Thursday, May 31, 2012

Kids in the summer

At our house, we have a lot of perennial gardens.  They are filled with lilies, primrose, black eyed Susan's, purple cornflowers, and lots of other things that I haven't identified.  What we're missing is a place to plant the kids' favorite flowers... the annual garden!

So, I took Sydney with me to flower shop.  We picked out petunias (tuna flowers), marigolds, and pansies.  All in shades of purple and orange.  Now, where to plant them??

When the electricians came, we moved the park bench that was in the front of the house and the bricks that it was sitting on.  This left a sunken dirt spot in the middle of the yard.  Matthew spotted it, and said "why not here Mom?"

It's a shady spot, but will work nicely for what they had planned.  So, they went to work digging and stuffing.  In the end, they ended up with a pretty garden.  I can't wait until they flowers grow out and fill in the spaces.  They are very proud of their little spot!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Kitchen update...

I believe I posted before on how we purchased the dishwasher and microwave for our new kitchen.  Lately, we spoke with a cabinet maker, and had a quote done for having custom cabinets made.  STICKER SHOCK is an understatement.  So, we decided to do it ourselves.

With Aaron traveling to Brazil every few weeks, this job isn't going to get done as soon as I would like it. 

That doesn't mean I am going to stop shopping and finding those magic items I want.  It may actually be better this way, so we can make the purchases without going broke.  One of those magic items is my sink.  If we had to purchase all at once, I would have had to settle for a cheap, boring stainless steel sink.  Don't get me wrong, they are nice, but not in my DREAM kitchen.  :)  So, I found a beauitful FIRECLAY sink.  It was a few more dollars than the stainless steel, but in my opinion, worth every penny.  What do you think?

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Little Cedar Berry Farms

The original idea for the name of our farm, was to have a PYO strawberry farm.  After studying and thinking, we decided that having a small orchard would be more fun for us.  We ordered trees, bushes, and vines online, and started digging when they arrived.

So far, we have catawba grapes, elderberries, pears, peaches, tart cherries, cranberries, apples, crabapples, and blueberries planted.  To help the watering, we drilled a hole about 2 inches from the bottom in a 5 gallon bucket, and placed one beside each tree.  Then, just fill the bucket, and move to the next tree.  It really is quite the site to see.

Here's the pear trees right after we got them in the ground. 
Potatoes and onions springing up nicely.

Our catawba grapes

Rows and rows of buckets?  Don't worry, there is a tree or shrub next to each of those buckets.

An early spring then the late frost has done some damage to all our little trees.  The established trees all bloomed early, too, and I'm afraid we won't have much of a harvest from them them year.  Cross your fingers that we at least get something!

Getting POWER!

OK, so we're not actually getting power, but changing the way it comes to the house.  Yesterday, MidAmerica came out to change the pole that sends it to the house. 

It really was quite the site as they pulled the old, dilapidated post out of the ground, drilled the new hole, and placed the new shiny post into the ground.  The electricity to the house never flickered once.


As you can see, Sawyer was enjoying watching the men work.  Hopefully, he has as much fun today, as today is when the BIG work happens.   MidAmerica will be burying the cable that comes from the bright, shiny new pole to the house, and then we have an electrician coming to bury it from the house to the barn and garage.  Oh can hardly wait!  No electricity for the rest of the day, and possibly tomorrow, too.

In the meantime, I keep knitting.  I'm so enjoying the socks.  I have a fire red pair on the needles right now.  Matthew claimed them as his.  I think if I bound them off right now (not even to the heel yet) he would be happy.

No kitchen yet.  We've talked with a cabinet maker, and was told "all or nothing" as for building goes.  We were planning just one at a time, to keep the debt low, but with that attitude, I guess we'll go to Menard's and buy stock cabinets!  I am studying how to do concrete countertops though.  That would be a DREAM!