Goats and Kids and Chicks

I owe you.  It’s been wa-ay too long since my last post.

First some updates.  (Wrote this in June 2013, but forgot to post!)

Got goats!

Meet Stella, Violet and Coco!

Finally.  We have three.  Stella is the mama goat.  She’s lovely, for a goat.  She, unlike most goats who view humans as primary predators, was bottle raised in the home of the Conrads at Riverslea Farm several years ago when she was born and orphaned in the early Winter.  She’s a bit needy – she likes her peeps.  She keeps tabs of all of our comings and goings and looks forward to visits.  And she “talks” a lot, for a goat.  Purely conversationally, of course.

Her twin kids Violet and Coco round out our herd of three.  Violet is a little more cautious of her human family and visitors, but friendly enough.  Coco is all boy.  Growing like crazy, horns and all.  He’s a bit of a spaz, really.  But the girls keep him in line. 

Hubby built them a sturdy and practical goat house that can be moved around the property. (It’s built on 2x10 skids.)  And we now have 4 x 164-foot sections of movable electronet fencing that keeps goats in and predators out.

Stella in the foreground and her growing kids foraging
 and playing balance beam on fallen trees with our human kids.

The plan is for them to stay until the forage is gone for the season and take them back up to Riverslea, where they have large over-wintering herd and a big barn.  It is our hope that Stella and her next kids and Violet and her first kid will come back to us in the Spring.  Not so sure about Coco.  Depends on how full of himself he gets, and whether the Conrad’s like the look of him for breeding or eating, and whether Stella and/or Violet have a buckling...

In the meantime we are enjoying our little goat family immensely and they are doing a great job clearing what used to be the southern pasture nearest the house.  Poision ivy, wild raspberries and bittersweet are favorites, but the garlic mustard, buckthorn, and young Norway maples are disappearing too.

Chicks, too!

Our kids just graduated Kindergarten.  And one of the classroom projects this Spring was watching eggs hatch in an incubator.

Bits & Pieces, Sweaters & Fleeces

As Winter approaches, we are pecking away at lots of projects.  It's ever-frustrating to not have more complete, but progress is better than nothing, right?  [Sorry, no new pics to post. They are trapped on my phone.  Mac and Android are NOT getting along.  Couples therapy required.  I am confident they will work our their differences for the benefit of the kids.  Sigh.]

Here's our progress report:

1) Charles's room is STILL not finished (started in July), but I finally finished painting the walls and trim and ceiling.  There are no straight lines and no smooth surfaces in that room, so it has been a real challenge.  A few touch ups will be required once the floor is painted, but it looks SO much better.  And hubby has been wrenching away at the endless number of staples in the floor.  We are SO close to having that horrible task finished.  Furniture and finishes are ready to go.

We finally had to turn the heat on November 1, and we keep the Tavern and Bunk Room zone at 54, so Charles has moved over to the day bed in his sister's room (main house zone is a balmy 62) to avoid cold toes.  He has been so patient through this process.  Can't wait to have him move back into his own room again!

2) The window replacement project is coming along.  We acquired, painted and replaced the five front windows on the front of the house.  And the four for the first floor in front are primed and waiting for exterior paint today.   Nice to have the later-kitchen/porch as a no-need-for-drop-cloth painting space! Hopefully, hubby will have time to get those installed early this week. It only takes about 45 minutes each, now that he knows the drill.

We also splurged and bought three replacement casement panels for the old kitchen.  Those windows were literally falling apart, and we faced the potential of wide-open breezes this Winter if we didn't do something there.  They too are primed and waiting.  Hubby needs to seat the hinges before I paint, but we'll have those in before the weekend.  He did a great job reglazing the massive three-panel interior "storm" window for that space.

There is a chronic problem of high-velocity roof-run-off in that corner so those windows get blasted.  Architectural changes are needed, but we have not gotten our heads around a solution yet.  All in good time.

We've also been puzzling out ways to reuse panes and storm windows elsewhere in the house where updates are "futures".  Whatever we have leftover, I am hoping, will come together into some sort of a cold frame for my gardening habit.

3) Not one japanese knotweed went to seed on or near our property this year.  It remains to be seen what comes back or shows up in the Spring. Here's hoping all of our efforts made a dent.  And that the goats can polish off the stragglers in the Spring.

4)  The big dig worked!  The basement is tolerably dry and the portion of the pieced-granite foundation adjacent to the new grading and hardscaping is noticeably more stable.  The stepping stones have settled into the walkable gravel surface, the setting sand has done its job around the bricks, and the second round of grass seed is busy germinating on the slopes and in "the hole".  Temporary mostly-Fall plantscaping is pleasant and surviving the stress of planting just prior to first frost.  All good there.

5) Firewood won't be a problem or purchase this year.  Our selective clearing has left us with a relatively seasoned supply.  And we succeeded in budgeting to fill two oil tanks to brimming last summer when the prices were lower, so we are starting with both barrels loaded, as they say.  All told, we are in a better place as far as budgeting BTUs this Winter.

Again, we are keeping one zone at 62 degrees and one at 54.  The latter has the benefit of a convection fireplace for evening warm-up.  When the sound of the furnace firing up literally sounds like CHA-CHING, you learn to wear more fleece and sweaters.  I can think of so many other things to spend money on than fuel that burns.  Like more new windows and future insulation!

6) This Winter, we will be giving serious, definitive thought to what form the new kitchen, mudroom (old kitchen) and old-yucky bathrooms will take.  Lots of variables and not much common ground between hubby's ideas and mine aside from basic locales and progress imperatives.

Perhaps we will put out some new polling questions soon?

The Big Dig: Fearsome Firehose > Tolerable Trickle

You may remember last Fall when I gave two very large Rhododendrons significant haircuts in preparation for a move this past Spring.  Well, mud season came on fast and furious this year so no heavy machinery was recommended in close-quarters with our possibly-piercable pieced-granite foundation.

And our friends who make a living with said heavy machinery Fat Cod were busy making hay while the sun was shining this summer.  So, as Fall rolled around and I made and off-handed query as to availability, I was somewhat taken aback when the answer was, "How about Friday?"

I immediately said, "Um, OK."  And the rest was, well, it's still happening, so not quite history, but there's lots to tell!  I don't have pics yet of our newly finished and landscaped dooryard featuring all sorts of reclaimed materials pillaged from deep holes and lost corners of woods and barns here at TOPH (coming soon!)  But, I will share a couple of the exciting experiments, achievements and milestones.

Here is the before picture of the large Rhodies, at-grade sills and negative grade on the west side of TOPH.  In anything but a passing shower, water regularly ran down the top of the parking area, across the dooryard and into the corner by the backdoor where it combined with the runoff from three roof directions and poured into the basement at a volume that was washing the mortar out from between the stones of our foundation.

And here is the pic taken just after the Rhodies were relocated to their new home in the south woods .  You can see where the grade has built up to the sills over the years.  And where the moss is growing on the siding where the bushes held moisture up against the house.

Here is a sneak peek at the new grading.  Although we had a pro from Fat Cod do the big digging , we were able to get in ourselves by hand and dig out up agains the foundation and reset the grade.  Stabilizing the drip edge with gravel and slate reclaimed from a mostly-overthatched patio was an afterthought, but proved to be key in the grand scheme.  We've had a couple of days of steady rain and the "breach" in our foundation (four feet below that sill cock by the window well) has turned from a firehouse volume to a trickle at the height of a downpour.  Huge improvement.  I know it sounds wierd, but we can live with trickle!  A river (well, maybe a small stream) runs through it.  That's par for the course in olds houses like this.

Here you can see a pile of reclaimed granite curbing (for water diversion) at the top of the slope and the beginning of a hardscaping and landscaping plan that had largely been in my head (as translated by Matt Gunn from Fat Cod with some handy pastry flour.)  We graded and shaped the walkway area by hand and then added nine tons of stone/gravel for good measure.  The walkway is not quite finished, but very, very close.   I've only rearranged the bricks four times... (Pics and details soon.)  

And then came the big dig.  It is our hope that this large rainwater collection area (now downhill from the house where the opposite slope used to be) will suffice to keep greater volumes of water away from the house and foundation, draining off naturally or with the help of suck-up plantings.  The alternative is some sort of high-volume French drain or piping system, but the distance that would need to be covered to reach the sufficient grade to achieve positive drainage would make that a much bigger dig, potentially disturbing working grade elsewhere around the house and property.  We will cross that bridge when (IF) we come to it.  In the meantime we could also supplement this rainwater collection area with a sump pump and hose if it does not drain quickly enough, but so far we have seen it drain more than 2 inches and hour.  And it has a capacity of about 2,000 gallons by my estimation.  Here's hopin'!

 That's all for now.  More pics and details on repurposed treasures when walkway is (really) set and the grass is showing and the base plantings are in.  There is even be some bawdiness in the finishes if you are of that mindset.