Peeling up the carpet and padding:

 The rotted floor area is exposed: 

 The general nastiness under the window: 

 Prying up the carpet strips caused more damage, but on the plus side this was the easiest spot to remove them from  

 Pulling off the paneling revealed the rotted wall under the window: 

 Jon removed the insulation and put in new because this was entirely coated in mold.  Face masks were used for this entire project.  You can see that the wood stud along the bottom of the wall is rotted too.  Jon fixed that using pressure treated lumber.  The area, although moldy doesn’t seem to be wet.  A new roof was put on the house ~12 years ago and we think that all of this damage was created prior to that.  Hopefully after fixing these areas we won’t have any additional problems. 

Have you ever started a project only to find many more “projects” hidden within it?

Here is our starting point:

 It doesn’t look too bad until you get close to it, so you’ll have to trust me that it was gross!

 But before we could start putting in the laminate floor we had to take care of the problems that were hiding under all that… like a rotten subfloor and wall…..

 More fun to come

 So what stuff have we accomplished since last blogging? 

• We’ve FINALLY cleaned up the gardens and put up the tomato cages and such. 
• We’ve increased the run area for the chickens and they have finally completed their molt cycle and grown back their feathers.  They look much prettier and we’re getting ~8-10 eggs a day (not bad for winter!).  They have become couch potatoes with the recent cold weather though.  They don’t like to go far from the coup. 
• We’ve cut down ~40 trees in our back yard to make it bigger and to set up a better spot for our greenhouse to be put up.
• We’re ripping out the old nasty carpet in our house and replacing it with laminate wood flooring.  The living room is complete so far and looks AMAZING.  We’re also doing a whole lot of repainting around the house. 
• There has been some canning activity in the form of broth and beans.
• We’ve spent lots of time with our cows and I’m happy to say that they actually like us now :)  Well they associate us with food anyway!

We’ve also got lots of exciting stuff yet to come and hopefully I’ll have pictures up to share soon. 

 Is your 2012 off to a good start??

I didn’t count them, but my guess is that we planted ~125 cloves of garlic this year.  We rotated areas and planted the garlic where we’ve had tomatoes the past 2 years.

Jon prepped the bed for me by hand because our rototiller is currently broken

From what I’ve read you should make holes and plant your garlic in those.  I was lazy with 125 cloves ahead of me and just planted in trenches.  I hope it doesn’t cause any problems!

The bigger problem will likely be the “helpers.”  I’ve already found pieces dug out of the bed and without a fence there will likely be more!

All planted and ready for the long winter ahead!  Lets hope the heads are larger then last year!! 

Did you plant garlic this year?

The FDA allows, for instance, an average of 225 insect fragments or 4.5 rodent hairs per 8 ounces of macaroni or noodle products. An average of 20 or more maggots of any size is permitted per 3.5 ounces of drained canned mushrooms, or per half-ounce of dried mushrooms. When it comes to mold, an average count of 15 percent is OK for canned cranberry sauce.

And yet people are bothered by home canned foods?  Obviously they lack the knowledge of what is acceptable in grocery store food…

I acquired 4 turkey carcasses, combined it with all the vegetable “garbage” I’ve frozen throughout the year (onion skins, carrot peels, leaves off of the celery and potato skins) and made 13 quarts and 1 pint of broth, along with a big pot of homemade soup.

The treasure after 6 hours of boiling…

Skimmed Broth:

Don’t forget to ask for the leftover bones at your next holiday meal!  It’s a great source of FREE food!!

Before:

After:

Have you ever donated your hair?

“Here you go, there was an egg in my pocket”

Random eggs in the pocket of your carhart jacket in the morning…. a sign you’re living on a farm (or wannabe farm in our case:) )!