The Porch........

.....that I thought I could get done on my one week vacation. Ha! Who was I fooling? Me I guess. I thought I could strip the paint, sand and paint and voila it would be done. After all it is not very big.

So I tore off the vinyl siding. And stripped and stripped some more. Some paint came off in strips other parts I tore off all the skin off my knuckles trying to get the paint off. I am using a heat gun but I am really wishing I had a Silent Paint Remover. I started at the bottom and thought I would work my way to the top and that way Clarke could set up scaffolding for me to reach the top. I am regretting that decision now becasue after 3 days of stripping and get ready for Clarke to come fix up a couple of boards only to discover that the insides and both posts were rotten at the bottom. That threw my timeline right out the window!

Almost everything I stripped is now torn out on the lawn. Hear me grieve?

On a more positive note I think it is going to look much better open. We decided not to put the half walls back in.

I have to decide what kind of railings to use. But before I do....Clarke check out those boards do they need to be replaced because I ain't strippin' them if they do.....

Sure enough all around needed new boards. That cut down on the stripping but it still seems like an endless task.

Suddenly this porch is very large!

OOOOHHHHH my aching arms.

Nancy

Gardening time

We are trying to keep ahead of the crows and the weeds in the garden. The weeds are winning for sure. The crows got the best of us before we could find someplace that sold orange garbage bags. You think that would be an easy task but no....anyway the crows ate all the corn seeds. We were pretty sure they were calling Korn! Korn! Korn! as we were planting it and had a feast when our backs were turned. I had read a couple of years ago that if you put up orange garbage bags around the garden it will keep the crows away. And it works! What we found was it also kept the deer away for most of the year until they get used to the sound that the bags make in the wind. Orange garbage bags make a different sound than plain old black garbage bags.

Of course these don't really help but every good gardens needs one. Yes a husband too!

If you look behind Clarke and the scarecrow you will see that we put hay over our potatoes. A neighbor gave us that tip to help with potato beetles. Apparently the beetles don't like climbing through the straw to get to the potato plant. Verdict so far is that it doesn't eliminate but it certainly cuts down on them. Last year we couldn't get ahead of them. It is probably better to use straw because of the fewer weed seeds but straw is very hard to come by in our area.

Nancy

You have to think more than just the house

When you are restoring an old farm you have to think of more than just the house. We also have to get the fields back into shape. We decided to do one field and lease the other field to a local farmer. We knew that we would never be able to do both fields this year so for us this was the best plan. That way both fields would be worked.





The field that was leased was plowed by the farmer and seeded with oats. I have to say that the fields look so much nicer plowed and something growing in them instead of being over run with bushes.

Below is our field. We planted buckwheat. There are two reasons for this; 1) buckwheat is a good green manure and these fields need help because much of the top soil had been removed. Very little will grow in a place that the top soil has been removed. so in our attempts to restore the soil we planted buckwheat.

Ah but you said two reasons and you only gave one. The other is too feed out new babies. What would feed on buckwheat you ask?

Honeybees of course! About 3000 per hive. Can't wait to taste the honey!

Nancy