House 2 days ago.
I wasn't going out in the rain for a current photo.

The house is now weather tight.  All wrapped up with tyvek and roof paper.  The windows are in as well. We had walkthrus with the
tradesmen earlier this week and they will all be starting work
shortly.  After the walkthru I realized we needed to have on hand
several of the fixtures and the tub.  Unfortunately Chris has been out of town so I got to make those decisions all by myself.  I sure hope he likes what I picked!  If not it does not matter because it is done and well,  I like all the fixtures I chose.

The power company finally ran power to the barn.  Next week they will
energize the line.  It sure will be nice not to have to move all those
extension cords when I mow or to have to explain to Chris why I mowed
over another extension cord.
When we got home from vacation we had 250lbs of food to throw out due
to 7 days without power.  The beets were fine as they are canned and
do not need refrigeration.  I have to call the excavator, Ron, to do
some work so I am going to have to try them soon.

Chris pulled two full supers off the bee hives.   Think there is about
75 pounds of honey just waiting to be extracted.  Now we need to get
the equipment to extract the honey so we can get the honey boxed out
of the freezer.

The eggs continue to come.  We have 1 chicken laying green eggs, 4
laying blue eggs, 3 light brown, and one laying dark brown eggs with
double yolks!  I get 5-6 eggs a day and with the boys gone,  the egg
cartons are beginning to fill the fridge.

In the garden the weeds have not completely taken over, but the
watermelon have.  I thought I bought the baby watermelon seeds, but
these babies are full size.  In about a week I think we are going to
be delivering watermelons to all our friends.  If you live close and a
watermelon mysteriously arrives on your front porch it may be from us.
I am starting to get cantaloupe as well.  The yellow squash has quit
and the zucchini is really slowing down. Last week the boys and I
ripped out the beans and planted mini pumpkins and gourds.  It was
really nice to have the boys working in the garden.

On a dark and Stormy Night.....

 The house is coming along. The roof is sheathed and the interior basic framing is done. We are exploring contracts for roofing and soffits. We are trying really hard not to get too excited as we know there is still a long road ahead. Not an easy feat when I walk around the ginormous pantry and even bigger mud room! Oh to have laundry facilities again....sorry got off on a fantasy there.

Asparagus beans

We had a setback with one of the bee hives. We have two 10 frame hives which a thriving, we even think we will get 80 + pounds of honey this year. The one 8 frame hive had an invasion of wax moths. Chris spent a couple of hours identifying hives with the pests and quarantining them to the freezer. Yes, it is a strange site to open the freezer and see a bee hive! When he opened the hive a week later they seem to have rebounded but he still found a wax moth or two under the cover.

Little blue egg

The biggest excitement has been eggs. We are getting one egg a day from one of the Americana hens. She lays the cutest blue eggs. The taste SO good. Now we just need to get the rest of the girls laying. We have seen several hens practicing sitting in the nesting boxes, warming the fake trainer eggs.

We recently took a trip to visit family and on the eve of leaving, we had a big storm. No power. No water. So at 3:30 am we were collecting rain buckets of water to set out for the chickens. Hopefully the power and auto waterer will be back on soon. We thought we would have enough water in the pressure tank to shower, so I jumped in first and in an effort to conserve the wet stuff I pre-soaped thank goodness I did only face only as nothing came out when I turned the spigot! As we left We had lots of branches down, but luckily no trees fell on the drive as  chainsawing in the dark is not an option. So we got our 4 un-showered selves out the door at 4:15 am to catch our flight.

Garden with trailer in Background

Raising the roof

The guys have been busy all week putting up trusses and the roof sheath. Things are certainly progressing. Chris put the last bits of trim work on the barn this past weekend.

We are still waiting for the septic to be put into the barn. Once that happens we can move our tin can to a shadier spot. Meanwhile we try to make lots of trips to the pool and plan lots of vacations.

This week in the garden we took out the spent pea plants and replaced with loofah gourds. That should be a fun one to watch grow. The loofah seeds were black...I hope that is normal. We also put up trellises for the loofah and cantaloupe. I am still deciding what to put where the lettuce and rhubarb was. Our corn is waist high, and it is not even the Fourth of July! The zucchini and squash are producing more than we can handle. I am giving the stuff away by the grocery bag. I am getting some caraflex cabbage which are really cool cone shaped cabbages, they took a beating from the cabbage moths, but we still have a nice harvest coming in. The asparagus beans are about 8 inches. I can't wait to see if they really do reach 2 feet like the package promised. As for the weeds, the tables are starting to turn and with the high temperatures I can't keep up, time to employ the kids for weed pulling, but that could be more expensive than a bottle of Round Up.

No,  I have not tried the beets yet.

Putting up Walls

We finally found a "constructive" use for some cylinders.  We used them as fill in the garage and part of the basement.  The garage floor had to be brought up about 5 feet and the cylinders were good solid fill.  (We still have lots and lots.) Then it was covered with dirt and gravel and it is currently ready for the cement slab to be poured. 

The Nicklemen guys have been going like gangbusters.  They have the floor framed and sheathed and 75% of the walls are up and sheathed.  We keep walking around and testing out the views and the room sizes.  It is tempting to throw a sleeping bag on the floor and spend a night in the house :)  We are so happy to see progress and things are taking shape nicely.

This week I canned 13 jars of peas and later in the week I froze another 4 packages.  We are going to test which version we like better.  The squash and zucchini is coming in and tasting so great grilled.  We got some freshly canned beets from Ron, our excavator.  I tried to explain that we don't like beet balls,  but he told me that we WILL taste them and next time he is here we WILL tell him how good they are.  I am not even sure how to eat them?  Heat them up,  put them on a salad, add them to a sandwich,  put them over pasta....????  I just remember very vividly tasting some from my mother's fork and I was NOT happy.

The bees are really working hard as well.  Chris inspected hives today and one has a full honey super  for us(40lbs of honey).  The other two hives are working hard to make honey but we won't get as much from them.  Now we are going to need to order extraction equipment soon.  Fresh, organic local honey anyone?

No eggs yet,  but we are checking every day.  The roosters have started crowing....all the time.

Some Assembly Requred

Which box contains the instructions?

5/14 we had three truckloads of materials delivered.  While the house is now on site it will be take some doing before it actually looks like a house.  Nickelmen Construction has been charged with the huge task of making it work.  So far they are working on flooring framing and they have not had an easy go of it.  Marrying up an un-level cement block foundation with a new poured foundation had given them a few reasons to scratch their heads.  We are so fortunate to have such accomplished guys working on this project. 

As framing continues this week,  our excavator is readying the foundation for the concrete slabs to be poured.  Chris and Ron Frye came up with the creative idea to use the cement cylinders as fill for the garage.  The building inspector and engineer ok'd the idea and we will save some $ and use up some of those pesky cylinders.

The grape vines have lots of baby bunches of grapes. 
You can see the bee hives in the upper right.

The garden is growing like crazy!  I have canned several pints of strawberries and this week I hope to can peas.    Everything is up and growing.  My June bearing berries are almost done and the summer squashes will be ready to be harvested this weekend.

The warmer than usual weather has had many effects.  This morning I discovered a caterpillar nesting ground on the broccoli.  I harvested what I could and cut out any crawlies I could find.  While I was mourning the loss of broccoli,  the chickens had a feast! The flea beetles have my eggplant leaves looking like lace.  I sprayed them off with the hose then treated the leaves with some hort oil.  Fortunately the three eggplants that are hanging look fine.

I am a bit disappointed in the rhubarb and I think I am going to rip it up and try a new variety.  The problem is that I have a variety that does not turn red.  In my mind, rhubarb should be red and I really don't like eating green rhubarb. 

The End of the Alley, Junk Yard Alley

The area formerly known as junk yard alley is no more.  Last weekend we hauled the last of the trash into the dumpster.  We still have to pinch ourselves to believe the trash is gone.  Some highlights of what we found.....

• 100's of shower door 
• toilets in many colors
• sinks in many colors
• formica laminate
• corian countertops
• whirlpool tub
• shower
• steel girders
• dishwashers
• ovens
• stoves
• cabinet doors
• 6 wheel barrows
• corrugated metal roofing
• culvert pieces
• pvc pipe
• many many tires
• ride on lawn mower
• tile attached to subfloor
• pink and purple big wheel
• hundreds of 5 gallon plastic buckets
• cutouts from bathroom sink holes
• an international truck with 1988 plates
• fire escape ladder

Turkey Nest,  notice the poision ivy.

Now that the tough stuff is done we were able to take on a fun project.  The four of us blazed a trail about 1/2 mile thru the woods.  Jackson is anxiously awaiting his new mountain bike so he can attack the trails.  About two dys after the trail was finished,  we came across a turkey nest with a dozen eggs.  I guess we will have to avoid that part of the trail for now.  Yesterday while making breakfast,  I only had one egg and was very tempted to grab one of these and see if anyone would notice.  I think the eggs should hatch around June 1st.  I am very tempted to go out on May 31, grab a few eggs, and raise Thanksgiving dinner.

The garden looks so nice,  this time before the weeds take over things always look so promising.  We have been getting strawberries daily and if we have the warm days promised by the weatherman tomorrow should be a bumper crop.  The potato experiment is going well.  Both the grow bags and the bed of straw have potatos growing.  We have also been fortunate to have many fresh lettuce salads.

Foundation

This is taken standing on the front porch.  The boys are leaning on what will be the mudroom and behind them are the forms for the garage foundation walls.  looking into the basement you can see the door to the vault room.

The concrete boys did lots of work last week as they set and poured the foundation walls.  It realy gave us a look at the size of the new garage and add-ons.  Chris had a busy weekend moving the water pressure tank to prepare for the concrete floors to be poured. 

The bees have survived their move to their new hives and it looks like all three colonies are thriving. They all released their own queen from her cage and have begun making honey and pollen stores.  Yoda had a run in with the bees in their first days here.  All of a sudden he came bolting around the corner at full speed rolling and rubbing in the grass to try knocking them off.  I guess that will teach him to not play with the hives.

Yoda has been the constant source of entertainment.  Last week while talking to Chris on the phone,  I decided to feed the chickens.  Yoda seized the opportunity to enter the coop and exit via the chicken door into the chicken run.  He had a grand time pouncing on chickens.  They were not amused by his antics.  I had dropped the phone to chase the dog and apparently did a lot of shrieking.  When I found the phone I had dropped in my panic,  Chris was still on the line.  His only comment was that it sounded like a 911 call.

Jackson and I made a planting bed this weekend.  He worked really hard to dig, separate and plant some bulbs.  We also planted some flowering quince and lamium.  We (I really mean me) are having a hard time not buying all the plants that are out at the stores right now.  We did buy some cool things ... pink forsythias, hollyhocks, corkscrew grass and landulum. Since I will have to try to keep some of them alive until the house is ready for landscaping,  I decided to try my hand at propagation.  I've divided and replanted several plants.  Hopefully come fall they will be alive and have a spot by the new house in which to grow.