Sunday, October 4
During morning coffee we figured out how we wanted to do the downstairs bathroom. Now that there’s a hole in the ceiling and we’ve had some recent cabin guests ask if they could take a shower we’ve decided we really shouldn’t put it off much longer. It’s funny, because a few days ago I couldn’t even wrap my head around that project and then all of a sudden it came to me this morning and CountryBoy thought it was a good idea. I have no idea when we’ll get started on it but it will probably be soon. Right now our priority is getting a couple more months worth of wood stored up before we tackle the bathroom.
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I went to work a half hour early to get a jump start on the ironing because I knew I needed to work on a special photo collage to be sent out in an email to a few people. I finished everything up by 6:30 and came home to a supper of rice with a chicken and mushroom sauce. It was pretty good!
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CountryBoy spent the afternoon cleaning the cabin and cutting up some wood for the fire pit at the cabin and stocking the wood box with wood for the cabin’s fireplace. He’ll probably sleep good again tonight!
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Farm news: only 16 eggs
Monday, October 5
It was definitely a Monday. A very crazy Monday at that. CountryBoy dropped me off at work so that he could go cut down another tree, split it and stack it in the woodshed. I quickly discovered that the server was down and there were several emails regarding ads waiting in my Inbox. The day did not improve any but I did manage to get everything done and squared away even though it was well past the noon deadline. It’s not always easy keeping up with the ads that need to be pre-paid, or approved or even when I’m waiting for a simple response from the customer via email. When there are a lot of loose ends like that it’s easy to make a mistake on the Ad Schedule or Classified page. But, I double-check everything in hopes that all is in order. I will definitely hear otherwise if it’s not!
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After CountryBoy picked me up we stopped at a local Mexican restaurant for supper. Neither one of us could wait to get back home and put on some warm, comfy clothes and sit in front of the fire. Mercy, we’re getting old!
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CountryBoy says we now have about three months of wood for both the house and the cabin. That’s a good start. We like to have six months worth just in case it’s a bad winter.
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I tried calling our local Soil Conservation office today to inquire about a recommendation for a reputable pond digger. No answer. Nor did I leave a message. CountryBoy left a message a long time ago asking the same question and we never heard from them so I figured why bother. Our neighbor has yet to come by to discuss the pond so now I’m thinking we may bite the bullet and hire a professional. It’ll probably cost an arm and a leg but we want it done right and we want it to look good when it’s all done.
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Farm news: 19 eggs
Tuesday, October 6
Work was OK but started out a little sketchy. After logging onto the computer I quickly found out that the server had gone down again. Thankfully my coworker had been told about it by our editor who comes in early on Tuesdays and had discovered it was down. He came in a few minutes early to restart it as he crossed his fingers that it would crank up and work. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s on its last leg. We’re not sure what we’re going to do if, one day, it decides its had enough. I’m sure it will be expected of us to figure something out. sigh. Anyway, the rest of the day went smooth and we got the OK from the printer around 12:45 which was perfect timing as CountryBoy had come by to pick me up around 12:30. Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long. He had taken me to work again today because he had to pick up another load at Lowe’s and deliver it to my B&B boss. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to drive myself to work, ha!
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It was such a beautiful day when we walked out of the newspaper office that we decided to go to the big city of Lexington to look for some shoes. I have no winter shoes other than boots – cowboy boots or dress boots – and sometimes an outfit just needs some tennis shoes or topsiders. We went to Target thinking they would have some cute shoes but I struck out. We went a few doors stores down to Rack Room Shoes and I found a pair of canvas topsiders and a nice pair of sneaker-type shoes that come to the ankle and have a nice warm, fuzzy lining that should be great for winter. Both have memory foam insoles and were Buy One Get One 1/2 off. CountryBoy was sitting on one of the benches that are available for trying on shoes waiting for me. I asked if he was going to look around and he said his feet were bothering him so bad that he didn’t want to get up. I suggested looking for a pair of shoes with the memory foam and maybe that would help. So he looked around and found a really nice pair of shoes with the memory foam. He tried them on and the pain level in his feet went from an 8 to a 2. SOLD! His shoes were Buy One Get One FREE so he got a second pair of the same shoe for free. win-win! I could’ve spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Barnes & Noble but instead we treated ourselves to pizza at Old Chicago before heading back to the quiet of the mountains.
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On the way to Lexington we stopped at a place that I had found online when searching for pond diggers. We’re thinking that they will be WAY above our price range but they are the real deal – from digging the pond to landscaping it and it’ll be done right. Just the quote for a custom liner of approximately 100×200 was going to run 17 THOUSAND dollars. Are you KIDDING me?!?!? There’s no cost for a quote so we’re going to get a quote WITHOUT the liner and we’ll go from there. They’ll be out a week from Saturday. Pray it will be a reasonable quote and in the ballpark of our price range. Our neighbor still hasn’t stopped by so I’m thinking he doesn’t want to do the job. Who knew trying to have a pond dug would be such an ordeal.
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Farm news: 19 eggs again
Wednesday, October 7
I’m up before CountryBoy and LizzieBelle who are both still sound asleep almost an hour after I got up. My nose started tingling and I had to go to the bathroom so I just got up leaving those two sleeping under the warmth of the covers.
Today I go in to work at the B&B later so that I can help with dinner. I’m going to go in a half hour earlier because it’s been too hectic to try and get all the sheets washed and ironed before time to start helping with supper. I wind up rushing the entire six hours I’m there and I come home exhausted. Let’s see if the extra half hour will help.
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Our guest leaves today after a three night stay. We may or may not have one coming tonight. The reservation is still pending.
Right before I left for work the pending reservation was confirmed. Yay!
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Going in half an hour early was a huge help. Even though there was not a huge amount of sheets to wash or iron I was able to do a few things in the office that needed taken care of and I made another batch of room sprays for the gift shop. I was able to do everything at a nice pace. Even dinner preparations were done at a nice pace and was not hectic. I like that. I did come home tired and my back ached a little bit but otherwise it was a good day.
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Farm news: 18 eggs
Thursday, October 8
It seems Thursdays are becoming worse than Mondays lately. Just like last Thursday I was ready to go home after an hour of being there. However, the day did improve. I got caught up and fires were put out so to speak. I’m thankful it’s my Friday that’s for sure.
I stopped at our local vendor & antique mall to look for a mirror for the fireplace mantel in the dining room. I found one and thought it would be the perfect size but it wound up being a little large. I forget how small everything really is in this house. Oh well, I like the mirror and it will stay. I do need to secure it somehow so that it doesn’t come crashing down. I also found some more Corelle dishes for the cabin. As soon as we run out of the paper plates we’ll put the Corelle plates up there. The plates will save us some money in the long run and will definitely cut down on the amount of trash. After that I stopped at Family Dollar for some more Spring water for the cabin and some grill brushes. The rack over the fire pit was in desperate need of a good cleaning.
On the drive home I began to see signs of Fall’s arrival – leaves of yellow, orange and red sprinkled here and there. I’m hoping it’s a good year for colorful leaves.
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Farm news: 20 eggs
Friday, October 9
Ah, a lovely day OFF!!! I had grand intentions this morning of tackling my craft room. I even perused Pinterest last night for inspiration and possible storage ideas so that this morning I might be motivated to regain my craft room once again. Unfortunately, I walked in there and immediately got overwhelmed…
ugh. It’s too much and I don’t know where to start. I think it’s because I don’t have a clear vision of how I want to organize it so that it functions easily. There’s also a bunch of stuff piled on my cutting mat that I’m not sure what to do with. Those large surfaces sure do collect ‘stuff’ easily! Then there’s deciding how to best utilize the storage units I have…
There’s also a quilt top that needs quilted, fabric & scraps that need to be stored, and projects that need to be done piled on the chair. An extra lamp from the last living room rearrangement sitting on the floor because I don’t know where else to put it right now. I’ve got a few ideas on how to rearrange the items on the tables to help the flow and a few ideas on storing crafting & sewing supplies but it’s just getting started. In fact, I procrastinated on starting on it this morning because I honestly did not want to be in the middle of it when our guests checked out. CountryBoy had to go to Lexington to pick up some flooring for my B&B boss so the cabin was all up to me to get it ready for today’s guests which is not a big deal but I didn’t want to have to stop the craft room rescue project so I cleaned the upstairs bathroom and put a few things away that had been piled on the guest room bed while I was waiting. It’s supposed to be raining tomorrow and our guests are staying for two nights so it will probably be the perfect day to stay indoors and get started on it. At least that’s what I’m telling myself!
Today, however, was simply lovely! I even had a few minutes to sit on the front porch and soak in the beauty of the day in between cleaning the cabin. A much better place to be rather than upstairs in a windowless room trying to reclaim a craft room, ha!
CountryBoy got home in time to scrub the gas grill grates and go back up with me to finish cleaning the cabin. He came home while I was up there and shortly afterwards I got stung by a wasp. I came down immediately and he put a wad of spit-soaked tobacco on the sting and covered it with a bandaid. I could literally feel the poison being drawn out. Several hours later and I don’t feel a thing and there’s no swelling. We think we have a nest inside the outhouse walls. We’ve left some wasp spray up at the cabin but after these guests leave CountryBoy is going to take the outer wall board off and see what’s up. We’ve had to spray several times but more just keep showing up. sigh.
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While CountryBoy was whipping up some of his delicious spaghetti I went and gathered some flowers and weeds for the house and I took some photos. My Cosmos are getting ready to go hog wild with flowers. It has taken the rest of the plants a really long time to bloom but they will be bursting forth with flowers in a few days. I can’t wait! Below is just one plant. It has been blooming all summer long.
I just love them!
The rest of the garden is doing well also…
This was my first attempt at a flower garden and half of it did well. I have much to learn but ya have to start somewhere, right?!
The scuppernongs are ready for the picking…
They are so pretty and remind me of some plastic grapes my Mom used to keep in a bowl for decoration. We’ll pick them soon and freeze them for later use.
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Before we did anything today CountryBoy helped me stabilize the mirror I found yesterday…
Before I painted the ceiling the stones around the fireplaces just disappeared. The mirror helps reflect the light and makes the room appear bigger. On this side of the double fireplace is our ventless gas heater. We rarely use it but it sure is nice to have on those 20 degree and below nights. It knocks the chill out of the house rather quickly.
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Farm news: 22 eggs
This evening we raked and baled some cut grass. We wound up with three bales. As I mentioned before it’s supposed to rain tomorrow so we decided to try and beat the rain. It started sprinkling on us and I kept praying ‘just fifteen more minutes, Lord’ and we got it done. yay!
There’s just something about working at home even though it may be manual labor. I can be productive all day long sitting behind a desk but, for me, there’s little satisfaction in it. Tonight was all about true homesteading and beating Mother Nature. Because of CountryBoy’s ingenuity and our manual labor we now have eight bales of nice grass to use in the chicken coop and for Mabel’s bedding all winter long. It’s a good feeling.
Dream Valley Farmstead 