Camp VÃ¥gÃ¶. Making the lemonade people…making the lemonade.