Our property has about 27 acres of forested land. Big trees, little trees, dead trees and live ones. I have learned about the highly toxic black cherry, whose leaves are the most fatal when withering, and I have learned how to identify a black gum tree without a shadow of a doubt (cut a wee branch along its length and look for the central, rectangular "cells" in the pith, like a stack of little blocks). I can identify hickory, swamp maple,tulip poplar,sassafras, sycamore and dogwood as well as the seedlings of pawpaw. Pretty good for a Canadian girl who hadn't seen any of these, growing up! The woods here are an entirely different entity than those of my childhood, and it has been humbling and fascinating to learn about so many new species.

It is amazingly ironic, then, that one of the countless birds around here chose to create a nest - not in one of our many trees, heck, no - but in a rickety metal ladder we had leaning up against our "portable storage facility" at the front of the house (yes, the back portion of an 18-wheeler. Scenic, no? It has been here so long that I don't notice it anymore, which is probably a Bad Thing.).

The kids like to climb the ladder to check on the baby birds, while I fear for the birds' safety and wonder what the heck the parents were thinking.

Every day is a new adventure.

We've been very busy - Grandma (and cousin Maddie) came for a visit, and approved the new/old house! We've been doing swim camp and riding lessons and jujitsu and the guineas and chicks are growing, and the garden is, too. We went to the local county fair (where junk food for the day is the rule - yes, Funnel Cake was a large part of my dinner) and we've been discovering new, cool things in our neighborhood. Mom and Pop bakeries, small grocery stores offering amazing local products, local milk in glass jugs....this is a pretty cool little corner of the world!


And sometimes, we just sit on the front porch and enjoy the view....

Big. C. grinned the ENTIRE time he was on Audrey. And the instructor thinks he has a "natural affinity". WHO KNEW????

Miss. P. on Audrey - looking a little apprehensive, but she assured me later that she really DID have fun.

Miss. Q struts her stuff on Audrey.

The chicks are here! The chicks are here!
31 Wyandottes and one "mystery chick".
They're living in the hallway for a few days, so I can keep an eye on them, and then they will make the big transition to the coop! That means Big C. and I are going to have to get busy building some nesting boxes this week....

The proud farmer.
Or at least the proud guinea-hutch-making assistant.
I know I'm biased as his Muma and all, but isn't he handsome?




Which brings us to Guineas. The weirdest domesticated bird to be found. But,having raised them from day-old chicks, I have to say that I have taken a real shine to these birds. Out of thirty chicks, 28 have survived to adulthood, which seems pretty hardy. And now that they are free-ranging around the homestead, our tick population has plummeted. I can say this with some authority, as every night I "tick check" the children AND the dog. At first, we would pick two or three ticks off the kids in the course of any given day, and on bad evenings, I have actually pulled more than 30 ticks off of the dog. (And yes, we DO use an anti-flea and anti-tick - FRONTLINE - medication on him, every three weeks, as advised by our vet). Sooooo, I know from ticks.

Imagine how pleased I was last night, then, when I found NOT A SINGLE TICK, not on the dog, not on the kids, not on me. The guineas have been free-ranging for barely 2 weeks! Granted, this is the end of "tick season" and Rick has mowed and cut and trimmed and slashed the rampant verdant growth around the farmhouse, but I'd like to give the guineas their due. They return to their hutch every night (see below), they wander around the farm eating bugs all day, and they are excellent at warning of approaching visitors, low flying hawks, and 747s (they are admittedly a little confused by large airplanes, causing them to panic and run for cover).
Here's to guineas!

Now I'm off to deal with the chickens...

Cue the "Green Acres" music....Big C. has taken to the tools of farm-land like a duck to water. He loves loves loves to be given a task, working outside alongside Muma or Dada. Here he shows off the interior of the chicken coop/guinea hutch, which has consumed much of our energy lately.



Other tasks include hangin' in the pickup truck, which the girls seem to prefer (Miss.P was actually WORRIED ABOUT HER NAIL POLISH yesterday, and therefore declined to help me unload straw from the back of the truck. Gahhhhh. How in the world will I raise two Princesses????)

We have a cherry tree on our property! It is down the fence row, quite a way from the house, and almost over-grown by a couple of ratty looking dogwoods. I can't really identify the type of cherry - it is very very sweet, but it has that cherry-red translucent quality you would normally expect from a sour "pie" cherry. They are small and yummy with a sizable pit. And there are millions of them on this very unlikely looking tree....so, what better to do in the early morning than pick a wee bucket of cherries and make cherry muffins? Yum yum yum....
The three urchins gave them six thumbs up.

Thankfully, we aren't living in the garage, in all its Tyvek-covered glory. It's quite, uh, rustic, currently. But this is how the house looks, as of June 20th. I'm told the brick masons will be arriving tomorrow, and I'm told we may even have shutters by the end of this week. Rumor has it that the electrician and the plumber will be stopping by, as well, so, hey, maybe we'll have lots of new things to post on the blog!!!
Stay tuned!

My apologies for the delay in getting back to this old blog. My absolutely lame excuse is that we moved - finally - to the farmhouse in Virginia - while Rick was overseas. And sold our house in North Carolina. And built a chicken coop and still haven't unpacked all the boxes, and made some nice raised garden beds and still haven't found the box that has the rest of my glass mixing bowls in it. And a few other things, along the way.
For those of you who forgot about the farmhouse, here's a little memory-jogger:




It looks a little better than this, now that we are here.... but it would appear that, despite two years of work, our contractor STILL WASN'T FULLY PREPARED FOR OUR ARRIVAL. I guess all those times that I would call him, long-distance, from North Carolina, and tell him we REALLY, TRULY, ARE moving to Virginia - well, I guess he thought I was KIDDING. Or merely testing him to see what his reaction MIGHT be.

Because on that fateful day when the kiddos and Josie and I fell, exhausted, through the front door of the farmhouse, knowing that all our worldly possessions were somewhere on a highway between here and there behind us, well, let's just say the house wasn't really DONE. As in, we had only one bathroom with BOTH a functioning toilet AND a functioning sink. And it was on the main floor (that would be one floor AWAY from all the bedrooms, for those of you keeping score). The children were never really fans of the whole "wash your hands after using the potty" rule, anyway. But this - the absence of nearby sinks in which to perform said duty - made the rule practically obsolete. So, yeah, ewwwwww.

I spent 2 weeks brushing my teeth twice a day in the laundry-filled laundry room. (The washing machine hadn't been hooked up properly so, while we accumulated MUCH laundry, it had to wait...but at least the laundry room had a functional sink....)

Also missing - screens. Window, or door. This means that you are faced with a choice - either suffocate from the noxious fumes from the freshly refinished hardwood floors, OR open the windows and doors and invite 7000 flies, 473 stink bugs, 113 things called a "house centipede" (which, ick, nasty) and two very angry wasps into the indoors with you. Send flyswatters. (Miss P. calls them "Flyswappers")

And mud. We had been promised a verdant carpet of green, lush grass to cover the sea of red clay that has pretty much surrounded the house since construction began. The reality is a patchy assortment of weeds and some very sad blades of grass that bring to mind those guys who should've shaved off the last of the glory-days hair style years ago, but cling stubbornly to those sad little wispy strands still dangling forlornly to their shiny scalps. You know the ones. My yard is a metaphor for male-patterned baldness.

The dog, the kids, the worker dudes - everybody brings this clay-ey red mud into the house. The floors are covered in a fine veneer of red clay dust. Every. Single. Day. The kids' socks are red. The floor mats are red. The pads of the dog's feet are red. When it rains, the rivers of mud running through the front yard are - yeah, red. Gahhhhhhhhh. This juxtaposes quite nicely with the mulberry stains (from the three trees surrounding the house) which are purple, cover any surface NOT already red, and do NOT wash out. Ever. Mulberry juice is more permanent than permanent ink. OxyClean weeps when it sees mulberry. Trust me on this.

But I know Grandma wants to see pictures, so I'll try to comply over the next couple of days.
Here are a few to tide you over....moving day (and no, we didn't put them INSIDE the moving van), and two of a wee excursion to DC on a sunny day - when unpacking boxes just wasn't any fun anymore....
Will post more, later!

Yeah, spring is lovely and all, but this pollen is KILLING me already. Can't breathe, can't sleep, can't stop scratching my eyes - gahhhhhhh.

Happy Spring, everybody. (The red-bud are in bloom at the cottage, see?)

On Grandma's visit, Grandma's gift to Big C. was a 300+ piece Lego set. Here, Uncle Scott can be seen wishing he had stayed at home - in Pennsylvania. Big C. is THRILLED to have an "assistant".

Grandma came for a visit and bought outfits for the urchins....Wee Q. is modeling her selection - a mermaid outfit, replete with tail. She accessorized this outfit with a hippo-on wheels, flower tiara, silk purse, and "unique" shoes.
Meanwhile, Miss. P. selected a wedding gown, which, you'll notice, has a matching veil and bouquet. She also accessorized with a teddy bear and a silver necklace.

Happiness is a rocking chair on the cottage porch at sunset, with your dollies and your blanket.

Wood-fairy at the cottage.

Before and after photos are some of my favorites when it comes to house renovations....that said, the following two pictures aren't really before-and-after, more like before and during. If you follow that. That's the same newel post, and while it looks almost black in the picture, it's really a deep, lovely mahogany that still shows the grain of the wood. Oh and all the missing spindles all the way up the staircase? You CANNOT TELL which ones are new and which ones are old - they all look spectacular. I can't wait to finally unveil the refinished stair treads - I haven't been able to see them yet, but I'm hoping the overall effect will be yummy.

The kitchen has seen some real progress - the plaster coat on the range hood is on, and I think I like it in it's natural state (apparently you're supposed to paint it, but I kinda like it this way). And - TA-DA! - the barnwood is on the island! I hope this makes it rustic enough that Grandma will feel comfortable frying an egg of a morning (she found the chandeliers to be a little grand for the humble frying of an egg, but barn board? Barn board pretty much requires fried eggs, right? Right?)


The steam oven - my foray into experimental cooking - has been placed in it's rightful home (the first appliance to have that honor - I'm still not certain on the whereabouts of the refrigerators....they're MIA apparently). You can also sorta kinda see a bunch of slabs of marble sitting on the counter above the steam oven. Choosing a counter-top material has proven to be something of an, erm, adventure. Stay tuned for the final word.....



The front porch has been beautifully clad in Pennsylvania bluestone, and we even have a step up to the porch now, so one doesn't have to heave oneself up while muttering about the age of one's knees and wondering how the worker dudes have been doing this for over a year now....yeah, the bottom "step" is still an old hunk of plywood, but at least we're headed in the right direction!!!!

It really is the little things....things like scupper boxes and copper downspouts....



















Things like a water pressure tank and hot water heaters, make me really really happy for our old house. I mean, when you think about it, it hasn't really had any of those things in a very very long time - or never - and THAT means we're one step closer to making it a proper home. Isn't that a pretty picture????

I'm having a terrible time downloading pictures tonight. This site generally stinks when it comes to adding pictures to my text, but tonight, well, let's just say I'm having a Very Hard Time Restraining Myself (from pitching my computer in the backyard). Anywhoooo, I am endeavoring to get some shots of the farmhouse put up here...hope it works....

The photo here (hopefully) shows the master bedroom, where we spent Saturday cleaning up the original doors and added a protective coating of water-based polyurethane to 'em. Because THAT'S how I like to spend my birthday weekend.

Whoot.