Showing posts with label Simply Sunday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simply Sunday. Show all posts

Sunday, April 27, 2014

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!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Inspiration and motivation

Thinking I should be working in my garden led me to actually working on my to do list. I just waited until it cooled off a bit. I wasn't outrageously hot like I remember the Central Valley of California where I grew up - - it would get so hot your heels would sink into the blacktop -- mid to upper 80's isn't bad when you've experienced 110 -114, but I digress...

Once motivated, I decided that I should start with the lawn because it is pretty mindless work and it REALLY needed to be done. I couldn't motivate myself to weeding or any other bed work - I knew I didn't have the oomph to tackle that just yet.   The good news is that I finished in less than FOUR HOURS, albeit ten minutes less, but still. . . 

The other good news is that while walking behind that mower, I had an epiphany about the blog. I think the format will help the posts be focused and help inspire me to be more consistent in writing them. It's a plan and it may change, but it's a start. Most of the titles are pretty self-explanatory, but I've included descriptions below. Future posts will follow thusly:  


Mystery Plant Monday -  I sleuth out the details of one of the hundreds of "I'm not sure what this is" plants on the property so I know how to care for it. 

To Do List Tuesday - I/we tackle one of the projects on our every growing To Do List.

Wishful Wednesday - a more broad subject. Might be filled with wishlist tools, future plans for garden or house areas, and plans on how to achieve those goals. 

Therapy Thursday - I've always said that gardening is my therapy. So Thursday's post will be dedicated to all things garden related. With five acres, I've plenty to talk about.

Fabulous Friday - reflecting on recipes, remedies, and research for our journey to self-sufficiency.

Snapshot Saturday - photos of things I've discovered here at Our Haven, updates on projects, chickens, memories made, etc. 

Simply Sunday - family time; time taken to express thankfulness for what we have.