Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Porches, Birthdays, Ramps, and Syrup!


 We had a lot of help hauling buckets and boiling down the sap.  We wound up with 25 gallons of syrup! 



It's great to have a covered porch!  Thank you to my Dad and his cousin Loureen for giving us the boards from her old deck!


We had a cowboy themed party to celebrate my birthday :).


So many great friends came out!

So many kids e njoying the woods!


Mustaches on sticks....





And awesome costumes!




 And Andrea and Thomas brought sky lanterns too!



 
 
 
Wild Ramps Pesto!


1. Find ramps


2. Gather many ramps



3. Puree with parmesan, walnuts, and sunflower oil

We wound up with 5 gallons of finished canned pesto :)
 


And a lovely nest of robin eggs by our toolshed.
 
 
We leave for Colorado for tomorrow, so this is the last post with house pictures for a few months.  have a great summer!


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Artsy Updates and FAQ's

"Candelier" A small iron wheel, copper wire, and electrical insulators


Red accents everywhere, and Lucas surprised me with a mounted guitar stand :)
Thanks for the dresser mom!

The medicine cabinet--made out of a vintage suitcase

Beautiful rough barn boards gave the bathroom some finishing accents


Winter break gave me some extra time to add some of  my own artsy touches to our home.   This image is from one of Roma di Luna's album covers.

More painted additions classing up our bar area
FAQ #1 Power?  We have 2 12V AGM batteries that we currently charge at Luke's folks' home.  One day we will have a wind power set up to charge them on site.  Once charged, a battery is connected to our power inverter (shown above), and can run our 2 lamps for about a week.
FAQ #2 El Bano.  Comfortably indoors, the bathroom is a normal seat as shown above, and there is a garbage can accessed from outside of the house for easy emptying.  We use saw dust or coffee bean hulls from our local roaster after each use, and no, it doesn't smell our house up at all!  When it's nice out we also have an outdoor latrine to complete our 2 bedroom 2 bath household ;).


FAQ# 3 Heat:  We have a high efficiency wood stove and chopping enough wood to keep us warm is a regular fitness activity!
FAQ# 4 Refrigeration: Our fancy propane stove is pictured in some of the previous pictures, but was taken from a camper and runs quite efficiently on propane.
FAQ# 5 Water?  We have a 200 gallon gravity fed water tank that is tucked behind the toilet in the bathroom.  It feed into the sink in our kitchen, and there is a 5 gallon bucket beneath the sink that we empty regularly.  We have another 200 gallon tank that fits in the back of the truck and we currently fill it at the home farm, though next year we hope to set up a rain catchment with a filtration system :).

At this point we still shower at friends, family, and UWL campus showers, but soon there will be a Sauna with a shower inside to satisfy that need to!


Sunday, September 16, 2012

A collage of memorabilia from our wedding....
Beginning of the tool shed
middle


and voila!


Outdoor, gravity fed shower :)

Lot's of hanging tomato plants= so much salsa!

This is a mailbox that I built before I knew the USPS won't deliver to shady mailboxes....but a bird built a nest in it, so it got some use anyways!
 Sheet Rock, Color, and Trim, oh my! I somehow missed getting a picture of the peak of the house where we have some bright-fully colored trim (and no insulation showing!)...next time!
Oh yes, that is a propane run refrigerator.  Exited to welcome condiments and ice cream back into our lives!

Wood crate cabinets and a refinished pine countertop that doubled our counter space--so nice!