Sunday, April 22, 2007

When it Rains it Pours!

When it rains, it pours! After weeks of inactivity and anticipation, we are thrust into a frenzy of doing! We had our house closing last Monday, the 16th, and then promptly purchased paint and all sorts of supplies to re-do the walls in all the rooms. We really enjoyed the paint names: curling bark for the office/guest bedroom, pebblegrey for the bedroom, wet bamboo for the bathroom, autumn blaze for the living room, sunbaked for the dining room and probably (though not yet decided) fruity flavor for the kitchen - sort of a peachy but not pinky color. NICE! We have had an amazingly busy week with a stressful closing day, really fun painting days at the new house, highly charged greenhouse transplanting, and field tractor work all in one week! We love it, though, and Spencer's musings about possibly training for a triathalon to get in shape after the long winter have all but dissipated as we gimp around with sore arms from painting, and sore backs and feet from standing all day either working in the greenhouse, hauling 50# bags of fertilizer or rolling paint on walls! We have never been so tired in our lives, and we're having a great time! We own a house! We have painted the office/guest room, the bedroom and the living room. Have primered the dining room, ordered our dining table & chairs, as well as couch and chair for the living room. Next up this week is ripping up the carpet and sanding the floors, then sealing the floors, then moving in next weekend! It's finally time! We can hardly wait!!!! So here's some pictures of the progress, and above is a picture of our very first piece of mail - a nice housewarming lavender plant from Mara's mom.

Spencer & our friend Kim prepping the office/guest room for priming and painting















Spencer ripping the carpet from the hall!




















The hall without the carpet! This is solid white oak!!! Can't wait to sand it!

















Here's the living room with the saloon doors - removed now - trying to decide where to put them next....





















While prepping the living room for painting, we reveal 50 years of paint and wallpaper layers! A-scraping we go!
















A sample of our 1950's wallpaper, now removed.














The living room officially de-wallpapered - took us 3 greuling hours. And then the plastering began....















Mara plastering....















Mara sanding....
















Mara priming - 2 coats!















Mara finally painting! This is autumn blaze - we're revolting against all white walls, remember that kid's book, "The Big Orange Splot"?





















We had to put the washer and dryer back downstairs - they were in our dining room, former owners were elderly and couldn't go up and down stairs easily.

Then there's farming! Now that it's nice weather finally (75 today!!!), we're working hard to keep up with all the growing in the greenhouse. Luckily, for the cool last month, we've had our trusty microgreens holding down the bank account and we even did a microgreens demo at Healthy Living last week, which was fun. During the course of our demo (we featured a nice microgreens and mache salad with a balsamic vinaigrette) Healthy Living sold out of the microgreens and mache that we had just delivered that day! It was fun.

Yesterday and today we have done nothing but farm work - spreading compost (first putting the bucket back on the tractor - no small feat, once we figured out the hydraulic system), then I had to figure out how to use the bucket to put the compost in the spreader, which was attached to the John Deere that Spencer was driving. Then I disked in all the compost, and Spencer chisel plowed, and now we're ready for tilling and transplanting next week! Time to put the potatoes, onions, lettuces, and carrots in! We did put some lettuces in our hoop house out at the field last week, so those are on their way. We will have a delivery of potted plants to Gardener's Supply this week, so it definitely feels like Spring! We'll try to keep posting as we move into the new house next week (also we'll post new pictures of the floors, etc. as those projects evolve), and start working out at the field for real.

We have had 3 microgreen harvests so far - each around 30 pounds! Small but mighty greens!

Here's a picture of us "working" our product at the Demo at Healthy Living.

Mara loading compost into the spreader

Spencer spreading compost on the field

More to come soon as life develops. We'll get pictures up of the refurbishing process! Happy Spring!