Last Full Week

Our 3 weeks (2 weeks of flex time and 1 week of Spring Break) are almost up.  Mort and Alec will work an additional week but Phil is going back to work in April and we are back to our normally scheduled activities as well.  Hard not to get a little nervous that we are coming down to the wire.  We are moving fast and so much is getting done but what doesn't get done by the 8th, will fall completely on Phil's shoulders as Saturday work.  Our house here in Silverton closes toward the end of April so we will need to be completely moved out and there are things that need to be finished up here before we close.

The children and I have been going back and forth between the two houses.  On rainy days, we stay here and school and then we head out late afternoon.  When it isn't rainy, we work on the property.  I make meals for everyone based on when I am out there, sometimes just dinner, sometimes all three meals.  

The children have been good helpers.  They clean up construction mess and haul materials.  When they aren't helping, they are riding bikes and running around.  They have been eating and sleeping well!

My project has been to get the front cleaned up and ready for gardening.  I am a little bit in a pickle because I dug a ton of plants and they need to be in the ground now but I don't have a real garden space set up and I have no landscape plan.  I really don't know what to do.  Do I just throw stuff in the ground and transplant it later?  Most everything is grass that will need to be hand dug or covered with cardboard and mulch until the grass dies.  Stumps and roots need to be ground down.  Luckily, all the stuff left over where trees had been cut down and blackberries have overtaken have left some bare patches that I can work with.  I just got trees for the orchard in the mail (my Christmas present) that need to be planted as well.   

Before...
Picture taken from the North side.  This is a mess of branches and blackberries.

After...
Picture taken from the deck (the deck is in the first picture).  Branches have been burned and blackberries dug.  I still have quite a bit to do just in this L shape on the North side.  There is a ton to do in the rest of the "front" yard, including tearing down a shed, cleaning up metal and garbage, cutting down trees, and more piles of branches and blackberries.  

Jubilee making bead necklaces in the car port.

Upstairs is cleaned up and the lumber, tools, construction mess has been moved downstairs.  I am looking forward to seeing the basement start to look like living space. 

The former "livingroom" space..rugs torn out, wood paneling and styrofoam insulation torn out, wall paper, ceiling tiles, laminate...all torn out.  We are down to the studs and ready to frame in bedrooms and put up drywall.  The concrete walls will be cut to frame in larger windows.  

View from the laundry room.

Garage (soon to be homeschooling room) and the dumpster, nearly filled in just a few hours.

Digging tansy, 5 cents a plant.  This field is filled with tansy plants.  Luckily, only one field is covered with it...still, it will likely take a couple of years before we can root most of it out.

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