What's Happening Here?

Well Spring has definitely spring around here!!  We've had so much lovely weather, that we've been spending hoursssss outside every afternoon/evening!  

In the beginning, we decided that the hill on the edge of our new driveway was hazardously steep.  (Really, I feel down it twice, and Kurt fell down it once.)  A few weeks ago, when we had the Bobcat, we piled all this dirt up to start leveling out the hill.  

And then we started bricking up a wall....

And we bricked some more....

Until we were finally done with one side! 

Then we went and picked up a mountain of plants! Two car fulls!!

And then we dropped 'em in! 

Big Improvement, right?  Those 2x4s on the right, mark where the stairs will go.  

So I picked up a truckload of 6x6 pressure treated, and Kurt got to work cutting them in half.

But the 6x6s are so thick, that even cutting through each side with the circular saw, you still have to finish them off with the hand saw.

Six of 'em all sliced and stacked!

 I measured the rise and run of the hill.  Eight feet, and twenty-four inches.  Based on that, the steps will generally look like this! I just stacked them up in the garage, to test fit, and make sure they'd be stable enough. 

And after all of that, we got to digging--again.  Why do all of our projects involve so much digging?!  We've talked about it, and decided that by the time all, or even most of our projects are done, we're going to have killer backs and biceps haha  

Kurt said that cutting in and assembling the steps has gone more easily than he expected it to.  Hopefully that's a good thing!  We're about halfway through putting in the steps (literally, he's put in two steps haha)  Unfortunately, it started raining this afternoon, and it's supposed to rain all weekend!  Boo! 

There's a bit of a lull in the rain right now, so Kurt is outside fertilizing.  That probably means that starting next week, we'll be mowing twice a week.  At least the flowers, and the garden like the rain.  And, it keeps the grass nice and green! 

I have to say, even with the rain, we really love living in the country!  And on the even brighter side, today we bought tickets to see Modest Mouse in Fort Wayne.  We managed to get third row center seats!

I love our life! 
K


Modest Mouse - Sunspots

Weekend Updates!

Happy May!

Have you ever heard the ol' trucker song, "Give me 40 Acres"?   Well that song was running through my head most of this weekend!  Kurt and I spent the weekend bush-hogging the back three (or so) acres of our yard. Let me just say up front--this was far less exciting than the previous Bobcat weekend. 

So here's what the thing looks like.  The best way to describe it would be it's like driving a cross between a 91' Cutlass with no power steering, and a mechanical bull.  It's terrible.  And three days later my hands still hurt!

I didn't take a great "before" photo, but if you zoom in on this photo below, everywhere that's brown was between one and four feet tall.  And it goes back for about 300 yards.  This is half of what we bush-hogged.  Woof. 

So, here's what it looks like when we were all done!  This is from about half way back in our yard.  The brown building in the distance on the left, is the barn that's at the edge of our driveway.  Basically this is a darn huge yard! 

Bush-hogging took four hours on Friday, and another few hours on Saturday.  Then Sunday, we tried a few things to clean up all the junk that we'd mowed down.  We tried using a leaf blower, the lawn mower, and a rake.  All of those things worked a little, but were very labor intensive. 

We ended up heading to Lowes and picking up this lawn sweeper.  Kurt put it together, and then took it for a few passes around the back 40!  As long as the grass is super fine, this thing will pick up 20 cubic feet at a time!

Unfortunately, when you've mowed 3 acres for the first time in a year, 20 cubic feet doesn't get you very far.  So, every night this week, we'll be out there sweeping, singing Give me 40 Acres, and enjoying the sunshine. 

K

Give me 40 Acres

Outside Updates!

Happy Friday! 

A few weeks ago, I decided that we should set up a small garden.  But well, you know me, and I'm not really great doing anything small...

So I had two tri-axle trailers full of dirt delivered!  Really, we only needed one and a half trucks of dirt--but the delivery fee for half a truck was higher than just topping off the truck.  Obviously I just had them top off the truck--I'm not a monster.  

Back behind the dirt piles in the photo above is where the garden is going to go.  I'd hoped that they'd deliver the back by the pines, but the truck wouldn't fit between the trees.  For about a week, Kurt and I moved dirt with the wheelbarrow.  Our goal was a dozen loads a night--which is surprisingly awful haha

Woof.  This was terrible! But we moved about sixty wheelbarrows to get to this point.

These plots are 10 by twelve, and the goal is to have four of them that are one foot deep.  It was obvious that we were going to have to find another solution....so bring in the Bobcat! 

After a few hours of zipping around in that thing, here's where ended up!  This was INFINITELY more enjoyable than the wheelbarrow.  Don't get me wrong, it was still oddly exhausting, but it was so much better.  Kurt and I took turns, and swapped out after every eight loads or so. Whichever of us wasn't driving, would grab a rake and spread the dirt out level.  The Bobcat wouldn't fit well into the inside paths, so we had to dump each load on the outside perimeter, and then rake the dirt towards the inside corners. 

I've ordered seeds and plants, and now we're just in a holding pattern for a few weeks!  We planted strawberries, blueberries, and black berries. because they arrived early, and the instructions were VERY specific.  "PLANT IMMEDIATELY!"  I'm a little nervous, and have been covering them overnight, but fingers crossed that they hang in there! 

I think we should be able to plant the first round of potatoes next week.  I've been consulting the Farmer's Almanac, but also trying to strike a balance with the planting instructions on all the packages.  We'll see!   This is our first real "farm" undertaking, so it's exciting and nerve wracking at the same time! 

Stay tuned for more planting updates, and to see what the heck we're doing with the 750 bricks Kurt ordered!  

K

So We Moved....Like, a Year Ago

 
Well hello!  It's been a shamefully long time since I've written a post. It's bad--and I feel bad!  But I'm back!  And hopefully, I can get back into the swing of things as we ramp up work at the new house!


So, this cluster has gone country!! 


Kurt and I had been talking for a while about how nice it would be to find a house with a little bit of land, on the outskirts of town, when I happened to see a listing with what I considered to be a killer bathroom....

I mean, come on, right?!  Who could possibly see this bathroom, and not want to see it in person?! 

It all happened so fast.  The email came in late Tuesday night.  Within ten minutes, we had a viewing scheduled the next afternoon.  Wednesday afternoon we put in our offer, and Thursday morning, we got a text from the realtor saying it was ours.  (Needless to say, this was infinitely easier than the last house I bought!) 

We closed right before Christmas, and spent out holiday break painting, and starting to move nonessential stuff over to the new house.  There wasn't a terrible amount of work to do to the inside of the house.  The kitchen was recently updated, the living room was already lovely (barring one green wall.  I just don't go in for green.)  We painted the master bedroom, and bathroom too.  Really it was just paint, paint, and more paint! 



Alright, enough talking!  On to what you really want to see!  Photos! These are all listing photos, but as I get back into the swing of things, I'll post more current photos too!  There are three more bedrooms upstairs that I don't have any pictures of.  You know me--I don't do a great job of remembering to take photos as I go...

Outside of the house.  Who's pumped for a garage?!

Kitchen from the dining area.  Does this floor look familiar? 

Living room with that green wall. 

We LOVE having this wood burning stove!  

Master bedroom.  You can see why we painted.
At the last house we hated red, and apparently at this house, we hate green. 

View from the hot tub room.  Surprisingly lovely view! 

Bathroom - One Full downstairs, one half upstairs

Loads of storage--even if we're not making the most of it yet! 

Ladybird is a big fan of the wood stove! 

Nice sunset view of the backyard!

And finally, we added a new fur baby to the family!  This is Peanut!  She's a beagle mix, and she's well on her way to being best friends with Ladybird--well, as long as they can share the heating pad! 

Snuggle pups!!  

So, that's what's been happening at the Scott house!  Since it seems like maybe Spring has finally sprung, we're starting to shift our attention to outside!  

With any luck, I'll post some photos of our outdoor progress tomorrow!  

With any luck, I'll see you again soon! :D

K

Old Crow Medicine Show - Whirlwind