No Farmer's Market This Year...

On the Farm!

Yeah!  That is the first time I have gotten to say/write that!  Well, I guess I did say we had our first birthday on the farm in the last post.  Anyway, as you might imagine, we have been BUSY with moving and getting our new home set up.  It took us about a week to move and another month to finally get all the boxes unpacked.  Henry has not unpacked his office so that is the last thing to unpack.  He has been busy painting...first he painted his new office and now he is painting his lab space.  He keeps asking me what color I want the kitchen painted.  I just have so much going on that I am having trouble making that decision right now.

I planted my sunflowers this spring and the germination was just terrible.  I didn't really even have time to trouble shoot the situation because we were just so busy this past spring (wondering if/where we would be moving, filling out mortgage paperwork, talking to the Estate Lawyer several times, blah, blah, blah...  I have been holding out, thinking that the sunflowers will come around.  It seems that they are finally starting to grow but I have just decided that I will not be able to participate in the Farmer's Market this year.  I usually have sunflowers and jam/jelly to sell.  I have not even had time to make any jam/jelly!  There is a raspberry patch on our new property and I have been able to pick about 4 gallons of raspberries but I have not had any time to actually make jam.  We are usually picking blackberries in July and we have not had time to go and get any blackberries.  Now, huckleberry season is starting to pick up and I think we may go this next weekend but probably not again (we went 4 times last year!).  So, it just seems that the stars are not aligning for the Farmer's Market to happen this year.  Time to concentrate on our new home and looking forward to getting back to the Market next year.

Linda (Henry's mom) came out to visit on July 11th and took Joshua back with her to the East Coast for a week.  Then, they came back together this past week and she just left this morning.  It was great to have her here and she took out all the stained glass windows and cleaned the rest of the windows.  She said we have over 40 windows in our house!

Here is a pic of 2 of the stained glass windows (center) and 3 windows that have had the stain glass removed.  These 5 small windows in the living room had a layer of stained glass on the inside of the double pane window.  One of the stain glass windows had already fallen in and there was a bunch of glass in the shag carpeting (lots of fun to clean up...NOT!).  Anyway, another one had been taped together and another one was starting to also fall apart.  So, they had to go.  I love that we can see out more and it lets more light into the room.  Eventually, I would love to put in windows that can open because there is not a really good way to catch a good east wind on this side of the house but that is a very distant project.

Another little project I did was to change out the dated lighting fixtures in the main bathroom.  The old fixture is on the left in these pictures and I took it down and put up a half gallon mason jar with an Edison (filament) bulb shown on the right...not the best pic but I think you get the idea.

Here is a video tutorial of how to do this...I had an existing light cord so I did not have to purchase that part (obviously).

The carpet guy came and took measurements on Friday.  Not really looking forward to those estimates but will be happy to see the shag carpet go.  We are just loving the house more and more each day.  Eating out on the deck most every evening, watching for owls that live in the barns, and taking note of the coyotes that live in the plum patch behind us (insert sad face here).

Denise's parents are coming to visit this week!  They have not been to Idaho for 11 years and have never been to Moscow.  We are going to have a great time showing them around and doing a little sight seeing!

Mark enjoying his dinner on his own private deck!