Spring Cleaning

Guest Author Girl-Child here, providing a weekend update! 

As mom is in the final stretches of her National Board, I've offered to update the blog when I do projects. 

      The weather has been doing some soul searching and has yet to make up its mind. Hail, sun, rain, partly sun, gorgeous day, ice rain, mist, sunshine- sheesh! Luckily, this past sunday was a gorgeous and sunny day. Having got ahead of my school work for once (narratology leaves my brain leaking out of my ears more days than not) I opted to get outside and conquer the... dun dun dun POTTERY SHED. 

        So the Pottery Shed has pretty much been sitting since we moved in. As things were unpacked, they went into the shed and as mom revved up for last summer, more things got added. It has shelves running three of the walls, has a nice big farm sink, and a overhead rod for hanging plants. I don't think mom ever had a spare moment to actually arrange and set up the shed to her liking after moving in so upon opening the door, I discovered a menagerie of spiders, dead plants, and higgledy piggledy pottery.

First order of business- I pulled everything out and organized it on the lawn by type/use. The chickens ran around investigating everything, nipping at cobwebs and taste-testing ceramic. When I was through, I mixed a 5 gal bucket with distilled white vinegar and hot water and brush/washed all the shelves. We had a slight flooding problem- I turned on the water to the farmer's sink (there's a hose spigot on the outside wall) and the whole pipe started leaking. This is of course the moment our up-hill neighbor chooses to introduce himself. It was great to finally meet him- but by the time I was able to turn off the water, the floor was pretty flooded and we had a nice bog around the outside. Half hour of sunshine later- it was clean and dry! 

 I adjourned at this point to consult with with Boss about the Proper Placement of Pottery Accoutrements.
 Mom has quite a collection of pots, both ceramic and plastic, as well as some more decorative, painterly ones. The end result was a workable space where everything is Mise en Place. To the left, under the hanging planters, are empty shelves for working. All the bigger pots are in the far right corner, plastic pots in the back and ceramic monsters up front. There was this empty three-drawer plastic tower hiding in the corner that I repurposed to hold gloves, knee pads, misc plant paper (receipts, labels, etc), and seed packets.

       

 All that's left is to hang the tools! Mom and I couldn't decide if we just wanted to hammer straight into the wall (there's a few already in there) or add some sort of cork/plastic backing like what dad has in the garage. But that's for another weekend entirely!

See you next weekend!

Snap Shot Saturday! Guest Post

     Guest Author Girl-Child here with a quick update! Mom's still sequestered with her National Board projects, but most weekends (weather permitting) I've been able to get a few projects done around the homestead. I guess what that means is to expect updates from us again! At least on the weekends :)

This week's Snapshot Saturday is about the new man in my life- Voce

          

          Last October, this cat just showed up on our back porch. He was so badly emaciated he couldn't walk except hunched over and limping. He was extremely skittish but also very talkative- indeed it seemed he wouldn't stop talking! So we dubbed him "Voce" or "voice" in Italian. We put food out for him and during the winter we put a dog bed for him in the bbq/pizza hut. Over time, he became more and more friendly, sitting in our laps and chatting at us. We were hesitant to bring him inside because we had no idea where he came from, if he had any communicable issues, if he would be too aggressive with the cats we already have. 

Berlioz and  Bijoux deciding that homework is irrelevant, kittens come first

This spring, with the onset of a potential puppy, we were able to get Voce to the vet. He received a clean bill of health and weighed in at a hearty 14 lbs. A far cry from the skinny boy on our doorstep! 

Given the green light, we finally brought him inside. 

         Now he is more talkative than ever and we are privy to all his other quirks. (He drools when he's happy, being the most startling of them.) We know he's some kind of Siamese, the bulk and head shape suggest "Apple Headed" and his coloration suggests "seal" but this is all Google-search fed speculation.

 So ends our quick Snapshot Saturday! Come back tomorrow for another, more substantial, update!