anniversary - the final installment

Man, I have the worst case of do-nothing-itis! I had an extremely busy week and this weekend has been grey and cold and rainy. I even skipped an antique show due to this outbreak of the blah! This is extreme. There is a gas fireplace in our bedroom and the only activity that sounds appealing to me is lighting that fireplace and reading in bed. Honestly, as soon as I'm done here, that's where I'm headed.

There is still so much to cover, but I think we all need to move on, so I'm going to cram it all in here!

garden

Perennial Food Garden? Kitchen Garden? The thing is that I want to grow everything... Everything Garden? Longview Garden? Longview Magical Planting Area? Just spitballing. Enjoy these photos of the garden!

perimeter fence

Just like photos of a large garden, it's hard to get appropriately impressive photos of a mile of fencing, but let me assure you that this is the fanciest fence EVER!.

The livestock fencing: Woven wire with hot wire on the outside for predator protection.

The roadside fencing - to pretty up the place! It also has black wire fencing on the inside.

driveway

We have had TONS of grading and gravel work done thanks to our super nice neighbor. In addition to having the equipment and the skills, he also has a really great understanding of the way water behaves and how to design a farm layout to make using large equipment feasible. We are so lucky to have moved in next door!

The driveway now goes all the way through the first pasture gate and into the big pasture where the compost is. I make a million tractor trips back and forth through there and this will hopefully keep it from becoming a muddy nightmare. Also! I can go faster over smoother ground which makes a big difference in the amount of time spent moving bed pack. Also, the whole place just looks neater.

the barn

Filling the barn gutters was one project that was on the list for this year that we actually got done! Of course, we hired out part of the work which is what made it feasible, but we did have to clear the area first which wasn't a small job! The before photo below is misleading...

These are the actual before photos:

paddock fences

Another project that's hard to photograph are the paddock fences. They are made from fiberglass posts and electric twine and they are used to keep the sheep eating the grass I want them to eat and only that grass. This system makes rotating them from paddock to paddock so much easier than setting the electric nets which is what we did before the perimeter fence was built. All we have to do to make the switch is open a new gate and close the old one. The sheep always have access back to the barn because I am a nice farmer... regardless of what the sheep may have said.

ha! another interior project (evil laughter)

I know I said that we moved all of our efforts outside, but I LIED!! We were having a bunch of houseguests and I felt that they would see the dated backsplash situation in the kitchen and judge us harshly so I decided to fix it.

I haven't talked about it here, but when we moved in the kitchen had a 'single wide' refrigerator and a coffee bar / microwave area. We decided to sacrifice the coffee area so we could have a full fridge and a full freezer next to one another. It's fancy, someday we'll trim it out and show people. Anyway, when we did that, we attempted to knock some of this backsplash tile off the wall. Let me tell you: It did not go. To take this tile out, the drywall will also have to go, and maybe also the counter top? I tried to make peace with the color scheme and the busy patterns of the granite and the tile mosaic, but I just couldn't do it!! Out of desperation, I decided to try painting the tile. This tile is textured with a matte finish, so it took the paint pretty well. and I felt better right away. I don't have a good photo of it, but the area behind the range is tiled with a combination of shiny and metallic tiles that couldn't really be painted, so I needed to do something to tie everything together. I decided on these vinyl tiles, they are supposed to be removable, but since we knew that we would have to replace the drywall if we wanted to remove the mosaic tile, it's pretty low risk.

The company who makes these tiles say that if you are covering grout lines with these tiles specifically, that they will show through. It's more noticeable in this photo (above the range) than it is in person. We could have chosen another tile design that would have covered better, but my middle name is Danger, so I rarely take advice.

the end

There are a couple of things that I wanted to mention that didn't fit in, but I am letting them go. I think the next year at The New Farm is going to be even better!! I hope that we can continue the work and project development, but without the panicked pace. Balance is a difficult concept for me, I want to do everything... NOW. Right now though, I can hear the fireplace and a book about the history of silverware calling out to me. Thank you for reading, xxoo Tricia