Since my cardio exercise is limited to when I mow the lawn these days, Iโve been using a walk-behind mower instead of the tractor for the front acre. I had been using an old Craftsman which was mostly okay other than doing a horrible job at mulching and itโs tendency to launch pine cones and other debris right into my shins constantly.
So anyhow I read a bunch of reviews and bought a Honda mower. Looking forward to finding out if they really live up to the hype!
This project that started two years ago is finally done! And of course, by โdoneโ I mean simply moving into the next phase because nothing is ever actually done at a farm.
This week a landscaper came out with the fill dirt and topsoil and got the thing graded and even raised the wall in spots where it needed it. They did a phenomenal job and all in just one day. Remarkable what six guys, the right equipment, and a ton of experience can accomplish!
I seeded the area with clover just to get a nice ground cover while we decide how to map out our garden and paths. My sister gave us some calendula and chamomile seeds that I added along the edge of the rock wall, as well. The weather is perfect this week for growing grass from seed; rainy, not too cold, bits of sun here and there.
Next step: adding path lighting along the wall and some spot lights on the walnut tree. I think it will make it possible to see better in this area at night without the prison-yard effect of the big overhead light on the garden shed, seen above.
It’s pretty amazing how many different types of mushrooms grow around here.
These are just a few…
We had the sheep sheared. There’s a great local guy who comes over and does this for us. My sister has been talking to green mountain spinnery in Vermont about getting the wool processed so hopefully that will be done soon. We shear these sheep twice a year and with 10 of them now we’ve got a lot of wool to process!
Before:
And after:
X took these with his fancy camera.
Sadly four of the six ducklings were killed by a predator on their first day at the farm. However, the two that survived are now fully grown and they are big and surprisingly tough! In fact, they routinely bully the chickens and even the big rooster.
So we managed to finish this up on Saturday including a new rain gutter and down spout, sealing, and fascia board to conceal the swale of the deck (which it needs to shed water). The last step will be some blocky finials on top of the newel posts although we’re waiting until we have the house color finalized to put those on since they’ll be painted in the same color.
Our house at the farm has this sort of Alpine lodge look to it. Being surrounded by evergreens adds to the motif. As part of the remodel we extended the deck around the front and so I decided to give it a proper treatment with carved railings and hand-sawn balusters. I ordered all of the wood from a place in Texas called https://www.vintagewoodworks.com and they are seriously the porch experts if you want something made the old fashioned way! So several months back a few palettes arrived via truck freight carrying a daunting load of beautiful milled wood and that’s it. No hardware, no instructions. This is DIY++ although their website is really helpful and it all makes sense once you get over the initial shock that you are not in Ikea anymore, Toto.
I ended up building a jig to construct the baluster segments and my dad is here visiting and he helped a lot in cutting the newel posts and attaching them to the deck. Oh and this is after everything is painted or stained with multiple coats. two days of work now and we’ve got two small sections up. However, the next two are built and then that just leaves the hard part… building the angled sections for the stairs!
I picked up the warcry starter set over the weekend and tried it out with Kasey. It’s a fun, fast-paced game that left me wanting to play more. This is my first foray into the Warhammer fantasy (Sigmar) universe. I thought the “Iron Golem” miniatures were really awesome looking and that’s a big part of what made me want to try it out… plus the thought of eventually putting together a Khorne army for Sigmar.
It took a while and a few tries to figure out the right techniques to paint these figures. This ended up involving a number of layers of contrast paints and metallics thinned with Lahmian medium. It’s a bit sloppy although the color effects are right and so I’m looking forward to painting the rest of this little warband.
