Planet Stahl

It would be nice to have a little more notice!!!

Saturday, June 30

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

The Castle, Lexington, IL, Open to Public

Charles and Mary Wright of Lexington, owners of an 1898 house designed

by Bloomington architect George Miller, will open their home for a rare

public tour on Saturday, June 30 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The home is

affectionately called “The Castle” and is located at the west edge of

Lexington on the frontage road east of I-55, 10 Spencer St. The house

contains more than 20 rooms and is built in the Flemish Chateauesque

style.

The purpose of the event sponsored by Old House Society is to help

people understand and appreciate our rich Central Illinois heritage, and

have fun at the same time by enjoying the house, grounds, live music,

train rides, and expo of restoration contractors. The home site includes

40 acres with walking trails through restored native wetland, prairie

and savanna areas, a new barn which also serves as the train depot,

locally crafted outdoor sculptures and more.

Jim O’Donnell will be playing an acoustical guitar from 9:45-11:30 a.m.

The Central Illinois Banjo Band will perform from noon until 1:30 p.m.

and David Berchtold will play guitar and sing from 2 to 4 p.m. in the

front yard.

Advance tickets are on sale at The Garlic Press, Normal and Casey’s

Garden Shop, Bloomington. Tickets will also be sold on the grounds the

day of the event. Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for children 3-12, and free

for children under 3.

Event proceeds benefit the Old House Society Capital Campaign. More

information including pictures and driving directions is available at

http://www.oldhousesociety.org.

Pictures of Aidens party are now online.  Check them out at the Picasa link below.  2 of the pics are short movies… So be patient for them to load.

Summer starts today… Yeah!

I filled up one of those new fangled pools for the kids… You know, the ones that have soft sides, but raise up on an inflatable ring at the top.  Anyway, I filled this pool up over he span of 4 or 5 hours…  Only to find out it had a leak at the top when it sat overnight.   So, thats about 400 gallons wasted!  Ang bought 2 more pools to try out, so, we will see what happens with those.

Horse stuff:  We had a neighbor die recently.  An older man named Mr. Lutz passed recently…  And Ang had permission from him to ride her horse on his farmland.  Well, last night, one of our neighbors stops her while riding and proceeds to tell her: “Since I am tending to this land now for Mr. Lutz, I don’t want you riding on this land anymore.”  Well, that is not a quote, but its close. 

OK, I need to save…  More to come on this.

Check out the Picassa link for photos from this weekend.  They are in the June folder: 

Well, Summer probably has some projects going on… But this is about whats going on around the farm!

I cut all the barbwire out of the pasture today…  In the next few weeks.. I will be renting a bobcat with an auger for new post holes.  We are finishing the whole thing… No more stages!!! 

If you go to the Picasa website, you will the initial phase of scraping the front porch roof…  Fun Fun!  Nothing like overhead paint scraping!  If you can get over the immediate sting of paint chips in the eyes… Then you certainly can get over the thoughts of all the lead paint dust you have been breathing in!

We took the kids in the canoe on Saturday…  We used the neighbors pond as test water.  It went remarkably well…  Except for the fact that the kids life-vests were not fitting them anymore.  So, that night we hit Wally World for some new ones.