Winterized

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Notice the past tense on the title of this post? We are ready for winter here at the farm.

… Well, I’m not ready for cold and dark, but the house and the property are.

I had a small project list for November.

Make sure all of the gutters and downspouts are winter-ready.
Remove the mower deck from the tractor (and maybe attach the snowblower).
Add some protection around our new trees.
Turn off the outside water taps.
Take off the window screens.
Transition the mudroom to winter mode and get the winter clothing out of storage.
Set up the bird feeder on the driveway turnaround.

I am thrilled, proud, excited, relieved (choose your adjective) to share with you today that every single one of these tasks is done.

Here is some photographic evidence to prove it.

Patchwork brown and white downspout that regularly fell apart replaced with white downspout that’s securely screwed together.

Weeping tile rabbit/weed eater barriers around all of our littlest trees. (How to: Cut section of weeping tile approximately 12 inches long. Slit it vertically (a sharp utility knife works well, but it takes patience). Wrap the weeping tile around the bottom of your tree).

Bird feeder in the ground, full of food and accepting customers.

The thing I’m most excited about is seeing the birds at the feeder. Last year, it took them until Christmas to find it. This year it took them a day. As usual, the chickadees are the bravest, but a pair of cardinals has joined them as of last weekend.

Are you all ready for winter? What have you accomplished? Or what’s still outstanding on your to-do list?

Odds and sods

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Some happenings from this week:

Matt and I got the mower deck off the tractor. Taking it off is easier than putting it on, but either way the mower deck is a beast. This John Deere commercial blew me away the first time I saw it. Who would have guessed that I’d find tractor attachments so exciting? (And, yes, Wiley’s safe. We’re not trading in our Kioti any time soon).
We’re holding off on putting the snow blower on the tractor, although we’ve had a surprising amount of snow over the past week–although not Buffalo quantities. It’s only November for goodness sake!
A friend gave me a chandelier that she didn’t want in her house. It’s a gaudy shiny brass crystal monstrosity that I think will be wonderful in my office.
Matt and I are hosting our annual month-before Christmas party this weekend, including a full turkey dinner. Of course one of the oven elements is on the fritz. Matt sourced a new one and installed it, but it’s still not working. Argh.
I have the vision for our master bedroom worked out in my mind. That is, except for the paint colour. This bedroom has me thinking about navy.
The safe house bedroom that Kelly at View Along the Way made is one of the most thoughtful spaces I’ve seen.

What’s been the highlight of your week? Any special plans for the weekend?

Snapshot

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The pond on a wintery November afternoon.

The end of soybean season

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The sun has set on our first soybean crop.

As of two weeks ago, our fields are empty, so it’s time for the final report of the year.

At last report, the soybeans were just turning gold. By harvest time, there was no trace of green or gold left, except in the trees along the border.

The plants dropped all their leaves and the beans dried.

They no longer looked like edamame and they tasted a bit like peanuts.

And they sounded like rattles. I’m not sure if their sniffiness changed, but Baxter apparently liked the sound of them or the feel of them against his face… or something. Every field walk he insisted on walking through the plants.

I found the harvest part very interesting, so brace yourself for lots of photos.

The main piece of equipment is the combine.

This thing is massive.

I would not want to be a soybean.

From the combine the beans go into a trailer.

Again the scale is massive. The tires on this trailer are over 5 feet in diameter.

The trailer full of beans is relayed to a big truck for transport. (For scale, there’s a person standing on top of the truck behind the chute).

All that’s left are the dry stalks, husks and a few stray pods.

As of last weekend, the stalks got a light dusting of snow. Yes, already.

And so concludes our first season of soybeans.

Who else has had snow already? Is the harvest done where you live? Does anyone else find the harvest process fascinating? Are you as easily impressed as I am by farming equipment?

The end

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

This is the end, my friends. Not the end of the blog. Don’t worry. It’s the end of project season here at the farm.

For those that haven’t been following along since the beginning, I posted my 2014 Home Goals at the start of the year. Since then, I’ve pretty consistently done a project a month. As this is the first post of November, normally I’d be sharing with you the plan for this month’s project.

Well, there is no November project. Later this week, I’ll post the laundry room reveal, and that will be it for this year. Yes, there are a few more things on my original Home Goals list, but I’ve decided I’m ready for a break (not from blogging, just from projects).

Of course, I won’t be kicking back completely. Part of my rationale for stepping off the project train is to take care of some of the niggling little tasks that have been hanging around for a little while and maybe even start to get ready for Christmas. As well, I have a whole bunch of seasonal jobs that need to be completed so we’re ready for winter.

Matt already got a start on fall clean-up when he went over our eaves troughs with the leaf blower the other week.

Here are some of the other things on my winter is coming to-do list:

Make sure all of the gutters and downspouts are winter-ready.
Remove the mower deck from the tractor (and maybe attach the snowblower).
Add some protection around our new trees.
Turn off the outside water taps.
Take off the window screens.
Transition the mudroom to winter mode and get the winter clothing out of storage.
Set up the bird feeder on the driveway turnaround.

Just seven. That’s about half of what I had our first fall.

So apparently I cannot stop with the projects after all. Stay tuned. It appears I’m going to be busy.

What’s on your fall to-do list? Are you feeling the pressure of a looming winter? Do you have a project cut-off point?

Blood moon

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

An early morning eclipse a few weeks ago made for a spooky start to the day.

Happy Hallowe’en!

Moment of silence

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Hand-knit felted slippers

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A sure sign it’s fall for me is the return of slippers.

A sure sign I need new slippers is this picture. Shameful!

My friends had tried to convince me to throw these out more than a year ago. Honestly, I completely agreed with them. The problem was I had nothing to replace my raggedy slippers.

All of this is to explain how I found myself spending time this summer sitting on a beach with knitting needles in my hands.

Et voilà!

Confused? Check them out after a few turns in the washing machine.

Still confused?

These are French Press Felted Slippers. It’s my fifth time making these slippers. The idea is that you knit over-sized slippers out of real wool and then throw them in the washing machine in super hot water. They shrink down to the size they’re supposed to be and the material becomes stiff and fabricy.

Felting is a pretty neat process. The final product is very solid. You can even cut it and it won’t unravel like regular knitting.

However, I’m not relying on my slipper’s natural density to avoid having another holey situation. I had some leftover fake leather, so I cut some soles out of that and stitched it onto the bottom of the slippers.

Let’s try this picture again.

Much cozier without the holes.

Are there any other knitters out there? Have you ever felted anything? How about anyone else with holes in their slippers… or even your socks?

Don’t ever give up

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

This was a different post when I wrote it in my head the first time on my drive home from work on Tuesday evening. By the time I turned into my driveway it was this post you see before you.

Work kicked my butt on Tuesday. I made a couple of really big mistakes on an important project I’m responsible for. I said some really bad swear words and came close to shedding a few tears. It was a low point.

Then on the way home, I stopped at Home Depot. I was getting a refund on a special order they hadn’t been able to find for me. The associate said, “I’ll give you the refund, but let’s try and place the order again. I won’t charge you even if it goes through.”

Back on the road, there was a back up of cars and lots of flashing lights at the roundabout I drive through every day. As I came around the curve, I saw a bad accident with a dump truck.

And this is why my attitude had changed by the time I made it home. I had a bad day at work. That’s all it was. There were other good things that happened to me, and things could have been a lot worse.

I will still recite my mantra of “Be the duck. Be the duck.” (You know, feet paddling madly under the water but feathers smooth and unruffled above).

However, what started to play a little more loudly in my head was, “Don’t ever give up.” In fact, this mantra inspired me to dig into the boxes in my office and pull out this poster.

This hung in the office at my middle school. When I was in grade 8 I finally worked up the courage to ask one of the teachers to photocopy it for me. It’s hung on a bulletin over my various desks ever since then.

Obviously, it’s been packed away too long. It’s now back up on the bulletin board in my office here.

How was your week? Hopefully it was better than mine. Let’s all have a good weekend, okay?