Gardens

The front flower and herb bed is well established. I've adjusted it slightly by adding heather to the front and moving the coral bells to the shadier hedgerow. My latest addition are poppies. 

The hedgerow had filled in nicely.

Last spring, I added asparagus to along the house next to the rhubarb patch. This past fall, I planted garlic between the asparagus rows. It is my first attempt at planting garlic and asparagus in the same bed. So far everything seems to be thriving.

 Early stages of the vegetable garden. I expanded it slightly this year and plan to enlarge it again next year. Things are coming along slowly. I don't know if it is the garden or the lack of my patience.

Kitchen details

I have a small collection of bail closing canning jars from my mother. (pint size that is - I could have a large collection of quart size, if I wanted) I thought they would be a good place to keep my dried herbs from my herb garden. Also, because they are so cute, I wanted to display them. Martin kindly built me a shelf to put them on.

 I also have some shelves on either side of the kitchen window. It is a great place to keep tea pots and teas.

Martin needed more space

Martin built a lean-to shed off the back of his workshop. He needed more storage space.

Rocket Stove Upgrade

Before we actually moved into an tigin, Martin had built a simple rocket stove.

He has spent a lot of the winter researching different rocket stove designs and, of course, he wasn't satisfied with the simple one that we had. 

He wanted to be able to cook more than one thing at a time with less smoke.

Here is the new one.

We tried it out for the first time recently and it worked well. The hamburgers cooked up nicely, the potatoes boiled, and our garlic scapes sauteed up quickly. We also didn't smell like campfire when we were done, which was a nice change.

carport

Martin added a carport for me to park in during the winter. No scraping frost or ice off of my windshield for me. No digging my car out of the snow.

For Oliver

My grandson Oliver was fascinated when I showed him the mother robin sitting on her nest. She found a handy spot to build her nest. Martin stores his 28 foot ladder hanging sideways just under the eaves of the low wall of his workshop. Momma robin thought the side along the bottom was a good spot. Once we discovered her and the nest, Martin and I only forgot a couple of times that she was there and walked by that side of the workshop, startling her off of her eggs. 

Oliver visited for a day and I showed him the Momma robin. He kept sneaking off to peek at her and give her a little wave. Once the eggs hatched, I snapped this photo for him.

Those babies certainly grew fast. This picture was taken about a month before the babies fledged.

Now we have an empty nest.

Our mother robin in on round 2 of family raising. Last time we had a chance to look in the nest, there were 3 eggs in there. (I have to admit, it was Martin that looked. I have to climb on something to see in the nest.)

Interior doors, door trim, and baseboard

I know I have neglected posting for quite some time and do apologize. A couple of things have happened. One: the house is nearly finished, so we don't have as many changes happening. Two: we purchased another fixer-upper (NO I AM NOT GOING TO BLOG THAT ONE) and we have been spending less time working on An Tigin.

We have had interior doors for a while, but the door trim and baseboard are a current project. Martin bought seconds from a local lumber mill. The pile of boards sat in the guest bedroom (a few family members can attest to that) while they dried out. Then Martin and I spent a couple of very long days squaring edges, cutting to width, and planing the boards.

Oh yeah, I talked Martin into hanging pictures too.