Dirty Work

We have been enjoying having mom and dad here with us. We have had good food, and lots of great work has begun. Unfortunately the weather has been the coldest we have had yet this year. We have seen as low as -27 including wind chill during the day! This does appear to be an unfortunate trend starting. We had a very unusual snow storm that greeted Kate when she came, and now these frigid wind chill temperatures for my parents. People may not want to visit us if this is what we offer!

One of the jobs on our to do list was working on Zoe's bedroom. Her room will be a complete overhaul. Tear down walls, rebuild closets, move doorways. The task we have attacked over the past two days was a very dirty chimney removal. There is about 2 feet of room that Zoe wants to gain by removing the chimney and non-load bearing wall surrounding it. It is an old chimney that had already been "disconnected" from the roof so we didn't have to worry about reshingling. But we did have to start at the top and work our way down. Yesterday dad and I tackled the attic portion of it. Last night Zoe and Shelby went at the second story portion of it. Today Mom and Zoe continued the second story portion and by tomorrow, hopefully, we will have the portion in Zoe's room down! It is so messy, but the girls made sure they wore safety gear!!

Final note, Zoe has made me a weekend grandmother - way to soon!!! A requirement of her child studies class is to bring home robo-baby for four days. So meet my grandson Liam. He has been very good so far but I am not necessarily looking forward to the night shift!

Mom and Dad Come Back!!

We are very happy to have my parents visiting us again. Apparently I didn't work them hard enough last time and they came back for more punishment! Lucky for me, they didn't even flinch when I showed them the to do list that I wrote out!

These past few days Zoe and I were finishing things we had started previously but either never completed or were not happy with. We finished the coatroom. Laid the vinyl tile floor, the trim, the quarter round, trimmed the door and painted all the wood. I think it looks great and am pleased to finally have a room complete!!


Zoe did some finishing touches on her dresser. The handles that we had were the wrong size and would not attach properly. We found some beautiful bling on Amazon and had these pulls delivered. Zoe filled the not in use holes, repainted and attached her new glam. Love it!

My mom and dad arrived today. After some controlled chaos, Dixie calmed down enough for everyone to enjoy each other. We went on a hike and pointed out the new parts of our property that we have found since they were last here. We had a lovely steak dinner and Zoe made a  birthday cake for her Grampa.

Now a quiet evening around the fire and and early to bed to prepare for a full day of work tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Dad

Important business first - I want to wish my dad a very happy birthday! I am so lucky that he and my mom are coming back for another visit this week! We can not wait to see you both and enjoy a birthday dinner with you here!

I have found the time, mostly after school when Zoe and her friend Shelby are at the house, to accomplish some small jobs.

One job that I was very anxious to do but not very happy about was clean the lawn tractor. You may recall how happy I was to get a shiny, new, beautiful, powerful, yellow Cub Cadet in the fall. I had stored it in the barn with the other lawn tractor for the winter. The barn has two windows that have the glass broken out of them. This makes a perfect entrance and exit for a family of pigeons. They like to roost along the top beam of the barn and poop directly onto my (not so shiny anymore) tractor! It is now clean, and moved, and tarped, and ready for spring use.

I was thrilled one afternoon while Dixie and I were out walking to see the day lillies at the front of the house popping through the soil! Realistically I know it is only February, but what gardener doesn't love to see those first green leaves pushing up!

Zoe update: she is doing fantastic in school! She is showing more drive and enthusiasm than I have perhaps ever seen from her! She got a perfect mark on her first essay assignment for one of her classes and is now registered for 5 courses in an attempt to graduate this year! This momma bear could not be more proud!

(I do still take some downtime to...ahhh...think up more ideas for projects...ya that's what I'm doing!!)

A Great Days Work

Today was amazing!

For the first time in over a month I got to work with Zoe. We have not felt able to work together with Dixie in the house, but today we decided to try. And it went splendidly. If you count this as splendid....I don't think this image looks quite right? After lots of struggles and innovative thinking, we extricated the chainsaw and the tree toppled. So, in the end, felling our first tree was a pseudo success!

Then we evaluated our chicken coop. We decided it was not in good enough condition to house animals. The floor is rotting, the roof leaks and there are gaps everywhere in the walls. So after some searching we found a new home for them with sound walls, a window, and lots of space. We got busy and started building our nesting boxes. I remember words from Laura and Martin Van Den Hurk telling me to use what is on hand, and to proceed even if everything is not in place. We had so much fun building a three nesting box unit with only supplies that we found in the garage and barn (and using that fantastic reciprocating saw from by darling children!) And we will proceed with chickens even though we do not have an outside access door to the coop! We will have to trudge the girls through the barn to the coop until we cut a hole in the wall and insert a door.

Overall it was a fantastic day filled with fun, laughter, thinking outside the box, and tons of pride in jobs well done!

Coat Closet

Yes...back to the coat closet. Back in November I did some work in the coat closet but did not finish it. I did not finish on purpose because I wanted the door and floor to flow with the kitchen when we redid it. However, with the snow and wet and melt, I was afraid we were damaging the plywood flooring.

Amazing new Saw

So we started to revisit this room today. I had a lot of fun playing with a new toy my AWESOME children bought me for Christmas. It is a sliding mitre saw. I played with straight sliding cuts on the flooring and angles bevel cuts on the trim. I have always struggled with these two cuts. First my old chop saw could only handle a six inch width so I would have to cut, flip, hope the cut lined up and cut again, only to realize that the cut did not line up. And bevel cuts...I have never had two pieces of trim meet in a corner without a gap or a slice or one of the angles being slightly off. This new tool is fantastic. It is so easy and so accurate, now if something goes wrong I know it is my fault not the equipment!!

Flooring: laid and removed

We laid the floor, set up the trim, realized on one wall I needed the saws all to cut out a piece of wood so the trim could sit properly. So...take out the trim, take up the floor, cut the wood...get frustrated, stop for the night!! Story of my life. Actually, before we stopped, Zoe and I looked at the whole job and assessed what we had to do and how to do it so we did not have to repeat and undo steps again! Zoe is the "pretty" girl and I am a "get it done" girl. So I come up with a plan and she figures out how to make that plan pretty. (Thus the reason I had to take up the trim and floor to fix the groundwork!) Just another lesson in patience, and planning out the whole job before jumping in.

Furniture Refinishing

Before we made this big move, Zoe and I would throw ideas around about things we could do at our new homestead. These things included lists about how we wanted to live (simply), things we had always wanted to have (farm animals including a horse), things we had always wanted to do (tap maple trees) and things we could do to earn a living. One of things on that massive list, was refinishing furniture. It fell in both the money making and the hobby lists. Zoe has been the first to attack a piece of furniture and this is her result.

The previous owners left a matching dresser set. I, unfortunately did not get a "before" picture of her piece, but this is the shorter, matching dresser to give you an idea of the original look.

She took the taller one apart, fixed everything that needed to be fixed. Sanded it, used wood filler to return the corners to actual edges, and grooves and wear back to an original smooth finish. She primer painted the whole unit and then used the colours she selected and painted the unit and drawers. Finally, we had purchased some second hand handles which Zoe spray painted and attached.

I absolutely love the finished product. It only took about two days allowing for dry time (and cleaning up Dixie after she stepped in the paint!!) I am very confident that this is something Zoe will be able to continue to do with fantastic results. Now I need to get her more furniture to attack!

School

I am a very routine oriented person. You may be tired of hearing this, but I'm having to adjust to yet another routine!

For the past 26 years I have had a relatively simple routine. Go to work, eat supper, take the kids to the after school activity of the season, do homework, watch tv, go to bed,  repeat. That is a very simplified version of our lives, but it was the skeleton of our routine.

Saying goodbye the first morning of school

Since moving here I have found nothing to be consistent. Just when I get comfortable with what to expect tomorrow, things change. This latest change is an excellent one with unexpected results for me. The excellent news is that Zoe has started school. She joined Digby High School for their second semester. On day one she met a lovely, lively, young lady and together they decided that Zoe should attend school full days and graduate sooner!!! So instead of the expected two hours a day at school she is now there for six hours. While this is fantastic news, it has left me with a puppy and unsure how to navigate working on the property while "babysitting".

This week I have organized many indoor chores, phone calls and computer work that has been neglected over the past months. I am working on a leash system that I can take her outside with me, close enough to see me, but far enough away to stay out of the briar patches I want to remove. The weather has been -4 to +4 with very little snow. It is very hard for me to stay inside on these kinds of days. Hopefully by next week we will have have a better routine established where I can get outside to work, with or without Dixie.

Needless to say, the den did not get done. I will definitely post all the pictures when that finally does happen!

Superbowl Sunday

Good morning!

The weekend started very quiet. While I am busy working on the den and playing outside, this is how the rest of the family spends their time!

Sunday was a lovely day as we started out visiting our neighbours and meeting their dogs. They gave us so much helpful information. From heating our home with a singe stove, to where to find information on the history of our home, to goat management and moveable fencing. I am very excited to act on these suggestions.

I am not a football fan, which explains why I had no idea that this was Super Bowl Sunday. So when we got an invitation to a watch the game and enjoy some food with friends, we were very pleasantly surprised. We enjoyed a few hours eating some terrific food, meeting new people, and talking with friends. We really appreciated being included! We also continue to pick peoples brain everywhere we go and got more great ideas that I will looking into. We also were given more information on what is available in the area to do and be a part of. I continue to love this community and want to be more and more involved in it.

Now it's back to work...sanding the den floor. We are hoping by Thursday's blog we can show you the finished product!