Landscapping

As I'm putting together this post about landscapping, we are getting ready to put in Geothermal and basically rip up our entire back yard. So stay tuned for geothermal postings.

Bob and I have been ambitious this year. We've been getting quotes left and right on different things we want done in the yard. Tom from Todd's Services came over and came up with the landscape design above, for the front yard and the immediate back. It looks awesome, and I'm really hoping we can do it this year, but we'll see.

2010 CSA with Tantre Farms - Week 1

The one thing I've been looking forward to all winter long is our CSA to start up again. What is a CSA? It is Community Supported Agriculture where members of the community support their local farms by purchasing fresh produce from them. A CSA can be set up in a lot of different ways. Bob and I signed on for another year with Tantre Farm over in Chelsea, MI. The ways ours works is every Saturday morning we go the farmers market and pick up a box of seasonal produce. It's already packed and ready for us to go, all we have to do is figure out what everything is and what the heck we (OK I'm) going to make with it. A CSA with Tantre is not for the faint of heart. You get a lot of veggies. I mean veggies coming out of every corner of your fridge veggies. Sometimes even though Bob and I eat a plant based diet, it's hard for us to finish everything. And this year we don't have the rabbits, so the pressure is on.

But with the CSA I really feel like summer has arrived and I can begin to take part in the community again. My winter hermit ways are no more. The cool thing about Tantre is that it is organic and they don't require you to work on the farm. There are a couple of optional "work days" which we'll probably go to this year, but over all we just sit back and watch the magic happen.

I'll do my best to break down our weekly shares for you for a couple of reasons:

• To prove that two people can eat this many veggies.
• To show that local food is awesome!

Week 1 was pretty exciting because, well it was the first week and I'd been waiting a long time. We've enjoyed:

• Radishes, turnips, lots of lettuce, lots of spinach, asparagus, spring onions, garlic scapes, more spinach, random greens, chives, did I mention spinach?

So far it's just been a salad type of week. That's pretty much what we do with the first couple of week's shares.Tonight, I did get creative and make garlic scape pesto and tossed in in with pasta, fresh tomatoes, and asparagus. Nothing exact, just delicious pasta goodness.

Are you wondering how you can get in on this CSA goodness? Head over to Local Harvest, type in your zip code and away you go.

Long Overdue for an Update

It's been a rough past month at the Pitt. Every weekend in May one or both of us were out of town. And even though some of those trips were for pleasure, you never really appreciate how much you love just being home.

First thing is first, three weeks ago we had the house reappraised. As the date was approaching I became more and more nervous, the house had to appraise for a lot in order for us to get the mortgage that we wanted. All of my worrying was for nothing, the house appraised way above our expectations and we now have 20% equity in our home. Good-bye PMI! So now we have a real 30 year fixed mortgage. Deep sigh of relief.

We would like to take this opportunity to give thanks:

• My dad has been instrumental in making this happen for us. Without him there would have been no way for us to buy this house. 
• Good friends helped us out with much needed furniture. (Going from 750 sq. ft. to 3000 was a big step).
• Good friends who stopped by to help with all the little things. They really add up!
• Good friends who listened and are still listening to us bitch and moan about this place and continue to offer encouragement.

Bottom line for this post; real mortgage, real house, real grown ups. 

Spring!

Spring has arrived! Although it can't decide whether it's going to be a super warm spring, or a way too cold to be outside spring, but it's here. The trees have buds, dandelions are poking through, a couple of tulips are blooming, the grass is green and incredibly long (especially where the dogs do their business). And the surest sign? My allergies are out of control.

We decided to trim the apple trees this year so I could "harvest the fruit." Urban Foresters came highly recommended, so we called them out. The trees have been dwarfed, and the first signs of flower buds are appearing. In fact, we have so many fruit trees, that in another week, 8 trees in our yard will be in full bloom. And now that the  siding is complete, our house will look amazing!.

We are also in the process of getting numerous geothermal estimates to get our heating and cooling taken care of this year.  So landscaping the back yard is out for the time being, seeing that most of it will be excavated. The good news is that we will get rid of the giant lump in the middle of the yard with this project.

We are having someone come out and do a "master plan" for our front yard. we love our brick wall, but it's bowing out and really needs to come down. There are a lot of really cool ideas flying around; cobblestone path, double brick accent walls, eliminating the steps, lots of demo and the wine table and chairs that Nikki thought was a great idea since the beginning.

Our other big project for the year is moving the basement stairs over. There may be a good chance that we'll hire out the moving of the stairs and do the demo of the old stairs ourselves. Stay tuned for that.

Of course it wouldn't be spring if the dogs weren't getting sick. Mr. Scamp was the first to take a turn at the vet. As soon as the weather got nicer, he began limping again (he limped last year) and started getting a rash on his belly. This confirmed our suspicion that Scamp is allergic to grass. Yes. We have a dog that is allergic to grass. So we headed over to HSHV to see Stacey and get some x-rays and meds. His x-rays were clear, but since he has a history of limping, we're taking him over to MSU to see an orthopedic vet. He's also back on his seasonal allergy pills.

Not to be outdone, a week later Pepper began throwing up. I didn't think much of it because it's spring and they're eating grass like crazy. But I became concerned when it didn't stop. Now instead of jumping to conclusions and taking her to the vet right away, I tried to see if we could get her back to healthy on our own. We withheld food, and started a bland diet, little bites at a time. We had no success. So back we went to vet. The sad thing is, I called them and they recognized my voice! Sigh. I have become that crazy dog person that is always there. But they were great and got Pepper in right away to be seen. Over the next two days a series of x-rays and barium were taken and it was decided that Pepper needed surgery. By this point she had not held down food for 6 days and had lost 4 pounds. So we let them take her in. Pepper was pretty pathetic on the first night and really worried me, but she's been getting better and better every day and is finally holding down the food.

So the excitement of last week is winding down and the dogs this morning were just chilling in the yard. In the picture below you can see how far they shaved Pepper's belly.

Happy spring to all!

Nothing is ever easy...

A few years ago, we bought a  filtered water dispenser for our fridge. It's slightly bigger than a pitcher, but you still have to fill it with water from the sink. When we bought the dispenser we got a great deal on filters and bought a bunch. Fast forward to last March 2009 when we moved into our house. Everything was packed up for the move. Fast forward to today, we can't find any of the filters. We refuse to buy new ones, because we know we own like 3 of them!! So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally hook up the water dispenser on the fridge. Easy, no problem, right?

Well the first sign of trouble was the empty filter cartridge that looked like it was broken on the end. Suspicious?  Yes, but it did not stop us from moving forward! The plumbing was done fairly quickly and then we decided to shoot over to Sears to get a new filter. That when we realized we had a problem. The filter had burst inside the fridge and we had to pull it out piece by piece. This was the hard part. On the left you'll see the cartridge housing, on the right the guts. Taking these pieces out almost took 4 hours. 

Once they were out, we were excited to hook up the water and experience filtered water at its greatest. Well, not only did we, but our entire kitchen floor enjoy the water. Not only had the filter burst, but much of the plumbing in the back of the fridge. It was time to call in the professionals (Blue Crew). Yet another project at the Pitt that was way harder than it needed to be.

So when I was a wee youth back in Owosso, MI. Elizabeth and I always used to dream of the day when we would have a fridge with a dispenser on the door. Because a fridge with a dispenser was classy.

Well Elizabeth as I look at my fridge with the dispenser now intact, in the Pitt, the first thought that comes to mind is always, classy.

The Deck Part 3: Putting it Back Together

This actually happened back in November, but Bob's lazy and didn't bother writing about it until now. Bob's excuse is that Orsi already hijacked the blog, so why didn't she update it?

As described previously, the deck was attached to the house (right through the siding) which caused leaking and rotting problems. So we removed some boards against the house, dug new postholes, attached the deck to the new posts, and cut it away from the house. Thus, the deck was now freestanding. The next step was to put in the new sliding door and the siding over the deck. With that done, we could finally put the deck back together.

To put things back together, we put a new board across the end against the house. This was positioned very close to the house. This was a little tricky since there was no way to get a hammer or screwdriver between the house and the board to attach it to the ends of the boards. The solution was simple: we used some short scrap boards to attach to the end of the boards perpendicular to the house, and then attached to the parallel board through those, so the screws were going towards the house instead of away:

The upper part of the deck (shown above) has boards that run parallel to the house, so putting those boards back in was simple (although we ended up replacing one of them). The lower part of the deck has boards at an angle. To avoid pulling the entire deck apart, we made a cut parallel to the house, resulting in several short diagonal pieces that had to be put back. To reattach them, we put short pieces parallel to the house in between the perpendicular pieces. These were positioned halfway out of the ends that were still there, and then the old pieces were replaced. Thus, the ends of the boards where they were cut is supported and nothing is just hanging in the air:

We ended up replacing a couple of these pieces, too. Here's what the deck looks like now (the replaced pieces are clearly visible):

 

The next steps are to power wash the deck to remove the existing paint and stain it. Also, the railing is in really bad shape, so we'll replace that, too. Ultimately we'd like to replace the deck entirely, but that's going to be a big expensive project, so I expect that to be many years away (we'd be happy if we could get 10 more years out of this deck).

Moving Along

It's been a bit inactive here at the Pitt. There's been a lot of last minute touch ups to get ready for the reappraisal.

• Priming exposed drywall
• "Finishing" the back bathroom
• Final organization of the storage room
• Replacing all the broken tile

My new task is to stage the house in some way. We really don't have enough furniture to go around. We came from 750 square feet into 3,085 and there's just the two of us. We basically live in the master, the living room and the kitchen. These areas are all well furnished. But we've still got three bedrooms, the giant dining room (or baby grand piano room, which is what it'll be),  the living area by the kitchen, the storage room and the space goes on and on.

I've secured a couple of beds, which we really needed for the extra bedrooms. The good news here is, the rooms look much more finished and when you visit us, you'll actually have a bed, not futon, to sleep on! The dining room will remain empty. It's actually kind of nice to have the big empty space, it gives the dogs plenty of room to run.

So we're still here, working away, living the life of luxury at the Pitt.