Halfway into July, we decided that the month would be dedicated to NO BIG PROJECTS!! Just puttering. A little gardening here, maybe some gutter installation there, and lots of reading. OK, some of you may think that gutter installation sounds like a big project, but not when Mason's on the job.
Helping us out has been rain, rain and more rain. Ever since we got that $%*#! Cow-on-a-Tractor rain gauge, we've been clocking an inch or two of the stuff a day, so we really don't know what "drought" everybody's talking about. Even our little nearby creeks, which usually dry up in summer, are running full steam. Today I even had to run-and-jump to get across one.
On the rainiest days, we did a lot of reading. Yup, even Mason, who pored through three novels in six days. Our highest recommendation goes to "City of Thieves," a WWII-era Russian buddy story that my hip friend Leslie sent me. We also consumed "Child 44," another Russian thriller, post-WWII, and I devoured a few books about living the country life. It got me all worked up about adding a chicken coop to our homestead. Stay tuned on that.
So on last week's trip into town, Home Depot had a bunch of shrubs on clearance, and I couldn't resist a wisteria vine, which I had planted and loved in our Minnesota garden. So, as soon as I got it home, Mason got energized to build a pergola on our fenced-in well-house/garden/generator storage area. We had planned to build the pergola about a year ago, so it was one of those smaller projects that we had left in mid-construction. But, in the past two days, we got much of the pergola completed (see photo).
The next big project is adding solar power. (That job will entail taking down MANY very large trees. We're hoping to not drop any of them on the house. ... This time.) But all this rain also has us talking about adding a French drain to help direct the rainwater runoff away from the cabin. Not sure which project we'll undertake first, but tomorrow we're going to build several little wooden "bridges" that will help the runoff find its way around my mulch pathways. For the record, "little wooden 'bridges' " qualify as a puttering project.
And also, for the record, I'm still LOVING my new kitchen! (And our very laid-back, no-worries mountaintop lifestyle.)
Aloha, y'all ...
Do tell on the bridges project, when it gets going. Guiding rain runoff is very big on my mind these days at Loveless Lake. And I love your book recommendations!
ReplyDelete"puttering" my ass. you two are insanely ambitious. i too loved "city of thieves"!
ReplyDeletea French drain? ooo la la. i have no idea what it is but it sounds tres fabulous.
ReplyDeletedid michiela send you some books? i put a bunch aside in the book room and meant to send them....i think i gave them to her.... if not i have more. there's a sequel to child 44 somewhere.