May I Present.....

Ambrosia's first baby chick!!!!

Sorry it's not the best picture, but mama hen was not happy about me bugging her and we still have another 3 eggs that might hatch under there as well. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on the events.

Booty

So the people that i clean house for went back to Florida. I am still cleaning up and closing the houses for them and part of the job was to empty the fridge for them. They told me to take stuff home. I made out well.

I also got a night stand that they were going to throw away.

In other news we might have more babies on the homestead soon. Keep your fingers crossed (and no its not me).

jars

.....more pickling. I haven't tasted these yet, but i made 2 new batches of regular pickles tonight. I also had my first go at making jam. Blackberry jam. Its a small batch, and is a little sweet, but i think all in all it came out well. Next i am thinking about making some mint jelly just to use some of the thousands of mint plants we have. I don't think i like mint jelly though. eh.... whatever. the shower is grouted but i haven't taken any good pictures yet, but thank god we can bathe again. Tomorrow the plan is to fix the shower head, replace the ceiling over the shower, put up green board on the lower half of the walls, and apply some primer if we are lucky. The floors aren't going down for another week or two as we forgot to buy the sensor to install on the Suntouch radiant heat mat and the tile saw we had rented last weekend wasn't big enough to cut these 16" tiles.

Peter Piper

I made pickles! No I am not really that excited by this but I have no other choice when it come to having dozens of cucumbers. This was my first attempt and the recipe i used was for bread and butter pickles. I dont htink i like bread and butter pickles. They came out fine but are a bit too sweet for my liking. I guess i'll try again this weekend.

Tiles Up!

Yay! All of the shower tiles are up. We used every last tile we bought. We're working on cleaning up any dust on the tiles now. Next it needs to cure, then we apply sealer, then grout, then sealer again, and hooray, we can bathe again! We jumped in the pond today and I washed and shampooed under the hose. Tiling the floors should be a breeze after doing this.

Getting Closer

Here is the current status of the shower situation. Its break time at the moment which entails yet another tripi back to Home Depot to pick up a few more boxes of tiles, exchange the grout we got for a different color, and if we are lucky we will get some dinner as well (NOT from the depot).

Progress!

Job announcement to come soon. Too busy with the bathroom......

It's raining inside too now!

Well, as if taking on the task of tiling the floors in the bathroom wasn't enough, we've also decided to replace the lower half of the dry wall on the walls and to tile our shower as well. We ended up ripping out the fiberglass shower surround and rerouted the plumbing to the opposite wall (well mostly Tony did). The plan is to make the wall between the shower and the toilet a half wall to let in more light. The glass surround will have to come later. We still need to pick a tile to do in the shower and at the moment I think we are clueless as to what type to do in there. Needless to say, we need to hurry up and decide because the shower situation at the moment is not so enjoyable. We also decided to install the showerhead in the ceiling to make it more of a rain shower effect.

Old Shower (yucko)

Note: I know how nasty the old shower looks, but come on, lay off, this is why we are replacing it.

Rain Finally

We've finally gotten some rain. The pond is at the lowest I've ever seen it. Stargazer lillies are in bloom in the front garden and a few unidentified flowers are in bloom in the back. I'd like to work in the gardens this weekend but will be too busy with our indoor projects to do that.

I believe this is a balloon flower above.

Id Please

ID Please

Back Flower Garden Timeline

May 8, 2007

June 2, 2007

July 25, 2007

Hump Day

This week has been very busy and I cannot wait for it to be over. I have another interview tomorrow that i was just told about and they only have one time slot available, so my day is all screwey now. Who does that? Call in interviewee the day on a Wednesday to say we are doing interviews tomorrow and then proceed to tell them that they can only come at 2:30. Anyways, my scraggily flower from the other day is no longer scraggily. Whodah thunk it.

The blackberries are also starting to turn black.

And Ambrosia (don't ask me, I didnt name her) seems to have gone broody again. Now we just need to get her some eggs that are actually fertilized.

Cod, It's What for Dinner.

Dinner courtesy of one of my customers who is a Maine fishing guide.

Side Veggie Garden

Here are some pictures of the side vegetable garden. It is hard to photograph because of the fencing that surrounds it. The big center patch is lemon cucumbers, nasturshums (sp.?), and buried in back is some rhubard and chives. I planted way too many cukes and will need to learn how to make pickles and relish and any other cucumber products.

First Lemon Cucumber.

The right section is just carrots. I keep meaning to plant another row for a late harvest. These guys are huge. Behind them are the purple, yellow, and green beans. The tall climbing beans are scarlet runner beans. They make giant pods.

The left section is onions, and was formerely lettuce. The lettuce did terrible in this garden and was thriving in the back garden so I pulled it all up and planted some watermelons in its place. I got them in the gound really late in the season, but so far they seem to be growing very well. Behind the onions are snow peas and snap peas. These are so great in this garden but are great out back.

Watermelon, lettuce, onions.

What the hell is this scraggily looking flower. Some kind of coneflower maybe?

Hostas are in bloom behind the porch.

Whats Meltin'

Tonite we made a trip to the grocery store just to buy ice cream. It is the one thing i haven't really dared to try eating since getting over lactose intollerance or my made up affliction according to my father. Well i just remembered we bought it and excitedly headed off to try some when tony asked me if i put it in the freezer when we got home. We got home about 2 hours ago. And no I didn't put it in the freezer.