Old Garage Recycle



We have some serious structure building on the farm that will need to get done over the summer and that means lots of wood and building materials. So what's a couple of frugal types to do?? Look online to the local free classifieds and see what kind of building materials are available of course!

 

As luck would have it a local family is preparing to tear down this old garage and are giving away any of the wood we could take. We focused on the siding which turned out to be tongue in groove 2-6's that will be used

It took a little time to get the rhythm, but we pulled a big pile of good wood from the outside. This was just the start.

We also were able to salvage a few good pieces of plywood, some rain gutters and flashing. All of which will go to use in helping us build a solid and permanent poultry coop. One that we can house the birds in over winters and while they're not on pasture. More to come as we put it all to use!

P~

long time gone...

Well I'm appalled at myself for my delay in getting a new post up. I do plead for forgiveness however as I have been insanely busy and unfortunately many of the things that I would like to do have fallen by the wayside.. blogging being only one of many.

Just to give you a bit of what's been going on. I thought perhaps a brief rundown in photographic form.

We finally wrapped up the remodel of the basement living room and library areas. My wife did an amazing job of updating our fireplace with a whitewash finish and we added new flooring to replace the terrible old white carpet that was in there.

 As I said, we also re-finished the library adjoining the living room. We ended up having to remove all the old shelving that was in there and it was a good thing as we found some serious concerns with electrical behind them. Problems resolved and a nice new functional area defined.

 Easter found us at a Krishna Temple an hour away to celebrate the festival of Holi with them and a few thousand of their closest friends. It was AMAZING and we will certainly be back.

 We added a few new birds to our menagerie. Three turkeys, two ducks, and 9 new hens. 3 Buff Opies, 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Ameraucana, 2 Silver lace Wyandottes. They're growing up so fast..lol

 I took cuttings from a friends OLD established grape vines. A green seedless Himrod and a Concord grape varieties. I currently have 109 cuttings in the ground hoping to have at least enough viable starts to begin a vineyard on the property.

 We also finally got out pigs out of the well house in which they've lived since Christmas eve. We cleaned out and renovated an old "barn" in on the property and with all recycled materials that were pulled from the grounds, we fabricated a nice new pig pen.

 The pigs, needless to say, are much happier rooting and wallowing away in snortingly happy tones.

Last week I managed to get a few of our 9 new bare root fruit trees into the ground. This row is of two apple trees and two Asian pears. I need yet to add a Bartlett pear to the lineup. These will be trained in an Espalier living fence.  

And finally last weekend, my wife got a great idea to complete one of our final big home projects. Our upstairs bathroom. We had to remove two layers of underlayment to reveal that we had some rot in our subfloor around the toilet and bath tub. Got these removed and A~ got the walls painted and some new flooring put in place. She's working on a cool board and batten treatment for the walls that will really bring it up to date. 

 

So you can see, I haven't been completely lazy, just a wee bit occupied. There were lots more things as well, but not enough time to put them all down here. I'll just say that I have big news coming up soon with relation to this blog and our farm itself.

 

I hope you have all been well and look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible!

Take care.

P~