I so hope that everyone has had a lovely Easter weekend! We finally have had a few good days of sunshine and warmth! It was so wonderful to wander the property several times over the 3 days past. A couple times with the puppies, too and most delightfully, with my friends Bill and Pam who came down from Michigan! I can’t wait until we are moved in for good and it needs to be soon. We are all getting a little weary and a touch irritable… we need to be settling in soon!

We managed to get the kitchen windows all painted. That deep blue trim was just too much! Now it’s a nice clean white. I would love to have the trim in place and window treatments up, but that will be a little longer. Too many other priorities up on the list.

We’re totally lucking out, most of the curtains and rods that we have in the Moby will work nicely in the farmhouse. Once we actually get moved in, we’ll be getting those up throughout.

We got the first coat of white trim on the windows in the big office. I think they will need one more coat to make sure they are just perfect. We’ll probably get that finished up tomorrow. We need to paint the inside of the old kitchen cupboard, the one that is old and probably from the old farm house. And my office needs another coat to be finished. Monday jobs!

Maggie has really come into her own as a painter! She painted the whole living room by herself! And it looks fantastic! Sure, we might want to really do it all nice at some later point, it could really stand to have the walls drywalled and such, but for now, $5 of premium miss-tinted paint and two days of Maggie painting and the place is light and brighter and not nearly as yucky looking as it was a while ago! We’re going to take out the yucky worn carpeting pretty quickly and we have a nice piece of carpeting from the Moby to fill up the space nicely. It will be a great deal more tolerable then we ever imagined! The ceiling is still a bit of a question, but it’s in the plans.

Believe it or not, this is all our excess stuff! We have really tried over the years to cut back on the “stuff” in our lives and I think it really shows! This room is not huge at all, and it is only about 3 or 4 boxes deep. And this is for all three of us! It will be nice to take our time unpacking these boxes and sorting it all out nicely in our new place. We definitely do not have enough furniture for the house! It will be so much fun to watch the garage and yard sales of the coming year for a few new pieces to fill up the place a little bit more. However, we would like to keep the place a little on the thin side, never one for too much cluttery stuff just for stuff’s sake.

Well, Jessy is coming along, she’s almost got one whole wall cleaned out mostly.  We are going to start with some hot water and vinegar soaks.  And then some sanding.  I must admit, her dilligence in this effort is going to pay off with a most lovely room.  She should be soon scraping in a few days.  She might be sleeping in the living room or up with Maggie for a bit until she gets her own room ready, but that’s okay.  You know, they have been sharing a room for years and years and never minded.  I think that has made them very close and that is nice.   But at the same time, I think they are looking forward to having their own rooms!

Maggie’s stairway to her lair looks simply wonderful!  So much nicer than that dark blue and dark grey!  She wants to put some little carpet treads on the steps.  I know she wants to put some posters up and all that sort of teenager thing.  I think it’s a lovely place for a teen art gallery of all that is important to her!

What a delight when our friends from Michigan dropped in!  They were on their way to a Michigan bluegrass show and wanted to come down and visit!   They brought us a lovely gift of some extra wonderful laminate flooring, enough I’m sure for my office or maybe even the dining room!  And they also brought this super cool little wind thingamajig that Bill made!    Here at Windhaven, we first set him up near the front and he was sawing like crazy!  We ended up moving him around several places before we found a little sheltered area!  We don’t want him to wear out on the first day!  It was very windy on Saturday for sure.

Maggie just adored the little guy… she loves windmills and the idea of harnessing some of the power here with the ever present breezes!  Why not?  They’ve been doing it for years and years.  And you don’t need a ton of super fancy equipment or those super expensive turbines, either, just to spin a little power.  We are certainly going to be looking into some ways to harness the wind around here.   Some super serious homeschooling assignments for us all coming up in the next few months!

Three different drop in neighbors have told us all about the sorrid details of the last 10 years to us, and the one thing they have all talked about was the famous asparagus bed somewhere on the the property!  I have been walking around with this on my mind now since I heard about it a few weeks ago.  So when another new neighbor dropped by… I asked him right up.  Where is the asparagus?   And Rod, he knew right away and off we walked.

Sure enough, it’s right behind the barn and as he talked and told us where the past families had their garden, I could see the faint outlines of a big garden!  Oh no!   Of course, its not near my garden area… now I think that I might have two lovely garden spots.  I’m actually thinking that at least this year, I will plant my corn out where they used to garden.  That way I can plant quite a bit of it!  Why not… I’m sure my hens will love it and we aren’t going to have that area fenced  anytime soon.  I have a bunch of corn seed that may or may not be good, so I think I’ll plant it all and see what comes up!  Why not!

I’m just so happy to have finally found this patch!  And the funny thing?  I don’t think I’ve every had asparagus before!!!  Yeah, crazy, I know, but for whatever reason, I’ve never had it.  Everyone raves about it and I imagine, fresh picked and steamed with some lovely little sauce as all the recipes seem to indicate is proper procedure with this dish of kings… I am game to give it a try!  Any good tips or recipes, please be certain to share!   hee hee

Here is the future site of our little pond area.  Several times now after bad storms and early thaws, it’s been wet and puddly.  Never a huge full blown lake, yet, but we did have some pretty heavy rains on Friday and by Saturday morning, this was nearly all underwater.  It’s the area right behind the poultry barn and where I have my new garden area.  And yes, the garden was partially under water as well.  Our lovely little fake creek ditch was full of water, and I wish I had gotten a photo of it… it was so pretty to pretend we actually had a creek!  But what I was most thankful for, was that the little ditch was doing it’s job.  The rest of the property was fine.  That’s good.

Since this back area really wants to be under water, I think that is an excellent place to consider a pond.  And from all the research I am doing on ponds and pond construction, the very first thing you need to do is to dig a great big hole,  about oh, a foot or two across and as far down as you can get… in fact 6 to 8 feet is recommended!  Good thing we got that wheelbarrow!  The dirt we dig, I think we will add to the north end of the new garden, so that we can mound up the last couple rows and not have a major flood to new seedlings!

Once you dig your hole, you measure it’s depth and then fill it with water.  Once full, you time how long it take to soak into the ground.  If it’s real quick, it’s not a good place for a pond.  It takes hours, then, well, okay, but if it takes days?  Perfect!  Considering how much water I’ve seen back there off and on, I think it’s going to be days!  But we’ll see.  No big hurry, but hey, planning is a good thing!

As you can see, this is two days after the big storm and it’s soaking in pretty good.  At least in the garden area.  I’m actually going to do mounded rows the short dimension, not the whole long side.  I want to be able to have a whole row of this and a whole row of that, rather than super long rows that I divide into various veggies.  I’m going to research the best to have down at the slightly wetter areas, and plant accordingly.  That why those chosen veggies will get the benefit from summer soaks!  I’m already thinking carrots and cukes, which if I recall seem to really enjoy a good soak!

Just can’t wait to get growing, but it’s still a week or three away!  After all, this very unseasonable weather still has most of the tree only barely budding and the tulips are not even up yet!  It’s almost as if spring is waiting for us to move in and get the house ready!  It knows that I want to be able to spend a ton of time outside and planting this spring and not loose a bit of time!  Yeah!  Thanks Spring!  Haha….

I found a lovely patch of iris growing on the east side of the poultry barn!  Yahoo!  I love iris… can’t wait to see the colors.  Actually, I just can’t wait to see all the delightful plants that are starting to crop up all over the place!   My first thought is to rip up all the weeds and just mulch and start over, but I think there is a wealth of lovely plant material all over the homestead, so this first year, it’s going to be more of a let it grow and see what comes!  I’m finding little treasures ALL OVER THE PLACE…  tons of beautiful tiger lillies, daffidils everywhere.  I think I’ve found the English walnut tree over by the dead pine, and I’m finding more iris by the old chicken coop as well.  Of course, I’m also finding some nice weeds starting up, some HUGE thistles and such…  I will be doing my best to eradicate some of those for sure.  Mowing will help to keep some of the other wild plants to a bit of a low roar.   We’re going to keep about a quarter acre wild in the way eastern corner, and hopefully plant some more trees and such back there for future use.  I found a place nearby on Craigslist that has windbreak pines and bushes for super reasonable prices!  Up to 4 foot high pines for only $10 each.  As soon as we can afford to, we will be getting some for the southern front of the property.  That is where a LOT of wind seems to be coming and it’s not go anything to stop it.   I know it will take awhile, but we might as well get started!   And it will offer a little privacy from the front road as well as a help for the fencing and such.  (The pines can hide the fence and also help to provide a mental barrier for the dogs and cats as well.  All good!)   But all in due time!   I suspect it will be the trees of the month club!  Whatever we can spare from the budget will go into buying a few more trees for the front!

Right behind the screen porch is a yucky little muddy bare area… We definitely need a piece of gutter on the roof to direct a bit of the water run off.  It’s a shady place, and I think I have some beautiful hostas from my Moby garden that will adore this location.  However, I have noticed that there are a few little plants trying to get going…  some beautiful little ferns and another ground cover, I think is called snow on the mountain, if I’m not mistaken.  I know it’s a little invasive, but the area is so barren, I think anything would be nice.  I will definitely pop a few of my giant hostas here and see if they like it.  And we’re going to try and put up a bit of gutter on our own and see if we can manage to get the area a teeny bit more dry!

We keep finding these little stashes of forgotten projects and such all over the place!  Like all these little tiles in the flower beds near the house.  Not sure why, or what they were intended for, but now they just look kind of fun.  I think that lovely green clump is actually just grass, but I’m letting it grow a bit and make sure! Like I said, this first year is going to be a very busy one for my garden journal!   I’m going to be taking a lot of notes of the various seasons and the things that grow up!   Some stuff is going to get moved, like a few bunches of lillies and daffys in very odd areas, or in mowing paths, etc.  Sounds like so much fun!

We drive by this lovely little lake when we go out to the farm.  And in this lake is this weeping willow and for some reason today, I just thought it was so pretty, with it’s little delicate buds starting and reflecting in the still waters.  I had to stop the car and let Jessy snap a couple pictures.  It’s just so pretty.

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend and that if you are in an area that spring is coming to, that you are enjoying this beautiful season of rebirth.  I think it’s only fitting that the Lord would give up his Son and then give us salvation with Jesus’s rising in a season that so gives us hope and contentment on our own rebirth in the love and warmth and light of God’s love for us.  It’s a lovely time and I hope you can share it with those whom you love around you too!

Stay tuned… it’s going to be a wild week and if I can’t post every day, I will do my best to at least recap as soon as I can.  We are trying to get all moved in by the end of the week.  It would be lovely if it’s by Friday, because that is Maggie’s birthday and she’d like that a lot.  It’s going to be a lot of work, but we just really need to get done with this whole month long rehab and moving process.

My much loved Gunnar is acting up, and the transmission is toast, again.  We took him up to the corner this afternoon and I had no high gears.  I have a friend that will fix him, but he’s about 150 miles away, so I’m just not sure how I will get him there.  And I just can’t leave him at the moby park, just one of those wrenches in the plans for sure!  I can pop it into the low gear and get about 35 miles an hour, so worse comes to worse, I’m going to be taking him out to the farm on the back roads as a lovely lawn ornament until I can find someone with a car trailer to drag him off for major surgery.  It’s just such a mess, this car has been.  I can’t wait for someone to fix it RIGHT and make me a happy woman.  I just love this car…  crazy crazy story for sure.  Maybe someday I will relate it.  But right now, I think it’s just time for bed!   We’ve got a HUGE week ahead and I just want to get this over with!  Got a bunch of trees and plants to dig up this week as well.  Raised beds to bring over for my new kitchen garden and herbs!  And our orchard needs to be planted!    Hope all goes well!   Can’t wait for our first night there at the farm.  Wish us luck!!!

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