Greenhouse progress

Remember "Backhoe Brent"? Well, he has been working hard to build a sturdy greenhouse for the farm. The project has come a long way since the last post about it! And, thankfully, Brent had some help to move things along.

Blaine and all the boys helped build the foundation.

Brent and all the boys helped move those cinder blocks Brent salvaged from the old house. It took a lot of those to build the foundation walls. They also dug an additional trench that serves to drain water from around that foundation. Gravel has been added to the bottom to support and level the cinder blocks.

Brent's brother Bryan helped install the post brackets
and bolts that will hold the framing.

Brent used mortar to hold the cinder blocks together. Then, with help from his brother Bryan, he installed brackets and bolts set with concrete that will hold the posts and framing. In addition, rebar was passed down through the blocks to the ground and held in place with cement. This will insure the walls resist bowing (unlike the walls of the old garage which are bowed terribly).

Here's a photo of the "finished" foundation.

Outside of the foundation walls Brent added perforated pipe and covered that with gravel. He also filled inside the walls with gravel, making sure there was a good amount in the corner near that drainage trench. He left a couple of small gaps in the cinder blocks in that corner so that, should a significant amount of water get inside the structure, it will have a place to drain.

Next, the dirt inside the greenhouse needed to be leveled out to see if we would need more fill. But, as you can see in the photo below, it looks like we already have the perfect amount inside the structure.

My handsome husband surveying the greenhouse "floor"

The next step is framing the walls. It will start to take shape quickly now!

What a big project! And this is what he does to relax on the weekends.

Another weekend of forming the gardens…and follow me on Instagram

This time we used native perennial seed, compost, pretty gravel/rocks and mulch. Some of the spaces will be filled with transplants and others will wait for plants to sprout from seeds.

These photos show how the areas on the west side of the house turned out.

View from the front porch

View from the parking area

The dry creek bed (drainage ditch/stream)

I could go on and on about what is/will be planted where - and I will. For now, there's only time for this quick glimpse of the progress.

For more frequent glimpses, I've started posting photos on Instagram. There won't be details there. But I have a lot of fun with snapping quick photos of the happenings around the farm. You can find me @gardenrambler or by searching for Patti Ragsdale (I think - it's all pretty new to me!).

Here's a photo from a recent Instagram post about our new neighbor :-)

More gravel and garden sculpting

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This was the second of three truckloads of gravel that Brent and I spread. We ordered a whopping 45 tons of gravel to finish out the our drive, walkways and a guest parking area. That's on top of the 40 tons that we spread earlier this past winter.

Luckily, without 2 mortgages we can now afford to rent things like this Dingo to help :-)

Amazingly useful Toro Dingo (loved it!)

Before we spread the gravel, I used the Dingo to finalize the layout of our gardens on the west side of the house. The smaller bucket attachment with the teeth was perfect for digging and moving dirt.

Here are some photos of the new lay of the garden space on the west side of the house:

We included a low "bridge" made of limestone slabs.
(There's my favorite landscaping partner posing to give it some scale.)

This view of the "bridge" shows the beginning of the gravel path from the front porch.

Here is the finished path from the guest parking to the front door.
The soft swale that will drain water down the hill is somewhat visible on the left side of this photo.

And this is the finished rock wall. The "bridge" with the drainage "stream" is to the left.
The stream will drain into a water detention depression that is below the rock wall.
The swale mentioned in the previous photo caption also drains to the depression.

With any luck, this work will give us a lot of different habitats for our native and edible plantings. It along with some well-placed and carefully chosen plants, will also mitigate any erosion issues on our rather steep sloped yard. Some of the plantings will start today - in the form of rapid spreading of seeds. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I need to work fast to get those on the ground!

More to come...

We now have one mortgage - and Spring is here!

Wow. We never could have anticipated all of the difficulties and complications inherent in building a house. It's been a very long process spanning nearly three and a half years from the purchase of the property till closing, and now it's done. And do we love it? Oh, yeah!

Our closing happened on March 5 (last Thursday). It was an email from the bank with a subject "the message you thought would never come." And it was so true. After all that time, the fact that it was finally going to happen was very hard to believe.

The first thing Brent and I did after the closing late on Thursday was buy wine. We were sitting in our banker's office and could see Holyfield Winery right across the street. And it had been a while since we had felt comfortable spending on a luxury like good wine - and it is good. We bought 6 bottles!

It was an awesome day and to top it all off it seemed like Spring started right then! The temperatures have been in the 50's, 60's and 70's ever since.

So, of course, we've spent every spare minute outside - like every other person :-)

The boys got to meet some of the neighbors. 

We started landscaping the front walkway.

And we put up some birdhouses that had been long-buried
in our Shawnee garage. We hope the wrens and bluebirds find our home inviting too!

 It feels like the whole world is celebrating with us. Even our neglected collection of Amaryllis bulbs seem to know it's time to smile.

Brent's giant red Amaryllis with an amazing 3 flower stalks (one isn't open)

I've started posting on Instagram, too. What a fun way to connect. I'm "gardenrambler" and you will see a lot of the same photos I post on the blog - but not so many words :-P

Now we are really home

It's official. Today Happy Apple's Farm is our only home. The Shawnee house has a new owner and all our possessions are here - well, kinda.

We have spent nearly every day for the last month packing, deciding, selling, packing some more and moving an enormous amount of stuff. It is the stuff collected by a family full of children and fun. It is the stuff that makes up a life. And every box and bin, drawer and closet held history. It was hard and slow and seemed as though it would never end.

literally car full after car full of things were donated

Thankfully, there are many places like Goodwill and Savers that welcomed the donation of our extra things. And we visited at least one of those places in Shawnee nearly every time we went to the house to pack - sometimes more than once a day. What a wonderful service they do! And it feels good to know that most of those donations will be used.

And there is our modern version of the classified ad: Craigslist. We sold and gave away a couple of couches, beds, desks, entertainment centers and fish tanks. And we even made a little bit of extra money.

In spite of all that , we still have two rather large storage units of stuff that we aren't sure what to do about. And there are boxes and bags of things all over our new home that have yet to find their spot.

And to top all of that off, the water heater stopped working Monday night - and won't be fixed until Friday. Ugh.

But, today, none of that mattered much. We had a wonderful bottle of wine and pasta at a nearby restaurant. We did it. We no longer live in a suburban neighborhood. We now live at Happy Apple's Farm :-)

And all my plants came with us, too!
Yep, it's really cozy in here.

A little pause before the big move

Well, it looks as though we may have sold our Shawnee house, which is awesome! So within a month we will be down to one house payment :-)

It also means we have A LOT of stuff to move in a few weeks. And we have a few more things to finish up here at the farm before we can close on the mortgage here. Hmmm. Generally, we are, well, we're overwhelmed.

After visiting with the bankers about the new house, we swallowed our disappointment and hustled to finish up a couple of things quickly. And now we are waiting to hear what else they need.

We've also prepped a little for the move. Brent will be installing a floor in our attic storage space on Saturday. That will give us space for boxes that can be lifted up the stairs. And we finished up the last closet in the master bedroom.

While Brent is installing the attic floor, I will be packing boxes and clearing out our master bedroom and bathroom at the Shawnee house. Sunday, with the help of my step-dad Pete and his van, some of the furniture will move.

I think the next 3 weekends will be about the same.

Meanwhile, just to keep us smiling, I've been snapping some pictures of the silly, fuzzy boys in our backyard.

The most endearing alpaca pose (sniffing my face).
This is Mr. "T".

Loki and Tigger practicing synchronized chewing.

An alpaca argument (always over food-because there are no girls).
That is Toby on the left.

Mr "T" looking like the boss
(this is my new wallpaper on my phone)

Tigger (foreground) and Tuscany.
Tigger's dad was a mystery until now. I think Tuscany was the guy.

Especially when I found them kissing!
Just kidding. They probably accidentally bumped into each other.

Nice weather means work outside...

Finally, there were a couple of warm days over our holiday break from work. Brent took the opportunity to tackle a big job - the roof trusses for the barn. I helped a little but, mostly, Brent, Jeremy and Blaine did all the barn work.

Brent cutting off the last 6 poles.

The first truss is up!

In all, 3 of the 7 trusses were raised yesterday.

While the guys were working on the barn, I piddled around and tried to stay busy. One of the projects I landed on was making a feeder for the alpacas. Here's what I came up with:

My first try at an alpaca feeder. I only had to cut 3 boards!

My feeder was made entirely out of lumber from the construction waste. We have a lot of good lumber. The challenge was finding the right size pieces rather than cutting more up and leaving more waste.

My little project didn't make a dent in our piles of waste.
I better get started on that chicken coop!

In addition, Jeremy helped me extend the space the alpacas have available for grazing. We doubled the size of their space and they seemed ecstatic! I think it was the first time I saw them run. It was also the first time I realized how easy it is to contain them. It took several tries to convince them they could move past the old fence posts.

 At the end of the day yesterday, this is how the alpacas' enclosure looked. Their temporary roof was back in place, but you can see the beginnings of the "real" roof to come. Their feeder is in their barn and they have new grass to graze.

Lots of progress for the alpacas.

I'd say we had a productive couple of days :-)

Closets

Living in our new home has been great but we still have a lot to finish up - like closets. Lucky for us, even though we had no rods in the closets, we had some portable garment racks to hang our clothes these last few weeks.

Since we had super-cold days following Christmas, Brent and I decided to change our plan to work on the barn over the break. Instead, we worked on closets!

Two of the Master Bedroom closets are now finished.

Me working on the little linen cubby in the lower level bathroom.

 The small storage space for linens in the downstairs bathroom was a real challenge. Our air nailer could only be used for part of the job because the space was so narrow. And I was the only one that could fit into the space - and only if I turned sideways. I'm surprised I didn't hurt myself. Two-handed jobs meant that one arm had to go over my head!

It's only 12 inches wide and 24 inches deep
 but we didn't want to waste the storage space.

It's amazing how much more room there is in a house when things can be put away. We still have one big closet to do in one of the bedrooms downstairs. But being able to put our clothes and towels into closets has made our little house feel much more like home. :-)

A few sunny days...

Brent and I have been enjoying the free heat that a few days of sunshine provided and learning a lot about how our passive solar house performs. As the temperatures plummeted after Christmas the sun came out. Other than the glare, there is little to complain about in a home like this one. Each sunny day raised the temperature in the house 10 degrees.

Our mornings would start at about 65 degrees and by around 2:00 p.m. the temperature inside would be over 75. We resisted the urge to open windows on those days, knowing that heat would carry us through the night. On sunny days the only heat that runs is the hydronic floor heat. And that comes on only when the temperature in the house falls below 70 in the pre-dawn hours. And so, the lower level of the house stays a consistent temperature while the upper (above grade) level fluctuates.

We are learning new things daily. And Doogle (our beagle-ish dog) is enjoying his favorite thing…napping in the sun. Okay, it's really his second-favorite thing to do. His first is eating :-)

Doogle snoozing in the sun on our heated floor.

Quick note...

We are in!

The Happy Apple's Farm mailbox

It is a continuing monumental effort to get the house finished to the point that the bank will be satisfied that it's done, but Brent, Jeremy, and I are living at the house. Doogle is now a farm dog (only he still spends most of his time sleeping on the couch).

We love being there everyday. And we love getting to know our new home.

Oh, I almost forgot. We have no internet. So the posts will be fewer and limited to the times when I run to the Shawnee house to pick things up.

I will keep updates coming.

Merry Christmas!

So, so close...

Well, the last two weekends have been like most - busy. Brent and I have worked hard to put everything in place to (drumroll, please) MOVE IN :-)

I am incredibly excited to spend the night at our new place - and actually sleep in a bed, not in a tent or on the floor in a sleeping bag. And being able to know that our little herd of alpacas had a good night because I am there with them will be a relief, too.

The two weekends after Thanksgiving were full of cleaning floors for me. The pictures would have been super boring, so I didn't take any. But it made a big difference in how livable the place feels. I even swept and vacuumed the garage. It was full of sawdust. That really reduced the footprints that we were leaving all over the new flooring. (I'm going to get really good at cleaning floors, I think.)

We also installed some mirrors in the bathrooms. Being a woman, that seemed to be a big deal for me. Although, the older I get the less I seem to want to look - or, maybe, the more shocked I am at what I see!

One really important job that Brent worked on during these last couple of weeks is the railings. We have a few spots in this house (the top of the stairwell near the entry and the top of the sun space) where stepping off would be a disaster.

Brent finishing the stair railing.

Brent has actually installed 4 sections of rails and that should be enough to satisfy finishing the house for the bank. The railing for the stairs was the toughest. These "ready made" railings are pretty difficult to put together and Brent added some extra reinforcement in the stairwell and at the top of the sun space to make them really sturdy. And now they are exactly that, sturdy and safe, and they look pretty, too.

We also purchased all of the door knobs. Those are really expensive when you are buying for a whole house! I've only got 8 more to install but I'm getting pretty good at it. The interior knobs only take about 10-15 minutes to finish now. I have several external doors with deadbolts left to do. I'm sure those will take me a little longer.

Pantry and coat closet with knobs - and another of the railing sections.

Probably the biggest thing that happened, though, is the carpet in the master bedroom. My step-dad, Pete Hoover, has been a carpet layer for about 50 years. So he was nice enough to spend his Saturday installing our carpet. He made it look easy, but we know that's only because he knows what he's doing. The carpet is super-comfortable and looks awesome. Thanks Pete!

Carpet and pad for our Master Bedroom.
This is a handy van to have (it also moved our alpacas).  Pete's a pretty awesome step-dad.

Pete (right) installing the tack strip. Brent measuring for the closet shelving.
This is the last view of paint and sheetrock mud-splattered construction mess.

Carpet installed!

We had to spend a little time walking around on this soft stuff as soon as it was vacuumed for the first time. I am so happy to have all the messy construction stuff covered up. It looks like a home now.

The only other finishing touches were the shades for the master and Jeremy's room and the shower curtain in the lower level bath. The shower curtain and bar were easy and I installed those yesterday. I found some shades on CraigsList that were the perfect size and installed them yesterday, too. Those were super inexpensive. Nice to have an easy job for once.

Master bedroom with shades installed.

Next step - move in!

(Okay, I know there's still a bunch to do - like shelving and bars in the closets - but we will be there!)

I'm calling U-Haul today :-)

Thankful in 2014

This year there are so many things to be thankful for that finding the "important" ones to fit into a blog post would diminish them all. So I will only take this space to discuss those in the last 2 weeks.

Brent (probably my all-time favorite person to be thankful for) has finished all of the interior plumbing (which is probably the necessity I am most thankful for). Most significantly, he completed the plumbing in the kitchen. The kitchen even has a dishwasher - just need to move one of our refrigerators in and we're set. Of course, this time of year outside is, pretty much, all the refrigerator we need.

Our kitchen sink!

Our brand new dishwasher.

I'm glad Brent could figure out this plumbing.
The black valve allows us to divert the water for irrigation use in the summer.

Those diverter valves are placed only on the kitchen sink and the master bath sinks and shower. As our summers here get pretty dry, having these valves will allow me to use this "grey" water to develop some gardens with edibles and natives that require more moisture around the east and west sides of the house.

I am also thankful for our boys. Every parent dreams of seeing their children become contributors - and when they give back to you, well, that's really special.

Blaine installing our new locks.

Logan and Jeremy painting the last bedroom.

You can see from these photos that everyone (even Skylr who isn't in the photos) has been helping.

Since Rick (our builder) is about done with the final fixes to the trim, he has also installed our front door. Previously, we only had the final sidelight installed since the "real" door is full glass and might have been broken by the construction.

Our front door. We even have a door mat :-)

Brent and I spent so many days dreaming of the view from that door - and now it's a reality. And, yes, it brings to mind how fortunate I am to experience dreams come true. And this is just one of many.

And how can I end my Thanksgiving post without acknowledging these guys? They are so obviously thankful everyday for their feed. Of course, I pretend like it's me that they are so happy to see - so I get daily gratitude and alpaca smiles.

Mr. T eating his feed. He eats with his mouth open; they all do :-)

Okay, so these are a few events from our recent weeks that I thought to record with visuals. There are so many more and I could go on and on.

In short, life is good - amazing, in fact - and I am sincerely thankful.

Plywood flooring and our first hot meal

Last weekend our floor was finished. Brent has been working, pretty much, non-stop since Friday morning to apply the finish. And it is beautiful!

Flooring on the main level

This project began with the discovery of a plywood waste product. Brent discovered that the waste from a manufacturing process contained a regular dimension of lumber that could make a beautiful flooring. One of the things I admire about Brent is the ability to see possibilities like this and not be discouraged at the insane amount of work it will require. He milled, cut 12-ish slots for joiners in each plank, joined and glued, filled, sanded, sanded again, stained, and applied the finish. It was "only" 130+ planks :-) Wow!

Most of this floor finishing occurred during a super-cold November that has unveiled the fabulous ability of our house to stay warm - even with windows open and fans running to exhaust the fumes. The radiant heat in the floors is unbelievable. Even though the surface of the floor doesn't feel warm, the heat can be felt on the bottoms of your feed through your shoes. With temperates outside in the teens and twenties, the house never got below 68 degrees. I can't wait to see how nice it will be when all the door knobs are installed and the windows are closed.

Brent will apply the finish on the stairs and landings next.  

A few minor fixes were made to our kitchen cabinets last week and we were able to enjoy our first hot meal at the house. It was only leftovers heated in the microwave, but still! It was nice to have something  homemade (not Sonic, Subway, or McDonalds).

Brent warming our lunch in the microwave.

We are almost home!