Raspberries!

I never knew that raspberries would flourish so well in the waning days of summer.  This second flush of berries impressed us far more than the first: they're bigger and they're more plentiful.

All told, we've picked almost 10 pounds of raspberries.  I realize that berries are most often sold by volume, and not by weight, so it's hard to compare the value of what we find in a supermarket.  Of course, we all know that there is no comparison between homegrown berries and supermarket berries.  =)

However, if you sadly do not know this for yourself, drop by our place sometime next September, and we'll share the pleasure of allowing you to experience it for yourself.  MmmmmMMM!  Words cannot describe it.

The hard frost is coming soon, and our harvesting days are drawing to a close.  We praise God for the blessing of the bounty.

The...Nest

Even the kitten has found a home, and the mama cat a nest where she may bring her young--even the old pump organ, O Lord of hosts.

--a contextualization of Psalm 84:3

Last year a foreclosure forced a family out of the house across the street, and last year a darling tortoise shell cat was abandoned. This sweet cat befriended us early this summer as we tended the yard and garden, and one evening after she'd been visiting and feasting with us for over two hours, she led us to her litter of kitties which she kept safely in the hobby barn on the foreclosed property.

Eager and mewing for the long-awaited nourishment from their mama, five adorable kittens perhaps five or six weeks old tumbled out of the barn. A gray tabby, an orange tabby, an orange tabby with white spots, a black kitty, and a calico. We immediately fell in love with them and earnestly hoped we could rescue them from street living.

We fell into the habit of crossing the street for a visit with the mama cat and the boldest of her kittens. At the end of one of my solo visits, she astonished and delighted me by calling for her kitties to follow me home. Only three of the five followed, however, and they took a really long time summoning up the daring to cross our threshold. And then there were still two remaining to collect, but Mama Catt showed no interest in retreiving them.

We've never encountered mama cat behavior before, and we feared for the other kitties' safety, so we would brought them food, trying to entice them out. They wouldn't take our food, so the kids would pick up Mama Catt and bring her to them.  By doing this, Aelsa and Paul were able to nab the other kittens, hissing and growling, clawing and trembling, so they could be reunited with their litter mates.

Mama Catt has transitioned quite nicely to being an indoor cat again.  Her offspring, however, aren't quite as trusting of their human companions, especially when they need a dusting of diatomaceous earth to kill the pests living in their fur.  But they do like to play with us, and the kids get to experience what it's like to have kittens in the house.  We figure it's just a matter of time before we have their trust and affection.

And it looks like we'll have these kittens longer than we'd naively expected.  We hoped we would be able to rescue the kittens and find good homes for them before too much time slipped away from us, but few people are interested.  We can't imagine dropping any of them off at a shelter to join twenty or so other cats in confined quarters, so we'll keep caring for them, all the while praying that we can find a home for three of them.

Wouldn't you like to share your home and affections with a sweet little kitten?

Reverse Shopping

Praise God for Spring Cleanup Day! Getting ready for this special trash pickup on Monday has been so fun! It's like shopping in reverse:

"I don't want that one, or that one. I certainly don't want THAT one OR that one!"

And then I get what I really want: less of the previous owner's life and more room for ours.

YAY!

From the Floor to the Table

Remember the stack of floor boards that had been left behind when we moved in? Measured and counted, they rested along the side of the nave. They served well to contain the plastic bowling ball for our New Year's Eve 5-frame bowling tournament, but other than that, they've just been in the way.

Over 17 feet long, they couldn't make it down the stairs in one piece, so in the interest of making the most of what wood we had, I needed to decide how short or long each piece would need to be for us to make, in this case, the tops for our tables.



For this, I turned to my print publishing software. After creating a scale model of each floorboard, I was able to cut and assemble them over and over until I had them in the right dimensions and configuration to create four of the six matching, modular tables we have in mind.

The wood is pretty rough, and while I'd love to retain as much of that character as possible, I do need the surfaces to be smooth so the tables can function as a place where we can write, eat, and sew, to name a few essential activities. And they need to be easily cleaned up.

So now that they're cut, we'll have to plane them down, rip them to equal widths, fill in the holes, and glue and clamp them together. By then, perhaps, we'll have figured out how to make the table base. This is the look we'll be aiming for:

Camden Trestle Table

Restoration Hardware

And oh yes, I cut them all myself. With the help of my handy hubby, of course.

Where There's Smoke...

The wind calm, Robin and I took charge of the burn pile. Mounds of leaves and bits of other burnable junk all waited their turn, and to make a fire strong enough to withstand their frosty moisture, I dragged over a couple of the leave-behind beams, once salvaged from a collapsing homestead somewhere, now rotting in rows in the side yard, and added them to the pyre.

We knocked a pretty big chunk out of the collection of yard junk and even used some of the outdoor time to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate together. We would have done more, perhaps, but we've been sternly cautioned about the noxious nature of sumac, so we left it alone. For now.

Decorating for Christmas?

Even these leave-behinds have been useful, but not because we love post-Thanksgiving light-up reindeer in the yard. No, you see, it gets very dark in the country when the lights are turned off, so these little guys have been casting a warm glow of security into our grand sleeping quarters, faithfully pointing the way to the bathroom if needed.

Today, however, the kids stripped the reindeer of their lights in the hope of using the strings of lights in an effort to decorate for Christmas, and indeed, the way to the bathroom is now lined festively with little white lights. Overall, however, I think the results disappointed them somewhat: they couldn't help but notice that I'd tossed the wire carcasses of the gentle reindeer into the dumpster.

Sit Down for This

What shall we do with leave-behinds such as these orphaned chair backs? Use them for towel racks in the bathroom and kitchen, of course! A cheery red chair back already aids us in drying our dish towels in the kitchen. It's so fun!

Kitchen Drawers

In this glimpse of the kitchen, you can see a set of drawers that Paul cobbled together from a broken leave-behind desk and one of our laminate bookcase's doors. Even though there are base cabinets on the opposite side of the room, these are the only drawers we have.

Good thinking, Aelsa! Nice work, Paul!

The Bathroom Vanity To Be

The dresser is a leave-behind. We have the broken-apart drawers missing from the picture above, but the drawer faces are too broken to be usable. Our plan for this piece of furniture saved it from the dumpster. Instead, it will become our bathroom vanity for our country farmhouse bathroom.

We'll have to cut down the legs to put it at a comfortable height, and after treating the top with some polyurethane, we'll mount this vessel sink with a complementing faucet. Then, having adapted the top drawers to accomodate the plumbing, we'll add a shelf to the bottom and add hide our stored items behind an eyelet curtain.

I couldn't have made this style work in our inner city house. I'm looking forward to it now.

The "Before" Bathtub

We are salvaging the bathtub, despite the astonishing level of damage it has suffered. The vintage claw foot complements my intended vision for the room, but we're using it mostly because fixing it, especially since we'll be doing the work ourselves, will be less expensive than the less charming alternatives.

I'm not sure what color we'll use on the exterior, but I'm pretty confident it won't be lavender shown chipping off above.

Using What God Gave Us

This morning Paul and the boys worked on measuring and moving these planks while Aelsa made a record of their lengths. We'll be using these leave-behinds for the counters on our office workspaces.

Time to Purge

The dumpster is here.

Trash and Treasure

When we first looked at the property, the nave looked like a flea market booth, and it still looked like a flea market booth when we came home to it after closing. Countless wooden chairs in all states of disrepair leaned against each other for support. Unnumbered wooden floor boards lay quietly behind piles of mismatched molding. Supposedly original pews sat religiously upright in the front of the church. Armies of old wooden doors stood at ease against a tacked-on room in the corner.

We knew there was only one thing to do: call our handyman friend to see if he thought he might make some treasures out of the trash that the owner had left behind. He drove off with quite a load, and we're grateful. Thanks, Kevin! We look forward to seeing your finished projects!

As it turns out, we're keeping the floor boards for our custom-made office counters. That alone will save us a lot of money down the line. We're keeping the chairs that have all their pieces, while some of the orphaned chair backs will become towel racks in the bathroom and kitchen, and the dresser with unrepairable drawers will become our bathroom vanity. So all those extras really are a blessing.

Is anyone interested in a couple of ugly lamps?