It's been a while since I've done a blog.  I didn't realize it had been so long!  Time flies when you are busy.  It is funny how weather is so important in this business.  This past spring it got warm early in March so the nursery got busy by mid March where-as last year it didn't warm up until mid April so that is when business picked up for Spring.  This summer has been extremely hot starting in May so business dropped off with the heat earlier also.  I figured I'd get a jump on some projects I've needed to do.  One of which is trying to paint the house.  I finally got the old paint stripped with a power washer last spring but decided I would try painting it myself over time.  My wife wants to have it some other color than white but it will be a big enough achievement if I can get a base coat of white primer on until next summer.  Then I will determine whether to put on a different color.  It is a REALLY old house and farm.  Over the past few years I have met several folks who claim to have family that used it live here - usually with the last names of Bobbit, Aiken, or Carver.  On guy actually came from Savannah, Georgia to see the house his great grandfather lived in.  He was a Bobbit descendant and was into genealogy.  As I mentioned in a previous blog - the house is listed in the Durham County Historic Architecture Inventory as the Bobbit-Aiken-Carver house.   I want to keep the house and restore it over time but haven't done as much as I would like because of the nursery taking most of my time and the cost involved.  I decided that if folks drive by may not want to stop in if it doesn't look nice and I've noticed some customers not wanting to go inside when I try to ring them up for purchases.  I think they may think I live there?  Not sure why that is.  Others want to tour it and get all nostalgic over it and want me to fix it up so it doesn't get worse but it will cost a pretty penny - one pretty penny I don't have.  I had the tin roof painted by a group of guys that had paint that covers rust to make it look nicer.  Unfortunately their paint was cut with gas so it was pretty thin and didn't look nearly as nice as I was hoping and there are silver specs of paint all over the bushes around the foundation now.  One customer asked what kind of beautiful bush that was and I said "it's a silver speckle bush".  She believed me until I told her it was paint splattered on a rhododendron bush.