A few last pictures of the BBQ boys weekend.

Blair took these pictures and  I thank her. Didn't get to them until today but better late than never. The idea was to have an "under the Tuscan Sun" style dinner which you can see from the last few we succeded in spades.

Some before and after of the country home.

I don't have a lot of before and after pictures but the following shows some of the progress being made at the country home. The first two pictures are from only two weeks ago when we removed some brush from around a propane tank in order to move the tank. It was between the three trees in the middle of this picture. Notice the tall brush to the left in these two pictures. It took a lot of work but we removed the brush and the following three pictures show the after pictures. Two show the stumps that still need to be removed and the last shows the new view. You can actually see the yard. Neat and tidy and much easier to maintain especially since we will be able to get through the area with the tractor lawn mower.

There was what I thought was an ugly garden behind the sunroom that was overgrown with weeds. When we removed some of the weeds we discovered it was an over-grown pad of two by two walkway stones ( about 20 ) which had turned into a weed patch. We removed the stones and I replaced everything with new top soil. One tree trunk still needs to be removed. Again much neater and will make cutting the grass easier as well. Less is more. The first two pictures show my weed infested sitting 'pad' which is behind the bird house and the second shows a little bit of the old garden on the left. The following two show what it looks like when I was done. Again the tree trunk will be removed. I also only have a couple of the windows in the sunroom open ... there are 11 in all a bit of a pain to open and close so when I'm only up for a few days I just open a few to get a cross breeze. We have now found five of these "pads" scattered around the yard. They are all about five by ten and seem to serve no purpose at all ... she was an english gardener so maybe it was something that the english add to their gardens. All but one will be gone shortly just like this one is now gone. Still one to decide on since it is much bigger and could serve a purpose. I would like to get rid of it ... Lucy wants to wait.

I can now get through here with the tractor. It will fit in better when the grass seed germinates.

Ah my garden. I think I've spent more time working on the garden than any other aspect of this property. The first shows it in raw form and the next show me cutting weeds. It used to be in two pieces with one side being a dog run and a tall fence seperating it from the garden. I took out the tall fence which left it open at one end of the coach house. This was necessary in that I hauled in about 150 load of new top soil with my tractor and added in almost 30 bales of peat moss. I dug out the dog run and made the garden bigger, added a bench on which I have six rain barrels and left a walkway between the two. On the weekend I closed off the garden and cut some of the tall fence boards down to size and squared off the fence. I also have created a smorgasbord for the rabbits ... indeed a gourmet smorgasbord. So I now am putting chicken wire around the bottom of the fence to try to keep the rabbits out. Didn't finish this weekend so the rabbits have one more week to feast and then hopefully the chicken wire will keep them out. They are so tiny that this may not work though. We will see.

The garden is now fully planted and I will open a veggie stand at the road in the middle of august. Tomatoes anyone? The plants are bursting with small little green tomotoes. I planted one hundred and 21 tomato plants .. I need only about a dozen. Ouch.

 I'm thinking of building a garden shed on the open corner. It is 12 by 12 so I have lots of room and some of the new designs are quite attractive.

 Follow the pictures from the beginning to the most recent at the end. Serious progress.

Now to deal with the weeds. The weeds are growing like well ... WEEDS. The garden had not been touched for at least five years. I cut them down and vacuumed out the area to remove the stupple and the seeds but I've discovered that the roots now grow again so I have tons and tons of weeding to do. I will keep on top of it this year but come the fall it will be 'round-up' time to kill the rest. Hopefully this will keep them at bay next year although there will always be weeds to contend with. .... I was at Lee Valley today and bought eight different tools to help remove weeds. Tools of all shapes and sizes so be prepared to sit in the garden for an hour on your visits. I also bought some knee pads to cushion yourself from the ground.

The bush in the centre of the garden in the middle picture is my blueberry bush. It is absolutely loaded with blueberries so .... "Pie anyone?"

This is what I started with. Notice the tall fence between the garden and the coach house which shows better in the following picture. It is now gone.

Me working the weed wacker ....

This is what 28 yards of top soil looks like. About two thirds went into the garden one load at a time.

My rainbarrel system. They are all interconnected so when one fills it then leaks in the next and the next. I'm going to connect all the hoses at the bottom so they also will all empty at the same time. Notice each is two inches higher than the next to facilitate them overflowing into each other. A work of art and near genius if you asked me ... now we need some rain. Actually it did rain last week and four of the six fill up to the brim.

An early stage of planting. These spiral things you get at Lee Valley are fabulous so I bought a pile more today.

I took out the tall fence ... the remaining you see in this picture is now gone. I also extended the garden out another six feet so there is now a small pad between the garden and the coach house. Taking out this fence created a huge gap between the coach house and the garden which was handy when I had to get in with machinery. Now that is done I closed it off which you see in the next pictures. My blueberry bush is now about twice this size.

This is the area where I'm thinking of putting in a garden shed. The new fence is actually removable. Take off a couple of end boards and it lifts off so that I can still get in and out with equipment if necessary.

Notice my Blueberry bush. Yum Yum.

Progress at the Homestead

The last blog showed me clearing brush out of my garden about a month ago... this picture and the following few shows what a months worth of work can accomplish. Garden is planted and growing well. I now have to build a vegetable stand at the road in order to get rid of all the tomatoes!!!!

This is the smaller of the two upstairs bedrooms and the only one I have reasonably finished. I didn't do the floors other than put a coat of varnish on them to clean them up and to keep the dust out .. still needs baseboards and I will eventually put in a bird's eye maple floor .. indeed all of the old house will get a the new floor and bird's eye maple mouldings around the floors and windows. I like maple since it is very light and very hard so will last another 150 years.

This is the second bedroom upstairs. I put fire and sound insulation in all the attached walls, re-wired everything, put a new stud wall up on the one wall and lined the closet with cedar planking ... it fits so snug there is no need for a moulding. This room also will get bird's eye flooring and mouldings. I hope to finish it this weekend with the exception of the flooring and moulding which I don't plan to tacke for quite some time. With painting though it will be usable.

My new propane tank which is out behind the coach house and close to the garden. It used to be up near the house and I didn't think it was safe in that location and it was hard to get to if it needed to be re-filled. The garden in the background will also be squared off with fencing to enclose it to the coach house. There was an old fence dividing the old garden from a dog run and I kept the boards so it will all blend in nicely. I'm also thinking of building or buying a tool shed to put in the corner.

Last weekend Bun and Tom came up and we started cutting off the lower branches from the pine trees. The picture above is the way it was and the pictures below is what it looks like after we did the first couple trees. Two more to go on that side of the house and about a dozen scattered around the property. It cleans up nicely. Teh orange thing is my chipper/shredder. A beast of a machine but the absolute best tool that I've bought so far. I've used it extensively and man o man it does the job. Scarey mind you since it could take your fingers off in a heartbeat but I'm very careful and they design it to be somewhat idiot proof. But as they say, "Nothing is idiot proof to a dumb enough idiot" ... I promise to be careful.

My diseased fruit tree ... one of many with the same fungus. I took a piece to the nursery and it is NOT savable ... five had already been taken out and we took out another and there are a few more to eliminate. Next year I will replant the orchard and in a couple years time will have fruit again.

The back of the library with the three massive bushes removed. You can see the exhaust from the propane space heater and there is soot all over the back of the library wall. The inspector asked me to take out the three tall bushes since it was impeading the flow of the exhaust and leaving the black stains on the wall. I think the theme of "less is more" holds really well.

The following is a much better picture of the soot issue with the space heater. Once we removed the trees we also could see the pond and some of back yard. I'll wash this down and clean it up with some deck cleaning spray which will get rid of the black and in a few months it will all be uniformly grey again.

Take a close look at the following pictures. This is where the old propane tank was located. It was overgrown with a huge garbage bush that had completely enveloped it so it had to be removed to take out the tank. By doing this it opened up the entire side of the house and you can now see into the back 40 and the blue spruce's which were previously hidden by these bushes. There are two more of these bushes to the left of this area and we are going to take them out as well. A shit load of work but once again ... "LESS IS MORE"

You can now see through to the spruces in the backyard and indeed can see the yard. I'm taking out the ones on the left as well which will really  clean up this area and think of taking out the big massive lilac tree on the corner of the house. Or at least cutting it back quite a bit.

Life is good ... enjoy ....

Autogure reporting in from our country home