1 Year and Progress!

"I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy."

Marie Curie



Some of the chairs we have found

 Well,  we are putting that quote to the test.  At Thanksgiving we passed the one year mark of Watermark Woods.  We have been so busy the past few weeks.  Where to start?

A huge mile stone has been securing some reliable scrappers.  Affectionately called 'The Steves', our scrap haulers are making significant progress.  Several of the large barrels are gone and many of the smaller scrap heaps have disappeared.  We think they are even going to take the old international pick-up truck.

Another milestone has been the progress we have made cleaning out the house.  Mike Ruttle, Chris Byron and the Jim & Marie have helped us make huge strides.  Mike, Chris and the boys got the front porch completely cleared and even made it into the front door.  Jim and Marie came and we cleared all but the two back bedrooms.  Jim helped us with the burn piles and Marie shoveled more animal scat than any human should.  Thanks mom and dad!  Chris Byron came in and helped us clean out those last two bedrooms and we are down to just minimal cleanup.

Found Items:

• 20+ Antique chairs.  I hope to take them to the auction house.
• 5 toilets
• 2 auto windshields
• 1 really cool skeleton key and glass doorknob
• 1000+ cabinet doors
• 100+ cabinets
• 4 really ugly sofas
• 1 wheel barrow full of sand with a flat tire
• 2 dishwashers
• Several cook tops and stoves
• 1 antique craftsman table saw, with sawdust

Really you wouldn't recognize the place even if you have been there within the last month.

 

table saw

 

The Steves with two of the barrels on the truck



  



Movin' along

We have started really trying to clean out the house so that we can assess if it usable or not.  It would be so nice to live at Watermark Woods and get down to one property and one mortgage.  Given pending changes in taxes and the economy,  we are thinking it would be in our best interest to get out there sooner rather than later.

We have filled our 2nd dumpster and awaiting the arrival of the third.  Sunday we worked really hard and got most of the front porch cleaned off.  It will be nice to work on the actual inside of the house.  I will be out of town next weekend, but Chris is planning a work weekend while I am gone, so I expect to see significant progress, wink, wink! 

This week,  I finished putting the garden to bed for the winter.  I hope to get the soil of the back part of the garden turned over in the next couple of weeks so that we will be ready to plan corn back there this spring.

The herbs in the forest herb garden have not been dug up since that first time.  Thank goodness for small successes.

Endangered Herbs

My friend Judith gave me a great idea to have an endangered herb garden in the forest.  We picked out a nice spot for it and ordered some herbs.  This week I dug up some ground and planted hyssop, woodruff and wild ginger.  I now have a rustic little herb garden area in the forest.  My biggest fear is the deer will eat my treasures,  but hopefully they will go un-detected!

Judith also helped me identify some medicinal and edible plants we have growing on the property.  We came across tons of garlic-mustard.  There is a nice crop of mullein that would have been great the prior week for Jackson's bronchitis.  We gathered some yellow dock and I baked it into some muffins for Cooper and he never suspected a thing.  We also collected rose hips and I made some tea,  it was a little bitter, but I think worth the benefits.  We have lots of poke, but apparently that can be a little too potent if prepared wrong.  We found quite a bit of plantain which I was happy about,  I hope to make some plantain salve in the spring.  I was hoping to find jewel weed for my current case of poison-ivy,  but I will have to wait until spring.