I love to watch those tiny house shows on TV. Our house isn’t really tiny; but it isn’t big either. So, I’m always on the look-out for creative storage solutions to expand our space.
With the onslaught of Christmas baking and cooking for company, I realized how much I hated the cabinet where the spices were stored. I had them on one of those cute little stepped-up shelves so I could see all of the containers, but invariably, whatever I needed was toward the back and retrieving it meant either pulling out everything in front of it, or if I was lazy, reaching in and delicately retrieving the one spice jar I needed — and knocking everything else out of the cabinet anyway. So I was on a quest for a better storage system.
I found some organizers at Home Depot and convinced Chris it would be an easy project. Several hours later, we had a masterpiece! It’s so organized now, I can find what I want without dumping everything onto the floor and it looks so nice I sometimes leave the pantry door open just to admire our new-found space.
Now that the holidays are over and everything has been put away, I’m on a search to find a better way/place to store all that Christmas gift wrap. The basement can get damp, the attic is dreary, and the house — is full. I’m still looking for a solution to that puzzle.
An “easy” project adding storage to our pantry door.It’s awesome — I can find everything now.
What the heck is a pot crane, you might ask. I didn’t know either, except that I had these two round brackets in the fireplace where something used to be. After scanning the Historic Housefitters website for other accoutrements for the house, I saw the pot crane and realized we just have to have one. If for no rhyme or reason other than to sit in the brackets that were already embedded in the stone walls of the fireplace, just waiting for something to fit there.
It was a bit of a process. Historic Housefitters has ready made pot cranes in standard sizes. Who knew there could be such an unfulfilled need that they come in standard sizes. But not much in this house comes in a standard size. So I called the company, explained my dilemma and got a lesson in pot crane lingo at the same time. The round brackets in my fireplace are called gudgeons, and the pot crane, would be made with a 30″ swing arm attached to a riveted post joined by mortise and tenon.
We measured and re-measured and looked at the scaled drawings that Historic Housefitters created. Finally, we said “yes.” I waited impatiently for the package to arrive, holding my breath, wondering if it would fit.
A triangular looking packaged showed up at the door, looking much smaller than what I had envisioned. We opened it up and I continued to hold by breath while Chris raised the top tenon into the the top gudgeon, aligned the bottom tenon with the bottom gudgeon and let it fall in to place. A perfect fit!
Then it needed something to hang from the pot crane — like a pot. I have an old copper pot, not of cooking quality, but attractive none-the-less. It makes the fireplace look like we’re ready to stir up a pot of stew. The next step will be getting a cast iron Lodge pot that we can actually use, hanging it from the crane and stoking up a fire.
In the meantime, the wrought iron pot crane and shiny copper pot add a little colonial bling (if there is such a thing), to our awesome fireplace.
It took some time for the design to be just right.It slipped into those gudgeons like it was made for it.Now we need to strike a match and make a stew or a pot of soup.
We’ve been in the house for just over a year now – and other than some spot cleaning, I haven’t really washed the windows! The year just flew by, we were busy with other things and you could still see out of the windows – so it just never crossed my mind. Now that it’s time to close up for the winter, the spots from rain, dead bugs and dirt looked pretty bad.
When we renovated the house, all the old windows came out and new, energy efficient windows went in. Not only are they energy efficient, they are cleaning efficient. They have a magic latch that allows me to fold the window into the house so I can clean both sides without even contemplating a ladder (because if a ladder was needed, they still wouldn’t be getting cleaned).
Still, I hate washing windows. You get one side clean, and then when you do the other side, there are streaks, and you can’t tell which side they are on, so you end up doing both sides, and then there are different streaks. It takes FOREVER.
I told Chris I was about to clean the windows and he recommended, more like insisted, that I use his auto glass cleaner and old towel rags. I’ve cleaned with Windex-type cleaner and paper towels my whole entire life. What’s with auto glass cleaner and old towel rags? He even demonstrated how I needed to do it (one window down, 16 more to go). I thought about saying, can you show me that again (then there would only be 15 more to go) – but I figured I had the concept down. Spray stuff on, wipe stuff off.
And that was it. Done. Sparkling. Finished. I threw out my Windex-type cleaner.
I think men everywhere must be keeping this a secret. They say, “honey, I’m going in the garage to wash the car windows, I’ll be back in HOURS,” and we believe them!
Dirt and dead bugs!The windows fold in! What an amazing invention. No ladder needed.
Today would have been my Mother’s 90th birthday. She passed away October 1st.
Birthdays have always meant a family gathering. Last year we celebrated her birthday at the farm. This year we won’t.
Her arthritis made it difficult to climb the front stairs to get into the house and her poor vision made it difficult to see the house once she was inside, but she loved her visits here anyway. She saw the house before we started the renovations. She could see the potential, but as mothers do – she worried. She worried about how this would ever come together, worried if we knew what we were doing, worried where we would live while the house was being renovated, worried about how we would manage to move everything, worried, worried, worried.
We moved into the farm last October. Our first family get-together was for her 89th birthday. She was happy to see it finished, but still worried. She worried how we were going to keep up with the property, she worried about the big trees that line the driveway, she worried about the poison ivy that seems to find me if I even look at from afar, she worried how we would manage when it snowed.
Despite her worries, she liked hearing about the garden and the birds at the feeder and the deer that roam through on a regular basis. She liked to know about her great-granddaughter collecting the chicken eggs, and how, try as she might – she can never catch Fiona the goat. Mostly she liked knowing that this is our home.
Nancy’s 89th Birthday — October, 2015Christmas Day 2015
I read on the internet (so it must be true), to wipe your fall gourds with a Clorox wipe to kill any bacteria, and then “grease” them with Vaseline to seal them and make them shiny. It sounded like a great way to preserve them through to the other side of Thanksgiving — and, it had the added benefit of making my hands REALLY soft after spending all that time dipped in Vaseline.
The problem is, it didn’t work. While the gourds looked clean and very shiny — they don’t seem to be lasting. At least a few of them have already sprouted soft spots, grown mold and hit the trash can.
But, the scarecrow is at the ready. The mums are blooming, the pumpkins are flanking the front steps and our pet crow is guarding the wine cellar.
Dirty gourds ready for a cleanin’ and a greasin’.Clean and shiny gourds — I should have taken a picture of the moldy, rotten gourds too — but that didn’t look very nice.Our scarecrow — a “welcoming” sight for any trick-or-treaters.I love the fall colors.It’s definitely fall on the farm.Our watchful raven — BOO!
Planting apple trees started the momentum. Once we had scoped out where additional fruit trees will go, we realized we had some space on the hillside just below the barn that is perfect for blueberry bushes. Chris had spent several weeks this summer clearing the hillside in anticipation of my planting plans for the spring.
When we were walking out of the Tractor Supply store the other day – there were blueberry bushes just sitting there looking at me with those puppy-dog eyes, saying take me home. I bought six of them. Then I realized that blueberries need a cross-pollinator, so I had to go in search of yet one more blueberry bush of a different variety from a local nursery. So now we have seven.
Thankfully, this dirt is considerable different than the concrete-hard dirt just 100 feet away. Chris tilled a path, dug seven holes and planted seven blueberry bushes in no time. Then he trenched a path just above the blueberries where we plan to transplant our raspberry bushes once they die back this fall.
So now we have a row of apples (three makes a row, doesn’t it)? A row of blueberries, and a row just waiting for raspberries. The farm is shaping up. And in the spring, we’ll be adding pears, peaches and cherries. Yum!
To get from this over grown mess…to this bucolic scene…took a lot of work…and a professional chipper/shredder to get rid of the mountains of brush.A trip to Tractor Supply for horse feed and a salt lick turned into a blueberry shopping expedition.Good thing we have that truck.Thank goodness this is nice soft dirt — no auger needed for planting these.The blueberries are planted and a row is tilled and waiting for the raspberries to die back this fall so I can transplant them in the spring. Then we can have fruit salad!
When we bought this farm it was an overgrown mess. Parts of it still are, but we’ve made tremendous progress – especially clearing out the land around the house. As we clear away vines, dead trees and brambles, the last thing we want to do is plant more stuff – only to start the cycle again. So we’ve decided to only plant things that have a purpose and produce something for us to use.
I’ve wanted to get an orchard started, but even with five acres, our space is limited. The first problem is that the front meadow which has sunlight, is too wet and boggy from the stream that runs through it. The second problem is that the side yard has several large black walnut trees, and black walnut trees produce a chemical that isn’t compatible with trees with seeds (like apples and pears). The third problem is that the horses now occupy the sunny, black walnut-free hillside behind the house. Figuring out where to plant an orchard has been challenging.
Getting the trees has also been a challenge. In the spring we went on the website for the Adams County nursery and every tree we wanted was already sold out. The website said check back in July. I guess they meant it, because by the time I remembered to check back in August – many of the varieties we wanted were sold out again and the ones we did try to order went into some website abyss and the order was never received.
So, at a Mud Sale in Bareville we happened upon some apple trees up for auction. I’m not very confident with auctions yet. I’m never sure whether it’s my turn to bid again or even what the price is up to – but I gave it a shot and got three dwarf apple trees (a Gala, a Granny Smith and a Jonagold) – for $28 each – a good price since the ones we tried to order on-line were $30 each.
I must admit, the pick-up truck came in handy. Bringing home three trees was no problem – but planting them – that WAS a problem. There is a sunny stretch of land behind the house and adjacent to our patio. I envision sitting on the patio, in the shade of an apple tree and reaching out to pick a beautiful ripe and juicy apple – in a couple of years. But the dirt was impenetrable. My daughter offered to bring over her post-hole auger and her friend Luis. It took Chris and Luis an hour per hole – manhandling the auger through cement-hard dirt studded with rocks.
Once the trees were in, Chris wrestled with a roll of wire fencing and made nice cages for the trees — after all that work getting them planted, we didn’t want to find them chewed to the quick by the deer.
Finally, our apple trees are in place and I can’t wait to make an apple pie.
The truck came in handy at the mud sale — the trees are loaded.The ground was so hard, we thought maybe turning it to mud would help with the digging, but it didn’t.The auger and Luis are what helped Chris to dig the holes.It was an all day project by the time we wrapped the trees in wire fencing to keep the deer away.And now our three apple trees just need to grow — and give us apples!
Chris has been going through new chains for his chain saw about once a week – that’s how many trees he’s been cutting down. We are trying to reclaim the meadow and open up space where we want to start our orchard. Cutting down the trees is just the beginning. Then he slices them into fireplace-size logs. Then he splits them with an axe. He’s turning into a regular Paul Bunyon! After all, we do have two fireplaces to feed, and the wood pile is growing.
So, Chris decided we need a woodshed for all the split wood he has been stacking up. And I decided we need a woodshed because I saw a really cute one with a weather vane on top.
We went back to Pop’s Barns, where we got the run-in shed for the horses, and ordered a 4×8 Quaker model woodshed with a chicken weather vane on top. That was the easy part.
Then the space needed to be readied for the woodshed. The pile of split wood needed to be moved, the land needed to be cleared, tilled and leveled. Then we waited – six impatient weeks for the shed to be delivered before we could stack the firewood into the appropriate compartments of the woodshed.
And now I know which way the wind is blowing.
The hillside before we cleared it, and with a wood pile that is calling out for a wood shed.“Visitors” stroll through the yard and inspect the wood pile.Clearing the weeds, briars, brambles and mess off the hill side.Finally cleared and ready for the wood shed.And here it comes up the driveway.Chris inspects as it gets slid in to place.Now he has to move ALL of this wood into the shed.The wood shed, sitting in place and full of wood.The wind is blowing out of the east — and now we have a Rooster on the farm!
I wasn’t sure how the garden would do this first year. We had obstacles to overcome – rocks, stones and gravel – to begin with, questionable soil, and then pesky rabbits.
But those little seed packets seem to have overcome the odds and continue to amaze me. I planted two kinds of carrots – typical orange Nantes carrots and a specialty pack I picked up somewhere of “rainbow” carrots in a variety of colors – purple, yellow and white. Despite all the impediments in the soil, the carrots have grown fairly large, and mostly straight.
Digging the carrots out has been a bit of a challenge; the soil just doesn’t seem to want to release them. I thought a good tug would be sufficient, but it has taken a variety of digging tools to pry them loose.
Then they need scrubbing and peeling; but if you peel a purple carrot – you get an orange carrot. That’s just not fair. I wanted purple all the way through to add color to my soups and stews. So I scrubbed them extra hard and left the peels on. Then there is the chopping and blanching and chilling in a cold water bath and drying and then freezing on a cookie sheet.
The “girls” ate well — they loved the peels, and eventually – I ended up with two big bags of frozen carrots – a gallon of orange and a gallon of colorful ones. Now I need a cold fall day to make a big pot of vegetable soup.
Our rainbow carrots.The problem is, when you peel the red carrots, they are just orange underneath. That’s not fair.Blanched and ready to freeze.Peels and scraps for the girls.They’re happy!
So the saying goes, that Birds of a Feather Flock Together. I’m not sure exactly what that means in relation to our bird feeder. There are a lot of birds flocking there, and squirrels – which aren’t birds at all, but apparently, think they are.
Chris takes good care of the birds – the feeders are always full and the bird bath always has fresh water. We’ve been rewarded by a growing number and variety of birds that frequent our front yard. Whether it’s coffee in the morning or a drink in the late afternoon – we sit in the rocking chairs on the front porch and watch the rotation of birds.
There is the constant fluttering of cardinals, blue jays, nut hatches, wrens, sparrows and gold finches, sometimes interspersed with red-bellied woodpeckers and downy woodpeckers and an occasional blue bird. The hummingbird feeder in the back yard gets an infrequent visitor – but at least we know there are hummingbirds around. And flying overhead are hawks, black birds and sometimes turkey vultures. The other day we had something new and ran for the bird book – maybe some sort of an Oriole.
It’s a great place for bird watching; apparently there is a lot of flocking going on.
We have a colorful front yard. Red Cardinals.Blue Birds.And bright yellow goldfinches.Turkey Vultures.Red bellied woodpeckers — who actually have a red head, and I have yet to see their bellies, so I don’t know…And a “flock” of squirrels who are determined to get into the squirrel proof bird feeder.And these two — who clearly don’t belong at the bird feeder.
No Rhyme or Reason Farm 