Well… Wednesday and Thursday were great days! It seemed like we were cooking with gas again. Okay, well, no, we weren’t doing much with gas. But that’s another story.

It was just barely warm enough to paint, so I wanted to paint my room. I wanted to finish at least one whole room and my bedroom was the easiest to get done. It’s only 7 x 10, but that’s okay, my bed fits just barely, and a dresser, so I know it will be small and cosy. Of course, I wanted it to be purple, or well, a light lavender on the walls. I could hardly believe it, there was a misstint that was just a smidge brighter than I wanted, but it was fine. For $5, I can handle brighter. Once I get my bed and pictures up and the room filled, it won’t be as loudly lavendar. And worse comes to worse, if I just can’t deal with it, I can paint it again.

After all, it only took about an hour. Hahaha… a 7 x 10 room is really easy to paint quickly!

Funny thing, in the bright sunshine, it’s very very lavender. But as the day progressed, it got to be a nicer lighter color and then in the evening, it was lovely. Since it’s more likely that I will be in there more in the later evening, reading, sleeping, I think it’s just fine. Can’t wait to start moving stuff in and hanging up my pictures and of course, taking that first comfy nap!

Maggie found this at the Tractor Supply Store and we just had to get it. I love the windmill and the rooster… the windmill really goes around. And it has a rain gauge and such… cute. I have to say, there is just so much wind there, we MUST start investigating getting a real windmill and generating some energy. When I get a little time, I’m going to work on a logo with a windmill and a chicken and maybe something to do with music… hmmmm……

When we were putting up the dog fence, Maggie was the one that discovered these two ancient willow trees. I had thought they might be oak or apple, something that someone had topped and was resprouting, but Maggie told me they were willows because of the new growth and buds she found. Upon closer examination, she was right! They are willows! How cool. And they are entwined with climbing roses and grapevines! Crazy combination, but something interesting to watch grow this spring and summer for sure.

We’ve found a lot of signs of grapes and roses. Vines are everywhere and so are the cut back canes of roses past. Apparently the real estate company came and hacked back just about everything near the foundation and house. I get it, it was overgrown and just didn’t sell well that way. But it’s a shame that they had to be so brutal. I know that it will grow back, and it will be very interesting to see it all take place. We are still hunting the asparagas patch that Bill told us about. Haven’t found it yet. I did find a lovely patch of iris coming up on the eastern side of the poultry barn. I love iris! Yeah!

I was so happy to get a really nice, clean, fairly new dishwasher on Craigslist and we picked it up on Wednesday. The victim of a stainless steel conversion, this lovely little GE Whirlpool washer is only 5 years old and seems to be in perfect working order.

Now, we’ve been handwashing dishes for over three years now, and really don’t mind it at all. Sure, sometimes it gets away from us a little bit and they stack up a bit, but usually we can stay on top of it all. I like handwashing dishes, and to be honest, probably still will to a degree.

But, at the farm, there was a huge hole for one in the counter arrangement. I thought about putting oh, trash or recyclables in there, making a little curtain or something. But part of the problem was that all the plumbing under the sink was set up for a dishwasher as well! We couldn’t turn on the kitchen water because there were holes in it all, for a dishwasher connection! I priced out the new plumbing and it was about $25 or so dollars! And of course, all the time involved. And then we would have to do something to shore up the end of the counter top, because it was dependent on a washer being there. So it didn’t make sense to convert it all over when I knew I could get a dishwasher for under $50 and just be done with it.

So. We have a dishwasher.

Our new found handy guys, Jeremy and Jay, whom are also our yard and garden masters, came over and helped us out with a few little issues. They got that dishwasher installed and ready to go. So now we have a working sink in the kitchen! Yah!

They fixed two broken basement stairs, which was wonderful, because that was very dangerous… and they fixed a leak we found down there… one of the old valves to the bathroom sink was leaking and that is a major reason for some puddles down there. Steve discovered it but didn’t have the right parts to fix it. Jay and Jeremy had it all fixed up in no time fast!

But the one thing that we really needed was heat and unfortunately, after much trying, it was determined that the wall heater was not working and would not work. I suspected as much, even after Jeremy got the gas routed correctly and to the heater, it would not start. Even trying to start it manually, it would not start. Lance, our heating and cooling tech had said that it was old, and something that people just don’t fix. Sure enough I found that a brand new one runs only about $150 and I saw them on Craigslist for $75 to $100.

But I’ll be honest, I hate those things. They seem dangerous to me, and especially with cats and dogs, etc. Open flames.. I don’t really like the look and well, I just had them take it down. No sense in having it taunt us with it’s pretend offering of heat and not being able to produce it. We now have nothing in the house that runs with propane. No furnace, no heaters, no dryer, no stove. I wonder if you want sell back a whole tank of propane… haha… something I must look into.

I suppose that we could get a gas range, but I’m just not one to like cooking with one. Never have. I always seem to burn things with a gas range. I like the slightly slower, even and easy heat of electric. My girls have never cooked with gas either. Hmm… well, I suppose propane doesn’t really go bad… maybe we’ll think of something to use it for at some time!

In the meanwhile, I think we’ve solved some of our immediate heating needs. The kerosene heater is working and does a fantastic job of warming up the core of the house. It took us a little while to find anyone selling the stuff, it’s just not as common around here since the price rose to nearly as much as gas! $3.80 a gallon! We got two gallons and a storage tank and took it back to Windhaven. Maggie had read all about it (thanks Linda for the online guide!!!) And we read the info on our specific heater. It started right up and was soon at work giving us a nice warm glow in the place. Our couple electric heaters were working as well, and it was really pretty cosy in there.

I think our plan is to use the kerosene heater during the evening, to get the house warm. Once we call it a night, we will turn it off. And we will probably all sleep in one or two rooms, with lots of blankets, dogs and perhaps an electric heater or blanket if need be. I think the house will hold some heat for a few hours and though we might wake to coldness, it will be a good reason to get up and get working! If the Ingalls family could sleep in that cold attic in DeSmet North Dakota winters, well, we gals can rough it for a week or two in the Ohio spring. We promise to be VERY VERY careful with our little hot R2D2 fellow.

One of the fun things about rehab is the ability to think quick and our corndogs in a cup recipe is one born of that fun. We forgot to bring any sort of plates with us, or a hot pad. So we used a painters 5 in 1 tool to pull the rack and also push the little corn dogs out, and a couple cups we had for serving! It was fun and it worked… There is NO fast food near us! Yeah! So lunch either has to be brought from the Moby or purchase at the little local supermarket and warmed up or eaten here. I’m really looking forward to the no fast food thing. I know we will be eating much better when we are done with all this moving and running back and forth. My tummy is looking forward to more steady meals, for sure.

On Thursday, we left Jessy home because we were due a rock shipment and she had some orders and such she wanted to work on. One is a big one! And Evee and Gypsy were bumming that we were leaving them home often. So Maggie and I went out with a car load and then got to some painting. Maggie had previously used Kilz primer on her stairway to her loft hideaway, and now was painting it all nicely with some misstinted tan that we liked. She’s really a good painter, even if she’s not really one to enjoy it much. She thinks it’s very boring. I agree, but I just love how things look after just a simple coat or two of paint. It’s amazing. Her stairs look fantastic… so much better than the dark blue and grey. And then, she started to paint the living room yucky paneling! Oh my gosh! It’s wonderful!

Now, don’t worry, this is not the parlor, with it’s beautiful 100 year old solid wood paneling. This is the next room, with the fake ugly ripped 1070’s paneling. We figgered that we might as well try painting it first with a $5 gallon on paint and see if it is okay. Well, it’s more than okay, it’s really nice! Maybe this winter we might decide to really make this room nice, but for right now? A little paint and some time is going to make it very tolerable and nice.

I love this picture… it’s a shot through from the living room to my bedroom in the darkness. Very calm and pretty. I think the living room is going to be very nice with the same tan as Maggie’s stairs. A nice soft beigy tan. Warmish…. not too pastel. We’re going to put in our carpet from the Moby in this room, and I think it will be very nice. It needs to have the ceiling redone, and that might be a bit in the making, but soon. Soooooon. In the meanwhile? Just don’t look up! Haha…

I love this picture. Jessy was using a table lamp to look at Maggie’s paint job in the stairs and Evee was curious as well, though, perhaps a bit more as to what the heck Jessy was doing with the lamp! We definately need a few more lights there… it’s the first time we’ve been there in the dark! Pretty fun!

I’m so blessed to know several wonderful guys with trucks. Men and their trucks is a cool thing for sure. Tim came over to help move several of our large Ikea shelves to the homestead. We were going to use them in our office area and wanted to get them over when there was a little clearing in the weather. With these shelves in place, we could start to move over all the computer stuff and have a place for it to go!

And Tim was also lured out by the gift of farm scrap iron! He and friend like to scrap metal for a little extra money and I had a good amount of it rounded up for him! The old water heater, the gas heater, a couple old rusty bed springs, and a bathtub out in the field!!! I have to tell you, it was simply the COOLEST thing to be riding in the back of his truck on the tailgate, with Maggie and we’re bumping along in our own pasture out to the woodlot in the crisp spring evening air. Made me feel like I was 16 again. It was wonderful. And then laughing and searching around for more trash, it was just fun. Dirty from the days work, tired muscles, and yet, rejuvenated from the hunt. We turned over the tub and there was a DEAD SKUNK under it!!!! Hahahaha…. poor thing, I guess the weather might have gotten it, it wasn’t too long gone, but it was definitely pushing up daisies. Guess we’ll have to bury the little critter before the dogs find him.

Once the shelves were inside and we had them cleaned off from the little dead buggies that met their doom on the ride over, it was clear that our new world headquarters for Dragon Mountain Treasures was going to be wonderful! All that storage space! Yeah! Can’t wait to start utilizing it. Soon… soon…. we’re going to start bringing over office supplies, equipment and stock this whole week. Hopefully we’ll be in working order by the week end. That’s the goal!

We got a card in the mail at the farm that said that high speed internet was NOW available at our address! Yahoo! We’re saved!!! Procrastination is a wonderful thing! Now we don’t have to puzzle together a mess… and they’re having a sale, free installation! One of the first calls I’ll be making coming Monday!!!

Well, what do we have left to do???

FInish painting my office
Paint the trim in the big office
Paint the trim in the kitchen
Paint the inside of the old cupboard in the kitchen nook
Paint Maggie’s room
Finish scraping and sanding Jessy’s walls in her bedroom
Paint Jessy’s bedroom
Demo her ceiling in one part of her room
Put up beadboard in that ceiling area
Finish painting the living room with the tan paint
Hook up dishwasher to electric
Figure out what to do with a teeny leak in the kitchen nook.
Wash all the windows good
Hang curtain rods & curtains
Install flooring from the Moby
Fix the front porch with more banister spindles and paint
Paint the last side of the garage (when it stops raining, if ever!)
Clean out and paint the screen porch
Clean out and paint the mudroom
Get a electric stove
Replace a circuit breaker for the kitchen because it keep tripping
More more major lawn/yard/pasture trim and weeding
One more till for the garden plot and then fence from all the bunnies we’ve been seeing!!!
Plant our garden!
Transplant all the trees and plants from the moby
Move all the rest of our big stuff

As you can see… this next week is crunch time. Of course, not everything has to be done before we can move in by next weekend. However, we’re really going to push to get as much done as we can manage. We’re hoping to have all the painting done by Tuesday. That is the goal. And then we will concentrate on getting everything ready to move in! Yeah!

Wish us luck!!!

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