As was forecasted, the snow came. Unfortunately, Woodchuck waited to "service" the snow blower AFTER this snow fell. I made the comment that it smelled really strongly of gas when he took it out of the shed, and his response was, "It's supposed to". Now look, I am a girl that doesn't know a lot about a lot of things, including snow blowers. I've never even used a snow blower. But it smelled VERY strong of gas and after 26 years together, I can tell when he's just saying something to get me to move on 😂 Turns out the gas tank was cracked. Yep. I'll just leave that here. And continue to shovel snow.
So we walked back to our sons house to continue working on getting everything ready for the install. We had the new replacement pan now and were really looking forward to getting this project wrapped up.
We also needed to level out this area, which meant the lath wood needed to be removed. We could see some of the outside wall and it looked like it had wood "shingle" on it. It would be neat to find some old pictures of the house!
Look at that sky. Look.at.it. More snow is apparently on the way, so we are utilizing this break in the weather to the best of our ability. I am aware in these blog posts of just how much of my life has been reduced to monitoring, obsessing, and scheduling around the weather. 😂
Do we really need anymore right now? I mean, for this day it kind of looks like we have enough!
But then it all came to a screeching halt anyway. Menards sent the wrong replacement part. These pieces are custom made to the measurements of the shower we gave them, and we have no idea how in the world this got messed up when all of the information was in the computer and all they had to do was re-order. It's not the right size, and it's a center drain instead of a left drain. Woodchuck was absolutely livid. This project has been dragging out for weeks each time we have to wait for replacement pieces, and in the meantime, our son is coming to our house every day to shower. If it's taking this long just to do the shower, I can't imagine what it's going to be like for the rest of the bathroom! Turns out that they went ahead and just re-ordered everything, even the walls, to make sure it all is the right size, etc. That makes me nervous. Now we take the chance that the new walls will be damaged, or the wrong size, as well as the pan. This is not fun!
So while Woodchuck is hashing things out on the phone, I am looking at the fact that our son needs gutters.
With nothing left for us to do here, we went back home. My glass tiled bench still needs to be put away, though it's already iced up. We can see a wall of white in the distance heading our way, and we know it is the snow coming.
Within the span of a few hours, we went from this.........
To this...........
To this.....and yes, of course we were out walking around in it!
So now that the bathroom project is on hold again, I can zero in on getting ready for my last market of the year! This one will be inside, and I'm grateful at least to not have to fight winds! This piece is what I made for the door prize! I usually don't offer a door prize, because I spend enough on the booth fee, and supplies to get ready for the show and make new stock, but I had enough stuff on hand to make this. I am REALLY happy with how it turned out (and spoiler alert, someone actually picked it on the door prize drawing! Usually my stuff is not picked, so this made me feel good, lol!)
I cut 2 circles from sturdy cardboard boxes that I have left from when I worked at the bakery and would bring home the big box that had the donut boxes in it. I thought they would be good for moving, but turns out they are a bit too big. I covered both circles with vintage self-adhesive tweed fabric that I've had for years and it comes in a big roll, then glued the two circles together. I edged the circles with some woven trim that my mother had given me earlier this year, and I glued a metal juice can lid to the center where the votive cup will sit. I had the pinecones from years of foraging, and bought the faux flowers/berries/greenery all in one bag from a resale shop. The candle was from a set of 6 that I also had bought from a resale shop earlier this year for myself, and I got the votive cup from the dollar store.
I also re-vamped a couple of my larger items that have not been selling. I figured I would give it one more chance at a switch-up and if that didn't work to get them sold, I would disassemble them, return all natural items to the outdoors, and either repurpose or donate the glassware.
This one has a real hummingbird nest in it. I've been holding on to it for years because, I mean, how many times do you run across a hummingbird nest?! But let's see how it goes! I added some felt mushrooms, and a BIG chunk of unknown crystal (maybe citrine?). It sold towards the end of the day, so I guess I made the right decision!
I also re-did another piece that had a faux/store bought nest in it. I had encircled that nest with crystal points, and filled the nest with rabbit foot clover. That is not native to this area, and so I removed it and filled the nest with various stones. One person bought both of these pieces and that made me so happy! I did okay for the show, and am grateful for what sold, but I really needed more to sell to help clear out what we will be moving next year.
So it was back to the land to move a trail camera to better catch OUR land and not the neighbors. But I found these cuties right by where I park my car. Look at the little baby underneath!!! 😍
Heading to the watershed, but we always stop and look at the pond
When we got to the watershed to move the camera, someone else had already moved it. It was still on the same tree, but had been moved to face a different direction. I had caught the neighbors teenager on their property path, which runs parallel to ours and is only a couple of feet away from each other, flicking off this trail cam. Woodchuck and I had completely different reactions to THAT situation. But we moved forward with the original plan of moving the camera and will come back another day to put up a lot of signage. In this picture, the camera would normally be facing me, our path. Someone moved it to face away and you can see the rub mark on the tree. Now look, I am leaving the possibility open that maybe the high winds and pelting, wet and heavy snow somehow moved it, or a deer with just the right height and placement of antlers caught it while walking by. But. My mind immediately goes to a person because 1) we've had trespassers illegally hunting here before, and more than once, and 2) this camera was the focus of the neighbors more than once and within a couple of days of it getting moved when it wasn't me moving it. So. You know.
Then we went on a hike through the more wild parts of the land that we haven't been able to get to yet. It was a beautiful day to do it, and with the sun sinking, it set the tree tops ablaze with color! We ended our trip here with this hike and are looking forward to getting back and putting up more signage on the watershed, and getting purple paint on the trees in the back forest.
Let's do this! There will be no question that people who do not own this land, or are not invited to the land, should not be on it.
We are now putting up metal signs instead of plastic. Plastic just doesn't hold up to the elements.
Another delicious blue sky!!!
We went into the back forest to start spraying purple on the trees, and right as we got to the end of the forest, we saw something laying under the trees. I thought it was garbage and went to go pick it up, but it was a raccoon 😭He was deceased, and still holding on to the branch that snapped off of the pine and sent him to the ground. How incredibly sad. I hope he didn't suffer! We left him there for wildlife to utilize, especially with Winter coming. Rest in peace, little friend.
As we walked away from the poor little critter, I said a prayer, gave thanks for the beautiful day, and watched the forest glow in the sinking sun.
In every spare moment I had, I was creating for the last market. I was getting a lot of positive feedback about these vintage style wreath ornaments! Most of them sold the day of the show, and what didn't sell that day, sold to friends directly.
And I signed Woodchuck and I up for another program and I was even more excited about this one because I had wanted to go to it last year, but we didn't. It was being held at the park I used to work at, and it was a meal made with things that can be foraged locally!! Most the items I had not tasted before, so I was super stoked! A placard with two brochures with all of the recipes they made!
Not pictured is the Elderberry spritzer mocktail, and dinner was Persimmon goat cheese galette, a black walnut and pumpkin soup, and a hickory nut and blueberry wild rice. It was ok! I would change some things up if I were to make it for us.
Pawpaw pudding with coconut and lime juice. I know people here in Indiana go bonkers for pawpaw, and this was our first time trying it, but honestly? Eh. It was fun though and I am all about trying new things like this and adventures, as well as learning more about local and native things I can forage or grow. We were talking with a young man at our table about planting a pawpaw tree, but he warned us that it can take a long time for them to get the fruit. Do we have enough time left? 😁
We are running out of luck with the long, mild Autumn days! We had one more day of 50's where we could get to the land and work on removing invasives. I assumed we would get a couple of things removed and I was just going to have to be ok with that until early Spring where we might get lucky and hit 50, or until the cut off of April 1st to work on the watershed for the season. But as it turned out, we got A LOT removed! We had hazy skies that masked the sun in a weird way to work under.
But were ready and headed out with a chainsaw, loppers, and some treatment. I ended up finding around 8 or 9 Oothecas on the Autumn Olives.
And an adorable little bird nest that was empty, but I moved it to a secure location in an oak tree, just in case something could use it!
We ended up cutting and treating 20 Autumn Olives in just this one morning! Some of those were resprouts from previous cut and treats that we did. There was still a lot of tall vegetation for us to wade through to get to the ones that weren't on the edges of the path. Good cardio and leg workout, lol.
He also decided that he wanted the hornets next because it was so perfect! It was JUST out of his reach with loppers, so he had the idea that he could get on all fours, and I would stand on his back. Which we did, and I swear if anyone saw us, we probably looked damn crazy! So here's tiny, 5 foot tall me having a hard time even being able to get up on his back, but then I get up there and I am JUST short of being able to reach the nest, even with loppers. So I'm stretching and reaching and trying to stand on my tippy toes, and finally was able to reach it. I had just as hard of a time getting down off of his back. Normally I would have hopped off, but with a torn tendon in my ankle, and something torn in the hip on that same side, I didn't want to take the chance of blowing anything out. So I plopped right down on his back like he was a horse. It was not graceful in the least bit, and I was worried that I was hurting him throughout this whole escapade. But it was a fun adventure and we have an intact and lovely nest!
Then it was time to go back up front because the soil testing company was coming. While we waited for him, we worked on removing more burning bush sprouts and cut and bagged some honeysuckle berries. Once he got there, we talked about our plans and why we needed the test re-done. Really nice guy! Because of the low numbers on the soil test, we will need a perimeter drain that will run out to the front ditch that is on our land and that comes off of the pond. He explained all of that to us as well, and in terms that we could understand! We are so lucky that we have that ditch! We got the report from him a couple of days ago, right on track for what he quoted us! Woodchuck called the person that will be putting the septic in and also received a copy of the report.
In this picture, he put some flag markers and did a lot of measurements to ensure that the system will go in the correct spot and that the soil test spots are marked and visible. The septic has to be so many feet away from the house and barn. We had enough room in the original area to fit it still even though now the barn is there and wasn't in the first testing. (though we did place the barn where we did because of where we knew the septic would go). Lots to take into consideration!
Once my time for the week was back at home, I started sorting the corn kernels and realized just how much time this was going to take, lol. So I only sorted and cleaned a little bit, with the intentions of trying to pop it to see if the moisture content was right. But I have not done that yet. Sigh. BTW, fun fact. There are two kinds of corn kernels in this picture. One is popcorn, and the other is called Dent Corn. Can you tell the difference on which one is which?
