We’re All In Tennessee!
My brother Brent has moved here from Texas and his new “Man Cave” finally arrived. I am looking forward to helping him work on it.
Building New Stone Sidewalks
My mother wanted a couple of sidewalks built at their place. We used stone that my brother got from his work. Ben, Brent, my dad and I worked part of the day and made good progress. It still needs some leveling out before mortar is added to set the stones permanently, but we have had
Compost Bins – Updated Design
We’ve had compost bins since April, 2014, but we’ve done several improvements since then. Here is what the original 3 bins looked like. The original compost bins worked great, but the sawdust and wheat straw cover material wasn’t protected from rain. The finished compost bins. A few of the improvements made are: * A roof
Kitchen Cabinets Done
I finally finished the kitchen cabinets in our little cabin. They are made from 3/4″ pine from our chainsaw mill with an inexpensive 1/4″ luan backer. They were super simple to build and very inexpensive. Sarah picked out the green…her favorite color. I used Kreg pocket screws to make the door frames as shown in
Sarah’s Video Tour of the Garden
Sarah wanted to document the state of our 2015 garden by recording a video at the beginning of July. She does talk briefly about the chicken coops and the compost bins as well. This is only our second year of gardening, so I suspect we will look back at this video and have a few
Carpenter Bee Trap
I am not particularly fond of trapping bees, but these carpenter bees are wreaking havoc on our cabin. Last year the Carpenter Bees made Swiss cheese out of the soffits on the cabin. My dad made a very slick Carpenter Bee trap that I hung right under the still damaged soffit. The first bee of
Homemade Clothes Dryer Racks
It is sometimes difficult to get all the washed clothes hung out to dry on the clothesline when the weather won’t cooperate. We have been running the wood stove for months now and it seemed like a no-brainer to use the heat of the wood stove to help dry clothes when mother nature wasn’t cooperating.
Winter Weather On the Homestead
We finally had our first (and hopefully last) stretch of bad weather this winter. It started with a good shower of ice pellets, followed by sleet, followed with temperatures in the teens. The next day brought an inch or so of real snow and single-digit temperatures. All of which caused school closures all week for
My Parents Have Moved To Tennessee!
My parents purchased a beautiful house on over 20 acres of rolling hills and woodlands. We never even entertained the idea that they would move out here when we were in the process of purchasing our place, but we are thrilled that they are here. The moving truck is gone and now they are unpacking
It’s Happening!
Benjamin and I visited Loren and the homestead this past weekend and WOW! Just WOW! I’m so impressed by and excited about the evolution of our property. I had not been there for five weeks and the changes are significant. Let me count the ways… Our friendly bull-dozing Don cleared another section of forest to