So Far, So Good

It is far too cold to work in the garage lately, but the last dinette cushion arrived earlier this month.  I'm in love with how nice it all looks.  I'm still waiting on the sofa cushion covers but the fabric for that was delivered last week; it'll likely be a few weeks before that's completed.  I'm somewhat nervous about purchasing fabric without having seen it in person.  I went with Crypton performance fabric.  It is stain, odor, and moisture resistant as well as being planet-friendly.  I'm not affiliated with them in any way; it's just the fabric I chose and why I chose it.  

I've slowly been acquiring items for our "everyday" life in the camper: unbreakable glasses, bamboo dinnerware, nesting bowls... all of which will have to wait for a different post.  The bed ends are slowly coming together as well, but since I can't really set up both ends in the garage right now, those will have to be saved for later, too. 

What I've done so far:

• painted the cabinets
• painted the T-trim
• painted the stove cover
• painted the table support
• painted the steps
• covered the counters and tabletop
• covered the bed end trim
• made privacy curtains for the bed ends
• cut and reinforced the dinette area rug for the table support

What I have left to do:

• cushion/insulate bed end bases
• repair mattress cover
• find a storage container that will fit under the sofa
• find storage containers that will fit under all benches
• cabinet organizers
• figure out the refrigeration situation (look into the professional repair of the fridge)
• replace camper brakes

This is what the Apache looks like so far:

This is what the Apache looked like in October 2019:

We're getting there.

Cushions!

I just got an email that they should be here on Monday!

Holiday Break

I hope everyone had a great holiday.  I was so busy during the break, but I did manage to relax a fair bit.  Christmas day was spent with my family and the rest of the week I was in and out of the garage.  We've had unseasonably warm weather!  I did get some gift cards and of course, spent them all on getting the remainder of the decorating work done in the Apache.  I don't know how people apply countertop vinyl without actively going insane.  I must have pulled up and adhered the paper over the galley countertop about 4 times before it is to where I'm just giving up on it and leaving it as it is:  not perfect and definitely with some minor imperfections that will bother no one but me.  

I cannot destroy this air bubble for the life of me
Yes, I poked it with a pin first

I DID manage to get this wrinkle out and cover that exposed part at the top of the sink

I also realized that once you remove T-trim it is impossible to get it back to its original dimensions, so the trim around the swing counter is about 1/2 inch shorter.  Does this bother me?  No.  Okay, a little, but mostly no.  Not enough to drop fifty bucks on new T-trim to cover an area that won't come into contact with anything.  

See what I'm talking about?

Otherwise, things are moving along quite well.  I spray painted the table support because I'm just not a fan of the original stainless when the whole thing is set up because it looks too cold, but it's still drying so that'll have to wait.

I cut a hole in the rug that goes under the table so that the table support can go through, mostly because I wanted a long rug there. I initially purchased a smaller rug but it just got lost when the table was set up.  Now that there's a hole in it though, I have to figure out a way to keep the rest of it from unraveling.  I have a solution which will be implemented this week.  Four more months until camping season!

Cover Me!

The covers for the dinette cushions arrived and I couldn't be happier.  They're simply beautiful.  I chose an outdoor fabric for the covers for their ability to withstand some abuse, as well as their ability to shed some water if one of us spills something on them. Waverly's Sun n Shade Ulla Charcoal.  

Ulla Charcoal

As I mentioned before, I had an upholsterer sew the cushion covers from measurements that I provided.  There was a snafu that was completely my fault; I must have measured one of the smaller cushions twice, and then completely NOT THINKING, I sent those measurements to her.  Without double-checking.  You know what they say:  Measure twice, cut once.  I totally didn't do that and while another larger seat cushion cover is on its way, I've learned my lesson when it comes to being hasty.   

Love it!

I'm so pleased with how the Apache is turning out.  I received an early gift for the holidays, so I've been picking up little things here and there--mostly dining stuff.  All of that will be revealed in good time.  

It Ain't Over 'til it's Oversprayed

As much as I love the light and airy look from the last post, with its white cabinets, rug, and off white cushions, we get dirty when we're camping.  If we just sat around for a week and took a leisurely stroll on paved campground roadways I'd be slathering some white paint on every surface of the Apache.  When I say we get dirty, I mean it.  We wander off on 4-hour hikes and more often than not, Garrett is laying on a bed of mulched forest floor (or mud) taking macro photos of fungi.  I have a penchant for taking breaks on fallen trees and mossy rocks.  Sometimes we're canoeing through a bog and we've got those small flecks of "swamp things" on our clothes from getting inadvertently wet.  Sometimes it's as simple as soot from the fire getting on our clothes.  Do I want to transfer that to pristine white cabinetry?  Heck no.  

My canoe bow in the Barnum Bog, Paul Smith's VIC, New York

I mentioned before that the cabinets have the appearance of wood, but are metal.  Over the past few weekends, I've been painting the cabinets without removing them first.  Actually, I've been spray painting everything that is brown, with the exception of the couch under-storage area, which no one will really see anyway.  

I've been using Rustoleum's Universal All-Surface spray paint in Gloss Black for

the cabinets, and for the furnace, which needs a more specialized paint, Rustoleum's Ultra High Heat paint in Black.  I used the same Ultra High Heat in White for the stove lid. 

I taped off, put some paper on the floor in the dining area, and I taped the old grey curtains together and used them as a drop cloth since they were the best way to cover the entire floor without having to cut my usual drop cloth.  The weirdly-shaped items that needed to be covered were protected with aluminum foil.  I could only paint for about 15 minutes at a time, taking the rest of the day off.  The roof of the Apache is taller than the track of my garage door, so ventilation was not as good as I would have liked.  I did manage to open the door a couple of feet, and I left the entry door to the garage open as well.  

Despite laying down the drop cloth, The first time I painted I did not anticipate that the tiny paint particles would make everything sticky.  So as I worked backward, I was unaware that part of the drop cloth stuck to my shoe!  The result?  Areas of flooring where those tiny particles settled.  The fix?  A light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper buffed the noticeable discoloration away!  There was one corner that really got hit with a blast of paint, but that also sanded off tolerably well.  Here are the befores:

That's gonna leave a mark

 

That's not a shadow; it's overspray

Once the weather climbs back into the 40s, I'll finish sanding the floor.  For now though, back to seemingly neverending snowfall and prepping for the holidays.

The Leisure Seekers

Our title today refers to a wonderfully poignant movie with Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren.  Helen's character busts her husband out of the nursing home and they set off on an adventure in their family's ancient RV to Ernest Hemingway's house in the Florida Keys.  

When we're in the woods, I often sit quietly and just absorb the nature around us.  At Buck Pond, we listened to loons call each other for hours until we fell asleep.  In the Smokies, we enjoyed our morning coffee with a herd of deer and several titmice.  We try to get a campsite next to water if possible and are completely spoiled when we wake up to views like this:

Minister Creek Campground
Allegheny National Forest

I don't want the interior of the camper to compete with the views outside the windows, but I don't want it to be basic either.  I've seen more than a few remodels on Pinterest that I like a lot but won't translate well in a small space.  So, I'm focusing on a simple aesthetic on a very tiny budget.  Our biggest expense will be recovering the cushions and we're going with an upholsterer for that because we want them to be in the hands of someone that knows what they're doing with upholstery weight fabric (aka. not me).  

Since the Apache is straight out of the 70s, I wanted to honor that with what is probably the most popular DIY craft of that decade: macrame!  I found a tutorial on Pinterest, spent $5 in supplies, and learned how to tie a square knot.  

Am I seriously going to put a plant hanger in the camper?  Unlikely, but I like the idea of it and it kept me busy before I brought the camper home, so it's a win-win.  I ended up with an unspent gift card leftover from my birthday and did a little shopping, coming up with this:

Not bad for an initial idea

I quickly changed my mind on the peel-and-stick paper there, and while I love the gold metallic spray paint I don't think there are a ton of accents that I can spray paint gold.  

I love this.
Snagged from Pinterest that redirected to a sketchy not-original-post site
so I have no idea who to credit it to.

This is gorgeous.  I love how airy it all looks, but there's too much white for the amount of dirt that our kind of camping and hiking generates.  I have white kitchen cabinets now and it seems impossible to keep them really clean.  But overall, I love the vibe that this gives off.  Simple, understated, restful.

There are four more months before our next camping trip.  

Let's Do the Time Warp

The interior of the camper as I mentioned before, is straight out of 1975, except for the previous owner's application of Contact paper to the cabinet fronts and the frame above the bed ends.  I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey...

Let's start with the cushions.

Woah.  The photo of the cushion detail really doesn't do it justice.  It was nighttime in my garage and let's just say that the only benefit of the cover of darkness is the muted effect it had on the green and yellow.  Step back and appreciate this for all its worth.

Where to begin?

Okay, that isn't much better light-wise.  This was taken when I went to look at the Apache for the very first time on a bright October day.  While I may appreciate the light-blocking effects of dark grey curtains at five in the morning in the summer, I'm a firm believer in things being light and airy when it comes to window dressing.  The curtains are now long gone, but just appreciate the sheer visual cacophony of the plaid mixed with buffalo check mixed with tile.  While it looks like there are holes where the light leaks through on the bed end I can assure you that this puppy is tight as a drum.  Onward to the other side:

The bags are filled with the original curtains. 
The weird grey lump is a sofa.

I think the photos make this look smaller than it actually is.  The beds are full-size beds, and that sofa is six feet (2 meters) long.  The cushions on that are also the same green and yellow plaid, but they were covered by a fuzzy grey sheet.  An improvement, but I think we can do better for the long term. The little countertop that you see on the left of the screen folds down, and there are a stovetop and sink as well.

I don't know what color the counters are, officially.
They're a bit yellowy beige.

This photo gives you a taste of just how visually stimulating everything is at once.  It nearly gave me a headache.  The doors on the cabinet slide to either side but aren't a storage option since the sink guts are behind it.  Here's what it looks like with the doors removed.  

There is a piece of foam board in the back (that white thing in front of the vent)

 So, there's the furnace.  I don't know if we'll actually use it very often, but it does work and keeps everything toasty.  It would have been welcome this past April when we woke up to temps in the high 30s.  The open cabinet with the particleboard shelf was where the previous owner removed the original refrigerator because it wasn't working and made a platform for an air conditioner.  I think we're going to install a 12v/110w refrigerator as I hate having to drain and restock the cooler a couple of times a day when we're camping.  We even have one of those coolers that are supposed to keep ice for 5 days, but I'm sure that would be accurate as long as it remains unopened.  I also hate it when my carefully prepared food items get waterlogged. 

The stove lid is visible here.  Sort of visible.

 The original stovetop is pastel yellow.  I don't love it, but I don't hate it.  The stovetop lid is yellow.  While I don't mind yellow, I don't appreciate shades of yellow on the same appliance.  Changes are planned.

Cabinet next to the dinette, and the laminate flooring

This little storage area is nice and roomy but has a single shelf inside.  I'm researching the best options for organizing it so I can fit dinnerware, utensils, cleaning supplies, pots, pans, a mixing bowl, French press, food, fire extinguisher, and everything else we'll need to be functional and safe.   Also, I love the new flooring.  

There are storage areas under the benches of the sofa and dinette as well as a storage lid with a hole in it which I assume is for a composting toilet.  We try to get a site as close to facilities as possible so it'll probably end up as easy access for a storage container that will reside beneath it.

All of the wood-appearing cabinetry/frames are metal, which is lightweight compared to wood but also poses a challenge for redecorating.  I usually spray paint metal, but I'm not sure that using spray paint in an enclosed area is a good idea.  We'll have to see.

I'll be posting my mood board tomorrow, but I'll leave you with a photo from this summer's trip to Buck Pond State Park in the Adirondacks (NY).  It started raining soon after this was taken and didn't stop for days.  We loved this park and hope to visit it again.

It's Been a While

Three and a half years have flown by.  I was completely unable to keep up with the blog and home projects for the simple fact that all I did was work, sleep, and take care of the girls.  That said, things have settled into a good rhythm.  The house is pretty much the same as I left the blog a few years ago, which is quite comfortable on my end.  The eldest child is halfway through university, the middle child is in high school, and the youngest is trudging through her last year of middle school.

As they do, some of the young trees in the orchard died over their first winter, and one was senselessly massacred by deer when I didn't notice that the cage around it had popped open on one end.  At least they had a good snack on the apricot tree.  We lost the apricot, plum, and mulberry trees, as well as the Northern Spy and Calville apple trees.  We've planted a Yellow Transparent apple tree which is thriving.  On this spring's agenda is to replace the Calville, Spy, the mulberries and the apricot.  I have a herd of 4-5 deer at any given evening in my yard, so the battle rages on.  They eat everything that isn't covered or caged!

I had a few great gardening years, but between this year and last year, we totaled two tomatoes.  Two.  I've tried everything but nothing can really remedy really wet summers.

I grew up foraging with my mother and aunts and the past two years I've really honed in on wild mushrooms and fungi in general.  We've done a lot of camping and hiking:  we've enjoyed the Great Smoky Mountains and the Adirondacks, and so many small forests!  I've come across more rattlesnakes than I'd like, more bears than I'm comfortable with, and more narrow hiking paths than you can shake a stick at, but I wouldn't trade any of it!  

Our camping adventures really made me realize that while I love the great outdoors, I hate sleeping in cold puddles when there's a downpour.   In the Smokies, there was such a deluge that my 14-year-old tent's rainfly sprung its first leak--or should I say leaks?  We couldn't escape dripping water and it was that night that I pledged to save enough money to buy a camper.  

So, that's exactly what I did a couple of months ago.  We had admired an Apache pop up camper that was in the site next to us while we were in Tennessee.  It had zero canvas and I had never seen another like it.  We lusted after an Oliver travel trailer, but those start at a price that is way, WAY out of my budget.  A used pop up was in the budget, but I didn't want the headache of having to make sure the canvas ends were dried out completely before storing it for any length of time, and the "for sale" listings were littered with pop-ups that had to have their canvases replaced or patched.  I wanted something solid, so we started looking for an Apache, only to find that they're not made anymore.  They had a heyday in the 1970s, but did I really want a 40-something-year-old trailer?  As fate would have it, I did.

I had a notification on Craigslist that a 1975 Apache Royal was about an hour away.  I messaged the seller and scooped it up the next day.  While the previous owner did a lot of work on the mechanical aspects of the camper, very little was done to the interior.  The details on that will have to wait just a little bit longer, but here is what it looks like from the outside.

1975 Apache Royal

It looks complicated to put up, but it's not!

Late Spring Updates

We've been busy!  So busy that finding time to blog lately has taken a back seat to actually getting things done.  I'll do my best to stay current, so here's what you've missed:

The chickens live in the garage for the time being, at least at night.  Unfortunately, the garden shed that was being converted into their coop heaved when the snow melted.  I have an 9-inch gap between the ground and the bottom of the shed on one side, and the other side has sunken into the ground enough to make it impossible to open the door on that side.  My trusty landscape guy is going to shore it up, and figured that the previous owners never put down gravel before the concrete, which caused it to heave.  Lesson learned on taking shortcuts!

Cue running around like a fool

With the help of my friend, Reilly, I got the raised beds in last weekend.  I'm just now waiting for trusty landscape guy to deliver my topsoil, which will hopefully happen this weekend.

The kitchen backsplash has been complete for a few weeks, delayed by a miscalculation on my part when I ran out of grout and only had about 8 inches of tile spacing to finish.  It looks amazing, though, and I've decided on my days off that involve rain, that I can work on getting the kitchen cabinets painted and the countertop done.

The back porch walls have been painted.  I picked up some Sherwin Williams' porch enamel so that I can paint the floor next week.  Once that is done, I'll be moving furniture in and making it a usable space.

What's left?  So much!  Here's the list of projects that still need to be tackled:

• Paint both of the girls' rooms.  
• Paint Evie and Emily's bunk beds
• Finish removing glue from the entry and paint that.
• Paint the master bedroom.
• Decorate all of the above.
• Install a pea gravel patio in the back yard.
• Finish chicken coop and chicken run.
• Paint porch floor; decorate porch.
• Plant the gardens.
• Paint kitchen cabinets and swap out hardware.
• Resurface kitchen counters.
• Remodel bathroom.
• Add some curb appeal to the front door.

I'm sure I'll find more to add to the list.  For now, I'm just going to be exhausted for a bit.

A Chicken in Every Pot... or Bedroom?

Liz & Biscuit

The chicks arrived last Wednesday on the heels of a cold snap that dumped nearly 7 inches of snow on our town.  I had planned on keeping the brooder in the garage until the coop is completely finished, but with 19-degree nights, I was worried that it'd be way too cold for them to survive even with the heater.  What room in the house is totally off-limits to the dog and the cat?  My bedroom.  I've been falling asleep to quiet little peeps and waking up to the occasional ruckus of the attempts to establish a pecking order.

It hasn't been all fun and games, though.  One chick arrived somewhat on the lethargic side and sadly, didn't live more than a couple of days.  Two more chicks quickly succumbed to something unknown and a week in, I have eight survivors.  Their deaths were definitely not a good experience, saddening all of us with each loss.  Right now though, we're focused on taking care of rambunctious chicks.  I think the hardest part at this moment is keeping their food and water clean.

They endlessly kick wood chips into their water and food.

And stand on the waterer.

And their heater.

And they poop a lot.  I'm starting to think they're trying to poop their own body weight each day.  Their bedding will be composted and eventually added to the garden (cue Elton John singing "in the ciiiiiiiircle the circle of liiiiiiiife....")

First day

Compared to when they first arrived, as tiny peeping balls of fluff, they've started to feather out this week.  I still can't tell the Welsummers from the Speckled Sussex chicks.  I think the two black chicks are the Cream Legbar chicks, but I guess I'll find out in a few weeks.

I'm still hoping that I don't have a rooster.

6 days old

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Ruler!

Someone, somewhere on Pinterest printed out a load of Instagram photos, framed them, and made a rather fabulous photo wall with them.  I set out to do the same, only I didn't want to have to use a tape measure or a ruler to evenly space my frames.  The whole thing just screams of tediousness, and I'm not about that.  I wanted an easy, foolproof way to hang my photos.  I had my photos printed through Snapfish, but I've also used PostalPix.  Just use whichever printing service you like, as long as you can get good quality 4x4 prints.

Here's what I used:

• Tiny Mighty Frames - I ordered these from Amazon in the 20-frame package.  It may look pricey at first, but once you tally up ordering twenty 4x4 wall frames individually, it's actually much less expensive.
• 3M Command Strips - I used a value package of 4 medium and 6 large, then cut them all in half.
• Graphing paper - I have a strange affinity for the stuff
• Frog Tape or other painters tape
• A level
• A pencil

Lay out your frames on the floor before you hang them on the wall.  

The first thing I did was apply a vertical line of tape to the wall, making sure it was level.  Then I laid out the filled frames on the floor until I liked the composition.  I tried to make sure that I didn't have clusters of pictures that had either one or two people in them; I wanted to spread that out so that the image as a whole would look balanced.

This is what the wall should look like when you hang your first photo

Taking out my trusty graphing paper, I laid a sheet over the frames on the floor.  The spacing I had was about 4 blocks around each frame.  I traced a frame onto the graphing paper, moved it over 4 blocks, then traced another.  All four of the frames don't fit on the paper, but what you really need to take away from it is the idea that you're just graphing the spaces between the frames.  I had a space to the side of my frames due to the margin on the paper.  In hindsight, I could've just cut them off and aligned the frames with the tape.  Then I simply cut out the squares that the frames made and gave them to Emily to use for drawing paper.  I taped the graphed grid to the wall, making sure to line up the side of the paper with the tape line.  After level-checking the top of the graphing paper, I stuck a Command strip to the back of the first frame, lined it up with the opening in the graph paper, and stuck it on the wall.  I worked in blocks of 4, so that I had two frames over two frames before I moved the graphing paper.  

When your first block is done, move the graphing paper.
Realign it to the taped section and the frames above/beside.

Stand back every few rounds to make sure you're not off track, or that you don't have an off-kilter frame.  When you're done, stand back and admire!  I love that the photos can be switched out and changed by season, or holiday, or by whatever you feel like just by changing out a Command strip.

Here are a few views of what it looks like:

I posted this on Instagram the other day.
Lily was begging Liz for her coffee!

The view from the couch.  Art3mis seems to know whenever I'm trying to take a photo.
My pets are definitely hams!

View from the kitchen and dining room.
I like that I can see it from different rooms.
Also, we have plenty of amazing ideas, just no chalk at present!

Hopping the Fence

I stare at the shed in the back yard while I'm washing dishes.  There is barely anything in it.  I prefer to keep my lawnmower, garden tools, and whatnot in the garage, so the shed is just barren.  It also has that weird added-on roof that scares the bejeezus out of me.  I mean, look at that support post just barely hanging on to the concrete brick there.  There's a small pile of firewood under that roof that could easily be relocated.

I've also been taking a look at my finances, and my student loan, new car, and tax repayments are going to swamp me for about three years.  It's unlikely we'll be vacationing for more than a few days away from home, if at all in that time period.  To sum that up... I'm going to be staying home and I'm going to be living on limited means for a while.  I'm perfectly okay with this, as I'm soon going to be starting a position that is literally a two-minute drive from my house (that alone is a $300/month savings in gasoline as my current commute is nearly an hour and a half each way).

So, I'm getting chickens.  I'm converting the shed into a coop and building a run so they'll have a place to scratch and play outside without worrying about dogs, hawks, foxes, raccoons, skunks, and coyotes.  It gets cold here, so the chickens I chose are breeds that are exceptionally cold-hardy.  I've also chosen breeds that are friendly and lean toward not being broody, since I'm not going to be hatching chicks.

But, back to the shed:  This front corner of the floor definitely needs to be addressed.  Not only is it an entry for predators, it can expose the chickens to drafts.  It looks like the concrete pad crumbled and bricks were used to support the base of the shed.  Pavers were thrown down to even out the floor.  I think some excavation of the crumbled bits has to happen, and some concrete needs to be mixed up and poured to remedy the situation.

 The interior of the shed needs to be cleaned out, but there is plenty of room for 7 chickens, roosting bars, nesting boxes, and a quarantine space for sick or new chickens.  Once again, the floor needs to be leveled out and repaired.  There is plenty of ventilation in there, which is important for healthy birds.

I love that the doors of the shed open wide and allow for easy entry, which should make gathering eggs and cleaning the coop a breeze, but the locks need to be revamped.  Raccoons have finger dexterity and can figure out most simple locks rather quickly.  The main latch on the door doesn't latch very well at all.

We're going to build a run similar to this one, but one that is taller because I want to be able to get inside of the run to rake it out and replenish supplies without having to stoop over to do so.  The other change I'm making is using 1/2-inch hardware cloth instead of chicken wire, since predators can easily break through chicken wire.

Now, for the fun part:  the chickens!

The first chicken breed I chose is the Speckled Sussex.  They're just so pretty!  They're also prolific egg layers.  The speckling is more pronounced as they age, so early on, they'll mostly have brown feathers with a few hints of white.

The second breed I chose is the Buff Orpington.  They can occasionally get broody (sit on their eggs in an attempt to hatch them, which won't happen since we won't have a rooster).  They're known for being great layers, but also for having a sweet temperament.

We'll have seven hens total:  4 Sussex and 3 Orpingtons.  As an added bonus their litter can be added to the compost tumbler, and they'll happily eat veggie scraps, slugs, and other garden pests.  We're not letting them free range as we live on a busy road, every one of our neighbors has a dog, birds of prey are everywhere here, and they'll be more than happy to not only clear the bugs out of the garden, but they'll also voraciously eat seedlings.

The day-old chicks will be arriving April 4th or so, and there's a lot to do between now and then.  They will be living in a brooder (baby chicken house) for a couple of months before they're introduced into the coop, but we still have a lot to do between now and then.  Don't forget that we're also taking delivery of trees for the orchard, assembling the garden beds, and digging 40 million holes for plants and trees.

Here's the list I'm working with:

• build chicken run panels in the garage 
• clean out the coop
• excavate loose concrete in the coop
• patch holes and cracks in the concrete floor
• use self-leveling concrete to even out the coop floor
• relocate firewood
• remove roof
• replace latch
• cover windows with hardware cloth
• predator-proof perimeter of coop and run (buried hardware cloth)
• assemble run
• cut out door to run
• build roosting bars
• install cleaning boards under roosting bars
• install nesting boxes
• install feeding/watering/dust bathing stuff

Living Landscape

Ouachita Blackberry

I have a lot of digging to do.  

My garden and orchard plans have snowballed into a near full-on farm.  In addition to the quince, apples, and peach tree I initially planned on, I've added several other trees, a rather large handful of berry plants, and a couple of elderberry bushes.  

So, what's new?  I've added a Blenheim apricot tree, Illinois Everbearing mulberry, Stanley plum, and a Brown Turkey fig that'll spend winters inside.  I've added a collection of northern highbush blueberries, Boyne raspberries, Koralle lingonberries, Old North Sea strawberries, and Ouachita thornless blackberries. I nixed the Queen Cox apple altogether.

I'm going to go off on how excited I am for a minute.  The Blenheim apricot is the benchmark of apricot flavor.  They were grown at Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, and at Blenheim Castle in England.  Despite the royal pedigree, they don't tend to sell well at market because they don't take on that perfect light orange coloring.  In fact, their shoulders tend to stay on the greenish side.  Oddly enough, they just appear to be under-ripe.  Inside is a veritable explosion of apricot flavor.  Blenheims are in danger of disappearing for the simple reason that Americans like their food to look pretty, and commercial farms are pressured to grow varieties that do just that, despite what may be a sacrifice in flavor.

Blenheim apricots

Initially, I was going to build raised beds on my own, but I've decided to go with pre-made that requires minimal assembly.  It's quick and dirty, and I can spend more of my time digging holes for the bazillion trees I'm planting.  I'm putting them directly on top of the soil, so I don't have to have a deep bed.  I'll just have to remove the turf and turn some dirt over to loosen up the soil.  

I got four beds that measure 4 feet x 8 feet x 10.5 inches, and three beds that are 4 feet x 4 feet.  

Emily wants to plant corn, so one of the four-foot beds is destined for a patch of corn for her.  

The other two small beds are earmarked for asparagus and strawberries, respectively.  The large beds will have our usual staples like beans, peas, beets, tomatoes, peppers, greens, squash.  I'll likely get another bed for just herbs.

Due to our current rodent situation in the lawn (voles and moles), I've decided against my original plan of building a compost bin on the ground.  Instead, I've used my Amazon gift cards to buy a compost tumbler.  This one has two sections so that each side can be in different stages of breakdown.  Until I have leaves to rake up, I'm going to use some coconut coir potting amendment as my "browns" so that my compost will cook and not turn into a slimy bog (which is what happens when you have too many greens).  

We're still on the fence about chickens.  It wouldn't take much at all to convert the backyard shed into a pretty solid chicken coop.  The issue is that we'd have to be home or to have someone feed, water, and tend to the chickens when we go on vacation.  Maybe once I've finished all of my digging I'll have some time to think about adding chickens to the mix next spring.

Maybe.