Snow day

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Friday brought a record-setting snowfall, a day off work for both Matt and me and lots of unusual happenings, like going back to bed at 7am, eggs and bacon for breakfast on a weekday and movies in the afternoon.

Some of the other unique ways we spent our time included rescuing a not-so-bright kitten who decided she was bored in the barn, but then spent some time cowering under Matt’s car when she realized there was no one outside to play with and the snow was too deep for her to return to the barn.

In this oh so flattering picture, Easter is being de-snowed over the kitchen sink.

We returned the kitten to the barn, which was definitely more sheltered than under Matt’s car but still slightly snowy. Lots of light and fluffy snow combined with strong winds meant drifts were everywhere, including inside the barn.

We traded the kitten for Matt’s GT snow racer, picked up a crazy carpet that came with the driveshed and headed out across the fields.

Snow was deep and the field with the best hill is farthest from the house. The walk was a workout, and rest stops were required.

The quote of the day came from Matt: “I don’t remember tobogganing being this tiring when I was a kid.”

A tip for anyone else who’s no longer a kid, yet still wants to ride his GT snow racer: the best way to “fit” on the sled is to ride in a mostly standing position.

Kid or not, a snow day is a pretty good deal–an unexpected free day. No excuse needed to stay home, break from the usual routine and have some new experiences.

Who else loves a snow day? Have you had one yet this winter? Anyone have a pet who’s not too smart? How about a GT snow racer? Matt figured out that his is about 24 years old. Have you been tobogganing this year?

Snowy winter weekend

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The biggest snowfall in several years is forecast for tonight. As I was arriving home, the flurries were starting to fall, the wind was picking up and the snowploughs were scraping along the road in front of the farm.

I could see the storm coming over the fields as dusk was rolling in.

It appears the weather gods heard that our winter warm-up party is this weekend and that sledding and skating are on the agenda.

We’ve had a full week of cold temperatures, so the pond seems to be well-frozen, and as of tomorrow we hope that we’ll have enough snow for sliding over the fields.

Plus, if by any chance work is cancelled tomorrow due to the weather, I’ll have some extra time to test the ice and the slopes. Not that my fingers are crossed or anything…

ETA: The weather gods and powers that be cooperated and work is closed! Woo-hoo!

What do you have planned for this weekend? Any outdoor activities or parties on the agenda? What’s the weather like at your house? Have you had a snow day yet this winter?

A better mousetrap

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Living on a farm means there’s critters both outside and inside. Outside, my philosophy is live and let live. Inside, I want two-legged creatures only.

However, the reality of country living is that every so often in the house we hear the pitter-patter of little feet… or more accurately the gnawing of little teeth.

I’m speaking, of course, of mice. (The snake and the toad were one-time visitors).

If there’s a mouse in my house, he is not long for this world.

Matt is the resident exterminator, and he has found a highly effective weapon: an electronic mouse trap.

Ours is made by Victor. Matt ordered it online, and we received the rat trap rather than the mouse trap, but it’s just as effective–probably moreso.

It runs on four C batteries. There’s a switch on the top that turns on the trap. One end is open for the mouse to enter. The other end is for the bait. Matt’s favourite is peanut butter.

As soon as the mouse enters the trap, the electricity kicks in and he receives the shock of his life–in fact, the last shock of his life.

If we’re within earshot, we hear a quiet buzzing for about half a minute. A green light on the top of the trap starts blinking when we have a victim.

Unlike other mousetraps, disposal is no-muss. Simply up-end the trap to dump the dead mouse into the garbage.

We’ve found it a very helpful solution to our occasional unwanted visitors.

Anyone else have an effective pest control solution? We have feline mousetraps too, but their assigned territories are outside, not in. What four-legged creatures do you have in your house?

Jack frost

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The view from the sun room on a sunny frosty morning.

Within a few minutes, the frost had melted away under the warm beams of the sun and the windows were clear.

When I’m busy working, my eyes are always focused on the next thing I have to do. I’m glad I took a moment to look up and notice the pretty scene right in front of me.

Did you do any sight-seeing this weekend?

Mirror, mirror finally on the wall

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

For the past few months, we’ve had a big blank unfinished wall in Matt’s bathroom.

Attractive, no?

It’s a small bathroom, so I decided that covering the whole wall above the vanity in one big mirror would help to make the space look bigger.

Me and my bright ideas.

We ordered the mirror just after New Year’s, and the supplier cut it right away. After a nerve-wracking evening of transporting the mirror in the back of Matt’s Dad’s truck, the mirror sat in the basement, propped against the wall just outside the bathroom.

The idea of actually hanging it was a little bit intimidating. I mean, it was more than four feet wide by four feet high. If we broke it, the bad luck would be exponential!

Plus the fact that it covered the whole wall and included a cut out for the light fixture presented some installation challenges. Everything had to match up perfectly and we had nearly no wiggle room.

Well, I’m pleased to say everything matched and, even better, nothing broke.

The mirror definitely brightens up the room–and gives you a sneak peek of the shelving unit.

We have a few more things to do before the final reveal:

Light fixture
Toilet paper holder
Trim for the shelving unit
Cabinet door for the shelving unit (it’s cleverly just propped in place in the picture above)
Hooks for hanging towels
Heat register

Fortunately, none of these is as intimidating as the mirror–and I don’t know of any bad luck curses associated with toilet paper holders.

The Dyson dilemma

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I love the new carpet in the basement. It’s cozy and warm and soft. Its light colour is nice and neutral.

What I don’t love is cleaning it.

Don’t judge

The fluff. Oh the fluff!

I blame Matt and his black socks. The fact that the basement stairs start at the front door, a major traffic point for the house and source of many “bits” and dirt, doesn’t help.

My parents loaned us their old vacuum (old as in purchased in the 1970s before they moved to a house with central vacuum), but its suction kind of sucks–not in the good way a vacuum should. Our shop vac does a slightly better job, but it’s not really skilled at cleaning carpet and doing the whole basement with it is a pain.

If I’d been thinking ahead, perhaps I would have put in a central vacuum system when we had the walls open in the basement. However, I didn’t think of it, so we didn’t do it.

So now, I’m dealing with a fully carpeted basement and the weekly sock fluff invasion. And all I keep thinking is “Dyson.”

I really know nothing about them aside from the marketing hype. In the informal polls I’ve done so far with people at work, Dyson comes highly recommended. We’ve looked at them in stores, where, of course, the price tag makes me blanch.

So now I’m turning to you. Is a Dyson worth it? What version do I buy? Is there another brand that works just as well?

We have a cut pile carpet in the whole basement (1100 square feet). The stairs are carpeted too, so the vacuum can’t weigh a ton, or it needs to have an attachment that lets me easily go up the steps. The biggest requirement is that it easily and cleanly picks up the sock fluff and all of the little bits that accumulate every week. Someday, it will likely have to pick up dog hair too. Oh, and I need a vacuum that lasts. I don’t want to have to buy a new one–especially if I invest in a Dyson–anytime soon.

Please weigh-in in the comments. Do you have a Dyson? How does it work for you? Is there another vacuum that you recommend?

Ice capades

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Our January thaw from two weeks ago gave way to a deep freeze last week. The result was a thick covering of ice on the pond, and the result of that was skating!

We’ve been keeping an eye on the ice all winter, and it was finally thick enough for skating. We headed out with shovels to clear the snow from our own private rink.

Shoveling the ice made us realize how big the pond really is. Matt finally resorted to just clearing paths around and across the ice. Fortunately, the snow was thin enough that we could skate right through it.

Some coyotes had tested out the ice early in the morning.

Here’s Matt’s version of an action shot:

Matt’s skates hurt his feet, so we reenacted Rocky’s and Adrian’s first date, making a circuit of the ice arm in arm, Matt in his boots and me in my skates. By Sunday, though, he decided to give his skates a try, using the “learn-to-skate” technique of a chair for extra support.

If I’m being honest, the chair got more use as an actual chair, as the skates were still pretty uncomfortable.

Another warming trend is forecast for this week, and it may be awhile before we are able to skate again, so Matt’s feet have plenty of time to recover. Sore tootsies aside, we each still enjoyed checking off another new experience at the farm.

Did you have a new experience this weekend? Have you been out skating yet? Any tips for finding comfortable skates? Did you push a chair when you were learning to skate? For those non skaters out there, what animal tracks are you seeing at your place? For those that prefer indoor sports, who else is a Rocky fan?

The doughnut tree

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Outside the front door, what looks like a regular maple tree is not. It is a doughnut tree.

Doughnut trees are sneaky. Under the canopy of leaves in the spring and summer, you forget that they bear a remarkable fruit. However, as the tree sheds its leaves in the fall, the doughnuts become visible again.

The question is though, how does one pick a doughnut?

Any suggestions?

The farm we almost bought 2

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A few weeks after losing our first farm to a bidding war, another farm came on the market. It was just around the corner from the property that we had lost.

One hundred acres of forest, creeks, corn fields, one large barn and another medium, and an old farmhouse with numerous additions. A few features made it particularly notable. First was the pond. Or should I say lake.

I still think about this pond. It is massive and made me realize a pond was pretty much a must-have feature for me. In addition, several wide and deep creeks wind their way through the property, flowing to a large river.

Unfortunately, this was not the only water on the farm, which brings us to the second notable feature.

When touring historic farm houses, we were often advised to wear our shoes when we went down to the basements. We’d seen rubble foundations and dirt floors, but we’d never seen what we found in the basement of this house: approximately eight inches of water and a rubber dingy fully inflated and floating around in the cellar. Never mind shoes, we needed high rubber boots!

Aside from the water, the basement was in great shape for an old farmhouse: fairly generous ceiling height and a concrete floor–albeit under water.

Upstairs, the house had original door knobs and light fixtures in a few spots, although for the most part it was characterized by dated 70s finishes and bad additions.

Most of the original character had been lost, but the graffiti sprayed on the painted brick did add a certain… something.

It certainly had potential.

We made our offer that day. Believe it or not, we went in at full asking price, and we were the third offer.

We were only competing with two other bidders, which was one less than the last farm. But it was two too many. The farm ended up selling for $82,000 over asking.

We were nearly a year into our search, we’d seen only two farms that we wanted to buy and we’d lost both in bidding wars.

We were a little bit heartbroken–I still think about that pond. We were very frustrated. And we were starting to wonder if we were ever going to find the farm of our dreams.

Caulking within the lines

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Growing up, a pristine colouring book was a treasure. I carefully chose my colours and then filled in the drawings making sure to always stay within the lines. I started at the beginning of the book and worked through it page by page.

My younger sister on the other hand went through all of our colouring books putting blush, lipstick and eye shadow on all of the people–men, women and children. It was always a disappointing moment when I opened a book and found the characters covered with red, pink and sometimes even purple splotches.

Staying within the lines is still important to me, especially when it came to caulking the new shower. However, I am not a tidy caulker, so to ensure I had perfectly straight and even seams, I employed a technique I found courtesy of This Old House.

I laid two strips of painters tape on either side of the joint, squirted my caulking in between the strips, smoothed the bead with my finger and peeled off the tape.

The result was perfectly straight lines.

It’s definitely not a quick process to put on all of the tape, especially when the shower stall includes a niche and bench that all needed to be sealed, but the results satisfied my childhood hang up for staying within the lines.

Even my sister was impressed.