And here we are -

July 1st. The days are still blurry. I'm still employed. The virus is still a thing even if some people want to wish it out of happening.
(FYI - Not going to happen. The virus believes in you, even if you don't believe in it.)

I don't feel like I've gotten a tone of work done since Scott did the wall. The flowers have been growing, the woodchuck has been mowing them down, I put up an electric fence to keep him out of the garden, and the veggies are growing well.

We had a socially-distanced dinner for 2 of Ian's colleagues on Monday, for a total of 5 of us. Frankly, that's as many people as I want to share space with right now. I sort of grilled them about their pandemic habits, and still wiped the place down with disinfectant afterwards, just in case.

Ian and Windy have been working their tails off fixing the plaster for me in the upstairs hallway as a thank you for living here while on a local job. The area was kind of a cobbed mess - horsehair, drywall, a smidge of paneling, and some really bad former repairs.

The door is neat and all, but you see the flaking plaster in the upper right?

The stairwell, with it's bulges and chips in the plaster.
This picture is very kind to that area, actually.

More chipping.

This whole section of roof was sort of saggy where the keys in the plaster had let go.

One end of the terrible.partly-cement repair.

The whole terrible partly-cement repair.
Best we can figure, there was a water leak and the plaster came down.
They "fixed" it with a very hard plaster, probably mixed with Portland cement.
Then they replaced the chimney that is right behind that wall, knocking the smashed bricks
into the attic, which, when Ian removed the terrible cement repair, rained down on his head from above the lathe.

The big bulge under the water leak, due to the house moving and settling. The pressure forces the plaster out.

They came in with Big Wally's Plaster Magic (and it really is). All the plaster is reset, and nothing is loose and smooshy anymore. How it works is - You drill a hole through the plaster into the lath, squirt some conditioner in there (very important for adhesion), let that sit for a few, then squirt in a special adhesive with a caulk gun. Screw those washers into the little holes you've made and let it set up really good, acting like a clamp.

It's like art or something.

I helped! I did this tiny section.

Clamps, clamps, clamps.

Once it's set up, you come back and remove all the washers and screws. The adhesive will have done it job. No more jiggles!

Then they started on the fixes -

Goodbye, terrible patch and bulge, hello drywall repair.

And now we're at a point of final touch up and primer -

You can barely tell terrible repair was ever there unless you know to look for it.

This was a super-saggy slope. It's so much better already.

Closeup of the super saggy slope.
It was *covered* in Big Wally washers to suck it up.

The stairwell - It will always have some plaster waves, because it's still plaster.
But it's not falling down!

I can't even tell that this is where the insulation guys blew a hole in the wall last year!

(Before)

There's a few little tweaks left, and then I need to pick out a color paint for the hall. It can't be too dark, because there's relatively little natural light, especially at one end. I need to keep the doors closed to most of the rooms up here to keep the cat out of them, so it reduces the light enough where it's going to be kind of a trick. I'm thinking White ceiling, SuperWhite Gloss trim, and perhaps a light grey with blue undertones. I'm not sold on it though.
Then I need to pull off the last two doors and refinish them/their trim/their hardware. But! I don't have to do two of the bedroom doors because they are a lovely stain/varnish. I'm just leaving them well enough alone.

Also, I got in my Big Bucket of Dumond 30 Coat Stripper, so I know what I'll be doing with my free time for a while...

Quick update

I know. I'm a super slacker and I owe you all a long post, complete with a billion flower pictures.

But right now, let's just give a round of applause to my friend Scott, who moonlighting as a mason came and fixed my front stairs so I won't go butt over teakettle when I try to walk up and down them.

He even found one of the rocks had drill marks from where it was cleaved, so he flipped and flopped it over so they show! (Third step from the top.)
I'm going to get some thyme or sedium to plant around to keep the dirt in one place.

Sometimes, it's the darnedest things

Back when I was looking for a house to buy, I would regularly turn to MACRIS if it was an old house to see if it was listed. Back in the 80's and 90's there was a huge push to get properties listed in the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System. Then if they qualified, listed on the National Register of Historic places. 
I don't know why, but for whatever reason, I don't believe I ever searched this house.
Or I did and it hadn't been digitized yet, I don't know.

But now I do know - I live in the T.L. Jacobs house. A Greek revival, single dwelling house, built c. 1830, first appearing on a map in 1855. In 1991 when the survey was taken, my house was white, with what I think is a taller front chimney. The sidelights in the front door are full, not half. But the driveway had already been done, and the windows already replaced.

The Stone House (the big red one on the corner) and Brigham Farm (the big yellow one up around the corner) also have entries that are fascinating. This house is quite short and modest in comparison.

But... Holy Geez. 
Research!

Chipping!

One of the big outdoor projects I wanted to get done which is sort of time sensitive was Whacking the Forcythia.
I like them well enough - they are holding back the hillside over there - but they had gotten very encroach-y. Last year I could barely get past it with the lawnmower. Cutting them now gives the plants time to regenerate new growth, so hopefully it flowers next year. After I took a big bundle of cuttings for my mom, I started.

If you zoom in, you can see the row of stumps that at this point I'd already cut and chipped.
I'd say here I was about half done.

The last of the pile!

I raked up all the chips and put them down where the shade from the forcythia
had killed everything under it to hold the dirt back.

This took me from about 11 am to about 6 pm, start to finish. I had intended to chip onto the driveway for easier cleanup, but was restricted by the length of my extension cord.
Now I'm standing in my office, trying to decide which Norway maple saplings are going to go next to open that up a little more.

This weekend I also got in some paint remover. The speed heater is great, but it's pretty messy in the house. Maybe I'm not super skilled at it, but It's just not living up to the ease hype for me. I had heard about this Dumond system, so I ordered the test kit.

Fun times in a box!

This is what was in the kit: 1 pair gloves, 1 scraper, 2 scrubby pads, 3 chip brushes,
1 package special paper, and 1 each of regular, high-test, and masonry paint remover.

I've started with the Regular remover in patches to see how long/how many coats it will take.
At the top: 3 coats/removes, little yellow bar is only 2 coats/removes, lower block is 4 coats/removes. 

Timing is tricky with this one. You want to leave it on as long as possible to let it work, but if you leave it on too long it starts to harden back up again. It seems to really only be taking off 2-3 layers at a time. It's cleaner, certainly not quicker though.

Those of you who's been through Agile/Kanban training yes, I have a sticky-note Kanban board on my wall.)

Hey, if a method works.

 Last week I saw an interesting recipe for Dandelion shortbread cookies on the internet.
So... Why not?

Ahh, humble Dandelion. You're so nice and dry in this picture.
Shortly thereafter it started to rain. soaking me and my Dandelions.

Do you have any idea who hard it is to pull Dandelion petals?
Particularly WET Dandelion petals?
Let's just say this was a one-off experiment.

You make the cookies, roll into a log and refrigerate overnight and then cut into slices.
They were ok. I think the water content of my rain soaked flowers turned the cookies soft though.
I was hoping for a snappier shortbread.

Still trying to get out and get a walk in as regularly as I'm able (though after the Great Forcythia Massacre, I crawled into the shower - that's as far as I was walking.)
It's fun to see what's coming into bloom.

An odd little Violet with oval shaped leaves, not the normal hearts.

Cluster of Wood Anemone

Quaking Ladies!

Little white Violets

Jack-in-the-Pulpet.

May 9th.
It snowed. The hummingbird dropped by. Then it snowed again.
I wore my winter gear walking, and I wasn't overly warm.

Hope you all have a good week. Stay safe.

A little sunshine

Well, the time between posts is getting long, because time it's self is getting a little squishy.
It's not "Sunday" anymore, it's "Facebook Church and Google Meet with Mom Day".
It's not "Tuesday", it's "YouTube Live from Alton Brown's Kitchen Night".

But I've got a ton of pictures and maybe I can string together a bit of a narrative with them.
Here goes!

We got a bit of snow back a while ago.
About 6" - I only figured that out by realizing how tall the grape hyacinth were.

It was beautiful in an austere sort of way.

The wild weather threw the bird off. I found this intact robin's egg under the forcythia and left it for a few days.
Nothing ate it or smooshed it, so I cleaned it thoroughly and set it in my indoor primrose.

After the snow melted I discovered my poppy survived it's transplant!
But it was not surviving the Bunny that has moved in.
I used this old fire pit screen to protect it until I could hose it off with a new shipment of Bobbex.

A friend gave me this electric chipper last fall, which I promptly jammed.
I took a nice day to take it apart, oil the moving parts (remove the jam) and put it back together.

And it worked! I had no left over pieces!
This little unit is drastically under powered for my needs (and pops the breaker every time it jams)
I'll be looking to upgrade it to a gas-powered model in the future.
For now, I'll just chip and curse every time something slightly oversized falls in.

I took up the pavers from out in front of the house, and all the left over mulch,
and made myself a decorative path to the compost pit. (the old barn foundation.)

With the good weather coming on, it was time to get serious about raised garden beds.
And my struggle against the Bunny.

Rather than have them on the ground (as I first intended) I made these freestanding.
I'd just read a book called "Square Foot Gardening" which makes more sense on my property
than to try to do a traditional row garden.
I also double dog dare the Bunny to scale this bed.

All in all I made 3 - the one on the far left is for herbs only, the long one in the middle is for misc. veggies,
And the one on the far right (double deep) is for rood crops like potatoes.

Around this time I noticed a new roommate. Not the best choice of siting, Robin friend.

The ground has been tossing up more bits and bobs.
This tiny intact glass bottle (it's smaller than my thumb) came from a flower bed.

I don't know what this was, but the area between the barn foundation and the shed keeps spitting out bits of metal.

I found this old door latch while trying to dig out some compost/dirt from under the brush pile.
It snapped in half when I pulled on it, thinking it was a root.
There really is no rhyme or reason to where I'm finding debris.
There were a few 1" white square tiles with it, and bits of cut off green tiles that match the bathroom.

These did not bloom last year, so I can only guess the intense liming and bonemeal-ing of the lawn has helped a little.
These are called "The Poet's Daffodil" or "Pheasant's Eye" and they smell really nice.

I turned over a bit of a ground bed for pumpkins, and amended it with 160lbs of of Alpaca Poo from a local farm.
$20 bucks gets you 160 lbs and an afternoon's worth of entertainment.
Added bonus: rumor has it deer don't like the smell of Alpaca poo!

I had also gotten a few bags of MiracleGro Compost from Home Depot.
Be careful playing in dirt. :(

I'e been taking a lot of long walks - 2-4 miles a day on the local trail system.
Someone tucked this by the trail to find.
We could all use a little more these days.

So there you have it. Lots of outside garden activity. In the last week or so, the beds have gone from brown to green. I've been dividing more hosta, but that's pretty much ended now. I need to get a little more soil for the raised beds, but planting can't happen until they stop talking about snow (seriously, they are talking about snow again.)
I do have a new product on order for stripping trim on the inside of the house though, should come in this week sometime. Then I'll have more pictures!

Speaking of pictures, I've started a little project over on Instagram - #100plants100days. It's a nod to my middle school bio teacher/project.

Stay safe. - Sarah