I painted the kitchen! It's a very cheerful aquamarine-ish color named "Woodlawn Charm" which gives no indication of the color. It's on the National Register of Historic stuff and is a color from George Washington's neice's house. He bought her the house - apparently, she was like a daughter to him.
I tried to post pictures of the kitchen on FB but the color doesn't look right and frankly, the countertops have been rather messy with me moving things around so I could paint so when I'm finished with everything (still want to install two more upper cabinets flanking both sides of the window over the sink and install a glass mosiac tile backsplash. But so far, I'm LOVING the look.
The chickens seem to get bigger everytime I go outside. Yesterday, I rented a mega-huge ultra powerful tiller and got about 1/4 acre garden plot tilled up. They LOVED following behind me and snacking on all the bugs that were turned up! Tomorrow I'm going to start digging the beds and paths. Next I'll start moving the vegetable seedlings that are all over the house down into the garden.
I got some soil and compost in my cold frame boxes near the kitchen. I'm going to move some of the herbs and the lettuces in those as they are closer to the house. That way, if I want some herbs for cooking or some greens for a salad, I don't have to go all the way back to the garden.
I got in touch with the previous owner today and she called me. She told me there were pecan and peach trees, maybe an apple tree, and some blueberry bushes on the property. There were also like three dump-trucks worth of garbage and tires that they cleared off the property when they bought it. 200 tires? That's nuts. I'm glad they got rid of that much - we still have a bunch of stuff but in comparison, I'm very thankful. I asked her about what they did to the house - she said there was only one bathroom (the master) so they added the one in the front entrance way under the stairs as well as the one off of Catherine's room. They also pulled up tons of orange shaggish carpeting and refinished the original hardwood underneath. I have beautiful floors throughout the house; again, another reason to be thankful. One of my neighbors told me that they also are the ones who put the siding on the house and the replacement windows...I'll find out more as I know her. I extended an invitation to come visit whenever she wanted. She said selling the house was a very hard decision because she loved the house so much and she was thrilled to know I love it too.
As I look out my office window (really, the sun room / breakfast nook area) out into my backyard, I can see my chickens pecking and scratching in the grass, and see my hogs rooting around in their pen. I can see at least a dozen type of birds that call this farm their home as well as honey bees, moles, and wasps. Overnight, the combination of warm weather and rain has started all the trees to start greening up and the grasses to grow.
I do love it here.
Martha is the one on the left; she has white front feet. I think that other hog is Abigail. The gilts are noticabley smaller than the barrows but Martha is getting chubby - if she keeps it up, she'll have a ground-dragging belly! :-)
