Progress

Help has arrived (kind of)

Sorry for the lack of post last week. We really didn’t have much going on around the house. But we’ve been slowly but surely making progress again. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d be getting help around the house. Frank was supposed to start two weeks ago. Well he quit before he even started. Probably for the best. However, around that same time I was contacted by Bob, who has his own carpentry company, and who got started this week. Not a great week for exterior work, though. We got rained out Monday and Tuesday. He did manage to start getting some metal roofing on the chicken coop.

Metal roofing

Recapping on the metal roofing. We’re reusing the original metal roofing from the shop. About 75% of it was still good. About 25% was rusted through and got thrown into the dumpster. Of the good 75%, we’re using some of it on the chicken coop roof. Then we’ll order the amount of panels necessary to finish the shop roof so that the new pieces will be over the shop (and not the chicken coop). The chicken coop roof will go on first with the worst of the remaining original panels. So that’s where Bob started before getting rained out. I’m hoping to have the roofs completed on both the chicken coop and shop this coming week.

Oceana’s garden is awesome

This week Oceana spent some time in her garden and it looks amazing! The plants in the raised beds are all growing really well. They’re growing well enough that they attracted the attention from the local rabbit community. We woke up one morning to missing greens and holes dug throughout the garden beds. Bummer. So in response she installed 2′ tall chicken wire around the whole garden area. We haven’t had any issues since. Next up were the trellises. She planted a bunch of vining plants at the edges of the beds and planned to use 16′ long cattle fence panels to make arches out of. She drove some fence posts into the ground to support the 3 arches and then I helped her get the panels set up into arches. Looks great.

More garden greatness

Next up she began moving all of the other plants (except the tower garden) into the garden area. She had picked up a few hanging pots of flowers on clearance at Lowe’s because it was cheaper to buy the pot with flowers on clearance than just the hanging pots by themselves. Well, with a little bit of water the flowers came back to life and started doing well. So she hung the pots up from the top of the trellises. It really looks great!

Oceana the leather crafter

Although not house related, Oceana finished making my birthday/Christmas gift this week. I had requested a handmade leather duffel bag to use on our weekend trips. Well Oceana has never done leather work before, and the plans for the bag we found were for an “advanced” leatherworker. No factor. She figured it out and worked through it piece by piece and was able to get it completed this week. It’s awesome! I’m really looking forward to using it for years to come.

The trash pile

I’m going to apologize in advance for the trash that has begun accumulating next to the shop. I’m going through a bit of a learning curve here. When we were in Loxahatchee, trash pickup was twice a week and the second pickup was bulk collection – basically if you placed it at the curb they would haul it off. I was able to dispose of the debris generated by my shop without issue. Here, trash pickup is only once a week, and bulk collection is only once a month. That means I’m generating more trash than can be hauled away. To remedy this I’ll end up hauling loads to the landfill. To haul the loads, I either need to finish my project trailer in the side yard or get a new one. I don’t really have time to finish another project right now, so I opted to get a new-to-me trailer. As part of this process, I gave my project trailer to my neighbor Mark’s nephew. On the new trailer, I’ll have a little work to do to but it will be ready to haul in no time.

Introducing Lacey

Oceana got a new pet…..a guinnea pig named Lacey. If yall are in the area, stop by, I’m sure Oceana would be happy to show Lacey off. That’s all for now. Thanks for following along.