Yes, we have a cute little stream. That’s not the problem.  The problem is caused by the torrential rains we’ve had the last couple of weeks and the havoc it causes with our driveway.

A few weeks ago, it rained all day while I was at work. When I came home, I had to navigate the Grand Canyon to make it to the garage.  Deep trenches sliced down our driveway and washed out our precious gravel.  But Chris took it in stride, took his shovel, and spent hours outside filling the gullies.  He trenched where he could to re-direct the water and smoothed everything out so it looked perfect again.

Until last night.

The Grand Canyon has returned. The rain has carved grooves deeper that I would have been able to shovel creating some ready-made trenches into which we need to install some drainage pipes.

It is yet another project to tackle, as if the list isn’t long enough already. But I think this is one is outside the scope of Chris’ tool shed.  Too many more of these types of projects and Chris will want his own back-hoe or a bob-cat or some other sort of major “toy” to add to the shed.  Just sayin’.

We are still busy clearing out the front yard. It’s hard work.  The briars are daunting and the project seems never ending.  We’ve realized that it’s best to set limits on the amount of work we do in a day.  Four to five hours is pretty much our limit, otherwise, I get hangry, and cranky and there’s telling who or what I’m ready to put through that chipper/shredder.

And, we’ve also realized that every project brings the need for a new “tool” for Chris. This time we needed bolt cutters to get rid of old barbed wire and old fencing, bent and twisted under the weight of years of vines that have wrapped themselves over, around and between the fencing like arthritic fingers creating a gnarled mess.

It isn’t all a gnarled mess, though.  The “stream” is trickling from the springhouse, the grass is beginning to green as the snow melts and the daffodils are beginning to peek up from under the leaves.  But the daffodils aren’t the only things peeking up from under the leaves.

While we haven’t found any truly old relics in the front yard, it paints a picture of those who have lived here in the recent past.  We’ve found sneakers, and toy trucks, an Incredible Hulk and a Frisbee, beer cans and soda cans and a “piece” of hose that ended up being 3(!) 100 foot hoses once we started to pull it out.

And then I found this!  It popped up from under the leaves as I was raking, staring up at me with a snarly smile.  I think it’s a fox – but I’m not really sure.  Startled is an understatement.  Now I know to be prepared for anything!

The barn got delivered on Thursday, and the snow got delivered on Friday.  I don’t remember ordering a blizzard — but it arrived, none-the-less.  And it kept right on delivering all the way through Saturday.

At first it was beautiful.  I always like that hush that comes with a blanket of snow.  It seems to absorb sound, traffic stops and a peacefulness settles in.  But it just wouldn’t stop coming!

Chris left for work early Saturday morning and got snowed in there; I spent the weekend snowed in alone, with a shovel, trying to keep ahead of the 24 inches.  Keeping a path open between the back door, the garage door and the basement door was all I could manage.   That — and a pot of chicken noodle soup, a pot of ham/bean soup and some trays of lasagna for the freezer.  We’re well stocked for the next snow storm.

My trek to the chicken coop was pathetic.  I felt like a little kid in a snow suit with the snow deeper than I could navigate.  Cute when you’re five.  Not so cute when you’re not five.  The snow hit mid-thigh and trying to hop, roll and push my way through the snow was not cute.  The hens had the right idea.  They wouldn’t even come out of their roost.  I should have stayed in my roost too.  Getting down the hill was one thing (reference the “roll” part above).  Getting back up the hill was another.

Chris made it home Sunday night and shoveled enough snow to get his car off the road.  He tackled the driveway on Monday with the snow blower and shoveled a path to the girls.  Before the next snow storm we need a rope line between the house and the coop!

This is not the first time this house has withstood a blizzard, and it won’t be the last.  Here are the previous top ten snow storms in the Philadelphia area — this one was near the top of the list!

1. 1996 – 31″
2. 2010 – 28″
3. 2009 – 23″
4. 1983 – 21″
5. 1909 – 21″
6. 1915 – 19″
7. 1899 – 19″
8. 1935 – 16″
9. 1941 – 15″
10. 2011 – 15″

We’ve been waiting until the house is done – really done — before we started on any more projects. But we’ve put it off long enough.  Last month we went to Pop’s Barns, took a look and ordered a 10 x 18 run-in shed with attached tack room.  John’s crew came back out and did some grading for us so that we can situate the little barn behind the house and up the hill on the edge of the pasture.  And, we’ve ordered the fence.

The barn got delivered this week. I figured this delivery was not for the faint of heart, so I opted not to be there while a truck and trailer would have to navigate backwards up a steep hill with a sharp drop off to deposit the shed on an exact dirt pad.  It was the right choice.  Chris took pictures and told me all about it – after the fact.

The truck arrived on time and pulled up the driveway. It cleared the first set of trees, squeaked by the second set of trees and came to a dead stop before the third set of trees.  The 10 foot width of the barn wouldn’t fit up the driveway.

I have a hard time backing my car down the driveway, watching on both sides that I don’t careen into one of those massive trees, but this truck driver backed the trailer (with the barn on it) back out on to the street. The ground is frozen hard right now so he pulled into the vacant lot next to our house, brazenly drove over the chest high weeds and got in to position to back up the hill behind our house.

I must have been out sick when they taught “backing-up” in driver’s education, because I know I would have been all over the back yard and probably plunged off the side of the hill taking the woodpile with me. This guy must not have been out sick that day.  He finessed the barn in to place and pulled away, just like a regular day on the job.  Whew.

Now we just need the fence. And as soon as this blizzard blows through, we’ll get that done too — when this 24″ of snow melts and we can find the fence markers again.

It looks good on top of the hill.

It’s our first year in the house, so there are lots of “firsts,” but not many of those firsts really warrant a blog. However, we had two firsts coincide – our first dusting of snow and our first fire in the big kitchen fireplace.

I was so impressed when the gorgeous stone kitchen fireplace was revealed, I wasn’t sure I wanted to “dirty it up” with a fire, even though we went to the expense of making it functional. I was somewhat prepared to strike that match on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day – at least it would be an auspicious day, worthy of commemorating with a fire.  But Christmas Day hit 72 degrees, so I breathed a sigh of relief and the fireplace remained in pristine condition… until last weekend.

There is always something magical about the first snow – especially when it is only a dusting – enough to look beautiful, not enough to shovel. And, according to Chris “It was inevitable.”  I’m not sure whether he meant the snow or the fire – but he opened the damper, set the logs and lit the match.  The smoke rose up the chimney and logs from our growing wood pile turned into a bed of hot coals across the stone hearth.  It was picture perfect.

Now I’m getting used to a new look to the fireplace – black soot dusts the stones. It doesn’t look pristine anymore, but it does make our home look lived in and functional.  Now that the first fire is behind us, I expect many more fires to take the chill off on a cold weekend morning, or to settle us in on a cold snowy night.

A kitchen fire is a nice backdrop for dinner with friends

It’s been quite a few weeks now that we’ve been collecting eggs from our hens. We usually get five eggs a day, once in a while one of them might skip a day and we search the coop in vain for the 5^th egg – but even at 4 eggs a day, we are rolling in eggs.

During Christmas baking season, I was just about keeping up with supply. An Angel Food cake (12 egg whites) for Christmas Day dinner eliminated one carton of eggs from the refrigerator at a time when refrigerator space was at a premium, what with that standing rib roast and various accompaniments.

Now we are finding that a dinner or two a week centers around eggs. We’ve had egg casserole, egg omelets, eggs over easy with toast, quiche and my personal favorite – one of those glorious French salads with greens, pancetta, fresh croutons and a pouched egg – the yolk running through the salad makes the best dressing ever!  And pasta is nothing but EGGS and flour, so that can be on the menu every week too — just think of all the options that brings to the table!

The girls seem happy in their coop. They hear us approaching, waddle down their chicken ladder and cluster around the coop door waiting to see what we’ve brought for them.  They get lots of goodies from the kitchen – well, they consider them goodies – things like the discards from celery stalks or heads of lettuce, peels from potatoes, cores of apples – all stuff that would go in the garbage disposal if we had one – but goes to the chickens instead.  We also give them chicken scratch – a combination of cracked corn and other grains that they go crazy for.  They know when they are getting scratch and are likely to try to fly out of the coop door in anticipation.  They eat out of our hands and they talk to us – a soft clucking that gets louder and more excited as we approach.  The fact that Chris “peeps” back to them only adds to their excitement.  Arianna (who is learning Spanish in school), wants to know how he learned to speak chicken.  Maybe they’ll have to add that to the course selection at her school.

As 2015 closes out, our “project” is coming to an end… or is it?

January will bring a run-in shed/tack room and a fence around the pasture for two horses and a miniature goat which Becky is transplanting here to add some liveliness to the farm. Not that the farm isn’t lively already with the deer, birds and whatever it is that climbs the tree, opens the suet cage and steals the suet at night.

I’m already thumbing through seed catalogs, planning my vegetable garden and eyeing up the perfect spot to plant some fruit trees, raspberry bushes and a strawberry patch.

The house feels complete; there isn’t one thing we would change about this house. It’s perfect for us.

And now it’s even more perfect because the shutters have been installed. I had gotten used to the way the house looked without the shutters.  It looked fine.  In fact, I was beginning to think the shutters were unnecessary… until they arrived.  They make the house look welcoming and lived in – and beautiful.

And then there is the “bow on the package,” the finishing touch that I see every day when I come home, and it reminds me of how far this house has come. It has come all the way from 1853.  It has lived through the Civil War and every war after that, it was supposedly a part of the Underground Railroad, it has raised families, watched the world change and has had good days and bad.  We found the house last January when it was having a “bad day” to say the least.  But as a tribute to where it has come from… our builder, John Smucker had a stencil made, and our painter John Gettle stenciled it high under the eaves of the house.  I see it every day…

 c. 1853

 I’d say this house is now having a very good day this New Year’s Eve as we welcome 2016. The house is 163 years old, beautifully restored and ready for another 163 years.  I wonder how it will be doing in 2179.  Maybe I’ll stop by to find out.

 Happy New Year! 

There were times during the last year when we wondered whether we would be in the house on schedule, but there was never a question in my mind about whether we would be in the house by Christmas.  I could envision it — making dinner in our new kitchen, Santa coming down the fireplace of his choosing, and the peaceful serenity of this piece of property — with the abundant birds, deer and the soft clucking of our “girls”  (the hens who now provide us with 5 eggs a day!).

I had envisioned snow on the roof, a fire in both fireplaces and the stillness that a blanket of snow can bring.  What I didn’t expect was sitting on the front porch rocking chairs in our shorts as the temperatures soared above 70.

Nevertheless, Christmas Day came and went in a flash of friends and family — gifts and goodies — dinner and dreams.

It has been a year of before and after pictures.  Here are a few more….

You may have noticed, I haven’t been “blogging” lately.  It’s not that I don’t want to write the blogs (I love to write), but it’s the picture-taking part that I forget.  We’ve been busy working… and we’ll be busy working for the next decade or two, trying to reclaim overgrown land from briars, thistles, weeds, vines and poison ivy (yes, it’s still potent this time of year – I could show you a picture of THAT, but I’ll spare you the ugly details).

The chain saw, trimmer and chipper have been running non-stop on our days off, and so far we have pushed back the encroaching brush from most of the right side of the driveway to the property line (which isn’t that far from the right side of the driveway).  I think we are “cutting our teeth” on that side.  The left side of the driveway goes further than we will ever be able to clear in our lifetime, so we’ve set a goal of just clearing to where the small stream bubbles up from the spring house and trickles through the front yard.  Already we are making a difference – and adding to the wood pile as Chris cuts and splits downed branches and small trees.

But, it’s not just clearing the brush – it’s cleaning out trash.  It’s amazing what lies beneath several years’ worth of fallen leaves.  We’ve pulled out a rusty carburetor, barbed wire, a toy dump truck, an old metal tub (which had a mouse nest under it), a cane, empty Viagra packets (presumably belonging to the guy that lost his cane), beer cans and coffee cups – and we’re just getting started.

At the end of each day, we stand back and look at what we’ve accomplished, and at that point, I invariably say “Damn, I forgot to take before and after pictures again.”  But here are a few to give you an idea of “a fun day on the farm.”

The chickens or the eggs?

Our chicken coop is here.  They delivered it in on a flatbed truck, backed it up to the designated spot and slid it in to place.  Chris and I went to Tractor Supply and stocked up on chicken related things – there’s a whole aisle of stuff to choose from – for those of you who don’t frequent such places!  We chose a feeder and a waterer, picked out pine shavings for bedding  and chicken crumble for food – and some chicken treats so we can teach them to roll over and beg (just kidding – about the tricks, not the treats).

Well beyond the scope of the renovation project – our builder, John, graciously supplied us with our girls.  These hens are Red Sex-link Chickens.

In this case, the chickens came first.  We’re still waiting for the eggs.  The chickens are a bit young, and maybe they have to get acclimated.  And, with shorter days, maybe they think they will wait until spring to get to work.  The internet suggested extending their hours of daylight — so they have a light in the coop from 4 PM to 8 PM.  It looks a little funny when you look out there in the dark — it’s like they’re tucked in and watching TV.  But happy chickens lay nice eggs.  Someday soon….