Partnership journal: Missing man formation

I have been hanging photos and artwork in Irene’s new space.  I ran across these photos:

My mother made me promise her two things when I told her I would marry Michael: that I would wear a dress and that I wouldn’t use a mail order minister. You can see I wasn’t much into keeping those particular promises. I had more important ones on my mind.  

We got married just outside our efficiency apartment on a Tuesday evening.

I am being sentimental because Michael has been gone for 8 days now. We aren’t exactly sure when he will be back. He flew to New Mexico to pick up the Suburban my father gifted him.  

Doing an ops check. It all checked out.  

While in NM, my mom made use of Michael muscle.  

Making the landscape less labor-intensive now my dad isn’t there care for his flowers.  

While Michael was in sunny NM, it rained 2.25” over three days. 

Caring for the ducks became a very muddy job.  

The rain finally let up long enough to allow me to begin digging the garlic garden. 

A day’s hard labor, and I’m not quite done. It snowed the next day. I’ll get the garlic in later this week. 

Michael was due home today, but he is still in Colorado, taking care of our Grand Girl while our daughter recovers from surgery. She fell ill the day he arrived. Surgery was successful and she should be back in fighting form soon.  

Bedtime stories as only Michael can tell.  

We are both thankful that he can be there as long as they need him. In the meantime, I can handle the daily chores. Yet, working with Michael is a lot more fun than doing the same things alone. 

First sunlight on the trees.  

I have to admit, my daily chores are pretty spectacular as they are. I need my partner back to share these moments, and by sharing, make them even better. 

Fishing journal: time out!

At long last.  

17 crappies and 6 sunnies in 2 1/2 hours.  

Earlier in the day: 

The ducklings we hatched this spring have begun to lay.  

Our Sandhills have been creeping closer.  

The last of the tomatoes, the beginning of the apples, and the popcorn harvest  

And I’m beginning my bonus photo series of the Grand Girl again.  

Cleaning journal: 11 years of dust...banished

We have spent the past three days cleaning. Irene and Clyde lived in such small spaces, there was never any room to move anything to be able to clean to the corners.  

We took down the closet doors, refinished them, and used them in Irene’s new bedroom.  

I measured the distance between the end of her old bed and the closet: 16 inches. Not a lot of room to get anything in or out of the space behind her bed. Bad for easily bruised skin. Terrible for trip hazards. 

My grandparents bought those beds, which my mother modified to be bunk beds, when my mom was 5 years old. My sister Mariluz and I refinished them in 1978. They have been used by three generations, and I’m looking forward to having them for the fourth generation as well. 

We brought in the bed our daughter Persephone is using at the moment, after banishing the dust. We also have 8 large black garbage bags awaiting disposal. We burned the broken furniture.   Persephone had been staying in our hunting cabin, which really is not meant for long-term occupation. We plan to eventually take out the closet, as having no airflow against that north wall fosters the growth of mold. We also want to put windows in the north side. I’m hoping to have an office in that space. 

We emptied and cleaned Irene’s old living room before moving her bedroom furniture.  

Notice that there are no lights installed in any of the walls or ceilings of the old bedroom or living room. The ceilings are painted the same color as the walls. This makes for some very dark rooms. We will look for track lighting we can modify to be plugged in until we start tearing out walls to put in better (and bigger) windows. Then we (meaning Michael!) can reroute electricity for ceiling fans and lights.   In the short term, we will move the dining table into the old living room. This will allow us to start punching a 6 foot wide hole in the wall where the dining room table now sits.  That will allow a connection between the addition and the original house. 

The doorway with a door leads to the addition. The doorway without a door leads to the current kitchen/dining room.  

The wall with the clock on it has a stairwell on the other side. We have space for a longer and wider stairwell in the addition. We will eventually remove the stairwell in the old living room, which will make that room 40” wider. It will become our bedroom. We will wall off the doorway into the addition (after punching a hole in the wall between the addition and th kitchen) and that space will become a closet.  We will make sure it has adequate ventilation!  

Now you know why I will have a construction journal for a while yet.  

Milepost journal: moving day!

Michael and I put the final finishing touches on Irene’s new space this morning. 

We even cleaned the top of the doors!  

Before showing the final results, a word about that closet front.  

In this photo you can see where Michael shimmed out the closet door casement on the right hand side. This is the side with the wall that was not plumb.  

I can assure you that cutting long boards to an uneven width is more challenging than I could contemplate. So I took my sister-in-law’s advice (thanks Jeni!) and used car siding, only did it vertically. That way, I could fan out the boards on their joints and it does not show. Not. One. Bit. Yay!!!

Here is the tour:

This is the view from the entryway to the rest of the addition. That is her robe junked on the end of her bed (which Michael refinished!). She prefers the “lived in” look. 

She is thrilled with having her treasures on display.  

This is Irene’s television/conversation corner.  

We ordered curtains. They are on their way.  

She has her doorway to the outside and a place to eat snacks.  

Computer nook/kitchenette, with microwave, coffees maker, toaster, and refrigerator/freezer.  Good thing she needs bacon with breakfast; we might never see her again!

We now have to clean out her old space and move Persephone into her former bedroom. Make the former living room into a dining room, and reorganize the kitchen area. Clean out the cabin so we can host guests again. Then go fishing, if the lakes have not frozen over.  

This afternoon, we celebrate! (Local plug: the  Marquessa from Chateau St. Croix Vineyards is excellent!)

Construction journal: the computer desk is DONE!!!

My favorite part is the hot air duct to warm toes on winter days. 

Construction journal: my first piece of furniture completed!!!

Ok. Maybe my second. The computer cabinet on the left was the first piece of furniture. I designed the set to accommodate Irene’s wishes, within physical limits. 

I spent the past 10 hours attaching the drawer fronts to the drawers and installing the drawer pulls. It was slow going until Michael got back from picking up Irene’s new mattress and buying more wood. It is so much easier to site drawer fronts with an extra set of hands. 

The one drawer is missing because I cut it an inch too wide. I had to remake that drawer. 

The last I wrote we had just constructed a tower of drawers. Drawers need to run on slides. 

The handy jig for installing the slide didn’t work on the side without room for a clamp. I screwed a scrap piece of wood to the cabinet side.  It worked.  

I spent a day climbing inside narrow spaces learning how to use a screw driver left handed. 

Paint stirring sticks measure a convenient eighth inch, the space needed between drawers.  

The drawer pulls Irene selected had an odd measurement between screw holes. In order to get them placed, I made a pattern by stretching a piece of paper over the screw side of the handle and poking holes through the paper into the screw holes. I transferred the measurement to a piece of wood I cut to give me 2” below the top of the drawer. I folded the paper in half and marked the mid line on my wooden jig. I drew a line from one corner of the drawer face to the kitty corner, both ways, which gave me the mid point of the drawer face. I clamped my jig to the drawer face, lining up mid lines. I used a drill press to drill my screw holes.  This took a while, but worked well. 

To make the holes in the drawers (drawer screws fit only the drawer face, not the drawer face AND the drawer) Michael found me a nail set that fit in my screw holes. After I fit the drawer fronts in place, I punched indents into the drawer, unscrewed the drawer face, then used a large drill bit to make holes in the drawer aligned with the screw holes in the drawer face. We then replaced the drawer front and installed the drawer slide. This is why it took 10 hours to place all the drawer fronts and pulls. 

A built-in set of dresser drawers seems an odd piece of furniture for a living room. However, Irene considers this her “kitchen”. A refrigerator/freezer, toaster, coffee maker, paper towel holder, and microwave will fit on the countertop. The tall drawer will fit a trash can and cleaning items. The drawers are different depths to accommodate a variety of items, including office supplies, silverware, dishes, dish towels, and files. 

We hope to get the computer desk and pull out keyboard tray installed tomorrow. Michael completed refinishing the bed stead yesterday. I have yet to cut the boards for the closet face. I also need to make shelves for the closet boxes and the computer desk.

I don’t think we will have Irene moved in before she comes back from Michigan on Saturday. But we will have her moved within the week. 

Whew. We are both exhausted.  

Construction journal: putting the drawers together

Remember all those boards from yesterday?  We got them all put together today. 

I screwed and glued.  

The clamped board was so the drawer fronts and backs wouldn’t slide out of place. Having flush fronts and backs is somewhat important. 

As soon as I had a drawer assembled, Michael put the veneer on the top edges.  

We worked like house elves.  

Ta da!  

55 boards turned into 11 drawers. I am covered in glue.  

Construction journal: so much work, so little to show

We are in the home stretch towards getting Irene in her new space. She has gone to visit in Michigan beginning on September 3 and returning on the 15th. We are desperately trying to have her MOVED before she returns home. Given how hard we have been working and where we are, I’m not sure we will make deadline.  

The Monday she left it rained an inch and a quarter.  

The chickens were so bedraggled!  

Michael and I worked on “adjusting” the studs in the closet so that the box I made would fit without twisting and leaving a half inch gap on one side (and all the shelf holes twerked).   We also made a run to town for materials. 

The shims don’t hardly show!  We still need to cut, router, sand, finish, install drawer pulls, and attach the drawer fronts. 

Tuesday saw me crawling in and out of the drawer spaces, measuring and cutting shims, shims, and finally shims the correct width. I needed a proof of concept before I measured and cut the rest of the drawers. Michael mowed a lot of grass, so when it came to cutting boards, I wouldn’t have to wade through a jungle. I also put veneer on two drawers I measured and cut and put together.  Four drawers completed (except for drawer slides). 

Piles of boards, all in order.  

It took us the best part of Wednesday and Thursday to cut the 55 boards that will make the 11 drawers in addition to the 4 I already made.  My architect daughter wondered why I was making the carcase full of drawers rather than shelves. I gave her a design answer:  when you get old you don’t want to have to bend down and rummage in the back of a 23” deep shelf near the floor. A drawer pulls out and is so much more accessible. She could appreciate that answer. 

Friday and today were spent with Michael sanding boards and me varnishing them. Finding sufficient horizontal space has been a challenge.  

It’s amazing the plants are still alive, if only just. So many things are suffering from neglect.  

Oh hey, Michael did get the replacement sculpture parts painted and installed. The sculpture is now both beautiful and functional! 

Now there’s room for a coffee cup or a book on that shelf, which had been full of extra TP rolls.  

Michael and I are taking a break, sitting on the back deck and surveying our realm. We will have tomatoes for dinner, then I will sand some more while he is putting the birds to bed. 

We are missing having the Little Apple Eater around, but are looking forward to having her and her parents back in December, should we all make it that far. Sheesh, I am tired!

Grand Girl Journal: she’s making herself right at home

We started this blog as a journal about farming 40 acres in the 21st century. Lately, it hasn’t been so much about farming as about constructing the addition. The original cabin was built to house 2 adults, and perhaps a single grandchild might overnight on the couch. We now have 3 adults living here long-term, another adult living here for the time being, and now two more adults and the Grand Girl vIsiting for a week. The construction project allows us to pull this off.  If a farmstead is quintessentially about nurturing and family, then we are still on track!  

Loving up Summa. 

Working out.

Picking (and eating) plums. She says the apples are okay too.  

Chasing chickens.  

Cooling off. 

Climbing stairs. 

Drinking coffee just before bedtime.  

Oh, wait. No coffee until she’s twelve. 

Charming cheese from Auntie Sister. 

Harvest journal: tomato season has begun!

We ate our first tomato for dinner on Saturday, August 18th. Since then, I’ve had tomatoes for breakfast,

Aunt Harriette loved fried onions with her eggs. That woman knew how to eat!  I added a half of an heirloom pink tomato.  

lunch,  

The fresh sliced onions are hiding under the tomato.  

and dinner. 

Green chile chicken enchiladas.  Michael makes wonderfully tasty corn tortillas, but they don’t roll well. Fabulous pared with one our Early Girls. I had to dice another to go with the last of my enchiladas. 

I will eat tomatoes until frost ends this orgy. 

Construction journal: a utilitarian sculpture

Michael put on his artist hat for the bathroom grab bar project. He had the vision. I lent tech support. 

The original design involved finding ADA standards, measuring and listing parts.  I made my list and checked it twice. 

The small hardware store in Milltown cuts and threads pipe. it didn’t have all the parts we needed, and we realized some of the pipe would be too large for toilet paper rolls, so we had to make some on the spot changes. 

The connectors were in a plastic sack and not as photogenic.  

Michael cleaned all the parts, found his pipe wrenches and set to work.  

Michael taught me how pipe wrenches work. I hope never to need this knowledge. I don’t know what we will do when our work space becomes civilized.   

The next step was painting the sculpture with rustolium spray paint. 

A nice place under the trees where the paint couldn’t drift onto anything else we didn’t want painted. 

Michael cut and finished a wooden pedestal for his sculpture. One thing about Pergo flooring: you don’t want to screw through it to the underlayment. It needs to breathe!  We located attachment points and Michael installed appropriate anchor 2x4s in the walls. He held the sculpture in place while I did adjustments to ensure everything was square and plumb. We made marks on walls and floor, put silicone adhesive on the bottom of the pedestal and went to press. 

I installed the trim on the inset shelf before we installed the sculpture. The grab bars are solid, although toilet paper rolls do not fit over the end caps. We need to figure out how to remedy this design flaw without compromising the sculptural integrity.  

It works really well as a grab bar at least. I think doing the ADA research helped. Wish we had remembered to bring a toilet paper roll with us when we were buying parts!  This is becoming one of my favorite areas in the house. And yes, I have been taking baths! 

Harvest journal: Hot August Nights

We have various outdoor horizontal surfaces we use during harvest season.  We need them to dry out certain parts of our harvest before bringing them indoors. The humidity has been ferocious this year. 

Butternut bark drying for future dye baths. 

Garlic wilting a bit before being bundled. 

The hard neck garlic did well, despite being planted in November and then surviving a cold, snowy, and loooong winter.  The soft neck garlic had a 15-30% failure rate. We were eating last year’s soft necked varieties until about a week ago. They save better than hard necks. 

We love onions!

We planted our onions late, due to the late spring. They had a reduced success rate, much like the soft neck garlic. Some years are just that way.  We ran out of onions in March. 

Heirloom beets. 

The beet crop suffered as well. The leafy greens, on the other hand, are marvelous. 

We can grow kale again, having fenced out the rabbits.  We may get a ripe tomato soon.

Kale and onion pizza for dinner tonight:

And olives and.... 

The elderberries and plums are ripening as well. Michael has been stripping berries from umbels while I bundle garlic and onions.  

Having a basement stocked with onions and garlic (and jelly and eggs and...) makes me feel rich.  

Pet journal: the mighty hunter

We have been hosting our daughter’s cat while she is staying with us to recalibrate. 

The master of all he sees. 

He likes being an inside/outside cat. He chases bunnies and jumps for butterflies. We have found dead mice around, whole. If it is not dry cat food, he does not eat it. Today, we found this on the lawn:

We didn’t know we had rats, but given the amount of feed around, it’s not surprising. 

He does leave our chickens alone. They travel in a pack, and collectively have bigger teeth. 

Back stair time is the best time. 

It’s good to have a cat again. It’s good to have our daughter with us for the nonce. We will miss both whenever it comes time for them to move on. 

Construction journal: slow progress on the cabinetry and closet

Finish work is slow and is as exciting as watching varnish dry. Michael was good and varnished some boards for me while I was in New Mexico saying hello to loads of relatives and friends, and goodbye to my daddy. 

My nephew holding the box my Uncle Tom made to house my father’s ashes. My mom painted the images. I’m nowhere near this level of competency...but they have a few years on me!

I’ve been back for a week now. It seems I should have more to show, but it has been a week of learning. 

The veneer tape arrived just after I returned.  

The cabinet making books my Uncle Tom sent to me mentioned finishing plywood edges with pre-glued veneer tape. We ordered some just before I left, not really knowing how the darn stuff works. You Tube saved us again!  It is applied with a clothes iron (I bought a small one to dedicate to woodworking) and then is trimmed with a plane iron. 

Before. 

After. 

Getting the veneer tape to stick on a curve required Michael’s ingenuity, warm water to soak the tape, a large dowel, some scotch tape and a couple of twist ties. 

More waiting for the tape to dry.....

Using a wood block to encourage the glue to hold while it cooled, together with the pre-bending, worked!

Yes, squaring this corner would have been so much easier, but I like matching the countertop’s curve. 

The box for the computer desk got put together.  

The wall next to the computer desk is not plumb. This is what happens when architects come and build things while you are away. Sweet, but it creates problems down the road. 

We also installed two of the boxes in the closet area. 

We share this mania about checking for level...

We bought more plywood to make the rest of the shelving in the narrow area to the left of the closet. 

We were blessed with a wonderful visit by some friends of mine from high school (I went to high school in California, so visits are rare):

Kim from Watsonville, CA and Starla from Austin, MN. What a treat!

In our spare time we harvested butternut bark for future dye projects and garlic because, well, garlic. 

Bark comes off so much easier if you catch it right after the tree comes down. This tree had a fungal infection.  You can see the bark at the end of the table is black. This is what Michael and I did to relax the day after I got home. 

If you wait too long to harvest garlic, the protective paper deteriorates. 

Oh yeah, we did go fishing this past week as well.  Looking back on this week, perhaps “slow” fails to track reality.

With that, I present the font of all energy, and her progeny: 

Four generations. Watch out world!

Harvest journal: first fish of the season

17 Crappies and 10 Sunnies

Atlas Millpond didn’t fail us. 

Good to be on the water again.  

Fish for dinner tomorrow.  

Season journal: green

The air smells sweet like corn.  

The long low light makes it all look greener still. 

Elsewhere, the Grand Girl ignores an aggressive interloper. 

Construction journal meets weather journal: what to do when it is wet wet wet

The rain gauge measured slightly over 2” yesterday. The pond didn’t overflow, but the ducks have more water than usual for this time of year.  

Two inches of rain raised the water level by about a foot. 

Constant rain slowed down our beginning this addition project in 2015. It still slows us down somewhat, as it is difficult to cut large pieces of plywood indoors, and good pieces of plywood are expensive!  On the other hand, we now have individual mini projects that take time...which is what the rain gives us. Yesterday, we planned the grab bar system for the new bathroom. 

The toilet paper holder is drawn in backwards, but we compensated for that later.  

Irene needs help in standing up from a sitting position, as do I after I’ve spent several days on a ladder or kneeling on hard surfaces without remembering the knee pads. We built ourselves a problem by leaving plenty of room around the commode...a function of having too little space in the original cabin. 

Great for cleaning!  Lousy for pre-made grab bars. 

We made the trek to a local hardware store that cuts and threads pipe. Our big box stores won’t do that. It took us almost all day, between checking ADA standards and looking up dimensions for various connectors, and then triple-checking measurements and calculations. The math matters, as pipes thread into fittings and so you have to add an inch to the length you think you need. Then the hardware store didn’t have certain connector parts, so we made some seat-of-the-pants adjustments. We will assemble the parts once ready, and then paint the assemblage before installing it. More to come on this!   

In the meantime, I installed my first in-wall bathroom shelving unit.  

I am happy to report the railing on the shelf is SOLID!  

My next design challenge is how to finish the face of the closet.  

Part of the problem is that I don’t want to tape any more wall board in this room!  

More design work. It’s still raining. Life is good. 

And I’m back to ending with long-distance photos of the Grand Girl!

Weather journal: it’s a half an enchilada and you think you’re the Barber of St. Croix

Our rain gauge measured 0.5” fifteen minutes after I took this photo. 

Our pond remains full. Despite the three weeks of drought immediately following the last snow melt, we have had regular rainfalls measuring between half an inch of water (said fast sounds like “half an enchilada”) and an inch and a half. The mosquitoes love it.

The inability to work outside gave me the opportunity to have Michael, that ever-moving dervish, sit still long enough to give him a trim.  

In process of taming the candy floss.  

 “The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two weeks” is Michael’s favorite saying. 

After 30 some-odd years, I may be getting the hang of this.

Tip of the hat to my mom, who let me know from her shining example that you can do pretty much anything given the knowledge and the right equipment. 

Season journal: for every thing there is a season

My father celebrated a time to die today.  

I can hear his laughter in my soul. 

He has left the world a wonderful legacy.  

Life marches on... 

Harvest journal: the lettuce and chicken came due at the same time!

We picked up our broiler chicks on May 2nd this year.  By June 18th, they were almost as large as the Grand Girl!

Well, maybe only a third as big. We started with 15 chicks. One died within a day...trampled by its nest-mates. Another died at about 4 weeks. We figure it rolled onto its back and couldn’t right itself, like a turtle. We found another nest-mate who had rolled and appeared dead a few days later, but I found him in time to right him, and he walked away. This was a sure sign we needed to begin to harvest them, and so we did. 

As my grandfather would say, “You like chicken? Take a wing!”...as he offered you his arm.  

Our salad garden was planted at the end of May. Three weeks later, we are having our first salad. Seven weeks and the chickens were between 4 1/2 and 6 pounds. We left 5 to grow some more, for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other family gatherings.  I love seasons!