Dining Chair Redo

It's time to reupholster my dining room chairs; probably past time.

First of all, let me show you my dining room in my last house. 

This dining room I loved.  I know that pink ceilings are not everyone's cup of tea.  It certainly wasn't our realtor's cup of tea and he lobbied to have the whole room painted beige.  He finally won when the water heater broke and ruined some walls.  I gave him permission to have the painter paint the dining room "while he was at it".  Blah.

Anyway, I had the chairs upholstered in a pink tweed-like material.

  I paid to have it done instead of doing it myself, like I normally would, because I wanted the seats to be sort of rebuilt with new padding, because these are the most uncomfortable chairs on the planet.  Pretty, but uncomfortable.  And, you know how people won't leave the dining table after a dinner party.  I can hardly drag them away from the table and into the living room.  I can't imagine why anyone would want to sit there any longer than necessary.  So...I paid to have it done right.  Did they do it right?  No.  There was no extra padding and since the fabric covered everything, I didn't know what was under there, until now.

So, there is no pink in this farm house.  The pink must go.  While I was at Hobby Lobby buying the iron scrolly things for the doors, I saw that fabric was on sale and there was some that I really liked.  Instead of my usual waffling and agonizing, I just bought it.  Just like that.  Bought it.

Now I have this terrible, excruciating job.

Pulling the gazillion staples out to get the old fabric off.  As I was pulling it off, I saw that the old fabric was still on there and is attached with tiny little tack nails.

Man, the crummy upholsterer must have wanted to make sure that the pink fabric never came off - ever.  There are two rows of staples, most of them about a half an inch apart.  Ugh.  It may be a very long while before I get one chair done,  much less all six.    

This may be what my dining chairs look like for the coming year.

Repurposing

Replacing the screen on our screen doors has been something I've wanted to do since we moved to the farm.  They were full of probably thirty years worth of dirt, rust, and holes.  There were complaints of West Nile Mosquitos coming through the holes now that the weather has turned cooler and we're leaving the doors open and the A/C off.

Jordan offered to replace the screens and Tom happened to have a roll of brand new screen in his stash.  So Jordan got right on it and replaced all four in one afternoon. 

Wow, what a difference - no holes, no dirt, a clear view, and no more West Nile Mosquitos.  I was so inspired that I went on a cleaning spree and cleaned all the windows and doors across the back porch. 

So, the problem became "how to protect the screens from being pushed out and hole-poked" by big hands, little hands, and other body parts opening and closing the doors.  I ran to Lowes thinking they would have a myriad of choices, or at least a couple, of screen guards.

Nope.  They had one ugly style that I just couldn't bring myself to purchase.  So, I searched the internet...nada.  What happened to those decorative screen guards that used to be on all those screen doors that I remember from my childhood?

I did the next best thing...repurposed.

I went to Hobby Lobby and found decorative ironwork that's meant to be hung on the wall.

And I had Jordan screw them onto the door.  Voila!  Protects the screen, looks great.  At least, I think so.

Lobster Popcorn

I'm a once-a-week popcorn eater and on that one day, I will eat popcorn for dinner.  I like to dress my popcorn up.  I make my popcorn in an air popper, so I start with a blank slate. (Sometimes, I'll have microwaved kettle corn when I'm too lazy to get the air popper out...and that's pretty lazy.)


For a few years, my favorite recipe for my popcorn was butter, salt, cayenne, and grated parmesan (or peccorino).  I often add curry powder to the mix.  For the past month or so it was simply butter, salt and black pepper. So, I bought some coconut butter this past week and thought I'd try that on my popcorn on Friday night.  I didn't want to go coconut all the way, so I halved my regular butter and replaced it with the coconut butter.  Then I added salt, a few dashes of cayenne, and my freshly ground parmesan.
And, I kid you not, it tasted like lobster.  Not bad.

And this is my gigantic popcorn bowl.  I don't fill it up, but I need lots of room to eat it from.

The Weed Problem

We have this obnoxious weed, called goat weed, that will take over the pasture if unchecked.  It seems to be particularly bad this year.  I think it's because the drought last summer killed off so much other vegetation that it left room for the goat weed to really take a stand.

Goat weed is especially hard to kill with herbicides, but we're keeping our hay organic anyway, so Tom's answer to the goat weed problem is to pull it by hand.  He pulled for a few hours every day last week.  In one day, he counted 2,400 weeds pulled. 

This pile is waiting to be burned.

For now, thanks to the liming, the fertilizing, and the weed pulling, our hayfield looks fantastic, but new goatweed pops up every day.  The hay needs to be cut, but we're hoping for one more rain before cutting so that the fertilizer will be soaked in good and we won't lose any of the benefits.  So we're holding out for another week with our fingers crossed.

Deer Harry

Harry showed up with this baby deer a couple of mornings ago.  We don't know if he caught it himself, stole it from a coyote, or found it dead, but to get it into the yard he had to jump at least one and possibly two fences with the deer in his mouth.  He was panting heavily, so however it was obtained took quite a bit of effort.

I felt sorry for the little thing and am glad it was dead when I saw it, otherwise I would have had to save it from Harry which could have been a bit dangerous.

Harry's the kind of dog that you don't try to take food from (except he will let Tom do it) unless you want to lose your hand.  He spent the next three days alternately hiding, burying, and consuming the little critter, all the while guarding it or it's hiding place from the chickens (as if they wanted to eat his dead deer).  As of yesterday, all that was left was the head.  I guess it's completely gone now because Harry hasn't been guarding any particular spot since yesterday afternoon.

On a lighter note...

look what I found in the garden!  I was pulling the canary melon vines (which won't stop producing those canary melons that nobody seems to want to eat) out of the raised bed and I came upon this watermelon.  I found it just in time because it's on the verge of being over ripe.  It's nice and sweet and hadn't gone mushy yet.  What a nice surprise.

More Trench Action

Next up was, or is since he's still working on it, gas and electric lines.

As a back up energy source, Tom bought an electric generator that runs on propane a couple of years ago.  Remember that giant propane tank?

A gas line must run from the tank to the generator.

Then the electric line must run from the generator to the house.

In case of a major power outage, we should be able to run the house electricity for quite some time with the propane/generator set-up.

What Has Tom Been Up To?

Y'all might think I do all the work around here. heh.  Nah, Tom works like a mule, it's just that I'm not out there with the camera when he's working and I forget to write about it. 

His big project for the last month (in the blistering heat) has been digging trenches for water, gas, and electric lines.  Up until now, the water in the barn apartment has been supplied with the same water lines as supplies the water to each paddock.  This is problematic in the winter because when the weather is freezing, the paddock waters must be turned off.  That means no water to the apartment.  Tom wanted to run a dedicated line from the well house to the barn.

So begins the trenching.

Dug with this trencher borrowed from a friend and a lot of help from Nephew.

And, thank goodness he didn't have to dig this by hand.  It was 600 feet from the well to the barn.  (This is the trench already filled in after the water line was run.)

Well, Hello Clematis

I was surprised to see this clematis in bloom.  I planted the little sprig earlier this spring and it has been barely making it through the heat.  I certainly wasn't expecting any blooms from it this year.  But we've had a surprisingly mild August, so I guess it finally got brave enough to put on a bud when I wasn't looking.