What's at the top of your To-do list?

[k0xxx]

So much to do, so little energy.

First on the list is to complete the rebuilding of our coop (it was destroyed by a storm). The floor is done and three walls are framed up. If only the weather will cooperate...

Second, is tilling the garden under and putting up the new fencing around it.

Third on the list, is splitting and stacking more wood.

Fourth, preparing a spot and erecting a small greenhouse for our two small citrus trees that we have planted in half barrels. We brought them inside last winter, but the lighting wasn't that great for them and it eventually began to take its' toll.

There's a lot more, but these are at the top.

 

[Zenbirder]

Zenbirder ,,,, Do you use your greenhouse year round, or only when temps drop?

My DH did a complete rebuild from the foundation up this summer. It is primarily used for winter, but I am starting to accumulate larger trees that I will be unable to move out. We were gifted a fig tree, I bought a lemon and I am dreaming of a banana. The pineapples are the one thing that has to live in the house because even the greenhouse gets too cold in the winter for them.

 

[heatherv]

The Holiday Grand Plan.... http://organizedchristmas.com/holiday-grand-plan
that's the website. I think you can print up the lists off of there, but I don't b/c I'd forget to go there every week and do it! So I joined the Yahoo Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HolidayGrandPlan/

and I do the daily digest for the emails b/c this time of year there are tons. I usually delete them except for the Sunday ones b/c that's when they send the list out. Then you can copy/print it off from there and plan your week accordingly.


After reading Pat's post it reminded me of a top priority is to do our drainage ditches. YIKES! I made a mental note a couple weeks ago and forgot all about it. I need to WRITE IT DOWN so I don't forget about it until mid winter and it's all icy and not draining. UGH (last year!) Thanks Pat for posting that! I do not feel like chopping through ice for hours again!

 

[the simple life]

Well most of the major work has been done over the summer.I am excited about how much we accomplished this year in the yard.

Right now I have been sprucing up the inside of the house, painting and refinishing the hardwood floors.

We are going to rip out the kitchen ceiling to expose the original beams like the rest of the house.
Looks like someone just went over it with sheetrock or particle board that they painted with textured sand paint.

The chimneys are getting cleaned next week to get ready for winter.

We are in the process of cleaning out our old dirt floor basement to use as a food storage/root cellar.
The house was built in 1768 and has the dirt floor and stone walls.
Its great for a root cellar but I need it for all things so I will divide it into sections for what needs to be stored.
We are raking out the basement floor and leveling it, then this week the gravel type stones will be delivered.
We will put those down a few inches thick and then put all the cabinets and shelving down.
We will pick up the dehumidifier this week as well to put down there for a little bit before we start storing and then use as needed.
We had debated on just putting down a concrete floor but its more work and expense right now than we want to deal with so the stones will do it. The stones will be a good base for when/if we do put a concrete floor down there.

Other than that I am waiting for the coop to be finished.
We have two, I want to make one large one. Leave the smaller one for the bantams to still have and tear down the other.
I will be setting up the storage area in the carriage house for all the bulk food and bedding we are buying for the chickens, don't want to have to run to the feed store anymore than I have to.


These are the things that need to be done and will be done.
Of course there are other things I would like to do but thats different because they are lower on the priority list.
We have a driveway that is in the process of being done over.
The mason said he won't be able to finish the entire thing before the ground gets too cold to work.
Its fine with me though because those stone pavers are very expensive so we can do 10-15 feet every year and I would still be happy.
The walkway was completed and the first 10 feet of the driveway so I am still happy with it.

I need a fence built around the vegetable garden but thats going to have to wait until spring too.

Not much else I can think of.

 

[Zenbirder]

The chimneys are getting cleaned next week to get ready for winter.

Ut-oh you just reminded me that I forgot to put cleaning the wood stove pipes on my list... That is such a fun one with all the soot. I have to hold a five gallon bucket against the ceiling while DH gets on the roof with the brush.

 

[the simple life]

Oh yes, don't you love that quality time together with the hubby?

 

[FarmerChick]

**The house was built in 1768 and has the dirt floor and stone walls.

wow simple life...your home is definitely historic or something...LOL....any chance you have a picture available. I would love to see your home! Just so interested in older homes and 1768 is wild!
cool
---Do you know alot about the past of the home? just curious, this always interests me!

 

[heatherv]

---Do you know alot about the past of the home? just curious, this always interests me!

yeah, and is it haunted? When we lived in GA we lived in a 150 yr old farm house, it was so cool, but it was haunted, in an ugly way... I couldn't move away fast enough from that place!

 

[unclejoe]

Split and stack another 3 cord of wood ( have 6 done already). Pull the old oil tank out of the cellar.
Pick the rest of the tomatoes, carrots, and corn.
Winterize the coop
Clean the chimney
Fresh gravel on the drive
Build a rack in the cellar for all the garden goodies
Pick apples and process
Turn the garden over
Clear the pasture fence of weeds that got away from us this year.
I'm tired just thinking about :/

 

[the simple life]

Karen,
I will try to get some pictures posted.
I do know the history of the house, just so happens that the town historian lives directly behind me.
The house use to be a stage coach stop and carried people into Boston.
On the property there was a shoe factory (which is now the house next door) and Daniel Webster use to come here to get his congressman's boots made and he was a good friend of the family.
One of the original family members even named his son after him.
Just the other day the historian came over to show me the town census he located from the 1800s, it was really cool. It had the names of everyone who lived on this street and what they did for a living.
After some years they turned to farming here as well.
The house has mostly stayed in their family, we are the fifth family to live here but only the second outside of their own family.
Someone sold off the parcels of land about 65 years ago and now its got houses built on them.
I love this old house, it has the wide pine floors, exposed wooden beams in the ceilings, a pantry, it has so much character.
The carriage house is attached to the house through the kitchen and then leads to the backyard.
It has been used for storage by the other families for many years, but I want to make it into a family room and keep its character. The double doors leading outside and all that.
Just this past summer we ripped up a big concrete slab on the side of the carriage house that I assume was meant by the former owners to be a patio or something, and we found over 50 glass bottles.
They had names embossed on them that said things like cocoacaine, german syrup, pain killer, vegetable oil, couch killer ( I would love to know what couch killer was) and a whole bunch of others. There was a bottle of bitters still half full with the cork in it.
I really liked the ones with the names of the pharmacists and drugstores on them.
Those were really cool.
I have dated them back as far as the middle 1800s.
I found a 5 cent peice this summer by the vegetable garden from 1866.


Okay Heather at the risk of people on this board going crazy on me telling me I am loony I will tell you a couple of things.
There is so much more to it, but I will give you a couple of tidbits off the top of my head.
I know that ever since we have lived here, some of my children when they are real little talked about the girl that they say lives here.
My daughter talks about her now all the time.
Just the other night she came running out of her room and said hey there is some kid standing in my doorway.
I said well what is she doing? She said I don't know but I am not going in there again.
But now she has been saying all week that the girl keeps hanging around in her room and wants to know what she wants. She is so matter of fact about it.
Its weird because when my 6 year old was about 2-3 there was a couple of times where he use to point in the direction of that same doorway and yell that there was a monster and cry. He would not walk past it and I would have to pick him up and run past there while he was screaming.
When my oldest daughter was 4 years old she use to talk about the different people she said lived here with us.
She was very matter of fact about it too.
One of them she recognized when the historian came over with some old photos to show us.
When my older boy was 2 he use to sneak into the attic and have conversations with someone.
I would hear him say, so what are you doing? What do you want to do?
Scared the wits out of me so I put a lock on the door.
Then a couple of days later he was eating his breakfast and he turned real quick and yelled over his shoulder, I'm coming and ran upstairs to the attic.
He couldn't get in because I had locked it and he was crying and banging on the door.
I know a little girl died here from typhoid I think it was.
This was over a hundered years ago. I mean alot of people died in this house.
We found a headstone in the basement but it didn't have a name on it and the historian said that they use to buy them in bulk when the stonecutter came into town and then when they needed them they used them and carved the names into them.
Last summer I had a yard sale and some lady came up to me and said she saw a woman in an upstairs window that looked unhappy.
I said uh okay. Then she said who lived here? I didn't know what she was up to so I said I don't know.
She asked if she could go inside.
She said she was a nurse at the local hospital up the street from here and since she didn't seem "too" crazy I went inside with her.
Well, she tells me that there is alot of spirits in my home.
She saw a man in the bedroom right off the bat and then she kept saying that there were so many.
Then she said you have a little girl here that is lonely, she follows your around.She likes to be wherever people are. She is in this room right now, she said look at the hair on my arms. So I look and her hair is standing straight up on her arms.
It was like 95 degrees that day too.
Sometimes at night the older kids will tell me they can hear someone playing on the computer keys, things like that.
So anyway thats the gist of it, I don't want to scare you (or me) too much.

Okay people, I am just answering someone's questions so if you want to debate what is real or not it won't be with me. I am stating facts for someone, thats it.