It's Finished!!! Well, The South Side Anyways...

The South side is completely sided and all the windows are installed.  Doesn't it look nice?  Lots of white, huh?  Yes, our color scheme is white with a white roof.  We do have some color-- you can't really tell in the picture, but the window in the center has barn-red trim on the window.  It is white trim around the window, but he metal on the window is red.  Like I said, you can't really see it in the picture.  The middle and right windows are casement, but the window on the left is a fixed window.  It will be near our stairs, so we thought it shouldn't open.

You can see a little bit of my garden in the foreground.  It's growing really well.  I have onions, radishes, lettuces, bok choi, chard, green beans, and lima beans planted so far.  Here's a closer picture.

Aren't my markers cute?  They are tin can lids that have been punched with the kind of veggie on it.  These are my onions and radishes.  I've also started making the borders on my beds-- it is made out of soda bottles that are filled with dirt and turned upside down and stuck in the ground.  I will eventually have borders around all my beds.  I think they will be really cute!

Bouncing Off The Windows

Bouncing Off the Windows

<><><>

I'm bouncing off the windows. I'm bouncing off the walls. I'm feeling like my feet are made of bouncing rubber balls. I'm running like I'm crazy. I'm running like I'm mad. I might seem like a lunatic but, boy, I'm feeling glad. I'm jumping like a kangaroo or like a jumping bean. I act this way at least a week, right after installing our first south facing window. --Kenn Nesbitt (with help from Prairie Mama) Yes, we have our first south facing window installed!!  Doesn't it look nice?  It's a real BIG one and heavy-- I got to help lift it into place, along with my trusty Contractor.  It is a casement window  with the left and right sections that open and the center section is fixed.  If you look up at the top of the picture you'll also notice we have our last chimney in too.  That's the chimney for our living room wood stove.  We now have all three of our chimney's installed. In the foreground, check out BIG pile of sand.  I, all by myself, shoveled it into the garden cart, moved it and dumped it into that pile.  (Mental note--moving sand is a great workout!)  The reason I had to move it was because the sand was right where my garden was going to be located.  I ordered my seeds a couple weeks ago and I received them the other day. I'm getting excited about planting them, but it's probably still a little early for zone 4.  Here's a couple of shots of the seeds I ordered from Fedco Seeds and Bountiful Gardens.  Nice shot with our mansion in the background.  We call it the mansion (1400 sq. ft.) because it is so much larger than our cabin (192 sq. ft.).  They are on one of the big rocks on our property.  I believe it is sandstone. Here's a close up.  I think I ordered enough!?  Don't you?? Since we're on the subject of windows, I thought I'd show you this one from our Cabin.  This is the service banner I made in honor of our son who is enlisted in the U.S. Marines.  It is a mini quilt with a star appliqued on.  If you don't know what a service banner is, it was invented in 1917 by World War I Army Captain Robert L. Queissner who had two sons serving on the front lines.  It quickly became the unofficial symbol of a child in the service.  If you would like to learn more, click here. Our son has recently been deployed, so please keep him in your prayers.  And in honor of our son, I will put one of his famous quotes from his childhood, for all the Internet to see.  He used it during a moment of madness.  I'm not sure what he meant, but it makes me laugh-- then and now! :o)

It's A Wrap!

The roof is done, complete, finished!!  Isn't it Beautiful?!!  So now we can finally say we have a roof over our heads, but it's still a bit breezy inside because we don't have all the windows in yet-- there's always something else to work on.  Speaking of other work...here's what else we've been working on...

If you look close on the roof, you will see the start of the growth of a baby chimney.  When full-grown, this will be the chimney for our kitchen stove.

A Jotul (pronounced Yo-tul) #404, cast-iron, wood burning kitchen stove made in Norway, with oven and range-top.  This baby can cook a roast AND all the fixings.  It was manufactured and imported around the 1980s and they are pretty hard to find on the used market, but we found one a while back in Michigan.  We made a mad dash there in a weekend and brought her back to live in our new house.  She's going to love it here!  Can't wait to hook her up and try her out!!

As we go to "press" (my grandkids won't get the significance of that?  Will we have presses in the future??  Or will we just post?  I'll have to go back and watch the Jetson's again.) the second chimney is full grown.  We now have a dual-exhaust house!  We're working on the third one, which I'll post about next time.  Until then...Happy Building!