Monday, October 12, 2020

Autumn Cornucopia!

We continued to take advantage for the lovely fall weather to get to many of the projects either long-overlooked, or newly-accepted, along with the usual fall maintenance around the yard and garden.

Early October also turned out to be a ridiculously busy time for the art studio, with veritable hordes (OK, possible exaggeration) of art-seekers turning up with or without notice to peruse the wares....meaning a lot of time was also diverted to keep creating pieces to replace all the bare spots on the walls!

We also tackled the kitchen, refreshing the old paint and hardware, before Jane applied a fake granite treatment to modernize the fake wood-grain laminate countertop.....and then she used that new countertop to make some really great food!

Parging continued to repair parts of the house exterior, with a fresh coat of paint coming along behind to seal up all those little cracks.

Now we just need to squeeze in some time for a bonfire or two while this weather lasts!


One more tree to take down....

....limb from limb....

Trunk Show!

Another load of brush for the county yard waste depot!

Fall Splendor!


Autumn glory!


Parged and painted! (and AC moved for eventual new deck)

Taking advantage of sunshine to dry more wood for art projects

Homemade Rosemary Bread in a Cast-Iron Skillet

Homemade Chicago Deep Dish Pizza!


New paint and hardware for the cabinets.....

Primer Stage for the Countertop

Final Finish and Protective Coat

 

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Farewell to The Farm

The Cole family farm was sold recently, after many generations in The County. We were fortunate to have the opportunity for one final bittersweet visit to see the place in all its autumn splendor.  

Spanning 100 acres, The Farm runs ten fields back to a wooded creek. With nobody left able to farm the place, the fields have been rented for years, this year yielding up the neighbour's soybeans.

The house is old and was built in several phases over the years to accommodate an increasingly large rural family.

The barn was rebuilt in 1948, after a fire.....and remains in mighty good shape for the shape she's in!

This is the one place that has consistently felt like home for my entire life - as I walk the property, childhood memories come flooding back of my sister and cousins thrashing around in colourful leaf piles on the front lawn, or the "door yard" as my grandmother always called it.

Many Christmas mornings in that living room.....many Thanksgiving dinners around that kitchen table.

I'm going to miss it.




The old milking machine


The pig pen

Eerie hole in the cloud cover - perhaps someone else saying goodbye?


Memory Lane





Looking west

Looking east




Inside the barn