Saturday, September 18, 2010

Up the Chimney

Cicero and Alice having a bit of a romp just outside the barn.

Just downloaded a few pictures of the chimney. It's really quite gorgeous as chimneys go. It'll look even better when the chimney of the other end of the house is in place. That one will serve the Glenwood kitchen range and be a 'fake'. The stove pipe will go from oval to round out of the range and after the damper it will fit into a metalbestos pipe that will go up through the roof and have a 'fake' chimney created around it.


Rock On

Last week I traveled up to Springfield, VT to have a look at some soapstone slabs. We are considering using soapstone for our kitchen countertops. This slab is quite green as opposed to the others that I saw that were grey and nearly blsck. Am leaning toward the green with light veining.


Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Autumn Gold

Fall is in the air. Check out the shadows and
the gold on them thar hills. The winter sun will be setting early on this little farm. Guess I'll be getting my barn chores done earlier rather than later and then walking into a kitchen warmed by our new/old Glenwood kitchen range. Way back when our Windsor, MA house was just in the planning stages we stopped for gas just off the Taconic Parkway and I spotted a second hand shop just next door to the gas station. There was a rusty old cast iron cook stove on the porch and we bought it ....on the spot! And, we never looked back! After a couple of calls we managed to borrow a trailer to cart it back to our apartment in Pittsfield. It would up in our basement where we spent many hours removing the rust, cleaning the broken pieces of firebrick out of the firebox and sending off the trim to be re nickeled at Royal Plating Co. now long out of business.
When we sold the house we left the stove behind. What a mistake. Anyhow, we found another Glenwood range this past winter and bought it pretty much the same way that we bought the first one. Love at first sight! This one came from the Love Barn north of Belfast , ME. The kids collected it for us on a return trip from Holden, ME. Can't wait til we have it in the new kitchen.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

It's a steamy September morning. I'm just in from the barn where the crew is enjoying a lovely bale of Mike Darling's second cutting. As I was picking the area under the overhang I couldn't help but congratulate myself on investing in a Nelson Waterer. It's only been in service since the end of June but it has already paid for itself in my book. No more algae coated water troughs, just a lovely stainless bowl that is a breeze to clean.

On Sunday the winter's hay arrived. 608 bales in all and I must say that it is always a good feeling to know that the loft is full. A few weeks back Mike injured his knee so the troops rallied to help with hay. Dicky, Mike's brother in law, apparently ran the baler at warp speed which may account in some way for the weight of the bales?? The 'gorillas' were John , Brady & Tyler Rose, John Darling and a couple others that I didn't know. They managed to consume gallons of iced tea and thanks to Syd we had plenty of mint! He went back to the old farm and gathered a generous bunch,



This is a picture of the house progress from last week. Much has been done since then. The garage is in situ, the trusses arrived yesterday afternoon. The screen porch is under construction and the porch flooring has been delivered. More pictures soon.
Last evening after the hammer bangers had left I went out with a tape to try to layout the placement of the kitchen sink, dishwasher and cooktop. Managed to rescue a few scraps of plywood of an appropriate size and used them to represent the appliances. I think I'm close.