Sprucing up the Something Special Homestead! --check out what we found in the weeds!

The railing and columns on the front porch at the Homestead have been looking rough for awhile, but we just haven't had time to get them repainted until this week...

...and we are almost done!  This picture shows how much of a difference a coat of paint is making.  We are painting White Rustoleum on with foam brushes and it works okay, but multiple coats are a necessity...so we sanded and painted and sanded and painted...and then we cussed the people that designed swirly bars, leaves and acorns on a porch rail that would ever need to be painted...and we sanded and painted some more!  We are satisfied with the rails at this point, but the columns still need another coat.  After we painted the columns with the brush we got out a giant pizza box to catch over-spray and we started applying spray paint to them for better coverage.  Since it was a cloudy moist day, we didn't finish it up today...but I will try to remember to post a picture once it's complete!

After painting as much as we could on Tuesday we changed directions and moved to the orchard.  Mom and I had intentionally let the weeds in this part of the orchard grow to hide a different watermelon that we harvested a week or two ago. (The chickens and ducks massacred the ones we managed to start growing in the garden!) 

Much to our surprise this beauty was hiding in those weeds too!  I really don't know how we missed this monster melon!

 

It weighed in at a whooping 36.2 lbs!

The kids were amazed by it's size and ready to devour it!  They said "Grandma grew that ?!?" and insisted on seeing if they weighed more than it did!   Isabella was the closest, of course, and weighed 5.6 lbs more than the melon! 

I did get the orchard finished up today and it looks so nice again!  I used the lawnmower to clean up all the weeds we pulled and then mowed the yard again. *fingers crossed* Maybe this will be the last time that needs to be done this year.  Then I moved 20 wheelbarrows full of mulch from the pile to the orchard!  It took awhile, but the effort was well worth the end results!