Winter Project #1 - Bookcase Shelving

 

Several years ago, I ordered a bookcase for our dining room.  I waited all day for it to be delivered and finally at 9 pm at night in snow it got delivered and dumped in the side yard of our house.  It was not supposed to be assembled because it was too big to get through the door of the door of the house. I had to disassemble it in the dark and somehow get it through the back door to put in the dining room. There was damage to the shelving for the bookcase and it was missing screws.  Restoration Hardware where I ordered the original bookcase discounted the bookcase, sent me four sets of screws and two sets of replacement shelves for the bookcase. The first set of shelves fit another bookcase and the second set was 5 shelves when I only needed two.  Needless to say, it was the last order I ever placed with them.  I set the shelves aside knowing I would try and figure out what to do with them at some point. 

Several years later, I finally got around to doing something with them.   We are still in the midst of remodeling the basement and I needed bookcase shelving for the dinette area downstairs.  I made four ladders out of 2x2's  for the shelves and painted them to match the finish on the shelving and anchored them to the wall.  Voila, instant bookcase.  It looks great and is already filled with games and puzzles for the basement.  I have a couple more projects in store for the basement and am looking forward to tackling those soon. 

We Heart Sunflowers

 

It has been an extraordinary summer. Not just with Covid and social distancing but with having all this time to garden.  Starting with seeds in the basement on a grow table and harvesting everything at the end of the summer - it has been amazing.  The flowers and beds look fantastic.  One of the things we are very excited about was our sunflowers.  We have NEVER been able to get them to grow up here. I don't know if it's the extra attention or more consistent watering - but we finally got sunflowers to grow.  Tim started them with seeds in the basement and although we were not very confidant - then planted them in and around the vegetable garden.  They did great. We only planted a couple varieties but had great success.  They were beautiful and like anything new - didn't have any clue what to do about harvest the seeds for next year.  We had to do some reading about drying and saving.  Hopefully, next year we will have even more.  

The Catio

 

Poor cats.  They just don't know what happened to their comfortable NY apartment with all their familiar surroundings. They have adapted to their new home for the last 8 months but get a little antsy.  We thought we might build them a Catio outside their guest bedroom window but the planning all got bogged down with how to attach it to the house so they could go in and out their window.  We decided it might be best to go online and find a larger cage that would be comfortable for them that could also be used inside as well as outside. We found a cage suitable and are still in the process of securing it carefully and making it more comfortable. We tested it out with small individual excursions into the living room. Now, this cage is quite large and fills the living room when it is there. We couldn't leave it there for long.  After we managed a couple trips with both of them confined in it - we knew it was time to go to the next step.  OUTSIDE!  We brought Sookie out first and then Atticus so they weren't too upset.  They sat there stunned for a little while.  Atticus just stared and stared.  Sookie got very comfortable and got up on the cat bed and rolled around so we knew she liked it. Atticus was a little overstimulated and we had to take him back inside. However, we think it was a success and now we just have to wait for another warm day to venture out. 

OQUAGA CREEK STATE PARK

We took a quick drive last Saturday up to Oquaga Creek State Park.  Covid summer is starting to wear on me and we need a little excursion. The park is about an hour and a half away from us which isn't too far. Convenient enough for a quick trip and it has camp sights, a man made lake for kayaking and swimming and a man made beach. The place was packed when we went .  Great place to go for a week and get away from all things this summer. 

 

CAMPER SHELL

 It's been a summer of projects.  After driving out to see Oquaga Creek State Park, we got super excited about doing some camping.  I am not a tent guy especially up in these parts so I was doing a lot of searching on YouTube and found a quick build out to do for a camper bed with storage that is easily removable because we use the truck so much.  I had to do a serious cleaning in the back of the pick up. It smelled of hay bales and the farm road dirt does a number on both cars.  The shell door handles had been clogged with dirt and were unusable so I had to take the truck over to Oneonta to have the door handles and locks replaced.  Got the lumber and it took me maybe 3 hours to build the simple base and storage slider drawers.  We have all sorts of camping gear already but I ordered a full size air mattress and some new camping chairs and we made reservations for the camping spot!  Can't wait it should be so much fun! 

OUR LITTLE FAMILY

It's been a very strange bizarre sad year.  I lost two Aunts to COVID in a period of a month in March. I was very depressed and worried about what was going on outside of our little world here.  However, the best thing to happen was that we have our entire family together Sookie, Atticus, Kaluah and Martini and it has been awesome all of us living together in this home we have made.  I wouldn't have it any other way now.  I don't know what the rest of the year is going to be like but the past few months having our babies with us at the house has been awesome.

VEGETABLE GARDEN 2020

So this summer, after two years of hay bale gardening which was really successful - we decided to take all that great composting material and clean up the garden and put in some permanent raised beds.  We wanted to start using all this great soil and compost we had created.  However, with Covid and not having access to our normal nurseries we were going to have to get our plants in a different way.  We had set up a seed starting station in the basement but we finally were going to get to use it.  Tim had a huge library of seeds and since we weren't going anywhere - now was the moment to try it.

The garden had to be completely overhauled.  Breaking down the bales that had still  not decomposed and moving the decomposed material along with top soil into the beds and into the tires.  Don't knock the tires. They are great containers for a garden. We use them a lot for potatoes cause you plant in a stacked tire container and when you want to harvest you just lift the top layer and pull the potatoes out of the soil.  Cinder blocks and pavers are heavy and hard to haul.  So we are still in the process of bringing more in and setting up the permanent raised beds.  The pavers are so solid and great to sit and lean on.  The beds can also be adjusted, lengthened and modified as you see fit. The worst part about the hay bales was that they attracted a lot of snakes.  Snakes must like the moisture, texture, and shade of the decomposed bales but it was a little unnerving finding snakes everywhere.

The garden looks much more organized and permanent and less messy without  the bales falling apart.  The garden is looking great, the seed station worked out great and we move into phase 2 of our vegetable garden and we are very excited.