New Cabin pics

Well we had the cabin delivered the other day and here are some shots of it being placed on the gravel pad we had made...

These are the guys who placed it and leveled it.  It took a couple of hours to level.  The man in the white shirt is the owner of the truck.  He was quite a trip.  He kept humming the entire time and he had on all this silver jewelry.  The other man is his son.  He's been delivering small cabins/storage sheds for over thirty years.  He did know his business that's for sure.

They tilted the cabin so much it made me nervous about it rolling over but they had no qualms about going underneath it...brave or stupid? LOL.

Here it is just being set down on the cement blocks you see underneath.  

Here it is totally in place and ready for occupation.  Not that that's going to happen any time soon though. ;)  We love the porch.  Hubby wants to live on it LOL.  We will be moving a table and chairs up to sit on the porch while we make some improvements to the inside.  We have the bracing to take down in the inside and the side door needs a little work on it too.  It looks like we made the gravel pad too long but actually we wanted it longer so we can drive the car right up to the porch to unload groceries.  We'll have to get some steps for the side door so we can use it.  All good things take time right?

Cabin pics

Well the cabin is finished, here are some updated pics of it for you to see.

 It has four windows and two doors.  I didn't take any pics of the inside since I already took some last time and the inside really didn't change yet.  We are getting it moved to the site soon and then the real work begins!  We need flooring, electrical work, walls, ceiling....you get the picture ;)

On a sadder note, we lost another chicken, Shirley.  She was egg bound.  I went out and petted her for a while and told her it was OK for her to go.  I could tell she was in pain.  She died a little while later after I went in to make supper and we buried her with the other chickens, Lucy and Lettie and our beloved cat, Molly.  We are now down to 5 chickens and only getting 1 egg every 3-4 days.   Since the Golden Comets are made to lay large numbers of eggs in such a short period of time, they seem to age very quickly.  We'll keep the five we have until they die naturally but the next batch will only be with us for two years and then we will take them to a butcher to process.   It's not easy being a homesteader/farmer...

Pictures of the cabin

Remember this?  Well guess what we chopped down a persimmon tree.  Didn't realize it until the following week when we went back and saw the little persimmons on the branches we had stacked...Oh well, there's still a couple more persimmons in there.  Does anyone know whether you can burn persimmon wood?  Is it considered hardwood or soft wood?

Here is our little cabin two weeks ago.  This is the porch on the front.

Here is the inside looking from the front door.

Here you are looking from where we are going to put our bed to the front door.  Kinda looks small huh?  It's only 12 x 26 with a 6 foot porch.  I think we might have to add on to it...:)

Here is the gravel we had delivered.  This is the spot where the cabin will go.  It slopes a lot in the back so hopefully the gravel will even up the grade a little.

And here is the other half of the gravel load.  We got 28 ton of gravel and will have to get another load later on.  This is the road that will lead to our chicken and sheds and later on a barn.

Love those trees!

This is a shot of the cabin last week.  He had started putting on the siding.  He'll stain it and then put on the roof.  His farm is in the background.  They use a gas powered generator to cut the wood.  No electricity since they're Amish.

Here is a shot of the front porch and on the side you can see the back door.

Here is the inside looking from the front door to the back.

Here's a shot from the back to the front.  DH is trying to figure out where we'll put the hole for the wood stove.  Is it me or does it seem to be getting smaller?  Remember we still have to put in a kitchen and bathroom in here...

I'll post more pics as the weeks go by.  We're hoping to have the cabin in place before the snow flies.

Pics

I took some pictures when we went to the land the other day.This is the nearest electric pole.  As you can see they sprayed underneath it and it ran down hill and almost killed that little tree.  This won't happen again as we are going to weed eat around it so no more of those awful chemicals.

Just a pic of the trees.

Here is where we had to cut down some limbs.  This is where we are going to place our cabin.

DH starting up the new chain saw.  Yes I helped too!  I was chief limb picker upper although the bigger pieces I rolled with my foot downhill to be able to stack them.

He's still cutting...

And more cutting...

And even more cutting.  Once he got started he found more dead ones to trim out. 

This is kind of dark but can you see the pile I started?

We covered it up with smaller limbs to hide.  Don't want anyone stealing all that good hardwood.  We'll be needing it for fuel come next winter.

We'll be trimming up the smaller limbs to use for kindling.

And here is the after shot.  Can you see the stumps?

Here is a butterfly I caught on the last of the lavender blooms.

Michigan outlaws pigs

• On April 1, 2012, the Invasive Species Order (ISO), issued by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), went into effect
• The ISO prohibits anyone in the state from possessing what MDNR defines as “invasive species of swine,” which can basically include any type of hog raised outside of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)
• Any farmer or other individual found to be in possession of such a hog could be charged with a felony and subjected to up to two years in jail and a $20,000 fine
• The ISO threatens farmer’s rights and may make sustainably raised pastured pork essentially illegal, and very hard to come by in the state
• The ISO is not a law; rather, it’s an “action” or “order” that’s been taken by a state agency; as such, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has the authority to tell MDNR to rescind the ISO, and your help is needed to prompt this action

Read entire article here:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/21/heritage-breed-pigs-small-farmers.aspx?e_cid=20120826_SNLNew_MS_1

Little update

GARDEN/HOUSE:
We finally got rain.  I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really.  The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all.  DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house.  We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms.  And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well.  We also have to do all the closet floors.  Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden.  We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us.  With the drought, there was one nice thing.  Not very many bugs.  But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.

I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden.  I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce.  I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.

KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day.  DH saw them and decided to buy them.  We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock.  Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks.  After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again.  My fingers were sore until the next day.  But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves.  I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL.  I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours.  That softened them up.  I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam.  Has anyone done this before?  I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.

I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that.  When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years.  At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.

I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden.  I'm thinking of canning most of those up.  I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast.  I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too.  I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.

CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine.  We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave.  Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things.  We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up.  This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.

CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately.  Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called.  Crazy girl!  And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them.  I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :)  Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.

QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it.  I just have to bind it and it will be done.  I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding.  I knitted up a little pair of footies for me.  I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair.  I even had a little bit left over.  The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks.  I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.

READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin.  It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War.  If you haven't read it, it's about slavery.  Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think.  I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one.  I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there.  Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read.  Like I don't have other things that have to get done...

NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well.  The two places we called it was going to be over $6000.  Crazy.  Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum.  We have a couple more places to call.  Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable.  We have decided to get a little cabin.  We looked at a few and really liked them.  DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it.  I could say I told him so but I won't ;)  He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO.  We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around.  And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture.  This cabin is just the shell.  If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows.  Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale.  Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented.  You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores.  Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed.  Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it.  Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money.  Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging.  So DH and I decided that we will try to douse.  We're not going to dig however.  That can be dangerous.  Wish us luck!  I'll let you know what we find if  anything.

Well I think I caught you up on everything for now.  I hope to get some pics up soon.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

And still more pics!

I think this is the last of them on my camera for now.

DH on the mower.  This part of the land is really stony.  He's already hit a few rocks and will need to sharpen the blades soon.   Oh for you guys out there, it's a John Deere.

Two views of our new land the second time DH mowed.  We've been going out every other week.

My Christmas cactus blooming in May.  I put it outside on my porch every year for the summer.  It loves the heat and humidity but has never bloomed out there.

This is my other lavender.  This is what I use for my lavender jelly.  If you look really closely you might see the bees.  We have a lot of mason bees but not too many honey bees.  That's OK we love all the pollinators ;)

Isn't this pretty!  The blooms have just started on this.  I will try to get a pic when all the blooms are out.

Our grapes.  We need a few more rains for them to plump up.  These are concord grapes.

This is my frog I have in with my lavender...DH got a little carried away with the weed eater.  He came in and said he took the eyes off my frog.  We have a little toad that lives in our backyard and I thought he meant that he had hurt the toad.  I was very upset but then when he showed it to me I just laughed.  The frog is just a decoration, the toad on the other hand eats the bugs.  I love my toad but only like my frog.  Guess Mr. Froggy is going to have to visit the garbage can...LOL.  (Oh and I don't know what happened to his eyes, I couldn't find them.  Maybe the weed eater pulverized them)

Here are my sunflowers.  These are the first ones that I have had that are short and stocky.  I didn't plant them.  These are from the sunflower seeds that the chicks didn't eat.  We had about six come up.  These ones here and three in the chicken pasture.  Needless to say the ones in the chick area did not make it.  They ate them down to nubs.  When these get big enough and start to dry out in the fall, we'll put the seeds into the chicken feed.  I might scatter a few in with the oats DH grows.  Amazing he didn't mow these down LOL.  

These are our blueberries.  They are starting to come off now and I am overloaded with them.  Whatever we don't eat fresh will be frozen to be canned later.  The branches are so loaded with berries they are hanging on the ground.  I pick them every day.

More pics

More pics - I'm on a roll now...

The girls getting some early morning sun.

This is our new land.  That's my DH out there on the new riding lawn mower.  My official job when he's mowing is picking up sticks and branches and watching him.  It's a tough job but I think I'm highly qualified for it LOL. Really if he got hurt my job is to take him to the ER.  The land has about three acres cleared and the rest is woods.  On the left side of the pic is the woods and then there is a big gully.  It might have been a stream at one point back in the past but not now.  When we first looked at the land you could walk down to the gully and back up but not now.  Those trees and underbrush are thick!  

Finally here is a pic of the dried beans I canned.  Very easy to do and wonderful that when you want to make something with the beans they are already done   so no soaking!  Gotta love that.  These are black beans.  They lighten up when you can them.  I've done kidney beans, black eyed beans, Anasazi beans and northern beans now.  I'm all beaned out!