Our farm helpers are coming Tuesday to do a very specific project - weeding the overgrown walkway, pruning hollies and japonica and dogwood, cleaning upstairs windows outside, painting trim, cleaning front porch top to bottom, and painting steps and rails.
We will of course have no contact and while it looks like a hot day again next week, they will at least have shade for much of the work and they plan to start super early in the morning. I’m happy to have some sprucing up done out front by two people whose work is meticulous!
Meanwhile the pastures and paddocks are growing so well this year we’ve ended up rotating between them instead of leaving all open to the herd. My overseeding in the fall and last spring has really paid off. This fall I’ll need to do this in the bottom of the front pasture, but otherwise, all looks good.
I’ve been meaning to write about our summer tanager(s). We’ve not seen this bird on November Hill that we can remember before this year, but we have one (or more) who is living and foraging very close to the house and barn so we see him/her every day. It’s been a treat to have a new species to watch. I don’t yet have any photos!
The barn swallows have finally finished nesting and fledging their second clutch of eggs and are out of the barn. I admit the last few weeks they were there had me very tired of them swooping in and and out. Now they’re gone and I miss them a little bit!
July is my least favorite month because of the heat and the biting insects but I do love the lushness of it when we’re getting good rainfall, and I’m spending a bit of time each day noting the beauty and being grateful for it. Though I love the landscape in winter, with so many of the trees bare, we lose the privacy we have in the summer months and there’s always a winter day on which we’ve had a lot of rain and it seems so cold and dreary and muddy that I long for summer’s green. Right now we have it, so it’s good to appreciate it while it’s here.
I’m done with my bookshelf painting and the newly-colored shelves are in their new place, with books back in order. Yesterday I indulged myself and painted the lid (which for some reason has always seemed unfinished to me compared to the rest) of my grandma’s old cedar chest, which holds the beloved stuffed animals from my children’s younger years. There’s a small panel of filigree woodwork on the front and I lightly painted that the same color. I’ll finish it up today. I also painted the roof of the Breyer barn, something I’ve been thinking about for several years and boy was that fun to do! I have more ideas for it and since it’s such a little and manageable project, I’ll work on it a little at a time as a reward for some of the larger jobs. Today I’ll begin painting the bedroom next to the guest room, which we’re calling the “new garret” - really the second garret, for my daughter. The paint color is a bright botanical green and I’m looking forward to seeing color in that room!
The new furniture is set to arrive on Monday, so I’d like to get this painting done by Sunday. There’s one piece of furniture in there that has to be moved out and hauled away tomorrow, so I have to clear a few things off it today.
Speaking of painting, I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never finished the laundry room nor the dining room - partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue the colors on the adjoining walls. I’m still not sure, but I’m hoping this bedroom redo will inspire me to get back to figuring out what I’ll do with the colors in those two areas. (Sometimes I just spend way too much time pondering colors and choices!)
Right this moment it’s gray and cooler than it has been and everything has been watered nicely by the rain, and I’m enjoying the way the windows as I look through them are full of green foliage. I can’t see the end of the driveway or the lane, and I love that.
4 comments:
It's been so hot and humid here just doing the essentials is enough. You've really got a lot going on there. I don't have the ambition or the energy to even think about starting projects. Right now the biggest thing I'm doing is sewing curtains for the farmhouse bedroom. One more to go and that's done. Hope your projects all turn out the way you want them to.
Sewing curtains! That is a project! :) and for some of us, a daunting one! :)
Well, you know me, I am always full of ideas and mostly I get them done but often on a longer timetable than I originally plan for. The furniture arrived today and the truck was far too large to come down our driveway without wrecking my redbud overhang, so I backed up the farm truck and they loaded into the truck bed. Then I decided before I unloaded it in the garage, I needed to organize the garage a bit and then decided to sweep it out. So the furniture arrived, I went down a rabbit hole of stuff I had not in any way planned, and it’s nice and tidy now but of course that rabbit hole used up two hours of painting time. I am still not yet upstairs painting walls and it’s already 3 p.m. While my plan was to have the painting done by yesterday, I’m halfway through the first coat. The second coat will go more quickly, but still, there’s a chunk of painting left to do! Also, I got the bright idea yesterday while painting to put up a molding along the ceiling. I actually have it in hand already after choosing it yesterday late afternoon, but that too will have to be painted and then put up at the end of the painting. Once all is said and done it’s going to be quite wonderful, but I can’t seem to knock things out as quickly as I used to do! I also didn’t confess that in the midst of this I ended up in the guest bedroom rearranging it totally and that too took me away from painting time. I’m enjoying all the rabbit holes so I can’t be too upset with myself for taking them.
Ha! You sound like me! Always a project to do but then too many distractions and I go off course and don’t get the original project done. Sounds like you’re flitting from one thing to the next but at least you’re making progress.👍🏻😊
Well, I’m happy I’m not the only one. :)
Today I had to go off on another project - our sliding glass doors onto our deck have finally kicked the bucket after close to 25 years. So had to get scheduled with Pella to come out and measure for new ones. Then added an upstairs window that needs replacing too because it’s having minor leakage. It’s always something! But my walkway to the front porch is now weeded and other good things being done out there, so I’m going to enjoy that progress and then get back to my painting again this afternoon. I’m closing in on finishing the first coat.
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