Finally finally yesterday we got some rain.
So needed by the garden and the fields beyond it.
Gotcha Day 3
Last week marked three years since Baxter came to live with us.
Inspired by Tracey at Oh Melvin and Yo Jake, I have a tradition of writing a letter to Baxter on the anniversary of his gotcha day. Now that I’m writing for ThatMutt.com, I decided to share my letter there this year.
I invite you to visit ThatMutt.com to share in the love.
Want to look back at how we got here? Here are my letters from year 1 and year 2 and Baxter’s adoption story.
Our new summer project
Last week I mentioned that we’ve added a new summer project to our to-do list. Unfortunately this project is driven by a problem. You got a bit of a glimpse of the problem in this photo that I shared on Friday.
This is the drywall in the long room in the basement. And in case there’s any confusion, it’s not supposed to look like this.
We’ve had water issues off and on ever since we finished the basement. This spring was the worst.
In the unfinished space just beside the long room, this was the scene. Water seeping in at the joint where the foundation wall met the concrete slab.
We surmise that this happened along the whole wall, including in the finished area. The baseboard swelled and stained. The carpet was damp. And behind the baseboard mold grew.
We had some water-proofing contractors come in a few weeks ago and give us quotes to fix the problem. Work starts today. So our formerly finished long room now looks like this. And it’s about to get worse.
With the drywall removed the studs don’t look too bad. Yes there’s mold, but it doesn’t go too high on the wall, and the wood isn’t rotted at all. Even so, I’m not sure much of this will be salvaged, as our contractors are doing the waterproofing from the inside.
The other area of focus outside of the long room is the cold cellar. The cold cellar is an addition, and when it was added, the concrete floor was poured just up to the old footings. In the spring or even on rainy days, the whole perimeter of the cold cellar leaks.
This area isn’t as worrisome, as it’s unfinished, but nonetheless we’d rather not have water in the house at all.
Our contractor is also going to redo our sump pump pit and put in a two new pumps–one on a battery back-up. During a power outage in one big storm this spring, Matt bailed the sump pit for four hours. We’d prefer not to repeat this situation… or worry about the power going out if we’re not home.
Waterproofing is one of those projects that I’m not super excited about. Cutting into our drywall was a bit heartbreaking after all of the work we put into finishing the basement in the first place. Plus it’s a lot of money just to get us back to where we were when we first finished the basement.
However, it’s a very important project. Knowing that this is our forever home, we want this problem solved.
Have you ever waterproofed your basement? Do you have any water leaks?
Guess what?
On Monday I alluded to a new project happening in our basement this summer.
I’ll be sharing details next week.
In the mean time, any guesses to what it might be?
Update and a new adventure in Illinois
Sarah in Illinois is back today with a bunch of updates on what’s happening at their home. Hint: some new additions are on the horizon.
This may be a disjointed post. I had been working on a project, and I thought I would be done before I had to send this week’s post, but it didn’t turn out how I had planned. (Argh. So frustrating when that happens, Sarah.) I will be sure to include why it didn’t work and I had to regroup in a future post.
This post will be a little bit of an update and share what I have in the works.
Kittens
As of when I am writing this, the black kitten has been reserved and the tiger-stripe is still waiting for a new home. The mother cat has been to the vet and spayed so I will not have to be in this situation again.
The cutting garden
There are about a half dozen different varieties of flowers that are growing. Right now the only one ready to cut is the zinnias.
Future posts
I hinted in one of my comments a while back that I am getting chickens! My neighbor has been raising several chicks and offered four of them to me. They will not be ready to lay until about September, but I can get them as soon as I have a secure place for them.
So my free time has been spent reading and reading about chickens and working on making a secure coop for them. I have never had or really even been around chickens so this is all a new learning experience.
Some of the books I have been reading include (not affiliate links):
- Backyard Chickens: the beginner’s guide to raising and caring for backyard chickens by Rashelle Johnson
- Barnyard in Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cattle by Gail Damerow
- The Mini Farming Bible: The Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency on ¼ acre by Brett L. Markham
- Dirty Chick: Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer by Antonia Murphy
I think I am ready to start this adventure. I have been told that I am overthinking everything and that chickens are a lot easier than I am making it out to be. I hope so! I will be sure to post about my adventure and in the meantime, any advice would be appreciated.
Cute kitten, pretty posies and exciting news–this worked out to be a post after all, Sarah. Congratulations on the chickens. I confess, I’ll probably take the same approach as you when it comes time to add birds to our farm. Your forethought just might make you a more successful chicken farmer.
Having grown up with backyard chickens, my best advice is to make sure to collect the eggs a couple of times a day. We got a bit lazy and our hens started eating their eggs. That was a hard habit to break!
Home Goals 2016 mid-year report
Six months ago, I shared my Home Goals for 2016. We just crossed the halfway point of the year, so it’s time for my mid-term report.
Beyond sharing my Home Goals, I also started the year by sharing some of my ideas for the major renovation that we want to do… someday. And the first goal on the list was to get an idea of how much the reno is going to cost to help us figure out when that someday might be.
We consulted with a contractor, got some feedback on our plans and got some numbers. They’re big numbers… as in not any time soon numbers… but it was helpful to give us an idea of where we’re at.
In terms of specific projects, here are the rest of our goals.
Guest room
The guest room was our first project of the year, and I’ve already done the official “reveal,” so I’m feeling pretty good about crossing this project off. However, there’s one task left on my original to-do list, which has also made it onto my summer to-do list.
Paint the walls and trimReplace the light fixtureMake window treatmentsRefinish the desk chair- Strip the paint off the metal bedframe (and maybe repaint)
Decorate and personalize
Finish the basement
The basement was essentially finished a looong time ago. However, those niggly finishing details are still hanging around. Plus, we have two new summer projects, one that you know about and one that you don’t yet. (I’ll be talking more next week about things that are going to affect our basement progress).
- Trim around the cold cellar doorway
- Finish the built-in storage area in Matt’s bathroom
- Make/buy art to finish off the space
Build shelving in the closet under the stairs- NEW Build a new closet in the basement
- NEW Mystery project (more to come next week)
Furniture
I’m always on the hunt for a few key pieces of furniture. So far this year, I’ve found one piece–the china cabinet for my office–but it’s still awaiting its makeover.
China cabinet for my office- Coffee table for the living room
- Reupholster slipper chair for my office
Vegetable garden
My all-consuming summer project every year has become the vegetable garden. Thanks to Dueling DIY this spring, the garden is in really good shape.
Hang the gateEdge the gardenBuild raised beds around the perimeterBuild trellises for the raspberries, tomatoes and squashesPlant perennials: grapes, asparagus, rhubarb, more raspberries- Run a waterline out to the garden
- NEW Spread hay mulch over the garden
Outdoor clean-up
I ambitiously added another outdoor goal to the list, although I realized I’d have to pick my battles in terms of which area I chose to clean up.
Thanks to a bit of distraction at the start of the garden Dueling DIY, I’ve cleaned up the large lumber pile on the north side of the centre field and burned the long grass and weeds on the south side of the garden. Matt’s been mowing the burn, and it almost looks like a real lawn already.
I’m feeling pretty good about what we’ve accomplished so far. Work on a farm never ends, but I love seeing the progress we’ve made.
How are things going at your house? Do you feel like you’re making progress on your goals?
Happy Canada Day!
Today, I and my fellow Canadians are celebrating our country’s 149th birthday.
I’m also celebrating because I’m a new contributor to homify.ca. homify is a new online platform for housing and construction. The goal of the site is to connect architects, designers, builders–all of the professionals you need–with house and apartment owners.
My first homify.ca post is appropriately Canadian: ideas to incorporate a bit of Canadiana into your home decor.
(I totally want this eh! pillow for my house).
Source: Samphire Bay
To my fellow Canadians, happy Canada Day. To my American readers, happy almost Fourth of July. No matter what nationality you are, happy weekend, everyone!
Garden at the end of June
Much progress has been made on the garden. You might notice in the photo above that we have a gate! And it’s not just propped in place. It’s actually on hinges, and it swings and everything. It’s only been 10 months since I built the gate. Not at all unreasonable to wait that long to fully protect the garden, right?
Inside, things are slowly filling in. I’m trying to remind myself to be patient and things will grow… eventually.
Let me take you on a tour of around our garden as it’s growing right now.
Quadrant one is our most well-established. It is home to five rows of potatoes–three red, one Kennebec and one Russian Blue. Although I really could have done two Russian Blues given how many we had and how much space there is in this quadrant. There are also three zucchini plants. Then in the perimeter beds there are onions, beets, carrots and a selection of herbs.
I’m a bit disappointed in the onions. They are spindly, some of the ends are brown, and I’m not confident that they’re going to size up. But I keep watering them and sowing new rows for my attempt at succession planting. (The beets in the background are doing excellent, however).
Quadrant two is bordered by our perennial crops: raspberries, grapes and asparagus. The middle is empty however, and we don’t have plans to plant anything here. One of the things I’ve realized is that we can only handle so much with this large vegetable garden.
The asparagus isn’t that much farther along than the onions, but I’m beyond excited by it. I’m trying to grow asparagus from seeds, and I thought I wasn’t going to be successful. These seeds took so long to sprout. Almost three weeks. I thought it wasn’t going to happen. So these little tiny ferns are tremendous progress.
Quadrant 3 has a lot of growth, but not the kind I want. Welcome to weed central. Ugh. There are some watermelon seedlings in here, but I’m not sure they’ll last that much longer without some defense. The outside edge has our sunflowers which are growing incredibly.
Quadrant four is slightly better than weed central, but not by much. This is our first year planting this half of the garden, so it’s taking more effort to clear out the weeds on this side. In this quarter we have two rows of tomatoes (under the wood frames), one of peppers, one of beans and three more zucchini plants. The outer edge has some more herbs, more sunflowers and our hollyhocks.
You’ve caught glimpses of the centre axis already, but here’s the view that I’ve been working towards for the past two years. A long look between our two rows of raspberries, through the squash A-frame and out to the back fields.
On Monday I posted about vision. The vision for this vegetable garden has been a long time coming, but it’s oh so wonderful to see it come to life.
Seeing it all come together… sometimes
When I finished the guest room makeover, I started thinking about vision. By that I mean having a vision for a space and seeing it come together.
I loooooove the guest room. And it was an easy makeover. For me, easy means two things:
- I had it clear in my mind what I wanted the room to look like.
- I was enthused to work on the room. The makeover didn’t stall out halfway.
If I contrast that with the master bedroom, it’s a bit of a different story. I still really like that room, but the makeover was a project that I didn’t really love. It dragged on and on and on. From picking a paint colour to building the headboard to sewing the curtains, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I didn’t have a clear vision. And so the room felt like a chore.
I’m a very visual thinker. If I think back to my university days when I was studying, I could visualize a page in my notebook and remember what was written on that page. It’s definitely not a photographic memory, but it’s about seeing pictures in my mind.
My approach to home renovation is the same. Usually, I can see it in my mind–very clearly–what the room is going to look like in the end.
And when I do, that makes me excited about the project. It gives me energy to keep going and to make the picture in my mind a reality in my home.
Fortunately, I’ve been thinking about our forever home long enough and we’ve been living here long enough that I’ve been able to develop a pretty clear vision for most of the spaces–both inside and out–at the farm.
Now if there were just enough hours in the day (and money in the bank) to bring them all to life!
How do you approach home reno projects? Are you a visual person? What makes you excited about a makeover?
Peony victories and failures
Our peonies were spectacular this year. After lots of transplanting and splitting in past seasons, each bush is getting more established, and we had a beautiful mix of fuscia, blush and white blooms.
I don’t usually do cut flowers, but after a bunch of the white peony blossoms proved too heavy for their stalks, I cut them and brought them inside.
I don’t do cut flowers because they quickly turn depressing on me. I’m not one to remember to refresh water or pamper my plants. So blooms wilt, stems droop and the flowers look more funereal than fabulous.
But with these peonies, I think I beat even my own record. One day–just one day–after bringing them in, a blossom shed every single one of its petals. I scooped the white flakes into the composter and carried on. Three more flowers disrobed the following day. At that point the whole bouquet–or the remains–went in the composter.
So lesson learned, I will focus on enjoying the peonies outside and refrain from any further florist failures.
And it’s Friday, so I will be spending a lot of time outside this weekend.
What do you have on tap for the weekend? Do you have any peonies either in your garden or in a vase at your house?
Home on 129 Acres 