Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Mothering, Organic Gardening, building our home on Jul 31st, 2010
365 eggs plums peaches tomatoes green beans eggplant cucumber squash (yellow and zucchini) mint black berries red raspberries blue berries And I put up 5 quarts of ‘mock’ apple pie filling, 5 pints of cucumber relish and 4 quarts of green beans. My counter tops are covered with squash and cukes! I need to do [...]
Posted in General, Mothering, Organic Gardening, Sewing, building our home on Jun 21st, 2010
We’ve had a great spring here on our land. Things have felt really productive. But, I have to tell you, we are beat! I wake up in the morning, jump out of bed and get going. Laundry, taking care of the animals, garden care, kitchen clean up, etc. all comes before breakfast. Most nights I [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Sewing, building our home on May 31st, 2010
The 2 year old roof. Spots are filling in pretty well. I think I’ll give it one more year and then plant a few more things if needed. I absolutely love all the color on the roof right now. It’s like a patchwork quilt! And the yard is coming along, too. After 2 years of [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Mothering, building our home on Oct 21st, 2009
The coop continues to be our main project around the homestead (although it would be a really good idea to get to winterizing the house!!) Toby’s father came up last Friday and gave us a hand siding the coop. We still have to put up the windows and doors and then put the roosts and [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, building our home on Oct 9th, 2009
We have started on what I hope to be our last project this year… The Chicken Chalet (I was going to call it the chicken palace, but being in the country, it just seems more like a chalet Toby and I have promised each other that we will have no more big projects until [...]
Posted in Mothering, building our home on Sep 15th, 2009
YAY! We are so excited to have our friend Heidi back home after 3 months overseas! She was nannying for a family in Scotland and we missed her dearly here. While she was gone, we had grand plans to transform her little cabin. Well, we all know how our grand plans tend to take much [...]
Posted in building our home on Sep 9th, 2009
This weekend we got started on the project we’ve been dreading for the last year… winterizing the house. With a cordwood house, there is a lot of shrinking in the wood that goes on the first year. So, after the first winter, you need to go back and seal the nooks and crannies that have [...]
Posted in building our home on Jul 7th, 2009
I know some of you began following my blog because of the cordwood home we’ve built. So I thought it might be of interest to you that there is a cordwood workshop coming up in Asheville the weekend of Oct 10th and 11th. “This project will be the 18” cordwood infill of a post and [...]
Posted in Beekeeping, Chickens/Ducks, Mothering, building our home on Apr 17th, 2009
sdlkrnyiod!! ltionadfshlk!!! Did you understand that??? NO!! That’s because it is crazy language! I know, all you parents out there are saying “yeah, I know what you are going through”… But OH NO! She is driving me up the wall, out the window, and over the yellow brick road!! How can a 5 year old [...]
Posted in General, Organic Gardening, building our home on Apr 10th, 2009
I put out some roots yesterday while the moon was in Virgo… potatoes of all colors (red, blue, white, yellow fingerling, new potatoes). I did intensive planting of 50 potatoes in a small raised bed, each potato was placed 9 inches apart in all directions. We’ll see how it goes. I also planted beets (Lutz’s [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Knitting, Mothering, building our home on Mar 5th, 2009
Though we had a big snow fall this past week, the chickens are telling me that spring is on its way! They have really picked up their laying and our little Welsummer, Rosie, laid her first egg today! It’s the dark speckled one… isn’t it pretty? The top pink egg is from our Easter Egger, [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Holistic Medicine, Mothering, building our home on Nov 16th, 2008
Check out what I picked off of the roof yesterday! There are lots of calendula flowering, too… if they don’t freeze tonight, I may harvest them and make a nice oil or something. And, since I begin my third trimester tomorrow (Oh My God!! Where did time go??!!) I thought I’d post a belly picture. [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, General, Mothering, Organic Gardening, Pets, building our home on Nov 7th, 2008
Here’s all the lard after it was canned. Looks like creamy milk, doesn’t it! I’m really enjoying using it to cook up eggs, veggies, etc… Kaia and I spent some time making some holiday soaps. This was a batch of Wintergreen/Sweet Orange soap, and she’s mixing in a little cinnamon powder ‘to make swirlies!’, while [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Mothering, building our home on Oct 20th, 2008
Progress on the guest house is slow going because Toby only has a day or two a week to work on it, but it’s looking really cute! This is the view as you drive up: This is the side view, where the front door will be: The other speckeled sussex died this morning. We don’t [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Hooping, Organic Gardening, Sustainable Living, building our home on Oct 1st, 2008
You can call me that if you like! This Sat. Toby helped me finish up a new little chicken hut that I’d started. It’s a 3′x4′ shed that sits at the edge of the fencing of their run. The back side opens so I can put their food and water in. That way, their food [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening, building our home on Sep 22nd, 2008
We had our house party (/birthday party/Equinox celebration) this past weekend. Finally! The house is complete, the yard is tamed, the trash is gone… Whew!! So, this past Saturday, we invited our friends and family, and anyone who helped on the house, to come over and see the finished product. I think there were over [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, General, Pets, building our home on Sep 3rd, 2008
This weekend, Toby started working on the front steps. We are putting in 4 steps that come from the drive to the front door. We will also be putting in a little landing-type porch, just to keep the mud and dirt from coming in the house all the time. Since you always get the butt [...]
Posted in building our home on Jul 18th, 2008
OK, so I finally got out on the roof and got some pics for you. Kaia and I woke up early and sat out in the hanging chairs on the roof to eat breakfast. It was nice and cool, and very leisurely These pictures show the stones leading from the window/door to the chairs: Here [...]
Posted in building our home on Jul 15th, 2008
I haven’t posted about the house is a while, ’cause, well, I was kind of tired of talking about it But, we’ve been in here almost 3 months and we are all loving it! I’m really looking forward to our first winter so we can use the radiant floors and wood stove. So, in the [...]
Posted in building our home on May 30th, 2008
Sorry for the long break in blogging. I’m enjoying getting settled into the house and not wanting to spend much time in front of the computer. Things are getting unpacked… mostly just books and pictures still to be put away. We’ve moved all the boxes and furniture out of Toby’s tool shed, so now he [...]
Posted in building our home on May 17th, 2008
Our plugs were delivered this past Thursday and I’ve started planting. First, I took some stepping stones and made a path to where we will have two hanging chairs and a little patio area. In between the stones and in other areas of the roof, I’ve put in some accent plants. They may or may [...]
Posted in building our home on May 9th, 2008
We had the soil blown onto the roof today! They brought it in a mulch blowing truck and it took them ~3 hours total, not including all their travel time. Toby calculated that it would have been ~1012 5-gallon buckets for us to haul it all onto the roof by ourselves. I’m so glad we [...]
Posted in Beekeeping, Chickens/Ducks, building our home on Apr 26th, 2008
Toby built his first top bar hive today. It came out really nice! Robbyn, he didn’t really follow any design. He mainly talked with a few friends who have built them before and put together what he thought would work well for us. It’s 12 inches deep and long enough to fit 28 frames. It [...]
Posted in building our home on Apr 22nd, 2008
Howdy Folks! Just a quick note to let you know we passed our final inspection yesterday!!! The electricity and gas get hooked up today, the phone gets hooked up tomorrow!!! We still have a lot of little details (like shelving, cleaning, oiling the stairs…) before we will completely move in, but we are done with [...]
Posted in building our home on Apr 18th, 2008
Sorry for the brief interruption in the site! We got hit by a porn hacker who was trying to download viruses onto peoples computers. But, we have cleansed ourselves of their porny ways and are back up and running! SOOOOO! Here’s what’s happened in the one day that we were down…. WE passed electrical, mechanical, [...]
Posted in building our home on Apr 11th, 2008
The cordwood is done!!! I’m sorry, I don’t think you heard me loud enough…. IT’S DONE!!!! Yeah, I said it! It’s done!!! No more lime putty, no more sawdust insulation, no more holes in the walls!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!! You now have my permission to get up and do a little dance with me!!! I’ve got some [...]
Posted in General, Pets, building our home on Apr 6th, 2008
Max has been staying with us in the upstairs bedroom, and seems to like it there. Today, while I was doing some more cordwood, I left the door to the bedroom open so Max could explore the rest of the house. He seemed to get a kick out of running up and down the stairs. [...]
Posted in General, Mothering, building our home on Mar 31st, 2008
Yep, it’s strong enough!
Posted in General, building our home on Mar 30th, 2008
Lots of progress this weekend! Kaia and I seeded the yard. We put red clover everywhere, field peas in front of the house, oats behind the house, and wildflowers in the front field area. If they all grow, we will have lots of herbs and medicine, along with a beautiful yard! We found a great [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, building our home on Mar 23rd, 2008
Why is it that when people come out to visit they feel as if they have to tell us how much longer it will take to build the house? “Oh, ya’ll will never be done next month!” “Whew, this is gonna take you guys a while to finish up, isn’t it?” Ahh! I feel like [...]