What I've Been Up To In October

October always seems to be an extra busy month.

Perhaps because there are 3 birthdays this month,

mine included.

Maybe it's because the season is changing to Autumn.

I don't really know for sure,

but it's always busy.

We're still working on replacing the windows in the house.

Or, rather, the window fairy 

my dad is still working on replacing the windows.

On the fun side of things, 

we attended a family friend's annual hayride.

It's always a good time, 

and this year was no different.

The food is always phenomenal, 

as is the hot cider.

Plus we had a visit from the grandson,

who always wants to visit the horses and chickens.

He said, "I wuv her!"

He's also quite angry that the raccoon ate all of the chickens 

(except 2).

He plans to have his Poppy get him a real gun so he can shoot the raccoon.

In other news, 

I've been busy working on a book of ghost stories.

Seems a bit odd perhaps, 

but I love the paranormal

and I love hiking

so that's how the idea of a book of paranormal stories

 from along the Appalachian Trail came to be.

And to tie all this in a little,

the very same family friend who plans the hayrides, 

is the same that helped nudge me towards wanting to write again,

though she doesn't really know it.

She said to me once, "Do what makes your heart sing."

It's something I try to tell myself on a fairly regular basis, 

especially those times when I get discouraged 

and think I have no business doing what I'm doing.

Because sometimes, you have to rediscover who you are and who you're meant to be.

Maybe that seems strange to some, 

but I know to others it makes perfect sense.

Life changes you.

So who you were at 18 and who you thought you were going to end up being  

aren't necessarily the same or even close.

Sometimes, you need to take a second to reorient yourself 

and figure things out.

Me- I need to write.

So if you want to read about hiking check out my other blog

Hiking 40 For My 40th

and if you want to know what's going on and where I am in the whole book thing

like the Facebook Page

The Haunted Trail: Ghosts, Monsters and Aliens on the Appalachian Trail

 

I Can See Clearly Now

One day, I came home from work and found this.

We had been visited by the window fairy.

A new window might seem like no big deal,

but I stood there opening and closing the window-

with one hand-

for 5 minutes.

I didn't have to bang on it, fight to open it

or prop it up with a stick.

Each day, I had another window from the window fairy.

Then Saturday, I came home to find 

the window fairy and his helper inaction.

I'm not sure my dad likes that I refer to him as

the window fairy.

I finally got some photos of one of the windows going in.

It's kind of a pain in the neck, 

especially when no two windows are the same.

No, really, none of the windows are the same measurement.

It's truly tedious when you need to put the window in, take it out, 

scrape something, put the window in, go outside and check stuff, go take the window out, 

bang around, but the window in....

you get the idea.

I'm lucky I have my dad to work on the windows.

Big E was able to help with this one.

He's never put windows in before, so he's learning something new.

He has about 14 more he can practice on.

Last night, I spent a considerable amount of time staring at the new windows.

When the original windows are 100 years old

and impossible to clean,

you really appreciate windows you can see through.

New Floor

 These are photos of the kitchen from last year

before we started doing anything.

 You can see the duct tape patch on the floor

where Miss Bertha sat in her kitchen chair.

 The kitchen "table" at the time

was actually a cabinet and countertop

that we removed.

 We painted the walls and removed the linoleum

to find mostly hardwood floors.

But in the back portion of the kitchen, there was plywood subflooring.

This is the area that was added onto the house after it was built.

The line where the hardwood meets plywood is the original

footprint of the house.

I spent a lot of time worrying over that hardwood.

I went through a ton of possibilities of what I could do to save it.

But in the end, 

the reality that there was concrete under the plywood

and the very worn condition of the hardwood

plus the amount of water the dogs slop everywhere,

I decided to go with my original plan of putting down vinyl tiles.

Big E laid the first one in place.

And here we have a teaching moment.

While talking about the best way to attack the floor, 

I mentioned the instructions on the back of the box.

Big E mentioned he had done this before and wanted to start in a corner along the wall.

I agreed to go with his thoughts as I had never done any of this before.

So we started along the wall.

 It goes pretty easily once you get your first tile in place.

 But you really need to follow instructions on the box.  

Especially when your house doesn't have a straight line in it

to save its life

and you're laying tiles with a checkerboard pattern.

You can see the tiles by the doorway are crooked

compared to the tiles Big E is working on in the photo below.

We ended up needing to order 2 more boxes of tile

to replace what we started using.

Once we got things lined up and on the right track, 

it was simple to gets things put down.

And now we have a shiny new kitchen floor.

I miss the hardwood, 

but I surely don't miss the plywood!

Big E also removed the light fixture above the table.

So all that's left in the kitchen for now

is to get the cabinet painted white.

Caterpillars in the Garden

This is the milkweed plant called "Hairy Balls".

I'm pretty sure you can guess why.

And you'd be right to guess that I bought these for the Monarch Waystation

simply because they're called "Hairy Balls".

What can I say? 

I have the humor of a 12 year old boy.

The "balls" are the seed pods and form in late summer/early fall.

They're perennial only in Zone 8 and above, so just an annual here

but you can save the seeds for the following season.

Sadly, I haven't noticed any Monarch caterpillars on the milkweed, 

though I've seen some actual butterflies stopping for nectar.

I do have Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars.

I planted bronze fennel just for them (their favorite food).

While I've been mainly concerned with helping the Monarch population, 

I also want to help butterflies in general because really, 

the world can't have too many butterflies.

In other news, 

I've nearly finished weeding the jungle garden.

With all the hot weather and lack of rain, 

I let the garden go way longer than I should have.  

I'm 3/4 of the way finished cleaning it up.  

And Big E cut down the last of the shrubs we needed to remove.

We still have some stumps to dig out, 

and a large pile of brush to haul to the mulch plant

but it's all coming along.

And once I clean the kitchen, 

I'll share pictures of the new floor.

The Bedroom

This is the Master Bedroom.

It isn't that pretty.

Basically it looks brown.

Big E has a very large wardrobe/Armoire that was built by his great-grandfather

that we'll be bringing to the house in the near future.

And it's very large.

Like, 

"I'm-going-to-go-walk-into-the-wardrobe-and-visit-Aslan-in-Narnia"

large.

I think the dimensions are 72" high, 64ish" wide and 22" deep. Give or take.

So, large.

Needless to say, it took some planning to figure out where it was going to go

and where everything else was going to go

so that it all looked good and not squished into place.

This means, I had to make sure everything would look good and normal.

(because Big E likes to measure and say, "Yep, it fits"

and ignore that it just doesn't flow right, and I have to measure several different areas, 

get a visual of how far out things will sit and picture it all in my head so things do flow right)

We settled on moving the bed between the front windows,

and leaving the long wall for the wardrobe.

We'll be getting rid of a dresser and the tall chest of drawers

(that can be used in the future guest/grandson room),

which will make the room less hodge podge plus add a little space.

Eventually, we'll be building a window seat in the bay window alcove

that will provide storage.

So, while I was unsupervised alone this weekend, 

I decided to move things around and get ready for the wardrobe for when we can get it.

Did I mention it's large?

It has to be taken apart to transport and to fit it up the steps and into the room.

Anyway, I took the wrought iron foot and headboard off the bed.

The plan is to build a platform bed

out of reclaimed wood that offers storage along the base with crates.

But that's down the road a bit.

So I moved the room around, 

and the photos show the new configuration.

Job done.

Except...

I was left unsupervised alone. 

So I ripped up a section of the carpet.

After ripping up the section, 

I texted Big E to see if he minded if I rip up the carpet.

I find it's easier to do it, see if the other person thinks it's okay

and either carry on with what you were doing, 

or ask forgiveness and carry on with what you were doing.

Luckily, he didn't care.

But at that point, I knew there was adhesive on the floor.

Once again, someone thought gluing a carpet to a hardwood floor 

was a good thing to do.

It's not people.

Don't do it.

So I started scrapping with a little putty knife.

The process seemed a little easier than the dining room floor.

I think it's because the carpet that was glued to it had been gone a while

(the one in the dining room was still the one that was glued down),

and a bedroom doesn't have the same foot traffic as a dining room.

I decided it would be best to cut strips of the carpet,

and only work on small sections at a time.

This keeps the ugly, messy, dirty adhesive covered floor covered

while I work in small sections.

Plus it's easier to get rid of small sections of carpet and padding than to

coordinate the disposal of an entire giant room sized piece of carpet.

I also went to the local hardware store and purchased a couple of alternate tools.

One is a paint scraper (which I need for other stuff) and one was a 5 in 1 paint tool

that has a chiseled edge on it. 

It's also stiffer than a putty knife.

So far, I've used these 2 tools (mostly the 5 in 1 tool),

and I haven't needed to use any Goo Gone at all.

And they seem to be better at not gouging the wood.

  I started working along the wall that the wardrobe will eventually live.

When the wardrobe is large and heavy, 

I think it's best if it can stay where it is until it absolutely must be moved.

So the floor will be scraped, and the wardrobe can stay put until we're ready to renovate the walls

and refinish the floors.

Big E thought working in sections was brilliant,

which I am it is.

And I really like the look of the new floors.

The color is better than the color downstairs, 

and I think it's going to look awesome in a room with sage green walls

and woodsy/rustic/outdoorsy elements.

And in case you want to see what we went through in the dining room, 

you can check it out here and here.

It's {Re}Finished

These are the before photos of the old drop leaf farmhouse table

I purchased on Craigslist for $30.

This is the exact condition it was in when I purchased it.

Not much to look at.

Because I wasn't sure of the exact age of the table 

other than it was really old, 

I couldn't sand the paint safely.

Any paint from 1978 or older can contain lead,

and shouldn't be sanded.

So I started out using this safe stripper.

It worked okay for most of the project.

I wasn't too thrilled with the stripping process at first.

It's kind of messy,

but through some trial and error I managed 

to get the table stripped to bare wood.

Then I stained the top.

I went with the Golden Oak color from Minwax

since this piece is going into my dining room, 

I wanted the stain to match the existing dining room table 

as closely as possible.

But, once the stain was dry, I could see areas where there was still

a yellow paint on the wood.

The paint color was nearly the same color as the bare wood

and impossible to see before I stained it.

I was ready to just paint the whole thing, 

or burn it.

Luckily, my coworker spends a lot of time refinishing furniture, 

and he brought in the stripper he uses called Klean-Strip.

He suggested I use that with some steel wool.

And that, thankfully, removed the majority of the yellow paint.

Then I restained the table top.

I also decided to paint the word "Family" on one of the table leaves.

So after asking Big E's opinion, I decided on a font

and transferred it to the table.

All you need to do to do this 

is to print out the word on paper.

Coat the back of the paper with chalk

(I used my grandson's sidewalk chalk)

position the lettering where you want it

and then use a pencil to trace the word.

When you remove the paper, the lettering outline should be visible in chalk.

At the very least there should be a visible indent in the wood from the pencil.

I then redrew the outlines on the wood with the pencil

and then painted.

Some of the letters I ended up having to do freehand because the outlines were very faint.

Then came the painting of the legs and base.

I opted to use spray paint.

I did use a spray primer first before using Krylon Maxx Gloss Ivory.

It took 2 cans of the Ivory to get a good solid coat of paint.

Then 3 coats of poly coat and it's done!

Not too shabby for a $30 table.

I plan to use the table here under the bay windows in the dining room

to hold photos and plants.

And for those times when we might need more table room for large parties, 

I have the table there to use.

Arrivals

So, how many people walk into their Post Office and say,

"I'm here to pick up chicks!"

They're now safe and warm in the brooder in the laundry room.

Originally, I ordered 5, but the Speckled Sussex wasn't available. 

That isn't unusual when you're waiting for eggs to hatch, 

sometimes they hatch as predicted, sometimes they don't.

The Sussex is easy for me to find, so it's no big deal to pick a couple up in the spring.

So in the bottom right is the white Chochin, to the left the white crested Polish

(she already has a white topknot and her name is Lorraine)

the top left is the Dominique I think and then the Silver Lace Wyandotte.

They're so cute and tiny when they're only a day old!