meet m a r g a r e t

margaret and her all girl crew arrived today - she had a long voyage - getting pulled to her new home by the tractor - all the way down turner drive. her and the crew are currently camped out in our front circle, as the yard is too muddy for her to launch. she is getting many stares from the neighbors as they slow down to a creep while driving by - which i am taking as a compliment.
robert did a fabulous job building her and getting her sea worthy in his spare time and on the snow days we have been having. thank you, my love! she is beautiful!

-the crew: 4 reds and 4 white leghorns-

-margaret: the fortified vessel-

-and a very curious brain-

tomatoes, peppers and herbs are thriving under their lamps. i cannot wait for summer

saturday was a beautiful day for....

-....trimming trees out of the road to make room for dump trucks to bing new gravel- charles and robert on the tractor, me following behind trowing the limbs in the woods and picking up trash (which ended up being 3 bags full and i even had some neighbors come out to help me)....-

-...cleaning the old stuff out of garden, pulling up the weed barriers and some weeds...-

-.....reusing old weed barrier that was still intact- (still need to plow up the weeds on that sweet potato patch and get some hay)....-

-....exploring....-

-...cleaning out the raised beds and planting onions and leeks in this one.....-

-......and more exploring.....-

today - my second day of sanding hell - things were looking good when all of the sudden my sander bit the dust. it simply would not could not turn on anymore. i can understand that it was a little overworked and tired after all the hours we put in. trust me - i was tired, too - but to bail on me like that. not cool.

i ordered a new one during my lunch break today, but since it will be a while for it to get here, i borrowed Robert's to finish the job. its nice to have a husband who also has tools.

with all the epic failures of the past 2 weeks - at least i had some success and now have at these 2 crates of goods and a VERY dusty and messy shop to show for it. These items are now awaiting to be saturated and rubbed down with walnut oil. i will ignore the fact that it should have been 3-4 crates of goods and be happy with what i did manage to salvage.

happy birthday to my sweet love!

-Robert and his baby Gabriel-

-my version of a (so called) German Chocolate Cake-

-about to blow them all out! all 3 8 of them-

snow-covered snapshots

from lemons - to lemon aid - to firewood

today was a rough day.

this week i had a lot planned. milled a lot of wood that i so graciously received from my mother in laws friend over a year and half ago in exchange for some mild labour. it was her late husbands wood, and it was a lot of cherry, walnut, cedar and some oak. i have used up the best - it was frustrating to work with all along, as it appears that it has never been dried or stored properly.... so what is left is not the best anymore... i should have known...

i did the milling, ripping, and glueing up about 40 cutting boards worth of material and 6 sets of coasters earlier this week.

when running them through the planer to clean them up, i had a bunch of tear out in some of the cherry, and there were checks running through so many of the pieces that were revealed after this last round of planing. it was a sad and frustrating day.
of those 40 boards, only about 28 made it to see the end of today.... and some of them way, way waaaaaaay smaller than they should have been, trying to save what i could by cutting out and off some of the sections that were no usable. the same counts for the coasters - only one set survived.

i am so disappointed and down about it.

i guess the wood was pretty much free. yet the time involved feels so wasted.

and i wont get my goal done of restocking my inventory this month. but i suppose i will have enough for the first two shows coming up.

after this first show of the year - which will be in richmond on march 30th - i will turn around and invest in a trip to the lumber yard for some "real" wood.

and then will finish my restocking.

here's to a better day tomorrow.