Catching Up- August 2013

Just a collection of random little stuff that has been going on this month!

We had a good harvest of raspberries & blackberries.








I was completely shocked when I stopped in to buy a pie at a farmstand and saw them for sale for $5.99 per HALF pint!  That made me feel pretty good about our bushes :)



We also harvested the pear tree the other night.

The kids picked a grand total of 66 pears! (Not including what they ate while picking!)


Tonight we plan to can a bunch of them, and maybe make a pear tart too.






There weren't as many hot air balloons this summer- maybe because it's been rather rainy?  Or maybe we just haven't noticed them, since we didn't grill outside as much as we usually do.
But I got a couple of shots the other night...

Going up across the street
(you can see it hiding behide those trees)

Lastly, here are some flower photos from the picking garden...  I'm going to add these to the next batch of photos I get printed for the downstairs hallway.

I'm thinking that adding some mums to the garden for fall would be a good idea.  We have some planted in the front yard, but this is the perfect place to do mix-matched ones!

Sizing up the Eggs

Last week, my mom gave us a little vintage egg scale that she had.

We had so much fun sizing up our freshly laid eggs!

The smallest of our eggs weighed in at high end of "Large"...

By pure coincedence, we found a HUGE one during the egg collection one day last week.

It measured off the charts!

Normally, most of our eggs are in the "Extra Large" range...

I love the vintage scale not only for it's practical use, but also for decorative purposes.
It's a fun conversation piece!


Related posts:
Fixing up the coop
Baby Chicks
Egg Report

A Harrowing Experience

Well really, Experience Harrowing!

We have a sand paddock behind the horse barn, but without frequent use (since we don't have horses) it's become overrun with weeds.  I tried to keep up with the weeding for about the first month we lived in the house, but then just got too overwhelmed!

We've been keeping the weeds cut short, figuring it would just grow in for now.  But it's been two years & it's still very splotchy.

The best solution we could find was to purchase a Harrow.  Tractor Supply didn't have them in stock, so we ordered it and had to wait a few weeks for it to arrive.

It was all rolled up and tied together with wires...

We unrolled it...

Flipped the prongs the way we needed (there are 3 settings for each of the two sections of prongs), and hooked it up to the tractor...

Here's how it looked as we got started with the first pass...  Progress!!

A few passes later, and it was looking really good!  Hooray for the sand!

I'm not sure how frequently we'll need to do this, but I'm thinking it will get better and better each time, once the roots of the weeds are all gone.  

I'll post an update in a few weeks, showing how it's going!

Then & Now #2

There are so many changes that have taken place since we moved in.  Some of them I completely forgot about until looking at the old photos from when we had the home inspection before we moved in.

Here's a picture of more fencing around the garage. You can see it on the left side of this photo taken from the front porch, the weekend we moved in... That little fence was just to keep deer out and was very easy to remove.  It's a good sun spot- so we put my picking garden here.

The other thing missing is the pretty tree in the field.  That came down during Hurricane Sandy.  I'm very sad about that.

This probably isn't the best comparison, since the top photo was taken in April, and the bottom in July.  It does point out that the forsythia bush is due for a trim!

Electrical Update- Master Bedroom

And finally, here's where we are with the electrical work in the Master Bedroom...

We wanted to add an outlet in here.  We only have one outlet on the other side of the room (very common to have an outlet shortage in houses built before the advent of electricity!)

BEFORE

Unfortunately, they tried to snake the wire down from the attic and they can't get through.  There's some sort of cross beam or solid structure in that wall (not totally suprising, since it's an exterior wall).

So, now we have two holes that need to be patched & painted (ugh!)  Our new plan is to have the outlet added when we do the extension, since we'll be adding new construction to the other side of this wall.

AFTER- FAIL!

But it wasn't all bad news for this room... we did get a light switch installed!

BEFORE

AFTER- but needing a new switch plate!

I was amazed when we moved into this house and there were NO overhead lights in any of the bedrooms- just ceiling fans (with pullchains).

Step one of remedying this is complete.  We now have a light switch to turn the fan on & off.

Of course, there's always a little unexpected excitement... apparently there was very little holding the fan to the ceiling above our bed!  It required some framing work (which was easily accessed from the open attic floor).  I'm now worried about the support structure holding the fans in the kids' rooms- we'll be checking that out!

Anyways, I wish I had thought to buy a new light fixture for here before this stage of the electrical work (like we did for the attic hallway) but I didn't even think of it.  I hope to have them install a new fixture for us when they come back to finish up the attic!


Related posts:
The Electric Plan
The Attic Electric
The Upstairs & Attic Hallway Electric 

Electrical Update- Attic Hallway

Here's where we are with the electrical work in the Attic Hallway/Stairwell...

The light switch at the bottom of the attic stairs has been installed.

BEFORE

Installed... but needing new switch plate!

I'm loving this improvement, since I always get to the bottom of the stairs, usually with my arms full, and realize I forgot to turn off the light switch that's located on the third floor!

The existing flush mounted light fixture was removed, and the box moved to be centered over the stairwell.  They also installed the new fixture.  (Which if you remember, I got a great deal on here!)

BEFORE: Ugly old light fixture,
centered on ceiling, rather than over the stairs.

Reversal for the Before/After shot:

BEFORE

AFTER

The existing switches were tightened up, & one tied to that new switch located at the bottom of the stairs...

BEFORE

AFTER- but needing new switch plate!

So, a lot has been accomplished up here, but still a lot more to do!  First on that list is purchasing new switch plates. 

There's also items like patching the hole from the old light box...

...and the peeling paper that's on the ceiling & walls needs to be removed.  The plaster underneath is a rough texture, so we may need to do a skim coat.  Or I may try the Benjamin Moore Advance Paint and see if that smooths it out...

We also need to refinish the hallway floors, but no sense in doing that until we're done tracking all the building materials up & down!

And, of course, painting all of those rails on the banister (which I'm dreading!)

But for the time being, it's much more functional than it was :)

I'm especially tickled with the new light fixture... here's a look at it from the bottom of the stairs.

Related posts:
The Electric Plan
The Attic Electric
The Master Bedroom Electric

Electrical Update- Attic

Here's where we now stand with the electrical work that's been done in Attic...

All wiring has been run...

5 outlets have been installed, including the one that will be behind the wall...
The behind the wall outlet will be so that the TV can hang on the wall, and the wires will snake through a box, and plug in back there.  This way the wires & plugs won't show :)

The ceiling light/fan box and pendant light boxes have been installed:

Wiring is prepped for the lights under eaves (where storage areas will be)...

The exisiting junction box has been replaced with a much cleaner & safer solution...

BEFORE- BAD

AFTER- GOOD!

Another piece of after- GOOD!

A light switch is installed for the ceiling fan & pendant lights.  It now runs to a temporary work light that they put in for us...

BEFORE

AFTER

The remainder of the electrical work in here will be completed when the sheetrock has been installed.

But that's still a ways off... we will have to do the insulation before that can happen.

Our next step for the attic is putting down the subfloor.

Related posts:
The Electric Plan
The Upstairs & Attic Hallway Electric
The Master Bedroom Electric