Changes springing up everywhere

If I told you to “keep reading” so many times in the last post, is it cheating if I fill this one with photos?

She generously allow us to borrow the tractor when we work on the house

These are some of the discoveries from within the walls. Sorry, no photos of mice.

Calendar from 1923, an advert from the Saturday Evening Post, the first page of The Catechism of Christian Doctrine, a postcard to John A. (complete address is “Scio, OR”) reading “To John from Sr. M. Lourdes. May all the Xmas joy be yours now and always”, a page torn out of the dictionary, a shipping box, and a really big screen door stamp on something of questionable use. I suspect the reason the dictionary page is for the definition of “Conscience” is due to the things of which we don’t have photographic evidence.

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A garden without change is dead!

This being my first month to invest in the garden full time with reckless abandon since God only knows when and God providing free wood chips, truckloads (literally) of compost thanks to little brother hauling my way in-between loads taken to the filbert orchard, and the necessity of increasing functionality and efficiency for when I do actually have to go back to an office place. And Spring fever hitting in full force with all the new life and swarming bees and birds everywhere.

Let’s call this Version 2.0

Considering my knowledge and experience of how to do something is more often than not the fact that I’ve witnessed my Dad do things and never actually done them myself. He knows how to do SO MANY things, seriously. My Dad can fix anything. And I’ve always let him! So this high tunnel has been an adventure in electrical work, wiring automated roll up sides, irrigation and planning out permanent beds. Thank For for my little brother who is willing to offer suggestions and support and a hand whenever he stops by- the roll up sides would have gotten the better of me if not for him stopping by and connecting the common wire where I’d misconnected it. (I won’t tell you how many times I wired, tested, unwired, tested, rewired the roll up sides because I did’t know what was happening!) He also came to the rescue when, the day after the sides were both up and down on their own, the three precious miscreants disconnected them for me. No, not my nephews. Although they are just as cute!

Let’s call this Version 8.9.
You would have been smart to invest in pipe tape before the Stay at Home order was put into place. All those “changed plans” dollars I’ve theoretically earned have earnestly been invested in taping and re-taping. And taping again.

Tremendous gratitude to Mr. Herman for sharing his wisdom and some irrigation supplies! I literally could not have done it without him! And he simply said he had spent years perfecting his own system and what was the point of keeping the knowledge to himself? I love him! Such a good man! Not all the dots are connecting in the system quite yet (not to mention there’s no dripline/soaker hose to water with)…. Which makes the wood chips additionally important- they cover all different types of sins! The three culprits are in both photographs below. Keep scrolling for more! :-D

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Back to the house, eh? I think this is where we left off last time:

If only I had a dollar for every time plans have changed for the house.

Next steps? The trusses are here!

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All stood up! When does the roofer arrive? There are so very many roofing options. What do you think? Metal roof again?

Oh, look who else we have in the garden. It’s like living totem poles sometimes, especially with the asparagus. The totems don’t always live long. The nephews are so much fun to help collect slugs to feed to their ducks! And when you have a jar full of slugs, you have to admit, they are actually pretty interesting to observe…. When not eating asparagus that is

How much do slugs love the garden? Let me count the ways

It’s been awesome to work in the big orchard, too! Here’s a photo from a month ago and two from just this week:

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They just grow up SO FAST!

What else is happening on the farm… Hmm… Hauled the first hay Mother’s Day weekend!

And they make hauling hay SO worth it!

Hope you are finding goodness and beauty in the world around you! I see it on those lovely bovine faces! In the clearer skies as a result of less air pollution. In the extreme shooting stars Halley’s Comet brought us- wow, looking forward to seeing those again when I’m 94! In the beautiful sunrises and sunsets. In the magnanimous rainshowers experienced in the high tunnel amphitheater- WOW! In the first strawberries picked and the first tomato blossoms. In seeing my nephews “helping” in their garden, on the farm, with the chicks, ducks, guineas and slugs. In watching the men invest life and hope into a dilapidated old house. In learning how to connect, adapt, create with this new Normal we are living in- both the concrete ways like building an irrigation system and talking with friends and family as well as delivering roasted hazelnuts! (Look for some grown organic hazelnuts in snacking sizes available near you soon! Thank you to Sunbow Produce CSA and Midway Farms farm-stand for being loyal partners!) In blooming things all through the wild garden Buttons of Bachelors, let me count the ways!

Okay, on to the next adventure- taming the mountains of woodchips my trusty tractor driver (my mama) moved from the 5 ton pile into more manageable bits around the yard, harvesting, planting, preparing to be planting and harvesting, developing a veggie wash station outside the house, installing the electric side of the automatic part of the irrigation system- eek! And if I can convince my little brother, Dad, Mom or someone to hold a ladder for me, I might get really ambitious and take the powersaw to the high tunnel. My other brilliant uncle, Tio Leonardo, explained how to add a vent to the top. And there’s this new electric saw. It would be pretty easy to manage 15 feet in the air. Can’t be THAT much different than pruning a tree, right? … Maybe my Guardian Angel will hold that ladder.

Look how well trained she is for milking!

Love to you from the on farm isolation. Oh wait! The photo I promised those who “kept reading”:

Two years later. Circa March 2020

Always Changing

SURPRISE! A new look for the blog! For those of you who are uncomfortable with changes and new and different, do keep reading and you will find the same quirky writing with excessive photos. First and foremost, I know you are wanting to know what happened to those beastly beets. They were delicious! Except so mild tasting I can’t decide if they could have crossed with Swiss Chard. Are Swiss Beets a mild tasting cousin? They might be now!

All but the carrots were from the garden! Well… or the olive oil.

You must also be wondering what happened to those baby chicks? 8 of them are contributing to breakfast with 7 brothers contributing to dinners. Those chicks were the most hideous pullets I’d ever seen. I think the ugliness kept them from being eaten by the raccoons. Now they’re all grown up and trying to start families of their own… And they’re trying to do it under the old house! Keep reading, there’s a photo coming later.

This was when they were having their terribly awkward chicken “teenage” phase

And maybe wondering about where I’m working? I have been social working at a private medical clinic. Currently I am COVID unemployed; temporarily out of a job until social distancing is out of the picture. Hence writing a blog!

Okay, I know you are most actually here and willing to interrupt your HGTV quarantine binge to see what has changed with the house. Most striking; here’s what things looked like two years ago:

Photo circa March 2018.

Or maybe not, I mean, look at that old dump. Surely that house has been burnt down by now. Poor old thing. Here’s where it was featured in a previous episode: Neighborhood Beautification. Keep reading and you might find a photo of those same daffodils. How have things changed since our last episode in September? Check it out!

Let there be LIGHT! And stumps. Many, many stumps.

Everything was logged, so the landscape is completely different. All the firs. That giant landmark of a cedar tree at the front mailbox is gone. And we put the house wrap and siding on in October. On one of the windiest days in the history of wrapping houses, to be sure!

All wrapped up! Unfortunately, no rapping occurred during the process.

The siding went up relatively quickly after the house wrap. Perhaps to hide all the wrinkles? (and taped up spots to patch up the match up of the wrap up). Surely you have seen scaffolding put up alongside of a house to get someone up to have the exterior worked on or painted. Apparently renting scaffolding is expensive. Like the people renting it out know it’s impossible to be working on a second story without a way to get up there. So people have to rent or buy scaffolding. Unless you’re my Dad!

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I love that guy so much! Surely this house is a coming together of family, community, and extensive God-given ingenuity! (Intelligent or miserly, I’ll let you be the judge) My Dad and little brother are the heroes of this adventure. It has been so fun to see what I may [or may not! Keep reading!] walk into when I get home from work. So fun to see what has changed. Sometimes it’s a big “WOW! That was not like that this morning!” Like the day there was a hole in the kitchen floor where all the cupboards and sink had formerly been attached.

Careful on your way out the door!

Experienced carpenters said there would be heaps more work to be done in restoring as opposed to burning it down and rebuilding. Every beam that is cut into has the potential to be hollow. There was a tiny little bit of water damage behind those kitchen cupboards. So, there was the day I came home and there was a new beam and the stairs didn’t match up anymore. One time the cellar inside the woodshed was completely de-constructed and gone. Other times it’s mom sending me a text that the woodshed is going right now (keep reeeading!). The discoveries in the wall as walls are opened up. Then there was the day the glorious indoor heating was installed and I moved into the house!

And then it became Home.

Findings from inside the walls, in the attic crawl spaces, under the house and everywhere in-between include the following: Chew cans, Mason jars, dead cats/mice/rodents, glass topped canning lids, newspaper scraps from 100 years ago pasted to boards (wallpaper?), a shoe with a wooden sole still stuck in the wall, a calendar with an illustration of the Holy Family circa 1923 “Compliments of Rev. A. M. Steder, OSB, Pastor”, a postcard to “John A” reading “To John from Sr. M Lourdes. May all the Xmas joy be yours now and always” with an illustration of baby Jesus coming to visit, a Saturday Evening Post, an old school library book checked out in Nov 1921, a western novelette, a Baltimore Catechism missing the front cover, the page of the dictionary from “Confection” to “Conscience”, old packing boxes…

It looks great on the outside now, right? To keep the level of motivation at it’s highest levels, the front side has not had siding done yet. It’s like the before and after edition all in one structure- just walk around to a different side of the house! I feel like we could be a field trip destination for a contracting or architecture class… But probably not for the class on putting up new siding.

So. This was before the day I came home from work and didn’t have a woodshed to walk into! It was one of those projects multiple people had been consulted about multiple times, Dad and Mom had discussed, decided and planned on many different things. Renovating the existing cellar. No, how about if the back porch was extended instead. Okay, let’s talk to the county about permits for a new addition. Talk to all the contractors. After they talked to Dad’s little brother (the source of first hand experience and consistent inspiration throughout this adventure) who sent them a sketch of his vision, something . Scrap the last three plans, Uncle Jeff knows what he’s talking about. Let’s demolish some stuff!

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Can you see the look on Dad’s face? Compare that level of joy to the look on his face when he has a “warming” fire and it would be hard to decipher which he enjoys more! Or Uncle Jeff, for that matter! You can see him holding a board up against the house for the newly changed and most updated plan for the new roof line- consistent with the rest of the house. They already have the concrete footing in place and have been building frames for the stem wall this week

Well, this post has been saved as a draft for a week, yet the weather is SO BEAUTIFUL and cooperating with garden changes. So hopefully there are enough photos to keep you satiated until the next episode! I love you so much and am sending you a big virtual hug!

6 month blog post

Here it is! Just a teaser to let you know I’m not wasting a moment of this blessed COVID social distancing. There is so much happening right now, locally and globally. It’s like a world-wide snow day… with the significant risk of death if you go out and catch a cold. My hope for you is for you to be able to appreciate what a gift this time can be! How rarely do I have the time to simply be present to what is happening immediately before and within me- the people, the lack of people, the way it feels to hear the playful sound of a rain shower coming through and accepting the invitation to play, the clouds gloriously filling the sky and the desire to share it with someone at an unacceptable social distance, the feeling of accomplishment after standing up from weeding a flowerbed, the hummingbirds attacking (or is that courting?) one another, the light on the moss on the oak tree and the hope it gives me for eternal bliss, seeing the anxiety in those I love and care for as they struggle with the uncertainty and wanting to give them the gift of peace that comes with trusting God to be in control, befriending the three little dairy calves and the dream of a milking parlor to be built by the time they are ready to be milked, seeds planted with the trust in God the Creator to CREATE, to see the little birds looking for little bugs and hope they don’t find my little seeds, the longing for community, the effects of spring starting to become manifest after the long winter, and the progress on the old house. More to come later, I promise!

And, of course, the hairy beasts that come out of the garden after a long winter. I should put a photo of myself here, too, huh?