Top 10 Movies

Last night on tv, in case any of you missed it, the American Film Institute did their top 100 movies of all time. They ask tons of critics, producers, actors, and executives and compile a list of the top 100 American movies. This was their 10th anniversary addition so the list changed a little from when they did it 10 years ago. It was very interesting. There were a bunch of movies I had not seen, so I now plan on trying to watch them sometime. Anyway, I can't say that I completely agreed with their list, but unfortunately they did not ask the all-knowing Farmer Hale. In honor of the show last night I decided to post my top 10 favorite movies, this is not what I think are the top 10 movies overall but just my top 10 favorite. Feel free to add a comment with your top 10 listed. I would be interested to know all of my friends top movies, you can learn a lot about someone from knowing their favorite movies. By the way, it is very hard to narrow down to just your top 10.

10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

9. Forrest Gump

8. Last of the Mohicans

7. Dumb and Dumber

6. Star Wars Trilogy

5. O Brother Where Art Though

4. Braveheart

3. Good Will Hunting

2. Shawshank Redemption

1. Lord of the Rings trilogy

A few of the movies that just barely missed the list but need to be mentioned: The Graduate, Love Actually, Signs, Rocky, Babe, Billy Elliot, Big Fish, Dances with Wolves...there are so many.

Garden Update

Just so Brandy will stop bugging me I thought I would put up some updated pictures of the garden. As discussed in an earlier post, I am trying a new kind of gardening - no-till raised beds. I wasn't planning on planting much this year because I really needed to work on improving the soil but I thought what the heck and planted some stuff. I only used about half of the beds. I was a little worried at first because it did not seem like things were growing well but it has finally started to shape up. I can't wait until next year when I have the whole garden planted and the soil in good shape. As of right now, I think I am definitely going to stick with the new type of gardening.

Cucumbers- I am growing them on a piece of wire fencing


Tomatoes-They aren't doing so well, lots of plant but not much fruit.


Squash and Zucchini-we ate our first squash tonight


Sugar Snap Peas-also ate our first peas tonight


Green Beans


Corn


The whole garden

Rocky Top

I finished another big project. The past few weeks I have been building a rock wall in front of the house. It is one of the major parts of my landscaping plan. The wall isn't very tall but it is pretty long, it goes across in front of the house. I also built some steps leading up from the shop to the house. All of the rocks came from our property, Margo and I hauled them all out in the truck. It turned out pretty good, I just hope it doesn't fall down anytime soon. Now I need to get plants and mulch to put in the big flower bed area between the wall and the house because I took out all the other crappy landscaping that was there.

Here's before the rock wall and before taking out the old landscaping


After taking out the old landscaping and before rock wall


Finished




The steps


*side note- the video of the day on the right is really good, I highly recommend checking it out. If you double click it, it will make it bigger

New Addition

As discussed in the previous post, we are trading around cars and selling my truck to get a new (used) car and a farm truck. Well, yesterday we went ahead and bought a car. Our goal was to buy a small used car that gets good gas mileage to drive around and put miles on. I found a doozy yesterday in Bella Vista, this one would even make Steve Schulte proud (for those of you who know him). It is a 2000 Toyota Corolla. It was an old lady's whose husband died and she is selling some of their stuff. It was as clean as a whistle, gets 38mpg, had all the service records in the glove box, and it even had carpet squares on the floor mats so she didn't get the floor mats dirty. But here's the kicker, it only has 47,000 miles. I think we got a good deal and hopefully it will last us a long time. Now we just need to sell my truck.

For Sale

That's right, you could own your very own piece of memorabilia from the Farm of Hale. I am selling my truck. My plan is to sell it and use the money to buy a small used car (Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla) that gets good gas mileage to drive to and from work and take on trips, and to buy a older larger truck to use as a farm truck that will be able to do more. So, if any of you know someone looking to buy a truck like mine send them my way or if you know someone trying to sell one of those cars let me know. My truck is a really good truck and is in great shape.
Here is a description of my truck:
2002 Nissan Frontier XE, V6, 4x4, extended cab, 83,000 miles, auto, tow package, bed liner, running boards/bars, cruise control, CD, sun visors on hood and door windows, new tires put on last year with 30,000 mile warranty left on tires, belts changed in February of this year,
all for only $12,000

Interesting Quote

Here is a quote by John Piper that was on a friend's blog that I found very thought inducing.

"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation-is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"

Biggest Surprise Ever

We had a huge surprise this morning. We were leaving for work and Spot (the cat) was laying against the screen door and wouldn't move out of the way. When we finally made it out the door laying there with spot was a newborn kitten. We had no idea she was even pregnant. She has always been a little plump in the belly area but she didn't look or feel any different that past few weeks. Here is the crazy thing... she only had one kitten. Have any of you ever heard of a cat only having one kitten? We were so shocked. The kitten is really cute (in a ugly rat-like way), it is a calico like it's mother.





On a side note, for those of you who haven't noticed, I have added some features to my side bar. There is a current animal count, video of the day, recently watched movies and my rating of them out of 5 stars, and a picture slideshow.

We are official citizens of Redneckville

Not much going on this past week. We did have a lot of fun this past Thursday. Our church went to locomotion for a family fun night and we had unlimited passes for 2 hours. As many of you know, I love to race so I rode go carts most of that 2 hours. It was a blast but I was very sore the next day. The other thing a lot of us did, that Margo and I had never done before, was ride a mechanical bull. I never thought I'd see the day but it was actually really fun to see everyone get thrown off. All I need now is a cowboy hat and boots to start wearing around. If you ever do see me start wearing those, please beat me up.






Here is our group that went.