Play time

For my birthday I wanted to get something special for the kids. I opted for this:

 I really like it! It's strong enough to hold 1,200 pounds, so Kev and I can climb on the geometric dome too and with a 10 foot diameter, there's more than enough room for all of us.

 Little William has to be especially creative while playing since he can't climb it yet himself. He has fun trying though. He runs under and through the dome and swings by his arms from the lower bars like a monkey.

It's a challenge for Savannah who is learning more agility and balance. The first day she fell from the top right on her back but we had piled 8-10 inches of mulch beneath it, so it was like falling on a soft bed. Fortunately, she hasn't fallen since and everyday that it hasn't rained, we've run outside to climb.

Office bookshelf

I'm embarrassed to say that since we've moved into this house, our office area has been a mess. This is partly because we moved from a house with a 16' x 12' office with a 12' built-in floor to ceiling bookcase, full closet, and his and hers desks and filing cabinets. Now we share a small desk in a tiny space that is shaped like a triangle and not an equilateral or isosceles triangle, but an irregular scalene one. For an extra challenge with two "real walls" and the third open to the stair banister. But enough of the excuses, here's a before and after photo of the mess.

We painted the office walls a while back when my mother was visiting. Paint is always the first requirement for renovating a room here. The desk is against the top landing, with the printer adjacent to it, the window wall has one small bookcase holding a jumble of supplies and there are boxes of files, paper and other electronics stacked against the long wall - in short a disorganized mess! I had the idea a while back that a single long bookcase could solve the problem. My husband was a disbeliever. Over a two-week period I had the chance to sneak out to the garage during nap times to start building this thing. Because of my lumber diet (our beater of a farm truck didn't pass inspection and I don't have another way of transporting lumber at the moment), I had to use what was available to me. I had a piece of 3/4" thick plywood in the barn that I'd only cut the corner off of to make my potting bench. So I got to work with my early Mother's Day gift and built this.

Here's the new bookcase built from plywood and framed in pine 1"x 2"s.

I generally followed the plans from Ana White's website, Knockoff Wood for Grace's bookshelf. My shelf is sized for the space though and the materials I had on hand so the dimensions are about 60" wide by 32" tall. The cubes on the bottom are 15" x 15" x 13" deep.

Here it is all filled up with office supplies and ah- organized.

Because of the small space of the office, even with my widest angle lens, I couldn't fit the whole shelf and wall organizers in the photo. Above the wall is a file organizer on the left, a cork board in the center and a white board on the right. And yes, that is an outlet in the middle of the wall six feet high. The whole office has oddly placed outlets like that one.

Here's the window wall with the new curtains I sewed to match those on the stairwells. Perhaps you'll notice two more oddly placed outlets to the right of the window. At least the view from the window is great.

I'm very excited about having an organized space again with all of my files at my finger tips. Really I have to thank Ana White for showing me how easy it is to build solutions to all my problems. Thanks Ana!

Garlic planting

It's time to plant garlic. This year for my zone, October 12th was announced as the perfect day for planting cloves. Alas, I am not a perfectionist so I had to plant mine on the 10th when my husband was home to help keep the kids at the raspberry patch while I dug in the compost pile. Why the exact timing? So there is enough time to let the roots settle and grow but not for the shoots to break the soil surface before the first frost.

Filled with compost with room for a mulch layer. My raised beds are about 2' deep by 6' long. Plans for raised bed can be found here on Ana White's site.

I am planting garlic in the first raised bed I built. (When I can acquire more lumber, I plan to build at least four more raised beds, most to be filled with food, but my daughter will have her own for whatever strikes her fancy. My beds are 2' by 6', using 4 2x6s. This way, all the lumber you purchase is used.) I used a rake and hoe to loosen the soil beneath this bed, then dragged it into place. I placed 3 inches of composted hay in the bottom of this planter, then 6 inches of compost, which compacted the hay. Within a week I plan to stake two corners of the raised bed, but I haven't had the time to cut the stakes yet.

My garlic cloves should remain toasty enough this winter under their blanket of pine needles.

I planted 17 garlic cloves evenly spaced in the raised bed about 7" apart. I'm trying a California softneck variety this year. I pushed each clove 1 inch below the soil surface then sprinkled an additional generous inch of compost on top.  Because garlic is a spring crop that overwinters, it likes a good coat of mulch. Leaf mulches are the most popular for garlic but we don't have a system for mulching leaves. One popular method of making a leaf mulch is to fill a rubber trash can with raked leaves and then insert your weed whacker (like an immersion blender) and give them a good chopping. One day I plan to do that, but for now I simply raked some of the needles from our big white pine and mulched with a generous 4 inches. I know that pine needles are acidic but my organic gardening books tout it as an excellent mulch for most things because it breaks down so slowly. The waxy coating on the needles helps the soil beneath it retain moisture while the needles themselves do not absorb much moisture. They do a great job of keeping down weeds and I happen to like the look of them. Pine needles make a good blanket for winter crops like garlic so I'm testing this all out and keeping my fingers crossed for some delicious spring garlic.

Uh, oh! Didn't count on the appeal for local wildlife to climb in! Better add a layer of chicken wire across the top.

As long as I can keep critters out of my raised beds I hope for some delicious home grown spring garlic. I hope to count 17 sets of scapes curling out of their winter dormancy come May or June. I use garlic scapes in soups, potatoes and omelets. I place them in a vase to enjoy their wild green beauty and pluck them out at will. My children prefer the quick access because they like to nibble on them. My favorite website for garlic planting information in cooler zones is Boundary Garlic Farm.

Garlic scapes in a Ball jar awaiting their fate.

Stacked

For two weekends we've been stacking wood in the barn. Kevin splits the wood from trees that have fallen in bad weather or from age and then stacks them behind the barn to dry for a year. This year he's helped two other people remove large trees from their yards for next year's wood. I know that I do a lot of things many women wouldn't do but one thing I don't touch is the chainsaw. That is completely my husband's forte. I get to do the lion's share of wood stacking though.

Here it is stacked inside the barn, three rows deep stacked six feet high. The long rows are about 20 feet long and the short row is about 16 feet long.

When stacking wood I always discover the critters whose lives are intertwined with it. There are snake skins, from those who enjoy the protective coolness of the wood pile and perhaps enjoy rubbing against the rough bark. There are wasps who build their paper nests like Japanese lanterns, colorful fungi, and sometimes, near the bottom of the pile, there are bright orange newts crawling in the damp grass and soil. Today I discovered a nest of mice, one mother and her five babies, all nursing with their eyes closed.

Mother mouse peeks out at me.

My instinct is not to disturb any creature, especially one nursing its babies. But, they are mice and there's little room for sympathy on a farm. Mice get into the barn and burrow their way into the tractor's motor, dragging insulation and other nesting materials with them. They eat through the wiring. They chew through the boxes we store in our garage leaving holes in our things and their droppings behind, and they carry Lyme disease. Kevin scolded me for not killing them and I see his perspective, but I find myself asking whether a pink wriggly baby that hasn't yet opened its eyes to the world is a worthy opponent. It only craves the warmth and milk of its mother.

Two of the babies with eyes shut.

Once upon a time I worked in a laboratory where it was my job to breed a mutant strain of mouse, and to sometimes cull the babies the day they were born for tissue cultures, which I also performed. I used dry ice so the death was painless, and the purpose of my work was to learn more about muscular dystrophy treatments, but still, it's never escaped me that all those lives were in my hands.

Today though, I couldn't do it. I'll let Kevin make his own decision about the nest but my mothering instincts are too strong to destroy this home.

New bench

For a while I've wanted an outdoor bench or a pair of outdoor benches that we could use near the pond to throw our towels on and just sit and watch the sun set over the water's edge or drag over to the bonfire area so we can sit comfortably while watching the tendrils of orange and yellow dance. And don't forget the marshmallows!

Kevin put me on a lumber diet, that is he refused to go to the store to purchase the lumber I wanted to build a pair of benches, so I decided to rummage through the scrap pile of lumber in the barn to see what I could find. I ended up building this on the fly and am really pleased with it. After some light sanding, my mom stained the bench with two coats to match the deck. The stain also protects the wood from the outdoors and hides the fact that I've used three different types of wood to build it. I'm glad this bench turned out the way it did, sometimes having a handicap or challenge makes you find creative ways to solve a problem.

Bench in use for our first bonfire of the year.

But now that our farm truck hasn't passed inspection, I won't be able to make trips to the lumber store for a whole year (that's how long we plan to try to keep the truck around to plow the driveway, but the truck may have plans of its own). Anyway, next time you visit, maybe you can join us for an evening bonfire on a starry night.

Savannah is the patient marshmallow roaster, waiting for the coals and turning her stick evenly.

Come share some smores with us!

Greenhouse cleanup

As my summer garden is winding down and my fall crops are busy growing without any help from me, I've been fantasizing about a winter garden. We have a very odd greenhouse that is attached to our home. It is triangular in shape and the point faces south. It is what gardeners call a cold greenhouse because it is not heated throughout the winter so the temperature can fall fairly close to freezing. I've used it to start seeds but haven't kept much growing in it since spring.

View of one side of the greenhouse from the garden. Each side has four sliding glass doors except for the one inside the house (the hypotenuse), which has five.

My greenhouse has been a mess lately so today I spent some time cleaning it up and decided that I wanted to build a table for the corner. Fortunately, I had a piece of plywood in the barn, one last 2x4 and some scrap 1x3 from Savannah's piano bench. During William's nap time, I came up with this:

My wild sweet basil plants started from seed but never transplanted in the garden.

It turned out well enough since it fits two planting flats across it with room on one side for my watering can and room on the other for my plant food, seeds, and wooden labels.

Two planting tray flats deep, one with my seedling herbs, the other with my huge basil plants.

I'm trying to grow some more herbs and winter plants in the greenhouse this year so we'll see how it turns out. I like the idea of tending to green things all year but the truth is that during especially busy weeks I often lapse on my end of the commitment (ahem, watering).

My simple little corner table setup. I wanted something that wouldn't obstruct the view of our garden, woods, or fields. There's plenty of room beneath for two of my 30" trays for lettuces as well.

Savannah is growing some of her own chives by seed and chocolate mint transplanted from a neighbor's garden, so hopefully she'll help me keep up with it when I'm having a hard week. William also loves to dig his little fingers in the soil of my pots and walk around with the watering can pretending to water them. He also helps me pick the leaves off the basil and oregano to add them to my marinara sauce, which he likes to eat.

The start of a great marinara - tomatoes, onions, zucchini, squash, basil and oregano from our garden and garlic and carrots from our CSA.

I hope we can keep the greenhouse going for as long as possible this winter. Plants bring me so much peace and contentment.

Piano bench for Savannah

A while back I built a piano table for my daughter, who spent the better half of the year practicing piano on the floor. The problem was that after having to sit on the floor, she then had to stand up to play.

So finally, I made her the piano bench she needed, and just in time with music starting in September.

Of all the things I've built, I think this was the quickest, nicest one of all. The pine wood was smooth and straight and a dream to work with and despite the more complicated manner I chose to assemble the bench, it turned out perfectly level, more a relief than point of pride.

Jamming out together: Savannah practices for her evening concert "The Wheels on the Bus", while William copies big sister as best he can.

It fits both of my rascals and is hard to tip - a must for my rascally little climber. The wood was so beautiful, it was almost a shame to paint it, but in the end, I opted to paint it to match the white piano table. It has two coats of white, the same paint I had leftover from all the trim work, and two topcoats of a clear semi-gloss enamel to make it easy to wipe down and smooth to sit on.

Can't wait for all the evening concerts Savannah will treat us to. We are ready!

Front door

When we moved in to this house, the front door was red and the back door and side doors were bright royal blue, the shade of blue you see all over Greece on the domes of churches. I had planned to replace these door colors eventually but we continued to disagree on door color. My mom wanted eggplant or blue, Kevin wanted brown or red and I wanted green. Then this summer in the blazing heat and humidity, the front door began peeling, first a red layer and then a blue layer of paint until we were left with a metal door that was primed only.

Ugh! All the paint peeled off, leaving behind white primer. I sanded the door with the orbital sander and then painted it.

It was time to do something about the door color and perhaps conveniently, my husband was out of town and therefore, didn't get much of a say in the color I selected. He was home though to watch the kids play in the sandbox while I painted it.

The color is Forestwood by Sherwin Williams and I think it coordinates very well with the exterior of the home as well as the new muted brown stain on the deck. So far I've painted the front door and the back door, inside and out but the deck door is still eagerly waiting its turn.

Compostalicious

We really like compost around here. Any of my plants that grow outside in our garden flourish in it, especially when compared to the plants in my greenhouse that are grown from organic soil arriving in bags from Agway.

There are many styles of composting, usually dependent on the composter. I happen to be a lazy composter - that is, the type of gardener who piles things into the compost and lets them simmer on low for a full year, without doing a thing. The chickens are very helpful in this department, as they regularly till the compost with their capable feet, seeking bits of food scraps and juicy worms to supplement their diet.

The old scrap wood compost bin on the left and the new scrap wood compost bin on the right. Once we till last year's compost into the garden soil this fall, we'll face both the bins in the same direction.

But one thing we do not like about composting with chickens is that they flatten out the pile so that instead of a neat mound of compost, (with a hot middle) you end up with bits of corn husk blowing around your lawn after the chickens have clawed through it. So, it was time for me to build another compost bin. With the slim bits of scrap wood left over in our barn for the task, it was much more of a challenge this time than last time. I solved the problem by using a middle support beam so that I could use smaller scraps of wood. I still need to add one or two thin boards to the bin. Kevin shoveled and raked up all the compost, which was as rich and dark on the bottom as chocolate cake, into the new bin. Let's hope it holds up for a good few years against the chickens!

Catching up

You may be wondering why you haven't heard from us in so long. Some of the reasons include, William was sick for 7 weeks this summer, although not continuously, Savannah has been busy with various summer camps, Kevin has been busy with a new position he accepted at work which has kept him traveling, and I've been busy trying to juggle everything from a sick baby, full-time work, a daughter who needs to be driven all over the place, a husband who has been away, house guest after house guest, and a million other garden and farm things that needed my attention (and on a small enough amount of sleep that I'm sure it qualifies as sleep deprivation, which makes me a little loopy and cranky).

Some of the things we've completed this summer include refinishing and staining the deck, a chore my mother mainly took on herself with some help from Kevin. We love the new deck stain (Tugboat by Behr), which complements the house siding color and the natural colors of the outdoors. We hope this will give us three more years on a deck that will eventually need replacing.

Here's the deck before, with paint peeling off, a view from afar.

Note the blue door that is also about to go...

Also, there was Savannah's play fort, a gift to her for her birthday from Mommy (who built it from scratch) and Daddy (who paid for the cedar lumber).

The playfort stage 1 is a success.

It doubles as a pirate lair.

Doesn't she look smashing as a pirate!?

Her other birthday gift was the adoption of a pair of two-year old female guinea pigs, a privilege she earned by being responsible for so long. She calls them Butterscotch and Katie (aka Fraidy Katie), who tends to be a bit more nervous about life than her sister. First I built them an indoor cage.

30" by 45" indoor cage made from cube grids and coroplast.

After Savannah read all about guinea pig care, she told me they needed an outdoor hutch or play area so I first built an A-frame structure for the girls that we moved around during the day to give them plenty of fresh grass to eat.

A-frame for the guinea girls made from scrap wood, hardware cloth and chicken wire.

Then I discovered that guinea pigs can be housed outdoors for much of the year in our climate so I built them their own proper hutch, which contains a metal cage that can be moved from the hutch to the ground so they can nibble on fresh grasses.

Savannah feeds the girls fresh hay.

Blue skies on the farm.

Kevin didn't like the first model of the hutch, which I just built from imagination, no plan in writing first, so I added a back wall to give them further protection from the wind and rain (what rain???) and provide more shade during the day. Since the guinea pigs can't nibble on the wooden frame of the hutch, which I constructed all from scrap wood, I decided to stain it the same color as our deck so it will weather better. Now the guinea girls stay outside all day and night unless the temp drops below 60F. Their droppings fall down the bottom and can be added directly to the compost pile behind them and Savannah brings them crab apples and treats and holds them.

Fancy outdoor living for the guinea girls.

Complete with the Kevin-approved rear wall for added protection.