Virginia Real : June 2017

June 5, 2017

Things have really been moving at the farm lately. I’ve finally completed my latest pair of socks (poor me…thirty-five pairs of hand-knit socks just weren’t enough). However, as soon as I finish one knitting projects I almost immediately start on another one. Occasionally, I even have more than one project going at a time (although I do try to limit myself to working on no more than two knitting projects at a time, otherwise I know I’d wind up with unfinished and forgotten projects on my hands…my compulsive nature won’t allow that). In addition, I try to lend Charming a hand with the various renovation projects.

A quick note about our new barn kitties…after a few days of having adopted Momma Marabelle she disappeared from the shed that she and her baby Misfit shared. Misfit (whom I renamed “Baby Belle”) stayed close to the shed and the safety it provided. We have since discovered that Marabelle didn’t go anywhere, she just prefers to stay in the thicket near the Frog Pond. I was so worried that a wild animal had gotten Marabelle, but we’ve learned that she’s quite adept at fighting off predators as our Jax Dog has the marks on his face to prove it. I think Baby Belle loves me. Each time we go to the farm, I always go to the shed, meowing all the way. She immediately appears and rubs up against me. She even lets me pick her up for a few seconds at a time. Both cats are great mousers as we have seen a noticeable reduction in the mice that inhabit the sheds, tractor, and Charming’s tool buckets. (Thank goodness, as I’m not overly fond of those scurrying little critters!)

A week or two ago, our nice neighbor brought us a picture-perfect loaf of freshly baked bread that she had made. It looked and smelled so wonderful and Charming enjoyed it tremendously. Although I make do with eating gluten-free, I really miss not being able to eat real bread. Guess no one can really “have it all”.

Charming has finished putting the new roof on the house and it looks great. We chose to go with light colored shingles (the official color is “Silver Lining”) because it reflects the summer heat which will keep the house cooler in the summertime. He is currently working on the area where our woodstove will go. So far he has laid tile on the platform, installed fire-resistant “Durock” and drywall on the walls. He is also in the process of filling in the hole in the ceiling where the previous stove pipe was located. Our stove will be vented to the chimney that Charming and my brother built last fall. In addition, Charming is in the process of enlarging the laundry closet located at the far end of the kitchen. We believe that previous owners took the doors off the closet because the size of their washer and dryer wouldn’t allow the doors to close. We would have the same problem because almost all of the washers and dryers that are currently on the market are large. So we’re making the closet deeper. Luckily, the previous owners stored the folding closet doors in the rafters of the tractor shed. Although they were dirty, we will be able to re-install them which will save us quite a bit of money. Yay!

Speaking of saving money, my brother Jeff gave us a really nice used refrigerator. It’s a high-end stainless steel model that had a few dents/scratches on it, but otherwise worked perfectly. I really don’t like stainless steel appliances because they really don’t fit in well with my love of the “antique” look, so as I cleaned the inside of the refrigerator, my mind was busily trying to come up with an idea to make the thing look more farm-like. I came up with the idea of painting chickens on some type of canvas and then affixing them to the refrigerator doors. There were also some scratches on the sides of the refrigerator, which were already painted black. He bought some black appliance paint from Lowes and it worked great! The scratches are not even noticeable now. I’ve finished one chicken picture and, although I’m not much of an artist, it does resemble a chicken and Charming gave his blessing for me to continue with the rest of the “art work”. So I’ll be reporting all the boring details in upcoming posts.

This is a rather long post, so I’ve left out pictures of my gardens. I decided to plant gardens at both houses and, thanks to Charming, I now own what I call “THE MOST AWESOME GARDEN HOE IN THE WORLD!!!!” It speeds up the weeding process in a way that I could hardly believe. I am super-charged about this tool and can hardly wait to share it with you in my next post, so stay tuned!