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 not do so well on the roof. I added more compost to hold the water, and put some “hollytone” to bring down the pH (which is ~8). I’ve put in Calendula, Yarrow, Roman chamomile, thyme, Sage, Rosemary, lavender, Dianthus, chive and nodding onion, lambs ear, and a few other things.
The plant plugs look fantastic! Very healthy! The man who delivered them said they should do very well on our roof, and will love the 4 inches of soil. He thinks they will really take off in just a month or so. We will water them every 1 1/2 weeks for the first year, if we have no rain, and put a 10-10-10 fertilizer on them to give them some food to start with. I’m planting them 9 inches apart to allow for spread, and I’m grouping them in clusters, so there will be big splashes of color everywhere (as opposed to totally random plantings). It’s going to be so beautiful!
They are so tiny… can you see them???
Author Archives: Maria
Swarm season
This year, for some reason, there seems to be a whole lot of swarming going on. Maybe it’s the bees way of trying to make a come back with all the hives that have been lost in the past few years. We started this year with 2 hives, and so far we have had 3 swarms! Toby caught the first one, but we missed the second one. We were actually outside talking about how it would be a perfect day for swarming when we saw them fly overhead, already having found their new home deep in the woods. Well Tuesday I caught my first swarm! All by myself! ME!! Who is just a little afraid of being stung because I tend to swell up like a tick, itch all over, get a little bit of a speeding heart rate thing going on. I was outside planting a few things on the roof when the air got louder. I looked over towards the hives and saw a swarm coming out and making a cloud over by the edge of the woods. They landed on a very low branch of a dead cypress tree.
I called Toby and he suggested we just let them do their thing. He knows how I feel about handling the bees, and he wasn’t able to come home from work. But I didn’t want to lose them, so I went out and put some Lemongrass Essential Oil on the top bar hive to try to attract them. Then I went over to the swarm and had a talk with them to let them know where the new hive is. They didn’t seem to understand. So, I started moving around, wiggling my butt, and doing a little bee dance for them. But that just seemed to make them agitated. (Maybe I told them to ‘get stuffed’ or something??) So I went back to my roof and had some lunch while contemplating what to do. I decided that I could do it and I wouldn’t get stung. So, I put on my thickest jeans, two long sleeved shirts, wool socks and hiking boots, padded winter gloves, and a bee hat and headed for the swarm. I brushed them into a bucket and dumped them in the top bar hive. It took two trips to get most of the swarm and when I went back for the third time they were all so angry that I couldn’t catch any of them. No Stings! But when i went to close up the hive, they weren’t really staying inside…
By that evening, they were all clustered outside on the front. Not a single bee inside. My happy high from catching the swarm started to plummet. I must have left the queen on the tree by mistake. Now I felt like a total heel! I’d doomed the bees!
I’d hoped they would go inside the hive, or at least fly off to find their queen. but they stayed that way for two days. So I called our friend Carl, a local experienced beekeeper. He said that he felt like they wouldn’t remain clustered like that if their queen wasn’t with them and that for some reason, they must not like the top bar hive. He suggested that we spray them down (to make them heavy so they wouldn’t fly off), and put them back in the hive with some sugar water (for food since they hadn’t eaten in 2 days) and open brood (to keep the bees in the hive to nurse the babies) and close them in for a few days, in hopes that they would make a home. So we did just that. We used sugar water to spray them off, so they would have some food to clean off them selves, and put a bag of sugar water on the bottom of the hive (with a little slit in it for them to collect the food). Toby tried to get some open brood from another hive but it had been raining and they were not happy to have their hive opened. Once the bees were in the hive, we taped the opening shut so they couldn’t just climb back out. Since it had been raining, the tape came off by the next morning, but it seems like they might stay. The true test will be to see if there are eggs in the comb in a few weeks.
Do you like my hat?
Kaia and I spent Mother’s Day at the LEAF festival and had a wonderful time. It was relaxing and energizing at the same time. Kaia had brought $25 from her piggy bank so that she could get some fun stuff. We walked all around the fair and she passed up hand-painted butterfly wings and hoop skirts so that she could get this unicorn pill box hat! She’s worn it around ever since. She even wore it to school yesterday! Isn’t it fantastic!?!
Roof Soil
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 hired the blower instead!!!
Here they are, just getting started on the top roof. You can also see the finished painting. The color didn’t turn out all that bad.
Here they are almost done…
The soil didn’t always flow easily through the hose. Sometimes you would hear a change in the tone of the pump and you would know that a huge amount of soil was about to push through. The guys would brace themselves and hold tight to the hose while they waited for the soil monster to burst out. It was really cool.
Here’s a close up of the soil. As you can see, it is mostly chunks of slate with a little compost matter mixed in.
Our plants are being delivered next Thursday, so we hope to plant the roof next weekend! I can’t wait to see how it all looks!!
Crazy cats!
The cats are having a grand ol’ time together and have really adjusted well in the last 10 days. Daisy is still a bit skittish, but calming down each day.
Here’s a nice picture where you can really see Isabella’s wavy coat. It’s extremely soft! You can also see her white ‘racing stripes’ on her legs. The white stripe goes down each leg and meets in the back, and leads to her white underside. She really has a cool pattern on her.
We got a new rug today and every one has really enjoyed it! Kaia used it as a dancing spot for a while. Then the girls (kitties) decided to fight it out to see who could be proclaimed “queen of the rug”.
Max decided to join the ruckus.
But quickly moved off to allow the girls to finish their Battle for the Rug!
Isabella has also decided that she likes to view her kingdom from above (way above!). That way she can be sure that all of her slaves are properly performing their duties.
And I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but within every 257th litter of kittens born in the world, one is born who possesses the magic of Merlin’s cat (remember how he had that cat who was really special to him, so he gave him the ability to do magic? Sure you do!) Supposedly, since cats can’t hold magic wands, they do their magic with a twitch of their ear. We’ll this magical gene is so rare, I never thought I’d have a magical cat of my own. But, today, Isabella showed her true colors. The sparkle of Merlin’s magic appeared over her ear as she wished up more wet food in her bowl! Guess I’d better keep a sharp eye on that kitty!
All is well
Sorry for the slack in posting. All is well here.. just busy. We are settling into the house and really enjoying the space and amenities! Kaia and I are especially having fun cooking together (something that was really hard to do in the little cabin). We ate so poorly the past two years. I had no desire to cook and PB&J was often a main meal. So now, I’m trying to get back on track with healthy, whole foods and lots of local fresh fruits and veggies. I’ve singed up for a weekly recipe mailer through Cooking Traditional Foods. Every week she sends 6 recipes and a dessert, shopping list for those recipes, and when to prepare stuff in advanced. Her site also has recipe and discussion forums, and the recipes are loosely based on Weston Price’s ideas. It’s been really helpful in getting back on track with cooking. I figure I’ll do this for a while until I get into a good rhythm. My only objection is that 5 of the 6 recipes include meat. That’s a lot of meat for me (and gets expensive), so we may use bean and other substitutes.
The animals are doing pretty well. Ralph has decided she has had enough of being a mom and got off the nest. So, no chicks from those eggs. (We can’t invest in an incubator right now.) The cats are all adjusting really well. They have already started snuggling up together, which is really cute. Suki went to the groomers last week and when I picked her up they said a lot of her hair was falling out and she had redness and bruising on her skin. She looked almost bald in patches. I took her to the vet the next day and the blood work showed that her clotting time was a little slow. They think that she either had a really bad allergic reaction to something or that she may have gotten into some rat poison. So, she is on some Vitamin K to get her to stop bruising and increase her clotting time (this is the antidote for Rat poison, too). Her skin is looking mostly better already.
Business is going well for me. I’ve got as many clients as I can handle right now, which is nice. I’m excited to have my office space set up in the cabin. It will be so nice to be able to hear the frogs and the birds during my consultations and not the 18 wheelers rolling by. I’ve had to cancel a few appointments this past week, cause my forearms and hands are covered in poison ivy. Because of the pattern on my arms, I think I might have gotten it off of Suki. I don’t think I’ve ever had it this bad (I usually only get a blister or two). Both arms look all bumpy and scaly. I’ve been using high dose licorice powder (as a paste on my arms, and as a tea) to decrease the swelling. It works well.
I’m giving an herb walk this weekend at the LEAF festival. I got a free ticket the the festival in exchange for the class. So, Kaia and I are going to spend the weekend playing, dancing, swimming, hooping, and having fun!!!
Some of our kitty friends,Lilly, Mu Shue, and Iris, lost their home in a fire. So, Camie’s Kitties is having a fund raiser for them. They are donating $0.50 for every blog that posts their favorite knock-knock joke with a picture. So here is mine. Kaia and I made it up on a long road trip. It especially funny to crazy 4 year olds!!!
–Knock Knock!
-Who’s there?
–Peace Up!
-Peace Up Who?
–AHHH HAAAAA! You said Piece of Poo!!!! HAHAHA Haaaaa HAaaaaa!
Meet Isabella and Daisy
We finally got our kitties! We’d been putting it off until we were in the house. There is still a ton of unpacked stuff and clutter that they can get into, but we were ready to have them come home. They are roaming around the house right now, figuring out where everything is. They chortle at each other to keep tabs on where the other cat is. Isabella is a 3 year old black and white devon rex and she is really beautiful. Her coat is so shiny and soft. She has really cool racing strips on her hind legs! She’s a total love, too! She runs at you, head butts you, and rubs against you as hard as she can. And if you put your hand above her, she will grab it with both front paws and rub it with her head. She wasn’t being very photogenic though, so I’ll post more pics later.
Her daughter is about 3 1/2 months old and a little wild child. She’s a tortoiseshell in color and very pretty also! She found a toy that we attached to the door and played with it for ~1 hour tonight. Kaia has decided to call her Crazy McDaisy… Daisy for short. So now we have another Daisy the curly haired cat 🙂
Max is not the happiest of cats. He has been cranky and hiding most of the day. When the cats get close to him he growls and hisses. Hopefully they will learn to be friends! He could use a good snuggle friend!
Delicious non-dairy ice cream
I tasted this at the local health food store and it was delicious!. So I fiddled with the listed ingredients and think I’ve got it pretty dang close. So here you go. A fantastic substitute for those who like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but don’t do dairy:
2 cups Raw Cashew butter
1/3 cup Coconut oil
1/2 cup agave syrup
1/2 tsp. Mint extract
handful of chocolate chips.
Gently melt the coconut oil on the stove. Turn off the heat and add the cashew butter and agave. Mix well until creamy. Add mint extract and chocolate chips, mix well. Cool it in the fridge and then eat up! Oh, and you don’t need much of it to get full satisfaction!
making nests of all kinds
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 has a partially screened bottom for ventilation, and a tin top that you can lift off to check on them. We had some small cell beeswax, so we cut strips to put in the frames for the bees to build on them. The frames are 3 sided without a bottom, so the bees will probably make more of a rounded comb design.
He drilled some entrance holes for them, too.
I don’t know if we will collect honey from this hive or just let them be. Right now, it’s sitting on some concrete blocks and nicely viewable from our kitchen window. We expect we will have another swarm from our other hive, so we’ll put the swarm in here.
While he was doing that, I closed off a section of the chicken yard and built a little brooding box for Ralph. She wasn’t too happy about being moved at first, but she quickly found her eggs and went back to sitting on them.
And here is the house so far. They need to do all the trim work, but the main body color is done. We were supposed to have a creamy yellow, but the painter called me the night before starting and said he really didn’t think the yellow was a good idea. He said yellow is the quickest color to fade and doesn’t cover as well. He had mentioned this before, but I really wanted to have a yellow… but when he stressed this again I felt like we needed to go with something else. So, we picked out a grey/blue that looked really nice on paper. Unfortunately, I’m really not that happy with how it turned out on the house. I was wanting a cheery, light color that would stand out from the green around it, but still look like it belonged. What I got was a cold color that sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s not a bad color, I just don’t feel like it fits. I know it will look much better once the trim is done. When we get screens, I may paint the frames with a pale yellow or something to lighten up and warm the house color.
Inside, we are done with all the messy work, so we are trying to get things moved in. Then, we can take care of the other little details while we are living in and enjoying our house. Here’s how the kitchen counter tops turned out. We just need to put up a back splash. (I know, it’s hard to see ’cause of all the crap all over them… I’ll take more pictures soon)
Broody lady
Ralph, one of our Black Australorp hens, has gone broody. Since we don’t have any roosters, and thus no fertilized eggs, I got 7 fertilized eggs from my brother-in-law. We marked them with a big “F” (fertilized) and slipped them under Ralph. She settled back in and happily covered them all with her wings. She’s keeping them at a constant temperature and humidity, and turns them 3 times a day to make sure they develop correctly. From what I understand, broodiness has been breed out of chickens (’cause if they are sitting on eggs instead of laying them, they are not a financial benefit to big chicken corporations). Have any of you ever hatched chicks from a broody hen? Tomorrow, Toby is going to build a top bar hive for our bees and I think I’ll build a little nesting house for Ralph. That way, her nest can be on the ground, where the chicks won’t fall out, and we can separate her from the other chickens. In 3 weeks, we might have some little baby chicks!!
Swarm
The painters were out working on the house when one of them called me to tell me the bees had swarmed. Toby raced home to find this:
They had landed on our out house and were looking for a new home. So, Toby pulled out an extra hive box and put a little lemongrass essential oil (which attracts them) in it. Then he brushed them into a bucket and shook them into the box. They seem to be settling in well. Guess we’d better keep watch on the other hive in case they are gearing up to swarm too.
A+
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 inspections!!!
Painting starts today, so I’ll post pictures later!
Hey there again!
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, and plumbing final inspections!!!!!!! We have a few more things to do and then it’s on to the final final inspection before we can move in!!! Can you see me doing another dance????
So, here are some pictures from the last week:
Putting the plywood, and then the backerboard down for the marble countertops (with the help of our amazing carpenter cat)
We had to buy a special tool for cutting the granite and marble. We are doing a mosaic of the pieces that we have, but we still needed to make some cuts.
Here’s what the area around the sink looks like so far. We haven’t grouted it yet…
Installing the fan…
…from a precarious position
Fixtures going up!
This week’s progress
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 of it cleaned up, but I want to do a better cleaning before I publish an indoor picture, and I’m sure I will be posting lots of pictures after this next week!
The electricians, plumbers, gas guy, and painter (for the outside) are coming out to finish up in the next week and a half. We’re still trying to arrange a mulch blower truck to come and blow the soil on the roof (but the inspector said that he won’t require us to have the dirt on the roof for our final Certificate of Occupancy, so we don’t have to worry about the soil right now!)
We’ve got the bathroom vanity mostly done, started laying the marble on the kitchen counters, got the railing up on the stairs, put up all the battens outside, and a bunch of other things! I hope to take a bunch of pictures in the next few weeks for you all! We’re in the final stretch!!!!
Discovering the roof
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. The temp. got to 70 today, so I opened all the windows and doors, and Max decided to explore the roof.
I think he likes it out there!
Toby took the pics with his phone camera, so the quality isn’t too great, but can you see the smile?
We had a busy weekend doing things other than working on the house. But, 5 of the cordwood walls are now done inside and out, (WOOHOOO!) and I will hopefully finish them off early this week. A lot of the ‘big’ stuff that needs to be done so we can move in are things that we are waiting for others to do… like plumbing, electric, and gas finals, finishing the stairs, painting the house, and dirt on the roof. Oh, speaking of dirt on the roof… I may have found a way to get it up there that doesn’t involve us and a bunch of 5 gallon buckets full of dirt! I’m going to try to hire a mulch blower truck. They work well with dry, light dirt also and can blow it up on the roof! There is a long hose and someone stand at the end and directs the dirt exactly where we want it. Wouldn’t that be great!!!???
My Mind Is Rotten?!?!??
From a conversation in the car on the way to Kaia’s school:
Me- Papaw is coming up today!
K- Yay!! He’s never come up on a school day before!
M- Yeah he has. Lot’s of times.
K- No he hasn’t mommy. I would remember. My mind is better than yours. Your mind Mommy, well, I don’t want to say it’s rotten, but it’s a little rotten.
M- WHAT??!! My mind is not rotten!
K- Well, my mind is better than yours. You don’t ‘member things like I do.
M- Well you only have 4 years of life to remember! I have 34! I have to be selective about what I remember so it doesn’t crowd my brain!
K – Well, my mind is still better than yours.
(this conversation was followed by Kaia singing a song she had just made up that she said was called “deep memories”. But, it was whispered inaudibly, so I couldn’t understand the words.)
Testing out the new shelf.
Yep, it’s strong enough!
Closer and closer!!
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 vanity at an antiques warehouse. I only measured for the size of the sink and forgot that I needed to leave room for the faucets, and after buying it realized that it wasn’t deep enough. So we attached some pine boards to the side and stained them the same color as the original vanity.
Then we took a 2 inch slab of oak that Toby’s brother gave to us, cut it and framed it for the top of the vanity. I need to add a strip of wood to the front, and we’ll cut the hole in it for the sink and faucets once the glue dries.
A lot of the little finish carpentry details are getting done too. Here, on the cordwood side of the house, where the concrete slab meets the foundation there is 2 inches of insulation.
So, that has been covered by a boxed out baseboard. We’ll probably run a little strip of wood along the bottom to close up that gap and I’ll finish it all with the Earthpaint oil.
And you may have noticed that the cordwood looks much cleaner and lighter in the above picture. Here is what that same spot looked like before:
To clean it up, we first sprayed it down lightly with bleach. We got this suggestion from Clarke Snell and it worked like a charm to lighten the wood ends. Then we took a metal putty knife and scraped the extra mortar off of the log ends. Then we used a hard bristle bathroom scrub brush to give the logs a final cleaning. We will scrub the outside logs, but not bleach them… they will weather anyway. But lightening the inside ends really brightens up the room!
And last, but absolutely not least, we have a kitchen!! A good friend of ours, Bruce, who is Toby’s computer business partner, also happens to be a carpenter. So he came over on Sat. to help install the cabinets. (You know, I don’t think I’ve ever posted a picture where you can actually see Toby’s face… it’s always the back of his head as he works on something 🙂
These cabinets are fully installed. The dish washer and fridge will go along the wall to the right, along with upper shelves that we will build.
Here are the cabinets to the left. We haven’t secured these in yet, ’cause we have to build a bookshelf in the corner first. For the counter top we are using the marble and granite that we got (for free!) 1 1/2 years ago from a stone cutter who was moving his shop.
Rosie has passed
I’m sorry to say that little Rosie died yesterday morning. We really thought she was going to make it. After 5 days of eating well we’re not sure what happened. She may have gotten cold at night, but she was kind of sluggish the day before yesterday, so I don’t know. We had a little burial for her and Kaia let Rosie have her toy mousie and a little cloth to be buried with. We’ll miss her… we’d gotten quickly attached to having her little (6 gram) body nuzzled up in our hand to eat and sleep.
Here’s Rosie sleeping in Kaia’s hand after a big meal.
house progress
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 saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all!”
Anyway, this past week we made a lot of progress on the cordwood. The two walls in the kitchen are completely done, inside and out! I just need to clean up the kitchen floor and we will be ready for cabinets this week!
We also worked on the walls by the front door, and we put our fishy in!!! Isn’t it awesome??!! So, we have 2 walls completely done, 4 walls that just need a small amount of interior work, and 2 walls to finish 1/2 or less in wood. Maybe 3 or 4 more days or cordwooding!! Wooohooo!!
While we worked this weekend, Kaiaflower entertained herself by opening up a Chocolate Lounge and making us all pies!
We found a great serving hutch (use to be used for silverware) that we are going to use as our vanity in the lower bathroom. We are going to put a 2 inch slab of oak on top and set the sink in it. Hope to work on that this week… I’ll post pictures.
We also redid the chicken coop. We took all the trashy chicken wire down and put up 5 foot fencing, made a great little gate, and clipped the chickens wings. Hopefully this will keep them in long enough for me to get some clover seed growing in the field. (I also have some oats to seed so I can harvest them for medicine)
Of eggtrees and mouseees
Well, it looks like we have another family member. I’d like to introduce you to Rosie, our baby mouse. We were getting out some bee stuff from storage and found that all of the bagged up hive bodies had mice in them. In the first bag, three grown mice ran out. In the second bag, a momma mouse and 4 babies were in there! The momma ran into a wood pile, so we put the nest with the babies by the pile and she came to get them. But then we found one near our step, all by itself. It wasn’t making any noise and looked like it had an injured arm. So, we took it inside to warm it up. I gave it some rice milk but didn’t think it would make it through the night. It looks to be 1-2 weeks old. It has fur and it’s ears are detached from it’s body, but it’s eyes are still closed and it is still wobbly when it walks. But, when I woke up this morning, it was raring to go. I soaked some bread in rice milk and it ate a little. Looks like it’s arm is moving better, too. Still, it isn’t eating much. I don’t think it has had anything but mousey milk. Tomorrow we will head to the pet store to get better baby mouse food and a little cage.
How can you not love that face??
And for easter, Kaia and her gradma made an egg tree 🙂
Check it out!
Our little home was featured in two articles in the New Life Journal this month! This one about cordwood and this one which was an interview. Cool!
We are attempting to finish the cordwood in the kitchen today and clean it well. The kitchen cabinets are scheduled to arrive on Wed! Woohooo!
Warm, Green Thoughts!
Happy Spring Equinox… The first day of Spring!!! YAHOOOOOO!!!!
I’ve posted the Spring Newsletter for Viriditas. There are a couple of yummy spring recipes in there!
I hope you all enjoy the day!
Camp out!
I cleaned and oiled the sink today. What do you think about the sink and the tile??? Do they go together??
Then I cleaned up the master bedroom, touched up any paint, and wiped down the wall and floor. So guess where we are sleeping tonight!!
Woo hoo!! I moved Kaia’s mattress from storage and put the air mattress next to it. I even put another litter box in there so Max could join us. 🙂
Blessing our home
I need some creative thoughts here…
We are wanting to carve a blessing into the piece of wood that we put above our front door, on the inside. Any advice… It needs to be a fairly short blessing to fit on the wood. Two that I have thought of so far are:
May this home be a place of happiness & health. May those who visit & those who live here know only blessings and peace.
Bless this home and all who enter.
But I know there are more out there…. Let’s hear em!
Please vote
So, I’ve entered Max and Suki in a beauty contest 🙂 Please go and vote!! Bissell Vacuum Cleaners will have 15 weeks of voting. Each week 5 pets will win (based on appearance, coat, and expression). From the final 75, they will chose one to be their spokes pet (they will get their photo on their new Pet Hair Eraser vacuum). But the really big thing is that the winner also gets $10,000 donated to the pet cause of their choice!! That’s huge! This week, I’ve entered Suki (only I misspelled her name. There are tons of pictures, so do a search for “sukki” and then click on her picture. You can only vote once, so don’t click any other pet… just Sukki!! 🙂 ). So go and vote for her, and then let me know who you think I should donate the winning $ too!!!
kitchen
Today’s weather was perfect for cordwood! Finally! We worked all day trying to finish up the kitchen area so we can put the cabinets in soon. We didn’t finish, but we got very close, thanks to some friends who showed up to help!
You can see here all that we did today… the darker colored mortar was from today. It will dry to the same white color. (YES, I do wear the same clothes in every picture! These are my ‘going to get really dirty working on the house’ clothes. And YES, I do wash them. 🙂 )
Here is what it looks like from the outside! Nice, eh? The opening in the middle is for the stove’s exhaust fan. Everything to the left of the window on the left we did last week. So, the kitchen area is almost complete! The cabinets will probably arrive in the next 7-10 days, so we should be good.
Keep on keepin’ on.
So, we’ve been doing lots of work, but not much of it is really picture worthy… you know, painting a door, latches for the windows, more trim…
But, we did build the vanity for the sink in the master bedroom.
I’ve put in and grouted the tile and trimmed the vanity.
Tomorrow I’ll wipe it down and seal it, then take off the masking tape and oil the wood. The sink will sit on top. It’s gonna be perty! The pipe underneath will have to be extended for us to put in the access door. We will probably have a rolling basket or something underneath instead of closing it in with doors and shelves and stuff.
We’ve also insulated in between the rafters and are closing them in with a board of wood. The cordwood will come up to and meet the board to close in the house.
We are all feeling pretty much over it! These gazillions little last details are draining! We’ve had some good weather so we hope to finish the cordwood soon!! Most everything that needs to be done depends on that. Once the cordwood is done we can install the kitchen cabinets, do the finish plumbing, electrical, and gas, and put the dirt on the roof. SOooooo ready to be done! This April will be 2 years on the land, and in our cabin!
Amazing website builder!
You all have to check this out! My husband and his computer business partner just launched a new business site! It’s called Restaurantzite It’s being used by restaurants to create a great website really easily. But, I used it just now to see if I could do some other kind of website and it was really simple. I did this in 20 minutes!! It would be really simple to expand on this idea and create a whole ‘this is our home building project’ kind of website with it. Cool, eh? I love the drag and drop aspect of editing. It makes it all really simple. No more dealing with Dreamweaver to create pages and trying to learn html! This is great! Maybe I’ll do a site like this for Kaia so the out of town family can keep up with her escapades!
If you know of anyone who is looking to build a website please direct them here!! Oh, and they are going to be adding ecommerce and blogging capabilities in the future to. So you could build your own blog or e-store with this. Cool, eh? I’m very proud of them!