May 2013 Projects

We moved into this house August of 2013. Since that time this pantry has been poorly used. There was only one shelf in it. We stacked food items on the bottom and on the shelf. I wanted to make it more efficient, so I built these drawers that slide out the full length. It sure makes for more storage. The refrigerator is covered in art work that the kids made for their mother for Mother's day. They sure are good kids.

This is the first time we have had a front loading washer and dryer. It was difficult having to bend down to pull out the clothes. I built this pedestal to raise them up higher. The wood was all salvage wood from pallets and construction sites.

We couldn't decide how many chickens we wanted so Carolyn ordered the surprise package. We ended up with 2 ducks, 42 chicks and 15 meat chicks. Wow we have a lot of chicks. I am going to start the chicken coop next week. I am going to construct it out of lumber from pallets and construction sites. I will make it look nice though of course since it will be 6' x 6' x 6' and it will be in our yard.

We had 6 cubic yards of top soil delivered Memorial day weekend. This pile is about half way cleared. We have been hauling it with wheelbarrows, buckets, and a trailer pulled behind the 4 wheeler. We had to carry it up the stairs you see in the photo or drive it around the house to the front yard. Our front yard is elevated above our driveway. I also picked up a yard of compost from Carolyn's parents house. We were mixing that in with the topsoil.

This is one place we are placing the topsoil. This was an old fish pond in the front yard. I don't want a mosquito breeding ground, so we are turning this into a strawberry patch. Here is our son who worked so hard today.

We are also placing the soil in these raised garden boxes inside our new greenhouse. We bought this frame from one of our friends. Once we finish filling with soil, we will cover it in plastic. The metal poles in the background can be used to make another 20' long section someplace else in our yard.

You can see the greenhouse frame in the left of this photo. The wooded area you see here was filled in with willow, young birch trees and other bushes. I cut down many of the small trees removed and some brush to thin it out. To the right in the photo is south and I wanted to reduce the obstructions so sunlight can reach our greenhouse. I might remove more trees in the future. We will see how much shade they provide.

Here is another view of the greenhouse frame from down the driveway. The dog in the photo is our neighbor's dog Coda.

Here is Cayden cutting down a tree that had fallen across the road to our house. He is sitting on an abandoned bulldozer.

Carolyn found these silhouettes at a garage sale.

Here is the view from our house this Memorial Day weekend.

We are worm farmers. They eat our kitchen scraps and make nice worm castings that we add to our house plants, vegetable starts, and soon we will add them to our garden. Thank you worms.