So Much To Do, So Little Time To Blog…

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!

My latest socks have been finished!

A perfect fit!

Baby Belle uses the mower's grass bag as her own personal hammock.

Freshly baked bread from our new neighbor smelled heavenly!

Charming did a wonderful job on the new roof.

And an awesome job on the tile for the stove platform.

 

Hard to believe this was his first tile job!

Adding drywall and also a patch to cover the hole in the ceiling.

Enlarging the laundry closet.

Re-installing the wall for the laundry closet.

The doors to the laundry closet were found  in the shed.

Ready for painting & new knobs, then we'll reinstall them.

The refrigerator that my brother gave us.

My chicken ready to be framed with chicken wire & strips of vinyl plank flooring.

Though not quite assembled, this will go above the refrigerator's ice maker.

April Showers…Bring Headaches

April 20, 2017

The blowing winds of March seem even stronger when you live in the mountains.  In the hollow where our farm lies, there seems to be a constant breeze blowing which is a good thing on most days.  However, during the winter months (and, in particular, the month of March) the wind can seem to whip right through you.  Wind can also wreak havoc with your otherwise well-laid-out renovation plans.  We had just started to work on the house renovation in late February, starting with the kitchen, when Charming noticed a few pieces of shingles had blown off the roof.  After closer inspection, he decided that the inside renovation should be put on hold so he could replace the shingles on the roof.  No problem, he switches gears fairly easily and I just go along (on renovations, at least).

So as soon as he had gathered all of the roofing materials and the weather started to warm a bit, he began tearing off the shingles…fighting those stiff March winds all the way.  He has had to do this in sections, a quarter of the roof at a time.  He tears the shingles off and tosses them to the ground into a big pile where…you guessed it…wifey/construction grunt worker picks them up and loads them onto the trailer to be taken to the local landfill.  (It’s not loading the shingles that is so bad, it’s the nasty construction paper, intended as a moisture barrier, that the house manufacturer put on under the shingles that makes me cuss…really long sheets of crinkly, stiff, oily paper with nylon strings running through it that I fight to stuff into big trash bags…all the while fighting the March winds…rackemsmackemfrackem!)  After tearing off the shingles, Charming found several places where the roof needed to be replaced.  Although this has slowed down the renovation progress, we figure it was a blessing that the March winds blew off those first few shingles.  Otherwise, the roof might have ended up leaking, which would not have been good for our in-progress renovations. 

I do have to tell you the story about our trip to the landfill to dispose of the first load of shingles.  I went with Charming, thinking that he might have to unload the shingles and possibly want my help.  However, there were two strapping young men and another older supervisor working there who helped to unload, so I took advantage of the time to just sit in the truck and knit while the men did the heavy lifting.  Always curious about other peoples’ lives, Charming asked the young men if they had been working hard.  One of them answered jokingly, “Not until you showed up.”  So my Charming responds (with a big smile on his face), “Well, you know who loaded this trailer?  My wife.  She’s sitting there in the truck.”  I’m sure they took note of me…a middle-aged woman sitting patiently and daintily knitting in the cab of the truck.  Strangely, they were quiet as they unloaded the remaining shingles.  I just love being a “Mountain Gal”.

So now we're into April and we've had very few nice days in a row, so progress on the roof has been slow.  I keep telling Charming that "April showers bring May flowers," but he doesn't seem to be as excited by the possibility of flowers as I am.  While he has been spending his time on the roof, which is not nearly as tall or as dangerously sloped as the shed roof, I’ve been puttering around and planting things.  So far, as shown in my last post, I have partially pruned some unsightly bushes/shrubs that grow wild around the Frog Pond.  I have plans to plant some kind of ground cover around the edges of the pond along with another shrub or two that has either pink or purple flowers.  Haven’t fully decided what I want there…maybe lilac or butterfly bushes, but something that will attract more pollinating insects.  In addition, later on I want to add some kind of seating area there as well.  I’m also in the process of moving the raspberry bushes away from the side of the house and re-planting them in a long row about ten feet away from the garden.  So far, I’ve moved forty-five of the plants with plans to add another twenty-two.  This will make picking the raspberries much easier as I’ll be able to get to them from all sides.  I missed out on being able to pick about half of the crop last year because they were planted in a large round group beside the house and they were so thick and tall that I couldn’t reach the berries that were up against the house.  I probably won’t have a crop this year, as I also pruned them heavily, but production should improve dramatically in the coming years. 

Charming and I planted six rows of potatoes and one row of white onions at the farm.  Since we’re not living there full-time, we decided to only plant things that grow underground (like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions) or things that the wildlife might not be interested in (like pumpkins).  I’ve brought out my handy-dandy $12 Tractor Supply boots so I can roll out of bed in the mornings, grab my garden hoe, stroll the short distance to the garden and attack the weeds before Charming gets up in the morning and before the sun gets too high in the sky.  (Being a fair-skinned morning person, I positively wilt when the sun gets hot and I love, love, love to hear the birds singing in the early morning hours.

Last fall, I planted daylilies on our bank next to the road and little tiny pieces of creeping phlox under the pine trees that line our driveway.  I didn’t have much confidence that the phlox would actually live under the pines because, well, most things won’t live under pines, but happily they are just starting to bloom and appear to be thriving.  Although the patches are really small, phlox will spread about two feet, so I’ll simply transplant more patches over the next couple of years until I can get the ground covered.  More phlox under the pine trees means less mowing for me…YAY!  The daylilies are up about eight inches and I planted more a couple of weeks ago, so YAY!, less weed-eating on the bank!  Also, I planted some “hens & chicks” at one corner of the house.  They are succulent-type, low-growing plants that grow in a thick carpet as each “mother hen” produces about five or six “chicks” via its root system.  Since I don’t like bushes growing next to the house (because they harbor those icky spiders that make my skin crawl and my mouth scream), these will be perfect to add to other low-growing ground cover plants that I’ll add around the periphery of the house which will make for…you guessed it…less mowing for me.  YAY!

Re-roofing in progress with synthetic underlayment in place (left side).

Daylilies are above-ground and will hopefully bloom sometime in June.

Last week I test-planted a few Hens & Chicks (circled) on one side of the house.

I also planted small patches of creeping phlox under these pines last fall.

And they're actually blooming...note my cheap Tractor Supply boots.  I love 'em!

A close-up of the creeping phlox...though not yet fully in bloom.

Charming plowing separate areas for raspberries and blackberries.

My raspberry patch beside the house, before pruning.

And after pruning.

Got about half of them moved to their new home & will plant ground cover here later.

Raspberries are planted on the left & blackberries will be planted later on the right.

The Frog Pond...circles show groups of frog eggs...plenty of future bug-eating do-gooders!

This is Misfit, one of our two new barn cats.  So cute, but untouchable...at least for now.

Jax continues to help on the farm by keeping varmints away & by helping in the garden.

Construction Destruction...

February 22, 2017

During our last couple of days at the farm, we officially began the demolition phase of the kitchen renovation.  Yay!  Charming’s first step was to take down the drywall so that he will be able to install a new electrical panel box, move and/or add some electrical outlets, and then put up new drywall.  I’m sure the process will go much slower than expected as Charming is painstakingly meticulous when he works on anything, but he knows his stuff and that’s why I’m always thrilled with the work he does.  He wants to do the job once and do it right.  I’m perfectly happy with that.

While Charming took down the drywall…which was a real pain in the butt because quite a bit of it was glued (yes, glued!) in place…I alternated between carrying out the old drywall, sweeping up the debris, and pulling staples out of the studs.  It took us the better part of two days, but we got most of the drywall demolition done.

When we weren’t working on the kitchen, we spent time working on separate tasks.  I started work on clearing out a thicket of overgrown bushes on the north side of what I like to call “The Frog Pond”.   Although our neighbor once casually referred to it as “The Mud Hole,” I pride myself on being somewhat creative and will find a way to make it a pleasant farm feature.  I also started knitting a new pair of wool socks for myself.  Since the farm is almost always about five degrees cooler than where we currently live, I believe the more wool socks I have the better my toes will feel.  Charming spent his “down time” tidying up the tool shed.  He took all the tools out of the shed and then covered the dirt floor with four horse stall mats that had previously served as flooring in Jax’s kennel.  (Since Jax rarely spends time in his kennel, it will probably be re-purposed into some form of chicken run at a later date.)

Since spring appears to be arriving early this year, we felt we needed to turn the garden early as well.  After Charming completed some work on the used Ford plow that we purchased last year, he was able to make quick work of plowing the garden.  All of these baby steps are going to pay off in the long run and we are really having a great time while turning the farm into what will be a wonderful place to grow old(er) together.

Our lovely kitchen (with fabric-covered windows) prior to demo.

My Charming...a master at demolition!

It took 2 days to remove the original stapled & glued on drywall.

Here are a few (of many) staples that held the drywall onto the studs.

My job was to remove the 10-bazillion staples.

Front view of "The Frog Pond" before I started whacking limbs.

Front view of the Frog Pond after pruning...it does look a bit better.

 

Side view of the Frog Pond prior to pruning.

Side view of the Frog Pond after pruning...still got a ways to go.

Charming tidied the tool shed & covered the dirt floor with rubber mats.

And I started knitting a new pair of socks...browns & greens...my favorite colors.

 

A bit of work on the plow before the garden could be turned.

The tractor makes quick work of turning the garden. 

It is my opinion that nothing smells better than freshly turned earth on a warm spring day!

This ‘n’ That…

February 15, 2017

So far this winter has been pretty mild here in our neck of the woods.  We’ve managed to spend a night or two at the farm where we spent our time planning inside renovation projects.  We’re concentrating on the kitchen since that’s where we’ll see the most impact.  After all, you can’t really do much to a square bedroom.  So we finished disposing of some of the old cabinets that we couldn’t re-use elsewhere. 

At our current house, I’ve used a couple of the warmer days to prune our fruit trees and work on getting my herb garden under control.  When playing in the herb garden, I started to pull out a rather large pokeberry bush that had gotten out of control.  (I had just been cutting it back for the past couple of years, thinking that would kill it…um, no.)  I had to use the shovel in an attempt to dig out the root of the darned thing.  The root turned out to be bigger (around) as a softball.  I had to ask Charming for help to get it out and he was only able to remove part of it.  I’m beginning to think that root goes all the way to China.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve discovered Tunisian crochet and found that I really like it.  I started working on a rug for my bathroom just to see if it was worth pursuing.  I made the rug in strips using various shades of greens and purple.  Although it didn’t turn out perfectly, it looks fairly decent and has given me the motivation to try new designs with this type of crochet. 

On another front, I’ve also been working on re-upholstering one of two matching chairs that my brother gave me years ago.  The chairs were nice, but our cats and dog liked lounging in them often.  This resulted in my having to vacuum, brush, and pull animal fur off of the fabric.  So I got the bright idea that the chairs should be covered in something that would be easier to clean.  This was not one of my best ideas.  Months ago, I enthusiastically and painstakingly removed the brads, staples, fabric, and old foam from the chairs.  Then my enthusiasm dried up and the chair sat in a corner of the living room until this week when I began working on it again.  Although it’s not yet ready for presentation, I’m hoping to have this first chair completed in a week or two.  I will definitely post the final results for you to see.

I pruned our 3-year-old pear tree.  It's lopsided because I cut out some dead wood on the right.

This peach tree is 4 years old and is shaped better than the pear tree.

Had a mass of branches in the wheelbarrow...this is about half of them.

Decided to try to propagate a few trees from the branches, so I cut off side shoots & put in water.

May not work without store-bought rooting hormone, but...God didn't create rooting hormone.

My Tunisian crocheted bath mat in place in my very, very tiny bathroom.