Fall

With an unlimited supply of wood, 
we have some big fires!

Autumn is in full swing here.  The trees are mesmerizing and the cooler temps are perfect for sitting by the fire.  We don't have an inside wood burner yet,  but most weekends in September and October, we were able to use the new fire pit.  We have also been able to do some entertaining.  Friends have been over to share in the glow of the fire pit or the occasional fire works display.  We even had our realtor out who helped us buy the property.  She said she would never believe it was the same property had it not been for the one pile of cylinders we saved. LOL



We "decorated" the pit with some
of the cooler rocks from the yard.


September was a big month for us.  We finally got cable TV and unlimited internet!  What a relief as we were on metered internet and the internet bill was more than all of our other bills combined.  Getting cable and internet was a big day of celebration for us.


The biggest news for October is the event of our first mowing of the new grass.  The place looks so much more finished with grass.  We ended up using almost 300 pounds of Kentucky Blue seed.  We watered for 3 weeks before we got some much needed rain,  but once the rains came the grass really took off.

Grass!

 I have published these photos below before,  but I think they are worth posting again.  This is a tree we rescued from vines.  It looks so nice now.  I am glad I didn't let Chris have his way and cut it down!




Vine covered tree

After vine removal


 

Three years later.

Chris has finished up all the trim in the house. The to do list is dwindling down to nothing.  We had our new property plat created and the surveyors were shocked at the changes since their first adventure here. We hope to apply for occupancy before Thanksgiving.  It would be exactly 4 years since we bought the property on Thanksgiving of 2009.



Sensational Summer

Completed Shade garden.  Notice the steps on the right...they are from the trailer but make a nice plant nursery.

View from the south, 
Lots of seed and straw.

Yes,  it has been a while since the last post.  We have been busy trying to squeeze some fun out of the last days of summer.  We went to Monticello and Hershey Park,   two really fun trips! The weather here in Northern Virginia has been spectacular.  Even on the hottest days, the cement porch stays nice and cool.  We continue to spend time every day outside on the porch.  Julie had jury duty in Alexandria, which put a bit of a wrinkle in our progress,  but she was able to paint in the evenings so that Chris had plenty of trim to keep him busy during the day. 



A view of where the trailer once stood,
just past the new cryptomeria tree.

Ron moved the trailer for us.  It is only moved to a different part of the yard,  because, unfortunately it still needs a new owner.  He also finished up the grading and only has the circle driveway yet to tackle.  That left us with lots and lots of grass needing to be planted.  One Saturday we planted 175 pounds of K31 seed and 25 bales of straw.  We have one small area yet to seed,  but most of the yard is now yellow and soon to be green.  Let the watering begin!

Front of the house. 
The landscaping is still in it's infancy, 
but at least we have some shrubs and mulch.

We finished up the shade garden and it is so lovely.  The fern area is planted and we have several other areas with only a few plants.  Luckily Julie has a couple of plant swaps coming up and hopefully can score some cool flora!

With school starting we have more time for projects so Julie has started on a terrace garden on the back side of the porch.  Lots of digging and moving cylinders,  but we have high hopes. 


A nice view of the door trim,  but really the highlight of this photo is the new china hutch we bought from some kid out of his garage.

Gotta run,  time to move the sprinklers.





Living the Good Life

The shade garden, a work in progress

With the exterior of the house complete,  we only have trim to finish on the inside and excavating on the outside.  We decided to focus on some landscaping.  I have a ton of plants free from other master gardeners, plant swaps and MG college.  I even have a few we paid for.  It is time to get them in the ground.

We started working on a shade garden since the sunny area of the house still needs some excavating.  we put in a pathway and used up the last of the boy scout mulch.  We got quite a bit done,  but had to stop until we get the trailer sold and out of the way.  Know anyone who might be interested in at 40ft park RV?


This photo will be so much better when we recreate it with landscaping instead of a dirt pile!

We had some friends over for a marshmallow roast and it turned out to be a fabulous evening.  the weather was perfect and no bugs.  Chris made these log candles with the chainsaw and they burned for hours.  The turned out to be the perfect marshmallow roasters and gave out a ton of heat.  We will certainly be making more of these in the future.  It has been so nice to take a break from working on the house and enjoy the porch and yard. Hopefully we will not settle in and forget we still have work to do.



Cooper perfecting his roasting

Allelulia

The siding is finally finished!   I think Chris may have almost died of heat stroke a time or two,  but he finished and it looks amazing.  This means the exterior of the house is complete!  WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Chris putting some finishing touches on the garage
gable.  Yes,  our insurance is up to date!

If slow and steady really does win the race we should be coming into a huge prize very soon.  Chris has been plugging away at siding every day for two weeks now.  He is getting very close to finishing and hopes to have the exterior all buttoned up by the weekend. 

We lost another 6 chickens,  all babies, last week.  We think they didn't get into the coop before the door closed and a night predator got them.  So sad,  but the chicken that looks like a bald eagle survived.  We are only getting 6-8 eggs a day, so the extra layers would have been nice.  Hopefully the newbies will begin laying soon.

The garden is coming along nicely.  It is a bit weedy and we are trying to keep up between vacations,  but they seem to need to keep up with the phrase 'growing like a weed'.  We have several baseball sized cantaloupe and lots of golf ball sized watermelons.  We are getting a few tomatoes however small they are still yummy.  We can't wait for the 'mortgage lifters' to ripen.  A few peppers are coming in and I think I should be harvesting carrots,  but am not sure so I keep holding off.

We picked a ton of raspberries from the forest and made a beautiful pavlova.  It was so tasty,  I would have included a photo,  but it didn't last long enough for the camera.

We are enjoying this time of year.  The fruit and veggies are bountiful and the porch is nice and cool even on the 90+ days.  We love it when guests stop by for a cool beverage on the porch.  It all feels very southern.  I think I am going to have to perfect my mint juleps.

Free-Bees!

The swarm cluster from far

This weekend Jackson was mowing and came in to let us know our bees were swarming.  He said it was like a hurricane of bees in the air.  Sure enough our 8-frame hive decided to split into two colonies.  Unfortunately we were not prepared and had no knowledge of capturing swarms.  We found enough equipment in the barn to come up with a hive until we could get more appropriate materials ordered.  What we lacked was the knowledge,  but we can be very resourceful!

After reading that you have 1-hour to 3-days to catch the swarm or they will find a new home on their own,  we were anxious to capture them.  After all, a package of bees costs about $125 and free bees sounded good to us!  We researched how to shake the branch and let the bees fall into your hive body or use a sheet to be sure bees don't fall into the grass etc.  The main idea seemed to be if you can get the queen then the swarm will follow her.

Closer view of the swarm

Our swarm had come to rest in a pin oak tree about 25 feet up.  A box on the end of a couple of two by fours would do the trick. Easy!  We went to the barn and found an old Lou Malnauttis Styrofoam cooler and two really long PVC pipes.  PVC and Styrofoam are light materials and would make it easier to reach the swarm, we thought.  The PVC poles ended up not being long enough so we backed Chris' truck into the brush and he climbed into the bed and just barely could reach the swarm. 

With a firm knock of the branch the majority of the cluster fell into the box.  What we didn't plan on was how heavy the bees were and in slow motion those PVC pipes began to bend and the box fell onto Chris' truck and the ground and we had a mess.  Bees were everywhere!  There was a puddle of bees on the windshield, a puddle on the hood,  a puddle on the ground and surprisingly still a bunch in the cooler.

So we just sat and kinda watched what was going on for a while.  Mostly we were dumbfounded at what happened,  be lets just say we were studying the bees behavior.  No bees were going back up into the tree,  the puddles were disappearing and the box looked about the same.  After about 10 minutes Chris saw the queen in the cooler.  It was the queen from the package we bought this year and she had a bright blue spot on her back.  WOOHOO!  We dumped the cooler into our makeshift hive and crossed our fingers and went in for the night.

Two days later we still have bees in the new hive.  This is not a story I would share with anyone from our bee club as they might kick us out for the crazy way we caught our swarm,  but needless to say, we are quite proud to have got the job done!  We now have 4 hives and have high hopes for a nice honey flow in July.

Never a Dull Moment

I am always amazed that I can find things to write about each month.  Although, Chris does not want me to blog about him hanging out of the scuttle hole in the ceiling when the ladder fell out from under him as he was climbing down, so I will have to focus on other interesting tidbits like the snake I found in the basement.  He must have just shed his skin because not far from him I found a snake skin that we were able to measure 42 inches long. Once again I found myself in the job of snake wrangler and armed with a broom and two sticks helped this one fine his way out of our basement. 

oooooo  snake

We had a rainy weekend and decided to work under cover and began working on the porch railing.  It took the whole weekend to figure out the how tos of installing a railing.  So we didn't make much progress, but we did finish it up over memorial day weekend.  It makes the porch feel so much bigger and gives the house a more finished look.  We decided that not a lot of people put in their own railings because the hardware store does not stock the parts in very big quantities.  To gather all the pieces we needed for this project we went to Lowes in the following cities: Sterling, Frederick, Winchester, Chantilly and Gainesville.  We finished an audio book with all that driving and every time we get in the car the kids say 'We aren't going to Lowes again are we?'

Front porch with railing.

Our beloved excavator, Ron, has been bringing in lots and lots of free dirt in the past weeks.  We think he is going to do our final grading any day now.  I sure hope so because I keep buying landscaping plants and I am afraid if I don't get them in the ground soon,  Chris is going to have a plant sale when I am not home.