Pavilion Renovation

Seems there is always something on the farm that needs a bit of TLC.   This summer the pavilion moved way up on the list because the quilt guild I belong to had asked if we would host the annual picnic at our farm.   And the best place to seat a large group of women is under the pavilion.   So, let the clean up begin.   And begin it did in earnest 2 weeks ago.

Don't ask me why we waited until 2 weeks ago to do this huge task.    I blame half of it on Joel being a perpetual procrastinator and half of it on being so busy bringing Buttercup into our lives.   At any rate, we dug into the painting and cleaning with gusto.    Especially since we were expecting 80 women to come to the picnic!

One of the first things we had to address was the wear and tear on the paint job of the main structural posts of the pavilion.    We washed both the house and the pavilion with a wonderful "spray on and rinse off" product from Lowe's which removed any green mold on the siding, let everything dry for a day and then we were ready to paint.   A few of the posts had to be scraped to remove the old chipped paint, but for the most part I just spent 3 days painting everything in sight.....

.....including the giant swings and bell post.

In the pavilion there is a wall which has a door leading to a bathroom and another double door which leads into a sort of kitchen area.   For some strange reason the squirrels found that wall enticing.  Even before we moved to the farm the grey squirrels were chewing on the trim boards on the lower portion of the pavilion wall and the bathroom door trim.   How very weird!   And what a mess.   The best solution was to remove the door and all the trim going into the bathroom and start fresh.   And that's what we did.    What a difference it made once the new trim was painted and put up.

But first, let me show you how truly ugly and icky the bathroom was.   Yes, it was bug heaven in there with dead critters lying about and spider webs attached to everything.   We had been storing an extra table in there and I was happy to retrieve it from the buggy spot it was in and give it a good cleaning.   Unfortunately, because there is no heat or A/C in there, mildew had strewn itself all over the walls.   We scrubbed the ceiling and then the walls with a mild bleach solution and the walls came back to life.   Now all they needed was a fresh coat of paint.

 Out came the non-working blinds, utility sink, mirror and shelving.

Looks pretty bad, doesn't it?   Yuk.   I was kinda grossed out by it all but we kept plugging away knowing we were only a day or two away from something a bit cleaner and prettier.

We used our extra oak table as a very convenient work station.   At least having this table to work off of saved our backs from picking tools up off the floor for the week we spent working outside.

All in all I spent 3 days painting trim pieces, over and over so each piece had at least 2 coats of paint on them before we installed them.

We've painted so much of the farm since moving here that I have a pretty hefty stockpile of paint buckets in storage.  The lid of each paint can  is marked with a Sharpie pen in large letters which room or outdoor structure that particular paint belongs to, which makes it so easy when I go in to pick up a can to do touch ups.   We had enough left over paint from doing the outside of the studio breezeway that I could paint this main wall tan to match the other outbuildings.   I even had enough leftover paint to do the entire bathroom and the floor.

Joel came down to the pavilion after I put up these galvanized letters and looked at me with a quizzical look on his face. He asked me what "WOF" meant......duh.....Whispering Oaks Farm!   We both giggled....not so sure the letters will stay up there but for now they're there.

This is the finished product!   The floor is freshly painted with porch paint and I pulled a few rustic items from my stash of decorating goodies up at the house to complete the look of an outside farm-y bathroom.

 I used some burlap and fabric from the sewing room to make cute little cafe curtains and hung a boxwood wreath above it.....just because it brought a touch of life to the room.

 I pulled this table off of our screened in porch and put it to work holding extra toilet paper and a retro fan to aid in air circulation.

 During the winter we found this cabinet and sink on sale at Lowe's and snapped it up knowing we were going to be doing this remodel this summer.   The narrow profile worked perfectly in our small space.

 In case you can't read it very well, the sign above the sink says, "Put on a little lipstick, you'll be fine".   I love it!  Just a little sass from me to those using the facilities.

And so, just in time for the picnic, we finished yet another remodeling project.   Whew!   Chalk that one off our list.
Debbie

Traditional Anniversary Presents

Remember when your first wedding anniversary rolled around?  Yes, way back when.   Anyway, remember wondering what your husband might buy you to celebrate that momentous occasion?    According to Hallmark, the contemporary gift for your first anniversary is clocks.   And china for the second one and on and on it goes.   For the thirtieth it's diamonds.   Ooooooooo......

Well, this is what we bought together to celebrate our 30th anniversary, which is today, June 1st.  

Isn's she adorable?   Her name is Buttercup and she is a mid-mini Jersey cow.   She is 5 months old and we plan to breed her late next summer.   After she has a calf we can milk her and have our own dairy products right here on our farm.   How.   Very.   Exciting.

 This past Saturday we drove to the Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky to a beautiful farm owned by a veterinarian.   She breeds these little guys and when we pulled up to her farm there were several dozen small Jersey cows happily munching their way thru a huge pasture.   After some instruction from her farm hand we loaded Buttercup up in our animal trailer and started the 4-1/2 hour drive home.  We were anxious to get home before dark so we would have time to get Buttercup settled in the barn while we still had some daylight to work with.

The alpacas all lined up to see who was taking up residence in "their" side of the barn.   Eventually we will pasture the cow with our girls, but for now we are keeping Buttercup in the barn.  Now you can understand why we have been creating more pasture out in the front of the farm.  We are working toward the goal of doing rotational grazing with our animals.   Um, yea, I'll explain that in another post later.

It only took a moment of coaxing to get her to step out of the trailer and into the barn.   And before we knew it she was eating her dinner and snuggling down on her fresh bed of straw.  Hey, it's hard work for a baby getting trailered for half a day!

I get so tickled every time I go down to the barn to work with her.   She is still not too happy about being led around with a lead, but is getting more used to it every day.  I love working with our animals and this one is no exception.   I wish you could see her long eyelashes up close.   She is just too stinking cute!

And why a mid-mini cow you ask?   I'll explain why.   If we owned 50 acres and had tons of pasture we would probably have a full sized Jersey cow.   But a full sized cow eats a lot of grass, and in winter when there is no grass you have to provide hay.   Hay costs money unless you have tons of acreage to grow your own.   And we don't.   So, a mid-mini eats a lot less pasture, of which we have a finite amount.   A second reason for a smaller cow is milk production.  

Yes, I did take a class on making cheese and plan to do that eventually.   And yes, I have been buying raw milk from a local farmer and making our own butter.    There are so many other foods we plan on making once our cow is producing milk.   But if we had a full sized cow, she might give us upwards of 3-4 gallons of milk a day.  Yikes!    I don't want to make that much cheese.   But our sweet little Buttercup will more than likely only produce 1-1/2 gallons a day.  

Now I know that sounds like a crazy amount of milk, but not when you break it down like this.    It will probably take 2 days worth of milk to make our weeks ration of butter.   And I plan to freeze what we don't use weekly because eventually her milk will dry up and there will be no more butter until we breed her again.   And then there is the cheese I want to make, and the yogurt and let's not forget sour cream and whipped heavy cream that rises to the top of the jar for my cappuccino every morning.   Yes, there are so many ways to use the milk.

And so, we bought ourselves a cow.   For our anniversary.   Doesn't everyone?
Looking forward to the next 30!
Debbie & Joel

A Dock for Noah's Ark

I'm not kidding.    It looks as though we are building a place for good 'ole Noah to dock his ark out in front of our house.    We've been busy putting in those 8' posts I showed you a few days ago as we create more pasture.   Until the tension fencing goes on the posts it looks like we are getting ready to dock a huge vessel.    And it doesn't help that we haven't cut off the extra length from the tops of each post, so, they rise up pretty high above the ground.  You should see the looks we are getting from the local farmers as they drive by wondering what those city people are doing now.

 See what I mean?   And where we need extra bracing for corners we have two posts, making it look more and more like a dock.   At least it does to this ole' Florida girl.

Thank goodness for the post hole digger attachment we put can put on and off of Joel's bigger tractor.  

 Toot toot......can you hear the blaring of a boat's horn?

Yup, that's a lot of posts.   Now, today, we hope to get started on the tension wire.   This is totally different from all the pasture we created last summer using wire fencing.    Soon I should be able to show you the difference.    

And remember when I told you I'd get a better shot of the barrel and petunias?   Well, here it is.   Ok, now you're all caught up with our latest work projects.

More about our latest animal acquisition tomorrow!

Debbie 

More of What's New?

Yes, there is so much more going on here these days.  One of the first food items we harvest early each summer is strawberries.   And, oh, my!    The plants have been producing like crazy this year.   That's me way out there on the left, down on my knees, picking quarts and quarts of berries in the early morning mist.   Who could ask for a better place to work?    And how about that view from my "office window"?   Pretty awesome, if you ask me.

See what I mean?   That's a lot of strawberries.  And every 3 days there is a whole new batch of berries to pick.    This morning I ate my breakfast in the strawberry patch.....eating berries with morning dew on them, still chilled from the evening air.  I'm telling you there is nothing like eating food grown from your own land....it just tastes better.

One of the chores I dread every spring is the annual "cleaning of the back porch".   It seems that no matter what good intentions we have, all winter long the porch becomes a dumping ground for everything from dirty boots to farm implements.    By spring I am ready to put everything away in its proper place and give the porch a good scrubbing. 

Joel helped me scrub the walls, ceiling and furniture before Joyce and Dick arrived which gave us a clean place to sit and take in the views.    I love sitting out here now that the spider webs and pollen is all gone.  I even bought a third rocking chair from Cracker Barrel to add to my collection.

Joel got motivated by the scrubbing and finally replaced the old lights on both sides of the back door to the house.   Now these galvanized cuties are more in keeping with a farmhouse, don't you think?

And remember this old washtub from a couple of years ago?    It's so pretty now that it has been sandblasted and painted with powder coating.    That should help it last another 75 years or so.

The opposite end of the porch holds my old farm house table from Florida.   To give us plenty of seating I cleaned up, sanded and painted an old church pew.  It's super sturdy and I was able to keep the painting on the end of the pew of a dove holding an olive branch.

I would love to know what little country church once held this pew and others like it.   

When you come to visit us, this is where we will sit to enjoy a cool glass of iced tea while we listen to the birds in the oak trees and watch the alpaca roam their pasture.   Makes you wanna hop on a plane right now, doesn't it?

Here's the newest flower bed I finished up a few weeks ago.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but at the far end of the petunias is a barrel dug halfway into the ground.    I'll have to take another pic from the side so you can see it better.   Anyway, the crepe myrtle on the left used to have huge trunks.   But the ice storm a year ago killed all the growth on the big trunks.   Last summer the only growth that came back were little twigs.   This spring I thinned out all but 7 or 8 of the thickest twigs to start new trunks and it worked!   I am not sure if it will bloom this year or if it will need another year of recovery.

Ha!   Looks as though we've been partying it up, doesn't it?   Actually, I put out a request at my quilt guild for the gals there to save me their wine bottles.   Well, they sure came thru for me!   I haven't counted how many they gave me last Friday, but the boxes and bags of empty wine bottles filled the back of the Suburban.   And, what am I doing with all those bottles, you ask?   This is what I'm doing...

I've been digging a trench in the herb garden and "planting" the wine bottles upside down as a fun border.   I have estimated it will take 100 or more bottles to complete the circle.   So far I am 30% around the perimeter so I have quite a ways to go.  I know, I know.....like I had nothing else to do with my time this summer!

I've got wine bottles laying around everywhere in the garden.    Each day I try and spend a little time out there either picking berries or burying wine bottles.  Eventually I hope to be finished with both.   Whew!   Especially since there will be 80 women from my quilt guild coming here for a picnic on June 17th and I would like these little projects completed by then.   Huh....no pressure there.

Remember when I trimmed the blackberry bushes in the garden late this winter?   Well, they have gone crazy and blooms are popping out all over the bushes.    These are a thornless variety which makes picking the berries a treat.   Yum, I can almost taste them now.

Well, as if taking care of all the animals and the gardens and flower beds wasn't enough, now we're putting up more fence.  Yes, you read that right.  I can't believe we are doing it again.  Only this year, it's high tension fencing.    These posts are monsters and are 6" or more across and 8' tall.   Joel is determined to have perimeter fencing around our property.....could take us a while to do all that.    So, yup, we're putting up fence.   And that's what's new here on the farm.

Oh, my aching back,

Debbie

What's New?

Oh, my.    Where to begin?   Our weather has been nothing short of spectacular the past couple of weeks.   The last few mornings have begun sunny with a cool mountain breeze and temps in the low 60's.   Yup, darned near perfect if you ask me.  

The only problem with perfect weather is: what should I work on first?   I have no excuse to stay indoors and quilt as I do when it's raining.   But seriously, there's so much I could be working on that some days I simply don't know where to start.   Kinda makes a farm chick feel a little schizophrenic.  The list of "to-do's" seems to get longer instead of shorter....even though a check mark usually gets placed beside an item or two on the list by the end of the day.  

Here's a sample of what's going on right now on the farm....

 Lots and lots of lettuce, romaine lettuce and kale is growing in one of our new raised beds.   Unfortunately, the downside of having barn cats....is having cats that think any patch of dirt is their's to play in.   So, I now have very unsightly, but effective chicken wire loosely strung around the 3 new raised beds.   And, I am happy to report, because the wire is so wobbly, the cats can't climb it and the beds have been undefiled by the furry critters.

Yes, I told you we were harvesting a lot of lettuce!    But it's wonderful to go out to the garden and pick your salad for the evening meal.

 Next up is the newest flower bed I put in this Spring.   This one is in front of the tall blank side wall of the barn.  

And here are the old fashioned flowers in the same bed.   I planted perennials so they will come back year after year without having to be replanted.  I'm all about "plant efficiency".   Ha!   My hope is that eventually I will have less and less that needs to be planted every year and I can sit back(well, sort of sit back) and enjoy the fruits of these early years establishing the farm.

 I can't remember if I have showed you this project yet.    I know, what the heck?    Thank Pinterest for this one.    I am taking wine bottles and planting then upside down in a circle in the herb portion of my little potager garden.   Hence the string you see in the bottom of the pic.   That's how I am establishing the arc of the circle.   Only 80 more bottles to go!

 This project is a huge one.    I got tired of taking forever to mow around each and every fruit tree in the orchard....and getting smacked in the face with low lying branches.   Ta-da!!    Now we have nice wide mulched beds which makes it ever so easy to mow straight lines on either side of the beds.   Now mowing the orchard is a breeze for me!  And I don't get hit in the face with any branches.

 Near the orchard is my rosa rugosa bed with an edging of purple irises......all in bloom!  

 And the grapevines are going crazy, too, with little bunches of grapes already forming on each branch.

 Maybe we need to look into making wine this year?   In our spare time....ha!

 And check out these itty bitty peaches.   We're so excited because this is the first year we have peaches on our trees.

 And the granddaddy pear tree is simply loaded with fruit.

 And our two year old cherry tree is even getting into the act.  I believe there will be a lot of canning in my future.

 Next up, our sweet friends, Dick and Joyce were here last weekend for a quick visit.   Over the last year I worked on a quilt for Dick in red, white and blue.   You see, Dick is a Vietnam vet with over 10 years service to our country.   I am a member of Quilts of Valor, an organization dedicated to making quilts for service members who have been touched by war.   And this quilt was made especially for Dick.

 He had no idea he was getting a quilt when Joel brought him to our local War Museum.   Several of the members of Quilts of Valor were waiting for Joel and Dick to arrive on a rainy Saturday morning.    We surprised him and explained why we were all there.   My dear friend, Barb, did the presenting and we all honored Dick for his service.

 Here's a full shot of the quilt.   The stars in the four corners are from the flag making company in our nation's capitol that manufactures the flags for around Washington, D.C.   Quilts of Valor is the happy recipient of these embroidered originals and we are allowed to place them on our quilts for the vets.

Our strawberry patch is in overdrive these days and I was more than happy to give Joyce all the berries she wanted.    We picked these beauties in just half an hour.    Yikes!    You wouldn't believe how many more are out there waiting to be picked.

Look at these two buddies yukking it up.   Joel and Dick always have so much to chat about when they get together.

And then, sadly, it's time to say goodbye until next time.   So, working in the garden, putting in flower beds, and having company.....yes, that's what I've been up to this last month.  

But wait!   There's more....
Deb