Torrential rains. The creek has risen. This view now comes with rushing waterfall soundtrack.
Life is good.
Note to Self…
Note to others, as it is too late to be useful to myself:
When painting galvanizing, anti-rust paint onto your rabbit cages, crawl inside and paint the floors BEFORE you paint the tops or you’ll be in for a serious mess. Gloves wouldn’t hurt either. And maybe a full face mask. I am covered in “unicorn sneezes!”
Thank goodness for Turpenoid and a husband willing to sponge off my silvery hair. Sheesh.
Filed under .
Homestead Update: The Lounge Room
Previously the absolutely most repulsively stinking room in the house, our new “parlor/lounge room/living room the second/nap room” is truly epic. The first night that the floors were laid and the bookshelves (gasp! bookshelves? with knick knacks actually UP after being packed in boxes for 3 years!?) were up and pictures were hung, we just sat around listening to records and danced with joy! I actually stayed up about an hour later than my husband just dancing around by myself – yes, i’m a little silly, but darnit: this room was a real accomplishment!
The bookshelves still have tons of room on them, which is good as we have tons of unpacked boxes yet to open, but i need to pick up a few bookends before i get TOO crazy….. and we plan on building in a lot of bookshelves in the big room upstairs too.
I don’t have a really good before picture of this room because it was SUCH a mess. There was a desk in there that had clearly been there since the previous owner began renting the place 10 years ago, complete with alimony papers and old IRS forms. The orange carpet although retro colored, stunk SO.BAD. even Pocket found it gross. Andy is a real trooper and tore out all that nasty carpet, discovering a rotten area of the floor/wall where the chimney had been leaking and patched it up! What a guy!
There’s only one window in this room making it a bit dark and perfect for napping. We had planned on moving the futon up here once we get a new couch for the living room downstairs, but our old “king Louie” furniture from our Austin days looks so perfect in here…. maybe we’ll get one of those epic bean bags and put it under the window: Andy wants there to be a good nap spot in this room.
I laid all the floors (in all of the house, in fact) and Andy replaced the trim and did the one tricky cut around the vent as well as ripping up the nasty flooring: teamwork! We also put our old blinds in the doorway area, making it quasi private-able so that it can act as a second guest room in a pinch. Our housewarming party winded down in this room, complete with music and lots of laughs and a camping mattress thrown down for one of my guests to crash. Perfect!
We’re whittling away at this big ole’ house one room at a time – the only way to do it, really. Next inside projects: build myself some closet shelves FINALLY and paint the kitchen! AND i think we FINALLY got the PTO, brush hog and tractor all in operable condition so our fire hazard of an unmown pasture might finally be groomed!
What projects are you planning for this winter?
Filed under Housekeeping, The Homestead
Preserving the Season
This homesteader is finally getting some homesteading done! My cucumbers are popping and i’ve got one batch of sour pickles done and in the fridge (and on toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch almost every day) and a second batch fermenting in the pantry. I picked up a mess of green tomatoes to make relish and did one batch on the stove and am experimenting with another batch via fermentation – no idea what that will turn out like! Pears and apples have been dehydrating into much coveted dried slices (Pocket loves them as much as we do and more than ‘dog biscuits’). A pile of plums in the pantry will be cooked down into spicy plum sauce this evening (my favorite marinade for any meat on the grill). I should really be dehydrating or freezing some of the zucchini abundance and have 3 cabbages in the fridge rotting while i try to gather kimchi ingredients together……. Oh, and tomatoes? I have plans to preserve some of those, but have been doing a decent job eating them fresh or as quick sauces.
I hope to make much more time to preserve much more next year…. this year i’m lucky to hold my head on my shoulders and get the house ready for our houwewarming party this weekend. The house is looking great, but the pantry needs filling…. one thing at a time, right?!
What have you been preserving this fall? How do you make time for preserving the summer abundance?
Filed under Cooking, Fermented, Preserved Food
