...that's not what I had in mind.

 In light of my previous post, Mother Nature responded with a resounding FREEZE HER OUT! battlecry.  We've had bitterly cold temperatures, and our last storm was 8 inches of heavy snow followed by freezing rain.  To add insult to injury, after the blizzard raged all morning, temperatures rose to nearly 40 degrees F by afternoon, then plummeted once again to below zero the next day. 

Although that storm was hell on my snowblower, I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised at how well my mini-split heating system is doing so far.  It seemed like any time I told someone that was going to be my heat source, I was told it wasn't a good choice for the area, and I should really have an alternate heating method to aid in keeping my house warm.  Instead, I soldiered on with my plan and I don't regret it yet.  

One difference with the mini-split vs. a typical forced hot air furnace is that I've learned you don't fool with the settings, unless you plan to be gone for any length of time.  I have 3 of the 4 heads set to 67 degrees, and it's keeping the house comfortable.  The 4th head is in my bedroom, and I have that one turned off.  During the day when the sun heats the upstairs, the units will run maybe every half hour to keep the temperature steady.  At night, they seem to kick on every ten minutes or so, but they're so quiet you don't really notice it.  I do hear the compressor unit turning on and off outside my bedroom wall, but it's not an irritatingly loud noise.  I did find that in the basement the floors are very cold, and working down there all day wasn't comfortable.  I moved my work from home setup to the upstairs, but I still go into the basement den to watch tv at night.  Having a propane heater in the adjoining garage is definitely helping to keep the downstairs warmer, I believe.  I have that set at 48 degrees, which is probably a little warmer than it needs to be.  My propane consumption hasn't been nearly as much as I had anticipated, either.

My electric bill is only a little higher than it was in my big drafty farmhouse during the coldest part of winter.  There, I was heating with a forced hot air furnace (oil), a wood stove (firewood and compressed wood blocks), and electric heaters to take the chill off in certain rooms.  Even though I don't have exact numbers, I'm definitely spending less to heat this house.  Of course, it helps that it's smaller and much better insulated, but it is wide open, too, with a vaulted ceiling in the main living area.  

Would I recommend a mini-split as a main heating source?  Yes, IF your house is well insulated.  For new construction, absolutely.  As an additional source of heat?  Yes, absolutely.  They are built to be energy efficient, and I can't lie; the added benefit of having air conditioning during the summer is a huge plus.  I'm very, very happy with my choice.

< reset preferences/winter=cold,snow >

 What in the world?

 

 

Another one of these warm up, rain, deep freeze, rinse, repeat winters.  

Thanks a lot, climate change.

I'm still holding out hope that I'll get a chance to use my new(used) cross-country skis that I bought two winters ago.  We'll see.  

winter, at last!

 

Six inches of snow just before Christmas, how apropos!  The ground wasn't quite frozen yet thanks to the abnormally warm weather we were having; just a few days before this storm it was almost 60*.  But now winter is here and everything is so clean and brisk and beautiful...

My first winter being able to watch the boys from on high, too.

So far this winter Flea is doing fantastic.  The medication I have him on is really helping to keep his insulin resistance in check.  He hasn't been in boots since April, and I'm hoping he won't have to revert back to them this winter. 

Meanwhile, I'm taking a free mini-course in permaculture online since I can't actually garden right now.  I'm learning quite a bit, to be honest!  The gardener has a great solution for terraced gardens that I wish I'd found before I started my perennial beds, but I may be able to incorporate the design into my forest garden...if I ever get that going.  Her method involves natural materials, and the terraces blend into the landscape nicely.

We have a flock of Bluebirds hanging around, which is cool but at the same time kind of weird to see them in the winter.  

 They do add a bit of color to the landscape, competing with the Blue Jays.

The Bluebirds have been taking advantage of my giant planter full of natural foods, which is awesome.  They seem to like the winterberries best, but some of the smaller songbirds have been snacking on the seed heads.  I'll have to grow something in there next summer that can overwinter and provide food.  Maybe some dwarf sunflowers?  I'd better start seed shopping now...oh wait.  I never stop. 😉

Out with the old

 One more piece of Stoneridge Farm has faded into the history books.

A once handy tack & feed room, chicken coop, rabbit house, fort, and cat hangout...now reduced to a pile of rotted wood and moss covered shingles.  

No, it didn't fall in - the insurance company said it had to go, as it was a safety hazard.  In the spring we'll have someone haul the pile of debris away and I'm sure Mom will make that spot beautiful. 

First snow...time to wrap it up.

 Yup, we had our first snow November 19th.  Nothing major, just a few squalls on and off throughout the day.  It didn't even stick.

Still, it was a reminder that winter will be here sooner rather than later.  It spurred me to take care of the tender bulbs I had pulled and was drying in the garage.  They're all clean and trimmed and nestled in fresh shavings for the winter now.

Thanks to daylight saving time, I don't have a couple hours after work to putter around the yard, so I'm cramming everything into my weekends.  I grabbed a load of 50/50 mix to finish up the giant planter.  I can't lie, having a truck is so handy!  

Today I scoured the edges of the woods for some greenery to give it a holiday feel.  A giant planter of dirt isn't really attractive, and I didn't want the soil splashing up against the house if it rained.  Greens (and browns...I'm going for a more natural look) will help keep the soil in place a little better until it freezes.

 

My mother is a pro at floral displays.  Unfortunately I'm not.  But I have seed heads of asters, goldenrod, and staghorn sumac in there for the birds to nibble on, so it's at least serving a purpose.  I also put some solar lamps among the branches and string lights along the stair rails...for ambiance, I guess.

Quick edit - mom stopped on a roadside and clipped a bunch of Winterberries, enough to share.  Definitely an improvement!

 

I was given a load of sawdust earlier this summer and hadn't used it all, so I scraped up what I could and laid it over the landscape fabric on the tiered garden.  I'm hoping it serves two purposes - one, to weigh down the fabric so it stops sagging and stays in place this winter, and two, provide a base for the mulch layer I'll add in the spring.  

I did some organizing in the garage again, and can now fit the truck, tractor, snowblower, and generator in there.  I have a few furniture refinishing projects to work on this winter and once those are done, it will open up some more space.  And after I go through all the boxes of crap I still have, I can purge again and downsize my hoard.  

I was going to leave Reputa in the she-shed for the winter, but when I took out my snowblower to make sure it would run, I discovered that mice had packed nesting material inside it.  I had to remove a bunch of covers and clean it out so I could start it.  I don't want to take a chance of having mice move into Reputa's engine!  I was hoping I could fit her in the garage with the plow on, but there just isn't enough room for that.  Maybe next winter.  

Now I just have to make sense of my tools, and I'll feel better about the state of things.  

What a mess!!!  At least I can't say that I have nothing to do, right?

Fall Chores

 It's the big push to get everything ready before winter sets in.  My garage is still not ready for a truck to be parked in it, but I'm trying.  I've moved most of my tools in from the she-shed, but have yet to organize them.  I've mowed the pasture one last time, pulled all the vegetables from the garden, and tried to do a reasonable cleanup outside.  

I brought in my herbs for over-wintering, and set them up in a vintage crib I purchased at a yard sale a few years ago.  I removed one side so they'd get as much light as they need, but they're protected from a certain plant-eating cat.

I had to lop off 90% of my sage plant because it was so large, so I tried my hand at making smudge sticks.  I think they're supposed to be thicker, so next time I'll keep that in mind.

I've been working on the tiered garden again.  I was desperate to get my plants out of their pots - the ones that came with me from my old house were potted up in late summer, 2018!  Some of the plants became root bound and many of them died in the pots, but I still have quite a few left.  I decided to forget about building walls of cinder block, and instead went with more wooden raised beds.  I gave up on trying to level the tiers, too.  Just get them in, once the plants are growing you'll never even notice the downhill slant of the beds!

I had 3 yards of 50/50 (compost/soil) delivered, and after I had lined each bed with yet another layer of mule compost, I filled each bed with the soil.  

We hired Corey to come back with his tractor to do some of the heavy lifting for us.  I had him dig out the bottom block tier with his backhoe, then put the remaining 50/50 in that bed.  I also had him move the pallet of blocks to the other side of the yard, and I did some clean up around the beds. 

I've left enough room between each raised bed and along the front of the tiers to lay my large patio blocks to create walkways around the garden.  I'm not sure if that will get done before snow flies; it may be a spring project.  I also plan to put bark mulch over the landscape fabric.  It's getting there!

The blocks that weren't used to build the gardens I used to build a manure station for the winter.  It's not pretty, but it's functional.  I've found that just piling the manure up leads to lots of weeds growing in it, so this way I can have it contained and easier to manage...hopefully.

Another garden chore was to move my Craigslist planter to the front of the house.  This was the fiberglass transformer cover that I picked up for a song a few years ago.  Of course I did the hugelkultur treatment...I had some large poplar branches that needed to be cleaned up in the pasture, so I started by cutting those up and tossing them in the bottom of the planter.  Areas of the pasture were overgrown and after mowing there were thick layers of cut grass that needed to be raked up, so that went in over the wood.  Top dressing was of course more mule compost.  I'm going to try to get another load of 50/50 mix to complete the recipe, then it will be ready for planting in the spring.  I'll probably give it a more complementary paint job next year, too; maybe dark grey or black.  The green just doesn't look right.  In case you're wondering, the bottom is mostly open, so plenty of drainage.

grass clippings and leaves over poplar branches

mule compost top dressing

If time and weather allow, I still have 8 posts to get into the ground for my mule track, and the fence needs to go up at some point.  I have to take down the preliminary chute, as I've moved that to the back of the paddock, and I need to run my giant weed trimmer around to tidy up the pasture.  It's going to be winter proper before we know it!

One Year Ago Today...

 It's hard to believe one year ago we broke ground for my house.  I have an awful habit of only seeing what hasn't been done, and I have to remind myself to do the opposite.

I'm still not finished unpacking.  I don't really have things exactly set up the way I'd like.  I still don't have room in the garage for my truck.  I didn't even start on my back yard.  I haven't touched up all the dings and marks from banging furniture against the new walls.  I don't have all my pictures hung.  My downstairs bathroom floor is still gross concrete.  I haven't finished my kitchen island.  I still don't have a backsplash, or a hood vent over my stove.

But.

BUT.

I have a bed to sleep in.  I have glorious sunlight pouring through my windows.  I have a work from home nook, and a tv room.  I have a place to eat, a place to shower, and a place to retreat to after a long day.  I have a home, and that's something.  

I'm pretty lucky, really.

What They Didn't Teach Me In New Home School

This is the first time I've ever been in a brand new home. 

This is the first time I've ever owned a home with a finished basement.  

I grew up in a house with a dirt floor basement, and it's a scary, small, musty place.  My first home had a half dirt, half concrete basement that would flood annually and was a scary, small, musty place.  My second home was on short piers and had a crawl space under it.  It was a small, squishy, dank place.  My third home also had a dirt floor basement, which was a mildly unsettling, tall, musty place.  I'm not much of a cellar dweller to be honest.  I do not know the ways of concrete, or humidity, or the quirks of a newly built structure.  I'm practically an expert on living in a home that's over a century old, but this place?  I'm out of my league.

That's a long, rambling way of saying my concrete foundation has yet to cure, and between that and the copious amounts of rain we've seen so far this spring and summer, my lower floor is an experiment in mold growth.  No, not the dreaded black mold you find in ceilings and walls, thankfully!  But every piece of wooden or wicker furniture in my garage or media room or mud room has a fine layer of mold on it.  

Well, now that's frustrating.  

 

I researched the best way to tackle this issue on the interwebs, then spent most of Saturday morning hauling out furniture, spraying it with a vinegar/water mix, and wiping it all down.  I did what I could, then let everything bake in the sun (we actually had a sunny day!) for the rest of the afternoon.  Inside, I sprayed the floor in the media room with the vinegar mix and mopped, vacuumed what I could, brought the clean furniture back in, turned the heat on, and closed the doors.  It makes me shudder to think of running the heat at 78* in mid-summer, but it was necessary.  I ran the heat for 2 days and also have two dehumidifiers running nonstop.  Fingers crossed this will remedy the situation.

I also managed to mow the field, finally.  My intention was to let the grass grow and form seed heads, and when they dropped then I would mow.  That was a few weeks ago and with all the rain we've had the field was ridiculously overgrown.  I had to run the mower deck at its highest height and even then it mostly just pushed the grass over instead of cutting it.  I was about three quarters done and one of the belt wheels on the mower deck gave out, so I had to finish with my mom's riding mower.  I'll need to get my wheeled string trimmer going and take care of the brushy patches, but it looks pretty good.  That's the mulberry tree dead center, the reason for all the wildlife hanging about.

  Here's what she offers:

And this year she's loaded with berries.  After I mowed there were only a few scattered in the grass.  The next morning I went out and everywhere I looked there were berries on the ground.  It brought in not only the coyotes, porcupine, and deer, but an entire family of coonskin caps.

I also threw in the towel where my peas and lettuce are concerned.  The peas gave me three good harvests, and the lettuce has turned into something from a science fiction movie.  They've been pulled and relocated to the compost bin.  

My tomatoes look horrible thanks to lack of sunlight, but the cucumbers are obviously loving all the wet weather.  My onions don't look as nice as they did last year, either.  I did manage to mow around the barn and garden this weekend, too.  And get some shots of my poor three year potted plants that would love to go in the ground.

these stargazer lilies are actually only 2 years potted

echinacea "Hot Papaya"

pink tiger lily

crocosmia "Lucifer", which didn't bloom last year

my three year potted bergamont, still doing its best

I've crossed a few things off my lengthy to-do list, but there's so much left.  My wooden raised beds have arrived, which means my next efforts need to go into the tiered garden project.

Ugh, what a mess.

addendum to rain and lethargy and other stories

 That's right!  I forgot to mention that I'm fully functional now; I finally have my propane tanks!  I've been putting my washer and dryer to the test.  I have a set from LG and they sing to me when I turn them on and when a load is done.  The tune gets stuck in my head and I find myself whistling it over and over.  But my clothes are wicked clean, so who cares about earworms?  Dee-deedle-lee-dee-dee, dum-deedle-lee-dum-dum...

My dishwasher is a complex creature I feel I will never fully understand.  'Nuff said.

And my Pat-Boone-made-me-buy-it tub?  Well, I've discovered that I don't have enough patience to sit in a tub and soak, which is regretful.  Yes, the air and jets and lights and heat are all lovely, but after five minutes I've had enough and I want out.  Using it as a shower is a test of one's ability to contort (it's a tiny space) but I manage.  I'm ok with it not being THE BEST THING EVER.  It's still pretty nice.

I'm still working on the lower level, but currently I'm battling humidity that wants to keep everything dank and musty.  I've been told that once the concrete foundation cures, this will go away.  In the meantime I'm spraying copious amounts of Lysol and have two dehumidifiers going 24/7.

I've been running the mini split on air conditioning mode and it's doing a fantastic job.  You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw my entire electric bill during a blazing hot spell was only $49, and most of that was the mysterious "delivery charge", not my actual usage.

The built-in air fryer in my stove is pretty cool.  Yes, I've actually cooked.  Send up the flares.

So, yeah.  I'm pretty pleased with my little pad.  Limited space keeps my hoarding tendencies in check, I love the open concept, and I sleep pretty well at night.  What more can a girl ask for?

rain and lethargy and other stories

 Something strange is happening to me.  I'm not sure if it's because I had (for the most part asymptomatic) Covid-19, because I'm "a woman of a certain age", or maybe side effects of the Covid vaccination, but I can't seem to rally any enthusiasm for...well, anything really.  Lately I find that I have little to no energy and even less ambition.  I've been forgetting things and making foolish mistakes at work.  It's been difficult to get the house situated when I can only seem to get through a couple boxes per week.  I haven't done anything with my yard, which is depressing.  I want to get a fence up first so I can better judge where I want things to go, but lack of money and lack of  ambition are a hindrance.  I need to fence the mule track, but again...no ambition. I don't think I've ever experienced this level of apathy in my life.

We've also just clocked the 4th rainiest month in New Hampshire in recorded weather history.  If it's not raining, it's hot, muggy, and generally oppressive.  This sort of weather doesn't exactly bolster one's ambition, either.  It's been great for the gardens and the wells, though!  I haven't felt too guilty washing load after load of bedding, towels, clothing, curtains, and whatever else I've come across while unpacking.  Man...why did I ever think I needed that much bedding?  I had 3 bedrooms in my old house, and I think there were sheet sets and quilts for each bed according to season.  I'm happily purging my ridiculous amount of belongings once again.  

I have, however, been absolutely loving watching the wildlife through those huge windows.  There's a large doe and her spunky little fawn, a doting mother turkey and her two little chicks, Huginn and Muninn - the very vocal ravens who love to sit in the mulberry tree and shriek with delight, and a gorgeous blonde coyote I've been calling The Beast and her happy little pup.  I've even set up a game camera in the hopes of filming these wonderful creatures.  So far I've got about 30 hours of great footage of tall grass blowing in the wind.  With my trusty DSLR, I've had better luck.

Momma Turkey and her chicks; the second one is in the grass to the right.

One of the ravens.  No, I can't tell them apart.

The fawn spots Momma Turkey and her chicks.  One chick is just visible to the right of Momma.

Harassment.

 

Run away!  Run away!

 

The fawn would assess the situation, then slowly creep back toward the turkeys only to be chased off again by Momma.  This went on for a while.

The Beast, snacking on mulberries.

And after I had started this post, my game camera was able to capture some pretty amazing footage of the coyotes.  CoyoteS...plural.  It seems there are actually two pups, and another adult.  Mate?  Last year's juvenile?  I'm not sure.  The Beast decided to bring the whole family to the pasture in broad daylight the other day to stalk Momma Turkey and her chicks, but I won't have such shenanigans.  Not in the daytime.  Nope.  Whatever goes on under cover of night is fine, but I don't want the coyotes becoming too comfortable running around our yard, so I ran out and yelled, and the pack took off.  Mom brought Roo dog down into the pasture and Roo did her best guard dog impression, barking and growling and running back and forth, and the pack didn't return.  Momma Turkey didn't return, either, so I have no idea what the status of that family is.  

Thug life?  Nah.  Woods life.  Gotta love the drama.  😉