I thought we were headed toward spring...

...and then winter came back to bite us again.

We were finally able to see swaths of green grass after some serious rain and warmer temps over the weekend, and then Sunday afternoon it all went downhill, again. The driveway was almost completely cleared of snow and ice, and replaced by mud. This was not much of an improvement, but definitely a signal of spring. Then, Monday morning we woke up to about 2 feet of snow on the ground. Poor Mr. Kelley the Snowblower didn't make it out here until 8:30 am to clear a path so The Poor Husband could get the CR-V out of the garage to go to work. It looks and feels like we have returned to December.

We had several dinner guests on Saturday night: Jim the Builder, wife Chrissy, 2YO son Jack, and 6MO son Sawyer, and Richie the Worker with his girlfriend, Eileen. Roast pork glazed with grainy dijon mustard, rosemary and fig spread was pretty tasty, but over-cooked. I was too much distracted by playing with the 2 adorable children.

I am always amazed that Lester and Sophie are so well behaved around babies. Of course, after only a few minutes, Lester had Jack well-trained to feed him Nilla wafers, dozens of them...

And the final bit of exciting news: Little Sister had a house showing on Saturday, and we have one tonight...keep on shopping folks...we both want to sell our houses!

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This time last year

My beautiful soapstone counters were installed on March 3 last year. The installation went smoothly, except for Todd the Stone Guy sanding down the edge of the sink and sending super fine stone dust throughout the house. This first photo was about an hour after he left, and you can see the dust is everywhere, including still flying through the air. Even after he hired a cleaning lady to scrub the house, top to bottom, the dust is still settling...really...one year later.

We also had the little Ruby Monster here with us last year from January through May when she was finally adopted. She made a point of terrorizing the guys working on the house, to the point where Bruce the Plumber refused to come in while we were all staying here. I was surprised to see that there was that much snow on the ground in March. We had very little snow last year, compared to this very snowy winter.

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Between two houses

Just back from another NJ trip this weekend. I am finally starting to feel like I live in Lester's Flat, and that I am only visiting in NJ. The more furniture and personal stuff that I transport up here, the less I feel like it is my home back there.

Since I was taking back most of the office stuff from the studio, I decided to convert it into a bedroom. It took me most of Friday and Saturday to move all the big heavy furniture from room to room, and room to car. I am trying to do a better job of staging the house. Everyone (so far) who has looked at it thinks it is too small, including the ones who viewed it this weekend. I am hoping that if they see 2 large bedrooms and the smaller room as an office, that they will better appreciate it.

It has been a bittersweet withdrawal for me—the sweet part being that I love everything about our new home, and I love living up here. The bitter part is leaving friends and family there, but as I have made new friends and met some other family members up here, I am feeling less displaced.

And I am still a bit bitter about leaving my favorite old house, but my crazy new neighbor next door is making the transition a little easier. Since I was here for the past 2 months, he took it upon himself to reach over my fence and hack down a grapevine that I planted right after we got married. It was part of a wedding gift from my brother. I think he left the 2 pieces of it on the ground just to let me know that he was doing me a favor.

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This old barn is falling down, falling down, falling down...

In the top photo, the poor old horse barn doesn't look too bad, but from the other side, it's another story. The roof has been in the process of rotting out and caving in for probably as long as we have been coming up here. Today, phase 2 of its self-destruction has begun.

We have had a fairly consistent 2 feet of snow still hanging around since December. Yesterday's 40° temps, and today's 50° melted just enough of that snow on the roof to make it too much for the old beams. I do hope that Susan will leave the stone foundation there even if she can't afford to build the barn back up.

The barn is part of the Quartier Horse Farm that is right across the street from The Dump. Susan has been the owner since Mr. Quartier passed away in summer 2009. A coincidence that the barn would choose to start coming down on the same day that The Dump was supposed to start being dismantled. But then David The Dump Remover didn't show up today. He did say it could be today or tomorrow. We'll see...

I am not sure, but I think the horse farm, our land, and Chazoo's barn and house were all part of the same farm years ago. If Chazoo is correct, it was the Herkimer Farm, and dates back to the 1700s. He says his own big brown barn was a hops barn, and our little yellow shed was a milking shed. I would guess that the shed probably dates to the early 20th century though.

Now that Chazoo's barn and house are up for sale, I fear for this changing local landscape!

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Sending peaceful thoughts to all

Seems like everyone is somewhat stressed...

Little Sister's house deal fell through. OR Sis was all excited by my blog post the other day...sadly did not happen...

(FYI Little Sister: Gas prices today were $3.33!)

Our realtor wants us to come down another $15,000, even though we have already come down $20,000.

My NJ neighbor kindly fostered a pitty pooch who needed a home because her owner died. Pitty pooch was great, but nervous, and peed in the house when left alone.

I am busy with work (a very good thing!) but couldn't even get out the driveway yesterday to get the mail because Mr. Kelley's snowblower broke down and blocked my exit.

All else is good, but sending positive vibes to anyone who wants them. Photo should have babbling brook sounds attached...I'll work on that...

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White, white, white

While I was taking the snowy pictures in the previous post, The Husband was out wandering in the back forty. I might have mentioned that I don't know why or how he does that, but I did make a point of sending him out with my little camera while I was using his. These are his photos from today, taken about the same time as mine.

The boots photo really shows how difficult it is to walk out there in 20" of snow (again, why?) and the second photo shows how white it can get when the snow starts flying. I would love to say that we are all warm and cozy sitting by the woodstove here tonight, but truth is we are running out of good firewood, so we turned the heat back on in the living room.

Still pretty cozy, considering.

Good wishes to Little Sister, who may have sold her own old NJ house today...

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Sun and snow and someone to rescue The Dump

Just a few minutes before I took this photo, it was snowing so hard you couldn't see the trees—a real whiteout. And then, like magic, the sun started shining and the snow just stopped. And then just about an hour later, it started again, as you can see in the second 2 photos. The Husband was out for one of his long walks on the back forty...I just don't understand why he likes to walk in this...or how for that matter!

I got a response to an ad for the Detroiter that I put on a website called Tin Can Tourists. I did a few searches on "Detroiter" and found them. The ad got almost 200 hits in just half a day. Fletch, from Fletcher's Vintage Trailers in Trumansburg, NY, called to see about taking all the louvered windows and the 2 exterior doors. He also wants the taillights. As long as we don't have another whiteout, he should be here sometime tomorrow morning to pick up everything. He's travelling a whole 100 miles to save The Dump from the dump! Check out his site, there's some pretty interesting stuff on there...if you're into that sort of thing...

The Craig's List ads produced a few folks who were mildly interested in other parts from the trailer, but they were supposed to call and come out this afternoon, and I haven't heard from anyone yet. And Jim (who worked on my house) said he might be interested in some of the other windows, but I still have to get back in there and measure for him.

So now I just have to say a little prayer that David The Dump-Remover doesn't change his mind about taking it away. His girlfriend just had a baby last week, so he's a bit distracted. Happy Birth Day, Cora!

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1959 Detroiter mobile home, free to (be) a good home!

As you may have noticed in previous posts, The Dump is headed to the dump.

I put up a few ads on Craig's List, but I am posting here as well just in case anyone on the planet would like to have some of these cool old things for free. The one thing I would save is the metal siding, but The Husband definitely does not see the beauty in it.

So take a look at these pics, and tell all your friends—FREE STUFF! Call it what you want: vintage, retro, antique...I call it yours for free. There's plenty of the metal siding in very good shape, there are 3 or 4 louvered glass windows and several pieces of extra glass, a couple of metal doors, wood cabinets, stainless steel double sink, and lots of large wood-frame regular glass windows that are part of the 2 additions.

(yeah, I know, it's not that exciting, but I am trying to be a green girl and save it from the landfill.)

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The Dump shall fall

Starting on Monday, February 14, The Dump will be dismantled and carted to the real dump, the landfill. An ad for it on Craig's List produced no takers, even for free, so when someone stopped by last week and asked if we would rent it out, we settled on having them take it down instead. In the photo above, it is behind the yellow shed, which we are keeping.

It's a shame that I can't recycle more than maybe some glass, but since we agreed with the town to take it down before March 1, this seems to be the best option. While we have someone willing to cart all of it away for the same price, we might as well let it all go. Our view of the horse farm will be much improved, and everyone else's view of Lester's Flat will be enhanced as well.

We are getting more sleet and snow today, it seems this snowy winter goes on forever. But spring is definitely on its way and soon we might actually see some of that green stuff they call grass...maybe by May 1?

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Layer cake and a lot of 2s

No matter how much snow we get, there still seems to be "only" 2 feet on the ground. I went to walk through the snow to try to take some more photos yesterday, and had trouble keeping my 2 feet on the ground! There are 2 thick layers of snow, with a layer of ice between and on top—a snow layer cake with ice for frosting (frost for icing?). I fell on my butt, and couldn't get back up—partly because I was laughing at myself, and partly because I couldn't push up from anything. My hands couldn't find the ground any easier than my feet.

I revived my old non-digital Minolta so that I could take some better photos of the eagle. Of course he has been in hiding since I got the camera running, but I did see a red-tail hawk in his absence.

Richie came back this morning to finish up 2 of the things on the punchlist from way back. The knots in the white dining room ceiling are now primed and painted (for the third time), and the drywall has been cut back from the woodstove flue to where it should have been in the first place (2" from the insulated pipe).

The only remaining punchlist items are to paint the knots on the tiny porch ceiling in the spring, and to work on the Andersen french door so that it stops leaking air. Of course if Jim the Builder waits long enough to take care of these piddly things, we are certain to find more things to whine about...but for all intents and purposes, the house is still done, and we are very happy with it.

I did not mention to Jim (yet) about my concern with the large icicles hanging from the roof (in photo) but Susan the Architect assured me that they should not cause an ice dam or leak because there is protection in place to avoid that. It's OK, Jim, we DO love our new house!

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Sweet Ariel and pup pics

I was all excited to post my puppy pics of the kids today (I just scanned them yesterday) and then I found out that my friend ME just lost her dalmatian, Ariel, yesterday afternoon. Goodbye, sweet Ariel, you know you were loved.

Lester was only 8 weeks old when we got him from the Humane Society of Atlantic City. This is my favorite puppy pic of his—with his handsome, ever so serious face.

Sophie was about a year old, maybe less, when we got her from the Burlington County Animal Alliance. She had been a stray, maybe for a very long time considering her skinny profile. We certainly wasted no time fattening her up.

Today and tomorrow we are getting hit with one of those snowstorms that seem to have missed us so far. They are predicting 13" to 20" for the Mohawk Valley, with some ice added in to make it interesting.

Next week I am picking up my first local freelance job at the hospital here. I am thankful to be able to work at home in the snowy North Country.