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