Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Photo by my mother-in-law, Audrey.

Today, I am thankful for (in no particular order) a day off, starting the weekend with a fun night out with my father and brother, Doritos (Sweet Chili Heat and Dill Pickle) and fizzy Coke, a squirmy nephew, a wiggle-butt dog, a barn cat with a serious balance issue (and an affinity for belly scratches), two turkey dinners and all of the chefs who cooked them, my mother who works so hard to bring everyone together, my father-in-law and his chainsaw, my mother-in-law who takes the dog for a walk and shares pictures for my blog, my husband and helpmate (who supplies the Doritos and wields his own chainsaw), an outstanding harvest that’s more than enough to share (seriously, so many squash), this farm and my favourite tree out behind the barn.

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians.

Fall mantel

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

There have been some beautiful fall home tours going around the blogosphere recently. I’ve held off on bringing fall inside, trying to hang onto summer just a little bit longer. However, now that it’s October, I can’t deny that fall is here.

This is our first fall having a working fireplace, so that’s where I started my decor. Behold the fall mantel.

The black lantern, wooden sphere tealight holders and antlers have become staples on the mantel. For fall, I added two wooden candlesticks that my Dad made and a whole bunch of pumpkins.

These 10 pumpkins are probably only about half of what the garden has produced this year. From what I’ve read, squash (and pumpkins) need to cure in a warm-ish place before they’re stored for the winter. So this display is about both form and function. (And yes, that’s the Blue Jays game on the TV in the background. Summer continues even into October. Go Jays!)

I love the barn beam mantel so much. The wood against the stone is beautiful. Now with the pops or orange and black it feels right for fall.

The only thing we have yet to do to fully embrace fall is light the fire.

How are you decorating for fall? Have you had a fire at your house yet? Did anyone else grow your own pumpkins? Any suggestions of what to make with the pumpkins (besides jack o’ lanterns)? How about tips to store the pumpkins? Who else is watching the baseball? Let’s hear it for the Jays!

Praying mantis

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The other weekend, while working outside, I felt a tickle on the back of my neck. I craned my head around and managed to catch a glimpse of the tickler: a praying mantis.

Because of course. Out of all of the vegetation available on the farm, why wouldn’t you land on the human?

I think praying mantises (plural?) are really neat insects. Sightings are relatively rare, so I’m always happy to see one.

Eventually, it flew into the garden where the camouflage was much better. Just look at how it blends in with this lily. The brown and yellow and green tones are so similar.

Nature’s pretty cool.

What insects and animals are you seeing around your house? Who else likes praying mantises? What’s the best example of camouflage you’ve observed?

Time to get my act together

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I can no longer deny it. Fall is here. I’ve been hanging onto summer as long as I can, but last week the temperatures DROPPED. As in, we had a windchill, and I wore my winter jacket, hat and mitts for Baxter’s and my morning walk.

So, it’s time.

Every year as fall rolls in, a list starts in my head. It’s not completely a do or die list, but it’s definitely a “winter is coming and you’d better get your act together” list.

So here we go: the fall to-do list.

The vegetable garden

This was my biggest home goal for 2015, and before the year ends, there are a few more things I’d like to do.

Hang the gate – The gate has been hanging around unhung for long enough. We need to take a bit of time, sort out the hinges and just get this done.
Edge the garden – We have a huge pile of old fence posts, and my plan is to use them as kind of “curbs” to help keep the weeds out of the garden.
Put in raised beds – I’m going to use the rest of the fence posts to make a ring of shallow raised beds around the outside edge of the garden.
Spread manure – This is our chance to knock two tasks off our to-do list at one time: clean out the 17 stalls in the barn and fertilize the garden. The manure is well-aged since it’s been here since before we bought the farm.

The bird feeder

I love watching the birds from the dining room window, and feeder is the best way to attract them.

Reattach feeder bracket – Last year when we were hammering the bird feeder post into the ground, one of the brackets broke off. My cousin made the post for us originally, so I’m going to tap him to reweld the top bracket.
Install a sleeve for the post – To make sure we don’t have to hammer the post anymore, I’m going to put a length of pipe in the ground so that the post can just slide in every fall.

Firewood

This is our first fall with a fireplace, and we’re so looking forward to firing it up.

Put up another row of firewood – We have two rows of wood dried, split and stacked. I think we’ll need one more row to get us through fireplace season.
Tidy up the trees – Tree maintenance that’s an ongoing task at the farm–as demonstrated by the big tree above that came down over the weekend. Fortunately, we have a steady supply of firewood as a result.

Get Wiley ready for winter

Our handy-dandy tractor needs his annual tune-up.

Change the oil – More accurately, have my handy cousin change the oil for us.
Check the battery contacts – Wiley’s a bit reluctant to start sometimes. In the spring, we had a loose connection on the battery terminal, and my cousin made us a little sleeve to tighten up the clasp. Cold weather starts are even harder for Wiley, so we want to make sure we do everything to help him out.
Remove the mower deck – It’s that time of year again.

The house

There are a few things to do for the place where we actually live.

Take off the screens – The screens get so dusty during the summer, I’ve found it’s necessary to take them off and give them a good cleaning before it’s open window season again.
~~Clean the heat pump filter~~ – I broke out the shop vac on Friday, figuring that we’d need to fire up the geothermal before the end of the weekend. Sure enough, as of last night the heat is on.
Clean out the gutters – Matt did round one last week, but we’ll need at least one more cleaning before the snow falls.
Turn off the water

I feel like I’ve been taking it easy for a little while when it comes to work around the farm. So step one to completing is to find my motivation. Any tips?

Obviously, some of these tasks are unique to the farm. But some of them are universal no matter where you live.

What’s on your fall to-do list? Are you feeling the pressure of impending winter?

Previous fall to-do lists:

Finishing up the deck

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I’m pleased to welcome Sarah in Illinois back to the blog. Today’s post is full of the things I love: a big doggie, country views and a great DIY transformation. Take it away, Sarah.

One of Steve and my favorite places to relax is on our deck. The summer of 2013 we drew up plans and built a large deck off the back of our house. There are some things about the deck that we wish we had done differently, but overall we are very happy with it. (Hello, Treu!)

We had done a little research on how to protect it. One thing that we had read was to wait a year to put any sealant on it.

We chose to wait even longer. The boards we used were very green. That is, they had a lot of moisture in them. This was obvious when we installed it, but it also showed up over time as the boards warped more than we had liked as they dried.

This year I decided that it was time to get at least one coat of sealant on it. The thing was, after two years, the deck was very dirty and stained. I believe this was a combination of normal use, stains from the grill, mold from moisture and just pollution in the air.

So I chose to clean it first. It took just a little bit of prep work. I have two unbelievable huge and beautiful mums, so I made sure to drape plastic drop cloths over them to keep the cleaner off of them. The deck wash I purchased was a bleach base and it worked like a charm for cleaning the deck.

I bought what I believed to be enough based on the square footage that it said it covered. This was way off. I ended up needing double the amount. I think that part of the reason was that maybe the square footage listed did not take in account the railings. But I am sure it also had to do with how heavy I sprayed it on the wood.

I used a hand held pump sprayer to apply the cleaner, then I used a broom to lightly scrub trouble spots, and finally I sprayed it off with a garden hose. This was easily a one person job and if I had had enough cleaner would have taken just one afternoon.

Then I let the deck dry for a couple weeks. I wanted to make sure not to trap any moisture in with the sealant.

When it was time to seal the deck, it took more prep work and took two people. Steve and I used the same hand pump sprayer to apply the sealant. We found the method that worked for us was for Steve to spray the railings, then the floor and for me to follow up with a brush and smooth any drips and puddles. We wanted to make sure we put a heavy coat on, but we wanted it to be fairly even.

The sealant was much messier than the cleaner. It got everywhere–on us, on the siding, and even oversprayed to my nearby herb garden. We are planning to reside the house in the next year when our addition is finished, so I was not too upset by the overspray on the siding, but I sure wish I had harvested my basil and oregano before we got started.

We feel the deck needs at least one more coat of sealant for us to be happy with it. But since harvest has started, it looks like it is going to be next spring before that gets done.

In the meantime, I am so happy to have the first layer of protection on it. The cooler weather is just begging us to come out of the house and relax!

What a great outdoor space, Sarah. Those mums are amazing. I’m always so impressed by how wood can be restored with a good cleaning and a bit of work. Good job. I hope you get to relax outside and enjoy it.

Anyone else have tips to share about restoring wood? Have you ever stained a deck? Who else has had a project that’s taken a bit longer to complete than planned?

The trouble with our trails

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I completely love that we have a property where we can go for a hike. However, I have two issues with our trails.

1. Our trails are ~~slightly~~ extremely overgrown. Because we’re not riding horses over them, because we don’t have a mower that we can take on them, because in the spring the trails are mostly underwater, because the mosquitoes were so bad this year that we haven’t been on them in months, hiking requires a fair bit of bushwhacking.

2. Our trails do not loop. They are all out-and-backs. Despite knowing this, I persist in trying to find a way around. The result is predictable: I end up either in water that is higher than the tops of my boots, or I end up in impassable brush. Sometimes both.

This was the situation Baxter and I found ourselves in recently. Deep in a marsh, tangled in grass so thick that at one point we actually lost each other, and we were right beside each other.

Completely true. I had a panic attack that I’d lost the dog, looked to my left and saw him sitting there staring at me.

Baxter’s reaction was, “I don’t know where we are, but it smells delicious.” Helpful, dude. Very helpful.

The bright side was that since it’s fall, the marsh had dried up a bit, so the water didn’t quite reach the top of my boots.

Here is a ~~completely accurate~~ ~~fully to scale~~ rough map of our trails. (For context, the trails go through the forest that covers roughly the back half of the property. This post has a full overview of the entire property in case you want to see how it all fits together).

The west trails are our best ones, but they’re also our wettest ones. We could probably get Wiley in the first 10 feet or so, but then things get squishy. And see that blue line above? There’s a creek that never completely dries up. I don’t think Wiley can swim. And I have no idea how we’d get him out if he ever got stuck.

The east trail is on higher ground and has much less grass, so it really doesn’t need mowing. It does however need a battalion of forest rangers with chainsaws. There is so much deadfall that this is less of a trail and more of an obstacle course. The dotted lines show how you can make this trail loop–if you’re willing to risk being poked in the eye with a stick (also completely true–I thought I’d done serious damage).

My looooooong term goal (seriously, this is so far in the future I have no idea when it might happen) is to one day have nice clear looping trails and boardwalks through the marsh. I’ve been saving any skids that we come across in the hopes that they might work as boardwalks. Now just to find my battalion of forest rangers to move them into place…

Do you like to hike? What’s your favourite trail like? Has anyone else gotten lost recently?

Reflections on life and making a living

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

When I first started this blog, I wondered where it might go. I started blogging for myself to track our journey as we moved to the farm. I also blogged for friends and family so that they could keep up with what we were doing. Another reason I started blogging was because I wanted a different kind of writing in my life, a new creative outlet.

However, when I started blogging, I also saw a lot of other bloggers, some of whom were making a full time living off their blogs. I wondered if that might happen for me someday.

It seemed like a wonderful gig: being at home, doing what I want, writing about it, and getting paid.

But it’s not that simple.

When I came back from Blogpodium two years ago, I let go of the idea of making a full time living through blogging. I loved the conference in part because it gave me clarity about what I did and didn’t want to do.

I didn’t feel like I wanted to seriously monetize my blog. I didn’t want to “hustle” the way I felt I’d need to. Writing for advertisers, writing for sponsors, writing for a huge community of readers with very specific expectations, picking and choosing the projects I worked on so that the site would get the most number of hits, promoting everything on every social media channel–it just didn’t appeal.

About two weeks ago, I listened to a podcast by John and Sherry of Young House Love. For those who don’t know, John and Sherry were the ultimate in DIY blogosphere–both of them making a full-time living off their blog, tonnes of projects on the go, top to bottom home makeover in progress. And then a year ago, they walked away. Shut down their blog. Went dark. Dropped out of the blogosphere.

The podcast is a really in-depth reflection on how their blog became their life and their life became their blog. There was no division for them, and that became really hard–more than they wanted to deal with. Even though I’ve not reached the heights that John and Sherry did, I completely get it. Kit at DIY Diva, a blogger that I absolutely love, has written about this in the past too.

This blog is a part of my life. But just part. I share what I want, write the way I want, do the projects I want. I don’t really want that to change.

Over the past month, I admit, I’ve enjoyed the little break that I’ve had thanks to the other bloggers who have written about their favourite tools. The past little while was a really busy time for me in the day job, there’ve been some challenges in my family, and not having to come up with three posts every week was kind of nice (although I know my three post per week schedule is totally self-imposed).

I still think it would be pretty nice to work at home. I looooove being at the farm. I feel so much guilt every morning when I walk out of the house and leave Baxter alone. And honestly, often the day job isn’t all that fulfilling. Sometimes, in fact, it’s downright draining.

So for little while now, I’ve been exploring some other options. I’ve been trying some freelance writing. I’ve reached out to some old contacts. I’ve tossed around some ideas with a few people.

I’m open to opportunities. I’m also aware that if I want a change, I have to work at it and not wait for it to come to me. As Sherry says in the podcast, “If something feels wrong or unnatural you have to change it because no one’s going to change it for you.” This isn’t going to happen right away, and I’m willing to be a bit patient. However, I’m also putting myself out to the universe. (Want me to write for you? I’m available!)

I’m not planning on changing the blog, and I know I don’t often get super personal here, but I felt like I wanted to put some of my thoughts out here.

Thanks for reading.

My favourite tool: Heather in Heels

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome Heather of Heather in Heels to the blog for the final installment in the “My Favourite Tool” series. If you’re just joining us, this series came about when I was thinking about what I should put on my tool wishlist. To help me make up my mind, I reached out to a few bloggers and asked them to share their favourite tools.

I was thrilled when Heather said yes to my email. Heather is a woman after my own heart–she’s all about all kinds of DIY, good food, lots of love for her pups, oh, and she’s Canadian too. She blogs at Heather in Heels. I especially love that her favourite tool is one that I love as well. Take it away Heather.

When it comes to my DIY habit, nothing helps me feed the monster like having the right tools for the job. I realized many moons ago the one critical tool for all the painting and refinishing projects I wanted to tackle was a sander. So I stole one from my mom and step dad’s basement. It took my step dad 20 years to realize it was missing. (I won’t the list the other items I’ve taken yet – they still don’t know they’re missing… he he).

It was old and made your whole body vibrate when using it, but it did the job. It did the job until it didn’t any more. I almost had a funeral for it. That sander and I did many wonderful things together.

We’ve transformed doors and we’ve taken a super-drab-free-on-the-side-of-the-road find and made it beyond fabulous. But I had to say goodbye to it.

And then I promptly got over my loss when my new sander arrived. And together we’re already busy making new memories! I’ve just finished refinishing a bar cart and while the paint dries I’m already busy with my biggest furniture project yet – a huge dining room buffet server. (Spoiler alert. Since writing this post, Heather’s finished the buffet. No surprise, it’s fabulous).

Why a power sander? Well, for one thing it saves your manicure. (This is an essential in my books). It also greatly increases the speed of any project requiring sanding. I’m not sure I would even contemplate some of the projects I’ve done (or am in the process of doing) if I had to sand by hand. I don’t even pumice my own feet for goodness sake!

The power sander, followed closely by my trusty staple gun, is definitely my favourite tool in my tool box. It saves me time, increases my productivity, saves my manicures, and it’s the best way to remove old and ugly to make room for new and fabulous.

Removing old and ugly to make way for new and fabulous. That definitely sums up Heather’s approach to home reno and decor–and life in general. Thanks for being part of the “My Favourite Tool” series, Heather. Be sure to check out Heather in Heels to see more of Heather’s quest to add more fabulous to daily life.

#Harvest15

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Happy first day of fall!

I had a different post planned for today, but this is too timely not to share.

I had a great day yesterday. I had booked it off work, and set everything up so that I wouldn’t have to look at my phone or open my computer all day. The result of a random Tuesday off is a very relaxing day.

Bax and I started the day with a long walk. On our way home, we saw our farmer. He shouted out the window of his truck that he’d be on our fields in a couple of days.

At least that’s what I heard.

When B and I drove past the farm on our way back from the dump (where they stock doggie treats at the gatehouse) and headed for the charity scrap metal bin at the local therapeutic riding centre, we saw a combine circling around the east field.

Apparently the farmer had said he’d be on our fields today.

Harvest is such a special time. I love that I was home to see it.

B and I walked out to the “four corners” (the crossroads where four of our fields meet) to watch.

We timed it perfectly to see the combine coming up the hill to the truck.

I missed seeing the combine unload the beans last year, so I was glad we were able to watch the transfer this year. In just a matter of minutes, the beans had slid through the chute into the truck.

It turned out that the truck was full after this transfer, so we got out of the way so that it could hit the road. Can I just say how cool it is to have such a large property that a dump truck driving across it looks small? And this is far from our biggest field.

Bax and I decided to stay out of the way of the combine and investigate the freshly cut east field. We sat at the crest of the hill (just above the dump truck path) and watched the combine through the gap between the fields.