Sunday, September 25, 2011

Fall-ing

What better to way to mark the beginning of fall than to harvest?  Finally, after neglecting the garden all summer, I got to get my hands dirty again.  Squash, slug-munched cabbage (that should have been picked long ago, before the slugs had their chance), onions (that also should have been pulled long ago before the rain drenched them over and over again), potatoes, beets, tomatoes, and apples.  Apples!  It's time for cider!

Apples for cider....

Apples for eating....

Cider apples in the grinder.....

Grinding....

Ground apples waiting to be pressed.....

Cider!

And while the cider is pressing, a little tour.  Looks like fall, doesn't it? 

The only two zinnias to survive the weeds that I didn't get to this summer....

My favorite flower of fall.  Isn't that just the most amazing pink and orange combo?

Taters.  Yum!

Half the onions. 

Something pretty.

Cider!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Done...for now.

School began three weeks ago.  That means it is fall.  I can hardly believe it.  The hours we put into the house over the summer all blurred together into a continuous ache of muscles and a ubiquitous coating of clay dust.  It hardly feels like summer happened at all.  But here we are--the end of September.  The summer weather is trying to hang on.  The days are warm, the mosquitoes are torturing us each time we step foot outside.  It's the nights that give the change of seasons away.  They are cool, almost cold.  Last weekend I went as far as putting the extra blanket on the bed again.  And the garden give fall away.  The gardens are overflowing with produce just waiting to be harvested and put up for winter. 

So, somehow the summer slipped by.  And somehow we managed to miss it, but it obviously came and went because there's the house, mostly insulated, looking more like a house than ever. 
The north side of the house insulated.


The south side of the house all insulated.

The north wall of the house from inside and upstairs.

The south wall of the house from inside and upstairs.
Mostly insulated.  There are still a few small walls to do in the spring, but until spring it will wait.  Until then, we'll press cider, make apple sauce, harvest the abundance of food in the garden, continue to work on different aspects of the house (maybe windows!?  maybe siding!?).  Most of all, we will make time for each other, and that I can't wait for.

Monday, September 5, 2011

And now presenting..... The bedroom!

Arms aching from pounding straw and clay into wall cavities?  Check.
Skin and clothes covered in a fine dusting of clay?  Check.
Arms, face and hair greasy from four applications of mosquito repellent?  Check.
Bedroom walls totally finished?  Check!

Take a look for yourself!

Rick, Arthur, me and Mary stuffing the final bedroom wall.

Form moving up....

Even though he is a skeptic about our choice of insulation, Bentley showed up to help stuff.  (We checked his pockets for foam and fiberglass before he began).  :)

Moving up....


We are so close to the top!


Matt stuffing the tippy top.

A view from inside the finished bedroom. 

Inside the finished bedroom looking straight out towards the road.  How sweet is this room?!
A view from the road.