Cabinets

The cabinets are installed. It went off almost without a hitch. The man that I hired to install them was very good. Very meticulous like me. Not once did I have to tell him, "That's not right!" or "This goes here." or "Where did that big scratch come from?" or "That's not level."

They look great. I'm more than a little miffed with the designer, though. I only wanted a couple of cabinets with pull-outs in them. She insisted that I needed pull-outs in the big tall cabinets. I gave in on those against my better judgement. But I told her to order the other cabinets without pull-outs. Well, almost every cabinet has pull-outs. It's a huge amount of wasted space for those stupid drawers (I'm all about using space efficiently)...and it's an upgrade that costs more. I mean, if I had wanted drawers everywhere, I'd have ordered drawers instead of doors. Bah.

And, she didn't order any shoe or scribe moulde. I mentioned it to her before we ordered, but she waved my suggestion off as something that wasn't needed. Well, we need it. So I'm going to have to order some and have the installer come back to put it in.

I forgot my camera, so don't have any pics, but I'll take some when I remember to take the camera with me.

Also, I bought two donkeys today. We got the truck fixed (it just needed a fuse), so I'll be able to go pick up the donkeys and the goat this coming week. I got two "Jennys" (female donkeys) that are supposedly pregnant and due to foal some time this summer. Cute baby donkeys in the future!

Painting

I spent yesterday and today painting the guest rooms and hall leading to them. I finished the biggest one and ran out of paint before finishing the second. I'm painting everything Antique White and it took two coats to cover the green and purple in the biggest room. I think there were a million pin and nail holes in there that I had to patch.

Direct Buy has an account with Sherwin Williams paint supply store. I'm happy about that because that's the kind of paint I like to use anyway. I got the paint half price with the Direct Buy card, which was a happy surprise.

The cabinet installation is scheduled for Friday. Yesss!

When I got to the house today, there was water on the floor in the soon-to-be kitchen. Uh-oh. I think it might have come in under the doorway that we blocked off. I'm not sure what the short term solution to that will be, but the long term solution will be for us to build the new entryway that we were planning...and soon.

First Livestock Purchase

I put a deposit on the goat today. We'll have to pick him up within two weeks.

I wasn't able to go to the farm. I had too many things to do at home and still didn't get them all done. Mostly because I spent the evening watching TV. Oh well, hopefully I can do them tomorrow evening.

Snake!

We were out at the farm Friday evening and Tom was out in the carport moving a small stack of lumber. When he lifted up one of the pieces, there was a snake under it. He called me out there to see. I was sure it was a young rattlesnake. It was about 18-20 inches long and very slender. We couldn't see a rattle, but I thought that was because it was too young. We prodded it into an empty Gatorade mix can and put the lid on it. Then wondered, "What do we do now?" Kill it? Take it out and set it free?

Larry called a little later, so we asked him. He told us it would already have a rattle if it were a rattlesnake. Tom showed it to our handyman friend, Nolan, in the morning and he told us it was a bull snake. Since that's a good snake, they set him free. Perhaps he'll help us out by eating mice or something...that is, if we didn't traumatize him by making him stay in a Gatorade can all night.

With Nolan's help and a 14 hour work day, we managed to get the kitchen ready for the cabinet installation. The new window is installed, the doorway is blocked off, all the electrical work is done, all of the drywall patches are in place, and the 2x4's to raise the height of the cabinets have been nailed in place.

We're going to retain a bit of the 70's by reusing the 30 year old sound system control. It's a radio/intercom system that was also hooked up to an eight-track player. We took out the eight-track and moved the radio/intercom control over to where my desk is going to be. Then we'll hook up my under-cabinet mount TV/DVD/MP3 player to that. There are speakers in every room and on the back porch.

Blackberries Galore!

Happy discovery! There are loads of wild blackberries everywhere. All along our fence line, all along the fence line across the street. I really need to take some time to pick them before the birds get them all. I don't have the time to make anything from them, but maybe I could at least freeze them for later? I've eaten a few and they are quite good.

Yes...We're Busy, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh

Here's the gutted kitchen. In the background is the living room full of the new cabinets still in their boxes.

Bad Dog

And while we were busy putting the roof back on, Pearlie was wandering around outside, knowing she was not allowed. I turned around and she was rolling around on the ground, undoubtedly in something odoriferous that I couldn't see. So she had to go around for the rest of the day with weeds stuck in her hair. See, she's too embarrassed to show her face on camera.

Well Cover, Well Covered

Another project completed! Yay!

The roofers finally came out to shingle our little well cover that Tom had taken down weeks ago. So Tom was able to put it back up with the aid of me, Wonder Woman, and the little red tractor that could. This was a clever idea. Unfortunately, this idea caused a little damage to the shingles.

While Tom was wildly dangling and swinging the roof from the tractor bucket by the chain and straps, it managed to rub some of the color and texture off of the front edge of the roof. No, it couldn't have rubbed it off the back, that would have been too easy. Anyway, probably in an effort to keep me from noticing and getting upset, Tom thought it would be a good idea to spray paint the rubbed spots red.

Of course, that was a failed attempt. Tom is not equipped for such subterfuge. What's the first thing I saw when I looked proudly at the finished roof perched on top of it's new supports? Red spots. I was thinking to myself, "What are those red spots." I supposed it was my puzzled look that made Tom 'fess up. Then he tried to wash the paint off. That was a no go. Oh well, there are worse things in the world than red spots on a red roof.

Dog ... or Donkey?

So, I was sure I wanted to get a Great Pyrenees to serve as a guard dog for the goats that we're going to get. But while I was looking on Craigslist checking out goats for sale, I came across "Guard donkeys, raised with goats", which piqued my interest.

I did a google search for guard donkeys and, lo and behold, people use donkeys to protect their goats and sheep. Apparently, they have a natural dislike of canines and will bray loudly, chase, and even attack dogs and coyotes and some other small predators. Of course, they can't handle mountain lions or bears, but we don't have those at our farm anyway. We do have the occasional stray dog and definitely coyotes. When we spend the night out there, Tom and I can hear packs of them howling and yipping.

If the donkeys are raised with sheep or goats, they bond with them and become protective and possessive. In fact, they are so protective that during lambing (or kidding), they have to be removed from the flock for a while because they will sometimes view the new babies as intruders and will hurt or kill them.

I can definitely see a benefit to having a guard donkey as opposed to a dog, the main one being that the donkey can graze with the goats and I wouldn't have to buy dog food. And the donkeys that were for sale on Craigslist were only $100.00. Seems like a bargain.

Floors and Windows

I ordered the kitchen window today. Just went with a simple slider style rather than something beautiful or different. We've been spending so much money, I couldn't bring myself to spend much on the window. Hopefully, it will just blend in and not be a noticeable feature of the room.

I also ordered the wood floors. One little snafu...the floors are from Brazil and they are having some kind of strike over there. I'm getting all of the stock the company has in the U.S., but it still leaves me short a few hundred square feet. The rest will be on back order and is expected to arrive sometime in June. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.

Our gospel meeting started yesterday and goes through Wednesday, so we aren't planning to spend a lot of time at the farm until the meeting is over. Tom went today and got some work done, but I stayed home to take care of the ordering of supplies.

Wildflowers

Our drive to the farm is beautiful at this time of year because of the wildflowers...that is, if you can look past all the trucks, cars, and guard rails to see them. The primroses are like a river of pink all the way down the median of Highway 80 around Forney. I've included a picture, but it doesn't do them justice. Click on the picture for the big view.

We're making good progress. I keep forgetting my camera, so I don't have pictures of the latest. Let's see, Tom has the kitchen completely torn out, including the tile. In preparation for the cabinet install we have to take out the door and drywall over the opening, Tom has a few plugs and light switches to reconfigure, a couple of drywall repairs need to be made, the texture on the ceiling needs to be scraped off, and the window above the sink needs to be replaced.

I wasn't going to scrape the ceiling or put in the new window until after the cabinets were installed, but Tom insists that it needs to be done before. So, that's next on the list to do. I haven't even ordered the window (on my to-do list for tomorrow). Hopefully, it there is not a long wait time to get that in.

The barn builder has put in the forms for the barn foundation, which is exciting. We're not on his schedule to actually pour the foundation for at least a couple of weeks, but it makes me feel like something is happening just to see the shape laid out. And at least we can go ahead and getting the plumbing in place for the apartment.

The garden is coming along. Everything sprouted except the onions and bell peppers. Bummer. I'm not sure what happened with those. But I went ahead and planted more green beans, corn, and lettuce in the places left bare by the unsprouted ones.

We tried to open the double doors in the dining room this week. We knew the doorknob didn't work, so I took it off and we still couldn't get the door open. Turns out, it has been painted shut on the outside. I guess the former owners decided that it would be cheaper and more convenient to never use the door rather than replace a broken doorknob.

Progress

I wasn't able to go to the farm yesterday or today, but Tom went. Yesterday, he took our handyman friend, Nolan, with him and they finished tearing out the kitchen cabinets and took more tile out.

We've hired one of our neighbors, Perry, to do the "dirt work" on our barn site. He has to level out the pad so that the foundation can be poured. He's a super nice guy. Tom met him out there today and while Perry started on the dirt work, Tom moved all the stuff that was laying around the barn - wood and old wire, etc. The barn builder is going to order the supplies to build the barn soon, so things are under way for that. We're going to have to finalize our plans for the layout of the barn apartment so that we'll know where to put the plumbing before the foundation is poured. The septic system at the house and the barn appear to be finished.

I have to go tomorrow and open all of my cabinets boxes to make sure nothing is damaged. Hopefully, that won't take all day and I can get some other work done - namely weeding the garden and scraping the texture off the kitchen ceiling.

Growing Garden!

Our garden is actually growing. I'm so excited.

From the top picture is the corn, the row of squash and one little bean plant that is the only one sprouted so far. The onions are also sprouted, but they are so tiny, they probably wouldn't show up in a picture.

I spent a couple of hours mowing today and it is getting so pretty and green, I took some pics. One facing the house and the other facing away, looking down the drive toward the street.

Peptic Septic

Ugh. We know nothing about septic systems, but we're learning. The first step in getting our new systems was pumping the old ones. The septic guys did that yesterday. That was a smelly job. He told us that one of them was completely taken over with roots. I'm surprised we didn't have gunk bubbling up in the yard.

So he pumped both of them in the back, then told us we have a "grease trap" in the front yard (in front of the kitchen). I didn't know what a grease trap was, but...OK. So they dug in the yard and found the lid. I was curious about it, so I went out to watch. Apparently, it is a small tank and it was FULL to the brim with a slimy, stinky sludge. When they stuck the hose down in to pump it out, I had enough and went inside.

The worker told me that it needed to be pumped about every year, but it probably hadn't been pumped in several years. It's no wonder. Nobody knew it was there. It was underground. So I asked him how we could have it pumped without digging up the yard every year. He told me they could put "risers" on the top to lift the lid up to ground level. That makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense is to put in a tank that needs to be pumped, but not put an easily accessible lid on it.

Today they are supposed to come crush the old tanks that were just pumped and fill in the holes with dirt. Then they will put the new tanks out behind the fence instead of in the yard. I was told that the whole process only takes a few hours.

Implements and Evidence

Our good friend, Bill, gave us three farm implements to attach to our tractor. Tom has our implements in a neat little row. There's our trailer (compliments of Paden), our tiller, then the three implements from Bill (which are some sort of plows), then our finish mower attached to the tractor.

Also, evidence of our newly planted garden. The tiny green shoots sticking out are the 24 tomato plants. I might have gotten a little carried away with the tomatoes. Tom and I have to build their cages some time soon.

What Were They Thinking?

That is a question oft asked during a remodel.

Who puts one plus inches of mortar under tile?

One nasty little secret we've discovered is that someone thought it would be a good idea to do exactly that. The living room and bedrooms are carpeted and I pulled up a little piece of carpet in the master bedroom to see what it was laid on - the concrete foundation. The kitchen, entry, and hallway are saltillo tile. Apparently, someone thought it wood be a good idea to pour the foundation in the kitchen/hallway/entry about two inches lower than the bedrooms so that they could fill it up with mortar and tile. How weird is that?

I want to take the carpet and tile out and replace all of the flooring with wood. The problem is, if we take out the tile and mortar, which is what Tom has begun to do (see picture), we'll have to build the floor back up with 2x4's and plywood so that it will be even with the bedrooms. It's a mess.

No Asbestos!

The house has popcorn textured ceilings that I want to remove. While researching on the internet the best way to do that, I discovered that houses built before 1978 sometimes had asbestos added to the popcorn texture. Our house was built in 1974. So, the question was, "Do we want to know? Do we want to live with the texture the way it is? Do we want to risk our lives removing it?"

If there was asbestos, to have it removed legally, we'd have to hire a HAZMAT team at great expense. Or we could scrape it off ourselves and hope not to kill over some day because we breathed in a piece of asbestos. Another option was to sheet rock over the existing ceiling...not such a great option.

We decided that it was best to find out for sure and then decide what to do from there. So I risked my life to scrape off a piece and send it to a lab to get tested. We've been waiting a week for the results to be sent to our attorney. I finally called the lab and they told me they had e-mailed the results on Monday (note to attorney...check your e-mail occasionally :) ). And they went ahead and told me that the texture is safe.

Yay! So now I get to scrape off approximately 2,800 square feet of ceiling texture. Anybody want to volunteer to help?

Wallpaper...Bleh

My very good friend, Linda, went to the farm with me today and we scraped off wallpaper in the dining area. It was slow going because we had to tear off the top layer, then soak the backing and scrape it off. It's like twice the work. We finished about two-thirds of the room.

Our compost was delivered, so Tom came out to spread it and the other garden ingredients around and till them in good with the tractor. We have to wait a few days to allow the compost to cool and then we can plant. Woohoo! I'm going to the feed store tomorrow to see what kind of seeds I can get, then hope to plant on Friday if it isn't raining.

I had another contractor come out to give me a bid on tearing out the kitchen. He's supposed to call me soon with a quote. Also, the septic system installer came out to have a look. We currently have two systems for the house, but he's going to replace those with one large onem then put a system out by our barn site for the apartment. Septic installment is scheduled in two weeks.

We also decided on a barn builder - the first man to give us a quote. He came up with a more cost effective way to build it so that the existing structure can be enclosed, although the price has gone up overall because the cost of materials, especially metal, is soaring. We should be able to get that project under way soon.

Workdays Number Three and Four

Yesterday, Tom started repairs on the little well cover roof. The posts were rickety, so he took the roof off and skinned it of it's three layers of shingles. In the coming days, he's going to replace the posts and the roofers are going to come back and put shingles on to match the house. I'm not sure, but I think that used to be a real well and was capped off when the new well was dug.

Today, he finished scraping the grass out of our garden plot and we started a compost pile. I read that it's good to start a compost pile with brush and branches on the bottom, then put compost material on top of that, then more branches in a pyramid shape, then more soil and other compost material. Supposedly, the branches create an air flow that is helpful. So, that's what we did to start our pile.

After helping Tom start the compost pile, I went inside and started the kitchen tear out - taking off paneling, wallpaper, nails, curtain rods. I got the breakfast nook done. The only thing left to do in that part of the kitchen is to take out the door and block it up and remove the old sound system that is there. The radio works well, but it has an 8-track system circa 1970's that has got to go. Then Tom has to do some electrical work.

First Disaster

We spent the whole day at the farm yesterday. First, we went to the organic supply store and bought our organic fertilizer, horticultural cornmeal, and dry molasses. I really don't know what all of those items actually do, but it seemed a good idea. I read an article in the Dallas Morning News by Howard Garrett that said those are what you need to prepare a garden plot...only his recipe included lava sand and expanded shale. Common sense told me that since our soil is very sandy, I didn't need to add any more sand to it, so I skipped those ingredients.

Coincidentally, the store owner decided to give me a book on gardening since I'm a newbie and the book was written by Howard Garrett! I told the man that I had e-mailed Garrett to ask where to get all that stuff and he had recommended that store! I guess he liked me, 'cause he gave me a free bag of fertilizer, too...or maybe it was pity. heh.

We also ordered eight yards of organic cotton burr compost to be delivered (it's made of all the leftover cotton products after the cotton is harvested). After it is delivered, hopefully tomorrow, Tom will till all of the ingredients into the garden plot. Brian (our friend who had come to visit) and I marked 30x30 feet out in the front pasture for the garden. It sounded like a good sized plot to get started with, but after we marked it out and Tom scraped the grass off, it looked more like a postage stamp. But...we're going to stick with that size and see how we handle that for starters. We can always add to it later if we need to.

So, Tom started working on the tractor and I started mowing on the Toro again. The first pass down our very long driveway, I bumped a water spigot and it popped into the air, followed by a geyser of water. So I raced back to the barn where Tom was to find out what I should do. Brian and I found the shut-off valve in the well house, I borrowed a repair kit from Joann, Tom capped off the break, and we all went back to work.

We worked until dark, were exhausted, and covered head to toe with dirt. Ahhhh, the joys of farming.