Where in the world do the days go? Ever since the weather has warmed up a couple of weeks ago, I feel as though I have been tackling one project after another all day long. One thing is for sure, there's no way I could
ever say that I'm bored! It feels really good to be working outside most of the day and to be able to work our land for the first time.
Let's see, what have I done since the last post? Well, I did try to upload a video of Jeremy singing his karaoke song here on the blog, but it's too long and I keep hitting a glitch that won't allow me to post it here. Darn! We've also been busy planting......I planted 10 bareroot blueberry bushes and 6 thornless blackberry bushes on either side of the kitchen garden up near the house. And the cabbages and broccoli we planted a few weeks ago are looking good.
Hmmm, I wonder how long the garden will continue to look so "orderly".
I know it's hard to see, but I am so excited about the little green sprouts coming out of the ground in the pic above. This is the first time I've tried planting potatoes and we have 2 rows of Kennebec and one row of Yukon Gold coming up already. These little green shoots started life as a potato that was cut in pieces....each one with an "eye" or bud on it. You just shove these pieces of potato into the ground a few inches deep and in a couple of weeks you have small potato plants coming up out of the ground. How amazing is that?
Late last week I jumped in my car and ventured in a different direction from "town", which is north of our farm. Instead, I drove south off the plateau and into a lush valley that rests between 2 plateaus where the Sequatchie River runs. That's where I came across a family run nursery and wandered around their acreage and thru the packed grow houses where they had the prettiest hanging flower baskets.
I couldn't resist them so I bought 5 and they are now hanging around the roof line of the pavilion. It always amazes me how much flowers can enliven a space....indoors or out. Well, that started a cascade of projects. The flowers looked so good that I had Joel help me cart all the adirondack and wicker furniture out into the grass and I spent an afternoon pressure washing it all down. The worst of the green pollen should have dropped out of the trees by now as they are all almost completely leafed out. Hopefully I won't have to repeat the cleaning. Then Joel found the blower in the barn and blew the debris off the pavilion while the furniture was drying in the grass. Ok, the pavilion looks a bit better now.
I know this pic is a bit dark.....I took it early in the morning and the shade of one of the huge oak trees was overshadowing the side of the porch. These urns have been painted a few different colors over the years and now I painted them black....and planted them with flowers to coordinate with the hanging baskets of red, white and blue. At least now the "entrance" to the back porch makes a bigger statement.
I have been sitting at my computer all winter looking out the window at this little window on the side wall of the pavilion's kitchen. The wall is one white, blank canvas in my mind's eye and the idea occurred to me one snowy day that a window box was just what this window needed. Joel installed the window box I bought the other day and then I planted it with the same plants as the huge urns in the pic above. But it still wasn't very pretty....
It's because of the faded out green plastic shutters. Well I don't want to spend money buying all new shutters right now and I still have a lot of black paint in my can. You can see where this is going, can't you?
Joel took down the shutters and I painted them and he reinstalled them a few hours later. Wow! What a difference! And you can see how it makes Joel's shed match our existing buildings with black shutters on all the buildings. Yes, I'll be painting a lot more shutters over the weeks to come, but I think the black will really "pop" against the white vinyl siding. And a girl can only take so much of "farmer green". You know, greens roofs, green shutters, green doors. Yeah, I'm still working it out in my head how I can remove the glass fronted storm doors from the farmhouse and turn their factory finish from green to black.
Yesterday I tackled a mammoth job. The rocking chair porch is the first place you step into as you enter the farmhouse and it had become a dumping ground for gardening tools, RoundUp spray, miscellaneous tools, etc. And everything out there was covered in green pollen. Yuk! Definitely didn't make it pleasant to sit out there. First I put away everything that didn't belong out there, then I moved all the furniture down to one end of the long, narrow porch and brought in the hose. Yup! I sprayed down the cobwebs hiding against the siding, sprayed the green pollen off the screens and pressure washed the solid floorboards. And all the furniture got a thorough scrubbing. Whew! It turned out to be an all day project.
Once everything was wiped down the fun part began. How do you take a bunch of odds and ends pieces of furniture and mix it all up and make it look......well, you know.......cute? The rocking chairs need to be up against the house so they don't get wet every time it rains, which only serves to make the porch look even longer and narrower. I think I'll put some plants across from the chairs to end the "bowling alley" look. For color inspiration, I'm using the painted watering can above to set the tone for the porch. Some tealy blue, a limey green and red for the "pop". Works for me! I'll have to start sewing to finish up some cushions to bring the whole look together.
Yes, gasp, this is my treasured farm house table that used to be in my dining room! I know! But the waxed finish did just fine on the protected porch all winter so I guess this will be its new home. There is just no where else to put it and I wasn't willing to part with it in Florida. For now I have used 2 of the wicker chairs as end chairs since they are so big. I am thinking about getting a church pew for the left hand side and some smaller mismatched chairs I can paint red for the other side. Hmmmm, that should work. It'll be nice to just walk out of the kitchen and sit down here to eat our meals this summer, protected from flies and pesky bugs.
At the far end (I told you this was a long narrow porch) I placed the lonely loveseat (I kept shuffling it around on the pavilion and never liked how it looked out there) and the black sofa table that never seems to fit anywhere else in the farm house. At least the black table will tie in with the black shutters that I'll soon have painted.
All this area needs is a bright red chair cushion and some more plants and I think we can call this corner of the porch "done".
Ummmm, yeah, this is the "rocking chair" side of the porch....complete with drop cloth where I'm still painting outside furniture. Pretty soon all the pieces will be done. And I still need to find a way to disguise the garbage can.....hmmmmmmm. I"m still working on that. Well, that pretty much brings you up to date with life here on the farm. It's been a busy and rewarding time as we put our own personal stamp on the land and buildings we now call home.
There's more to come,
Debbie
