New Life Old Farmers

Boxing day came with great anticipation. Faucet time! I am nominated since I have the smallest shoulders to crawl under the new sink.

This view only comes from underneath the sink, and I hook up my first sink ever! I am both proud of myself and understand why plumbers earn so much money.

My Loving Spouse gets his turn as well….unhooking up the old faucet. Yes, he has slightly more room than I did, but he also got wet.

We move the dishwasher, install the old sink into the new mud room and prepare….for ‘demo’ day.

I wake up, excited! I was dreaming. Some dream of Hawaii…I dream of demo!

This is the day, that we demolish the old kitchen. We’ve plans to remove all the lower cabinets and pull up the fir floor and sub floor.

A careful ‘whack-attack’ kind of day…

Pooh comes in to supervise.

Sometimes we get really smart, today was one of those days. We hired Young Buck for the day. He was a delightful worker. He worked hard, jumped in and worked along side us, really well. Not belonging to Team Offspring, we noticed he didn’t try to tell us, what we were doing ‘wrong’.

Have I told you, that Demo is my favorite?

The good news about working in the winter, is that you remember how cold it gets. We plan for insulation due to this reminder. Tomorrow’s plan is to insulate the floor, lay a new sub floor, level everything out and continue laying the engineered bamboo flooring.

We’ve waited a long time for this day…

We are tired….

and believe me, we are blessed.

“It came without ribbons, it came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags.” – Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas

This advent has been like no other…

There are lights on the house, because we don’t take them down and most of them are actually working. If remodel dust was a Christmas decoration, we’d be the most decorated house in town. However, it is not and we are not and it is weird.

Two halves do not always make a whole. We have half of a new kitchen and half of an old kitchen and the only ‘whole’ it is making is a whole lot of mess.

We are in the Christmas spirit, it just weirdly doesn’t look like it. We didn’t decorate and we do not have a tree. We’re excited about the gifts we’re making and the meals we are sharing…

…and to be completely honest, we also feel a tad old and a tad worn out. (I can hear Team Offspring, saying well you are old, you’re just not ancient yet.) We’re most excited about our Christmas break from school to pour some energy into this kitchen remodel. We’re hoping for more demo, more dust and great, great progress.

We wish a Merry Dusty Christmas to you all,

..and we are grateful and blessed.

Hal is going to Finishing School. Finishing well is very important. We need to build him his own ‘room’. This room/corral needs to be in view of the rest of the herd, so he doesn’t feel lonely.

If you ever see a farm that is completely tidy with no old bits around, then they are very, very rich farmers. Everyone else keeps anything that might someday come in handy. Hence why on this balmy Saturday…

…we were building a corral with old fence gates, salvaged fence posts and bailing twine.

We dig a few posts…hydraulically, (after getting the tractor to start, Blue has a bad battery, so we cannot turn it off until we are completely done).

We gather up the old gates, while the herd looks on, wondering why they haven’t been fed.

Our new rooster, Russel Crow lets us know that it is well past dawn, even if it is a bit foggy.

We get ready for Hal to have his very own, water, hay and grain.

Isn’t it amazing what one can build with old gates and blue chain (baler twine)?

When Hal was born, my sweet sensitive son took one look at him and asked, “Can we eat him?”

The answer is finally…’almost’, we have to ‘finish’ him. This finishing is a process whereby Hal gets even more hay than normal and grain. The grain is a combo of sorts and will help his beef taste sweet and have the marbling we prefer. This is not an exact science (for us) and at the end of all of this, we will have approximately 500 pounds of beef, so getting it tasty is vital. We plan to sell half and keep half.

We head to the local feed store to buy our ‘grain’. The salesgirl starts to tell me about show steer feeds. I quickly say,

“I don’t care if he looks good, I just want him to taste good”.

“Oh, she says then you want the grain with corn and molasses.”

We also pick up our complimentary ‘Magic Reindeer Feed’ for THE Grands as well.

The pigs almost got out.

My horse did get out.

and the finishing has begun…

We are grateful and blessed.

Home is were your mess is…

Our RTA cabinets are great quality for money. However, the learning curve is a bit steep and the directions leave a bit to be desired. I wouldn’t even recommend them, unless you have one of these…’

My Loving Handy Spouse has spent a lot of time on the floor of our kitchen working on our mess.

Turning a mess into a treasure takes time and tools.

We people need the same, ears that hear with wisdom and truth.

Last week I was gifted a weekend with dear friends in my home town. When I get asked if I miss Southern California, I always say the same thing. I miss my family, special friends and La Cabinita’s green salsa. My friend tried to tell me, that La Cabinita had changed hands and the salsa might not be the same.

Isn’t that the truth, that going ‘home’ might not feel the same?

The weekend agenda was simple…talking, listening, laughing, shopping.

My suitcase had issues. Even though it was warm, I had to wear my bulkiest clothes. Crammed in the case was 6 white picture frames, a gifted wooden sign for the hen house, a new purse (that I NEEDED to carry the items that wouldn’t fit in the suitcase), one new top, 32 German sausages for Christmas eve dinner, a glass chicken bowl and a packet of shortbread.

“Home” should be a place or a people, where we can unpack our soul, our mess and find love, and truth and a hope to make a better life for those we serve. My dear sweet friends are also my ‘home’ as they embrace me and all of my messes and sooth my weary soul.

In the mess there should always be love and wisdom and…hope. My prayer for those who visit here, is that they will always feel free to share their ‘mess’ and find love and support.

PS: I don’t miss La Cabinita’s green salsa any more, but I am indeed, grateful and blessed.

My new pantry is Pinterest Perfect. Well, except for the fact that it doesn’t have a light, yet. We used melamine for the shelves. A tad pricey, but their Formica like boards will make cleaning up spills easy. The distance between the shelves is based on our pantry ‘stuff’, like the mixer and the big bottle of gin.

It doesn’t have a door yet either. Well, that is not actually true, it does have a door, it is just not installed. The door we bought at Earthwise, an architectural salvage store in Seattle for $35. It is currently being painted by My Loving Spouse in our ‘old’ laundry room.

The problem with painting in cold weather is, well…the cold weather. The temperature needs to be about 50 for the paint to dry properly. We explored all kinds of solutions before turning the old laundry room into a ‘paint studio’ of sorts. Emptying the laundry room, causes the mess in the living room to continue to grow.

The best part is that when we are not making a mess, we are making progress. Each piece that goes together, shows the kitchen coming together, just as we’ve dreamed.

Seriously, we’ve dreamed (and are dreaming) of it done, but still we know, that we are indeed blessed.

New cabinets were not in the original plan.

Have you ever heard that joke, how do you make God laugh?

(Answer: You make plans)

We had planned to reuse as many of our old cabinets as possible. However, when you join a new space to a very old space, some adaptations need to be made and this affected our ability to reuse most all of our old cabinets.

The new cabinets arrived! Yipee and yee-haw! Oh, and the truck they came on couldn’t fit down the driveway.

RTA – Ready To Assemble

It only takes us an hour to figure out that we did get the 26 items we ordered. It only takes assembling 2 cabinets to figure out that, we were not assembling them properly. Assembling them correctly certainly ups our opinion of their sturdiness. It only takes assembling cabinet 4 to find we/I ordered the wrong configuration, as it is 24 x 30, not 30 x 24.

We go to bed because we are tired. Everything seems better in the morning…with coffee…and a beautiful sunrise…

…and a new plan.

I can almost hear God laughing, but I do know for sure, we are blessed.

I love, love, love fall. Living here in the Pacific Northwest, just makes it even better.

We got a new set of pigs and they are clearly the ugliest pigs we’ve ever seen. Usually, at this age they are still cute. They don’t get ugly until it is about the time to eat them, but these two….just ugly. (I am sure they will still taste good.)

My Loving Spouse caught another skunk. Skunks are deadly around chickens. He has dispatched 4 without incident, until this one, when there was a bit of incident. Fabreeze, let me tell you, works really, really well!

Fall means pumpkins and even though, my harvest was low, there is always enough to share.

Besides hunting skunks and feeding pigs, we’ve been diligently working on the outside of the house. I was anxious to get it painted before the weather turned. We had to fill many, many nail holes, as well as prime ceder with oil base paint, which was a pain and a half to get where we wanted and not where we didn’t.

I do not have the words for watching this addition unfold. Between it being our own design and mostly our own work, it is so wonderfully satisfying to watch it finally begin to look as we’d dreamed.

Creativity and hard work are quite possibly their own reward, and we are blessed.

I love to read. As a child, Betty could be heard to say, “Put that book down and go outside”, sometimes I just went outside, with the book. All this to say, that when I say I love Dick Francis, I mean that I love his books and have read all 40 of his novels.

Dick Francis had a rich life, first as a Steeple Chase jockey, who rode for the Queen Mum, became Champion Jockey, turned novelist, with a collection of suspense novels almost all set around English horse racing. Not all, but most of Francis’ novels often mention the town of Newmarket in Sulfolk.

Newmarket is situated just between My Loving Spouse’s brother and sister’s homes in England. Every time I would see “Newmarket” on the highway marker, my head would literally spin around.

‘Can we go there? Can we go and watch the races?”

Unfortunately, we always visited when the Steeplechase races were not running….but this time…I got My Loving Spouse to stop… I was enthralled as we passed by Tattersalls, the auctioneers, drove up to Rowley Mile Racecourse and noticed all the very small men in town, who I assumed were all jockeys. My Loving Spouse was happy, because I was happy and because he found a really good hand raised pork pie for lunch.

The Palace stables have been turned into a British Racing museum…what a treat it was to see how the stable square had really previously functioned.

Individual stables turned into display areas.

Owners silks….colors and hats that are unique for every owner.

One area held the Queen Mum’s colors and a co-operative boy puts them on so his Grannie can take a photo.

Also in the background, a racehorse simulator, that one could try…all for free…

It was such a fabulous experience for me to see and walk about an area, that was part of so many books, I have enjoyed. The week after we left England, I read ‘Crisis’ by Felix Francis…all of it set in Newmarket. I enjoyed it from the first page to the last.

It is rare to enjoy an author so much and then get to see and experience the heart of so many stories…believe me,

I am grateful and blessed.

PS: Read Dick Francis…go to England.

Weddings bring another chapter into our lives with joy and celebration. We were filled with gratitude and joy, to be able to celebrate with those we call our family.

Over Labor Day, we were in San Diego, as dear friends wed with an exceptional life story. It was a joyful, fun, one of a kind wedding.

Then we zipped home for the start of the school year and to pull a few more weeds before ‘our‘ wedding here at Glory Farm.

Number One Wife took this beautiful photo on the morning of the wedding and sent it to her brother The Groom/Number Four Son.

Another chapter in his life was about to begin and wonderful memories in ours of a special wedding and weekend filled with joy.

Just before the wedding, THE Granddaughter (one of the ring bearers) smashed her lip on the edge of the table, the horse of honor sneezed horse buggers on the bride and Number One’s dog threw up in the kitchen. Real life was in session.

I had a new bracelet to wear, especially made for me by THE Grandson. I wore it proudly and with joy.

The wedding was sweet and short, which was their desire.

The bride is beautiful, inside and out.

I have few pictures of this chapter, because it is really not my story to tell. I purposely left my phone in the house, leaving me free to experience and enjoy. It wasn’t our production, it was only our stage.

I had brought home for the weekend, one of my favorite books, “My Father’s Dragon”. It is a wonderful read aloud and perfect first chapter book, I hoped to start it with THE Grandson.

Both Grandchildren were enthralled by this delightful book, ‘another chapter’ became their plea. We finished the book in two days with a wedding in between….

and we are blessed.