Whoa!!!

I LOVE VISITORS! Made my absolute day that Lori, Tara, and AJ came to visit for a day! Lori and AJ braved a tractor ride with Daniel! Oh what fun we had!

More Pics!

These pics wouldn't fit under 7/20/2010. New garden!

As of 7/20/2010:

Here are the most recent pictures of the house and of the gardens. The old garden still has sweet corn, strawberries, and onions planted in it. The rest of the space will be used for a fall garden. The big garden has the tomatoes, summer & winter squash, cucumbers, green & black beans, okra, broccoli, watermelon, pumpkins, and peppers. Some things are growing better than others, but that is to be expected especially considering where I planted them. We finally have enough for the market, but I am going to Oklahoma this weekend so that is where the produce will be sold. Hayden's flowers continue to bloom and are just beautiful, as are the morning glories climbing the fence of the old garden. The house additions include the finished roof, guttering, and the painting of the attached building. Our most recent guests asked if it was a new side building - oh what a gallon of paint can disguise!

One big weekend!

So from July 9 to the morning of July 12th Daniel and myself worked probably 45 hours on the house. Daniel and his cousin Kevin framed out the pitch on the top of the roof to correct our leaking flat roof and I washed, primed, and painted all of the outside trim around the house. After that was done, we (mostly Daniel) put up guttering all along the house. With the exception of a few problems (that are correctable) it all held up well during a recent downpour! It is amazing what a little paint can do. I also painted one of the attached buildings but haven't taken a picture of the finished project yet. Maybe later when it cools off a little!

BEFORE & AFTER!

Another Day in Paradise!

The country song Another Day in Paradise keeps running through my head but I can't seem to get it on my playlist! Maybe tomorrow!

This and that!

So I thought I would add some random pictures from the farm and also add the song that just keeps playing through my head at this point. Keep in mind the roof is leaking major and the basement is flooding!

Mama raccoon and her babies - cute now, but not when they grow up and get in our stuff! She was quite smart to make her home in the second floor of one of the barns!

Does anybody remember those famous Chia Pets?! We have our own from a tree that Daniel cut down but it is trying to make a come back! Ch-Ch-Ch- Chia!

Once it stops raining I will take pictures of the gardens! Plants are growing like crazy, if I could just keep everything healthy it would be nice.

I am working on before and after pictures that I will put together hopefully before the end of the month. We still have a lot to do, but it sure does look a lot different!

Gardens!

What can I say besides I think I bit off more than I could chew! I started off a "little" behind (i.e. the weeds had a huge jumpstart since they moved in before I did!) but I am starting to feel like we may be on an even playing field soon! I have however been working 12 hour days since I got here to try to get to that point! We have enjoyed fresh carrots, peas, lettuce, spinach, beets, radishes, turnips(which we decided we didn't like!) thus far. Our red onions from sets were a bust and red potatoes are curing in the basement - should be ready to eat in a week and a half. We have tomatoes, sweet corn, green beans, black beans, okra, watermelon, peppers, pumpkins, summer squash, acorn squash, and cucumbers planted. We have found that our new garden, where all of the tomatoes and warm season crops are does not drain worth a darn. I have lost quite a few tomato plants as we have had a lot of rain this spring and early part of summer. Good thing Daniel's dad and I put in around 225 tomato plants to start with! Live and Learn is our new motto out here!

Our intention was to have enough produce to sell at the farmers market! Hasn't quite happened yet - I thought I was putting in way more than enough, but as this is my first time to grow anything other than tomatoes, I've learned that I really planted enough to feed about 6 people. Hopefully the tomatoes and summers crops will come through and we can still go to the farmers market!

We had a lot of work to do to get the new garden ready for planting so there is a picture of where it started and where it was a few weeks ago.

It's Electric (anyone sliding?!)

Oh the electric - my mom's greatest fear with this house! As I write this all of our lines are officially grounded, which I'm told is a good thing. We had the help of one of Daniel's cousins and his buddy that just happens to be an electrician. That sure did come in handy as it ended up like most projects out here - more than we expected! We replaced all of the poles outside and all of the cords are now in an actual electric box in the basement. It looks really good outside. We still have to change out the lines inside and add some outlets. As like any old farmhouse, we are lucky if a room has one outlet! I keep asking for my one outlet on a kitchen wall so that my TV can be mounted and I can watch GMA as I eat my cereal in the morning - it's the little things that matter! Some of the pictures show where Daniel has taken off the lathe and plaster in the foyer and the upstairs hallway. Once the inside wires are replaced we will put in insulation and hang the drywall! One of the other pictures shows the line outside where the wires leading to the house are also now underground instead of big scary wires hanging from the pole to the house. The jumbled mess of electrical wires in one of the pictures is where all of the wires were instead of being in an electrical box - how scary!

I can see it so clearly now.....

The new windows were a huge improvement to the house this winter. From the few old pictures of the house that we have, it looks like we replaced windows that the house had in the 1920's! It was definitely time - we had a multitude of leaks, vents, and passages for unwelcome insects! The one picture of the house has the one new window compared to all the old ones. I need to take some pictures of the house now, with the new windows so you could see the before and after. I told Daniel one morning after we got the new windows that we had a new cardinal eating at the birdfeeder and that he was the brightest cardinal I had ever seen. He said it wasn't a new cardinal, I could just see it clearly through the new windows!

June - Time sure does fly!

So the official move for me happened at the end of May after the last day of school in Oklahoma. It was a very sad week and I was very sad to leave my friends and family in Oklahoma! Thankfully there is plenty to do up here that keeps my mind off of being sad about not being there! Plus it is my summer vacation, so that is something to be happy about! Yet again I have neglected the blog, but now that I will be staying in one place it should be a little easier to keep it updated (plus I promised numerous people that I would!) A lot of work has been done so it is hard to know where to start! There is the electric, the gardens, the new windows, the constant fight with weeds, and of course the continuous outside clean up effort! My mom showed these pictures to some of her friends and she couldn't believe it was the same couple - one weekend in Jamaica and the next planting our first tomatoes of 2010.

Dog,Dogs,Dogs!

So we have now realized that we have dogs that are going to be in the group of dogs that don't learn from being sprayed by a skunk once! Shadow was sprayed (2nd direct hit to the face in less than a year) in the middle of a blizzard over spring break and sonar was sprayed 3 days later while playing ball! When their not busy being sprayed their new favorite hobby is hunting mice! To my knowledge they have caught one but they are persistent. It doesn't help that we are trying to do away with the rodents hiding spots and the girls are right there to pounce! They are getting a little more liberty when we are outside and loving every minute of it!