Testing...

OK I'm testing to see if I was able to link my posts here to FB! Here's a picture of our bikes at the Joyce Daze parade: ours are the ones on either side of the sandwich board.

Kitchen v.2

Wow, I didn't realize I'd been neglecting the blog so much - damn Facebook! Facebook is great for keeping up with the short versions of a lot of people's lives but what it gains in speed it lacks in depth. Friend Michelle pointed out that I should be able to post here and share on FB as well though so I'm going to try that.

Chris has been working hard on building the kitchen island. We actually had the outside wall cabinets done some months ago and were waiting to do the island. Have the island and back patios to do as our big summer projects now. The rest can wait until over winter!

The island will have a 30" work surface on the working side and then a raised bar surface o the back side with three bar stools. In this picture, Chris is drilling it in order to anchor it into the concrete floor.

Looking like a home.

The bulk of the flooring is complete! We put cork flooring throughout the house with the only exceptions being the bathrooms and laundry room which will be tile and vinyl for water protection. The cork has warmed up the house visually and has dramatically reduced the noise and echo, especially because we added Floor Muffler underneath it.

Chris has started on door, window and base trim. In the office where he started it has truly finished off the room and feels "done" now. 

Sadly, our neighbors Ed & Gail have moved to be closer to family. We will miss them but as we're finding, the world keeps getting smaller so I do not doubt we will see them again.

After a cool June, temperatures are heading into the mid-70s next week - we can't wait! No real complaints though - it's been dry and beautiful regardless. Just enough rain to keep the plants watered and it always moves on through.

More mulch!

Chris picked up the rest of the mulch today so that part is done, although we now need to carve out part of the back yard of clay so we can bring in the crushed rock to finish the project. Neighbor Jack came over and helped again. Here's the three of us the first day of speading the mulch.

The next thing will be spreading crushed rock out to the back of the house, cleaning and organizing the garage, and getting quotes for flooring and cabinets.

Spring is here - must be time for landscaping!

We've had such a mild winter that the trees started blossoming several weeks ago and all the daffodils are up and there's lambs and calves in the fields.

Chris ordered in 10 yards of mulch and we got it all spread out this weekend. He also brought in some river rock. Here's the "before" and "after" pictures of the right side of the house. The japanese maple and the azalea have only got buds on them so you can hardly see them against the mulch right now. We need a couple more yards of mulch and some crushed rock and we'll finish of the left side of the house.

Birdbath!

Went to Port Townsend this weekend to visit the folks for lunch. Dad has really been getting in to driftwood sculpture and I had asked if some time he could maybe make a birdbath stand for me. Well he got right on that and made this really cool stand for my pottery bird bath dish. It turned out to be doubly useful in that it was tall enough I could suspend the suet holder from it. I was able to get home on Sunday night with enough light to set it up but since it's still dark when I go to work and come home I'll have to wait until Saturday to see it in action. We had some pretty good winds last night though and it was standing strong this morning!

E. Coli safety

A friend of ours recently entered the hospital with a sudden onset case of HUS brought on by e.coli. This is a very active and healthy couple and it stresses how it can happen to anyone. Following is a link to a cdc article on safety as it pertains to e.coli:

http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/stec_gi.html

Unfortunately, in the case of vegetables, e.coli can be absorbed up into the vegatbles so washing may not be enough in that case. Makes it even more important to know where your food is coming from and buy locally, within 100 miles if possible, as much as you can so if something is going on in your area you are more likely to hear about it.

You may see in our "what we're reading" section on the blog as well, some books on the slow movement and food that are also well worth reading. We're certainly not advocating for NOT eating anything in particular, but for being aware of ingredients and processing and where your food comes from...and can what you're eating even be considered food?