Things that are sexy...

Is this the hottest thing you've seen all day???

I'm talking about the wood pile. Felling and chopping up trees is just as satisfying as shoveling poo. This is three of the 16,000 trees that are crowding our buildings and need to be made into firewood:

In other news...the hottest new couple in the neighborhood are the Grosbeaks.

And we're doing some readin about farmin.

Roofs, radishes and respect

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get a third "r" word in the title so I could be all dorky, but I think it will work...

Roofs! Our new one is still being worked on. We've got the new shingles and some gutters on the back. The metal family (the head guy, his 19 year old son and son-in-law) are finishing up the copper. Shiny.


Radishes are poking up.


The respect comes from the new 11'+ barn door we built and installed. It's a big advertisement to the neighborhood that we aren't just wimpy hippies from the east coast. We could tell it was causing a stir when folks started slowing down to take a peak as they drove by, and our neighbor stopped over to say he was "impressed." Had he seen us wrestling to install it for a day and a half, taking really stupid risks with our fingers, he might not have the same opinion.


The garden to the right is for potatoes, and root veggies have been planted on the left, including the radishes and 3 colors of carrots! Who knew there were such things??

Oh! And some running, to close the post:

The brochures never mentioned earthquakes

The pooch woke us up about 10 minutes before the quake, so we were awake and alert to notice it.

There are certain things I take for granted in life and just don't ever pay attention to...you know, like oxygen. Also, the ground. It's a bit freaky when the ground does something beyond simply existing.

Our house swayed a bit (kind of like rolling?) and we could hear the ground shaking. The noise definitely traveled in a uniform direction.

Everyone and everything is fine and I now have a new attitude about dirt. Didn't much appreciate the ground shaking my old house so much, though. Kinda rude.

Sugar in motion

She doesn't sit still much...

We got a new....

Computer! The old one died, which is why we haven't been around. We had to get a new one ASAP so we could show you photos of....

Our new doggy, Sugar!

We found her at the Indianapolis Humane Society yesterday and she is the sweetest dog on earth. She's just a year old and still very playful and excitable. But, when it's time to be calm, she's good at that too.

Sugar Pie is the name she came with, and we're having a hard time changing it. In the past 24 hours she's been Sam, Heidi, Doorbell (she really likes this one), Dora Belle, Pollyanna, Fuzzy Bear, and Ursa. She responds best to Sugar, though, so that's what it's going to be.

She is part golden retriever and part lab. And we ADORE her. The Humane Society was fabulous and we (and Sugar) are thrilled.

That cats don't so much like her, though. We're working on that. 

More of the white bird.

Another pic of the white-winged-whats-it.

Unusual new feeder frequenters.

A yellow house finch, and (I am guessing) a leucistic house finch. First time I think I've ever seen one of these. I can't say as though I can remember seeing too many of the yellow ones either. Just about all of the finches in our yard are a fairly deep red. Fun fact: Apparently, every house finch out here descended from a limited population of ~40 birds released on Long Island in the 1940s.

UPDATE - upon further consideration, I think it is a chipping sparrow. Hawk-bait, the chipping sparrow.

Stripping wallpaper

Our bathrooms are scary. SCARE-REE. Two weeks ago we started removing the wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom.

Why remove this layer of history from our house, you ask???

This is why:

(If I could make this flash black and white with the psycho sound, it would really add to the effect, don't you think?)

The removal is going surprisingly easy - perhaps the house is glad to give up this terrible, terrible excuse for a wall covering?

The foil peels off in big chunks, and then we spray a little concoction of water and vinegar (thanks, mom!) on the backing paper that remains, dissolving the glue. The white backing then lifts right off.

We were super excited to find this older paper underneath:

The older stuff is only on two walls and parts of it are really grimy. Also, there are gigantic chunks missing. We are going to try to work with it...some cleaning and carefully placed towel racks should help. If we get really ambitious, we might try to paint in the missing design....or something. Bill suggested simply painting "insert missing wallpaper here." Funny guy.

Knitting as housework

We live in a cold, drafty old house and conventional wisdom says you loose a lot of body heat through your feet. Warm socks, therefore, are a necessity of life in Saw-whet Manor. I'd say they are as important as doing dishes or scraping paint. So spending a whole evening knitting is the same as doing lots of housework. Right??

This is my first pair of socks made from a $2 ball of wool yarn from a big box craft store:

More to come!