Town House Homestead Tuesday

WOW! Another week behind us and we are so exhausted. When we moved here we chose not to have a television. We can do most of what we like with computers, but without the television we have found that we do more work. We feel like time is running out to get the things done around here that need to be done before winter. The house and property have come a long way in six months, but so much was not taken care of and here we are trying to do, what for almost two decades, wasn't done. Hopefully next week the furnace and hot water heater will be replaced. It's holding up some of the basement renovations, but my daughter has been building her studio. Still work and touch up painting to do. 

We've come this far while we wait for other work to be done. With help a few of the tables and chairs and boxes have been brought down, but they are waiting in another portion of the basement for a week or two. I think it's going to look awesome.

Vegetables keep coming our way. My younger daughter brought the eggplant, half a zucchini and all those hot peppers my way. The other pepper donation was left on our front step Sunday night with an empty canning jar. Thank you Emily for thinking of us and not letting them rot on the vine. I will be making chocolate zucchini muffins and dehydrating most of the peppers for hot pepper powder. I can store it vacuum sealed until I want to cook with it. 

I made eggplant Parmesan in the form of a pie for dinner with the eggplants which was more than enough for us to eat for a few meals. It is so yummy. 

I spent several days this past week taking out plants that needed to be housed over the winter and got them all tucked in. All the time I was doing it I was dreaming of the compost bin that will be built for sure next spring. I pulled all the container plants and turned the garden soil to loosen it and this morning, bright and early, I planted 36 cloves of garlic. Not a lot, but more than enough to start us off, and with hope some to plant next fall. I am still dreaming of the garden in the back yard, but for now, these are in a couple of corners of the front flower beds. Better there than no where. That's what's been happening at the new Town House Homestead this week. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week. 

Town House Homestead Tuesday

One foot in front of the other and keep on going has always been our philososphy. I would love to be showing you more progress on the basement renovations, but they once again have stalled. Although we have unpacked a few boxes for my daughter's studio we have been trying to regroup from the newest dilema. The furnace needs to be replaced and when the company that flipped the house did renovations they installed a defective water heater and guage. In a couple of weeks they will both be replaced and we'll have a new slate to work with. It's really a great thing that we hadn't finished painting the floors. We also got some of the items relisted on her store so that we could continue in a forward motion. Still lots to get done there, but every day is a new day. Follow the progress of her store at poetcharms.etsy.com. 

She found this chair in the hallway at work and brought it home. This is the second such chair they have cleared out. The legs were bent inward on one side, but after she removed the seat she was able to stand on it and bend it back to where it should be. It got cleaned and painted and is now at her computer desk.

Our 85 year old neighbor came to the door the other day with this bag of apples. She was checking on us because she hadn't seen us out working on the gardens and thought we would like to make a pie and relax. I haven't gotten to the pie yet, but I have eaten a couple of the apples. They are fresh and crips.

My daughter was given a bag of jalapeno peppers by a co-worker. There was 1.5 pounds which was enough to make half a batch of candied jalapenos. I love hot peppers on sandwiches and there you have it more to put on the basement shelves.

I was given a few organic items to save the seeds from. Here is a chili pepper that was hot and awesome. I did say I liked it hot. The seeds are drying and to keep from wasting that lovely pepper I added it to honey to add to marinades. 

This is an organic tomato that tasted full on summer. Some of the last I suspect on his vines. The seeds are soaking in some water to separate and will be dried as soon as they do. I also saved some jalapeno seeds. Now that this process is under way I'm sure hoping to be able to get the garden in next year. In the meantime I will continue to use the local farm markets and building the food storage. So glad we did now that a new furnace and water heater have to be installed. That's what's been happening at the new Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by and have a great week. 

Town House Homestead Tuesday

Not a lot to post about today. It was a mad rush yesterday to get the Cana lilies out of the ground because the first frost came overnight. We were gifted six bulbs, but look what happened in the three months they were in the ground. There's a bushel of them. 

This morning we got up to a colder than usual home to find out the furnace won't come on. Help will be here some time today to fix that, but in the meantime we are grateful for the electric heaters as backup.

We had a movie night last night. We watched "The Great Gatsby" in surround sound using the wall for a screen. It was great and the company included the young people who have been helping us work on the house. Pizza was served.

The floor paint has set and we have juggled things in still another temporary situation so we can continue working. This is the situation in the food pantry as of today. Glad we put some color on the walls. 

Now we need to scrub the rest of the floor and continue painting. A lot of this past weeks work was outside. Mowing the lawns, cleaning brush, and repairing damaged foundation so insects (Wasps) and other wildlife won't be getting in. 

We had help this past weekend continuing the work of removing cloth wrapping from the copper pipes and properly insulating them. More out with the old and in with the new. Time well spent to do it and do it right. We also discovered a water line to the laundry room which some day may get hooked up to a basement sink. The potential is growing and the progress continues. That's what's going on at the new Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by and have a great week. 

Town House Homestead Tuesday.

We are taking our time and doing it as right as possible, but the waiting is killing us. We had a couple of days at the end of last week that we really did not feel well. Tired mostly, but Sunday with the help of a dear friend we pushed through. The floor was washed three times and vacuumed even more to get it as clean as possible. It was worth all the scrub. We got all of the walls touched up and started the trim and down went the first coat of floor paint. We let it dry and got the second coat on. This basement tear out and renovation is coming along great and barring no further delays in a couple of weeks we can move the studio in and re shelf the pantry.  Wish us luck. We are racing mother nature because as soon as the studio is moved out of the garage we need to fill holes to keep critters out of it.

While the second coat was drying we moved on to the third portion of the basement. We'll call it the furnace room and got the cement walls coated in white with the primer. The further wall will be blue and the wall on the left may need another coat.

A portion of the space that will be the food storage room got a start with the floor. We did just enough to be able to move shelves in and organize the pantry when the time comes that we can walk on the floor.  

As I said we are doing it to the best of our knowledge and ability. Thanks to friends, YouTube and research it is going to be nice. We have even found some one who can help with the 59 year old screen windows that need replacing.

Once the shelves are in place we will be adding the canning that we have been doing, yes, while we've waited for paint to dry and in between the regular work. Here we have pasta sauce and apple butter. 

My daughter wanted to make something from scratch doing all the work herself and the canning herself. So she spent time making the apple butter and I gave her the first basic lessons in water bath canning. It was a job well done. We put the apple peels and scraps in water with sugar to make vinegar. It's doing well and fermenting in the cupboard.

Today's adventure in the kitchen was a batch of root beer jelly. The root beer was from a recent trip through a drive through for a quick bite and it never gets consumed so today I made jelly. It tastes like root beer candy. It will be shared with friends and the excess added to the pantry.

That's what's new at the Town House Homestead this week. All the work is beginning to feel great and the results have been amazing. On October 15th we will have been in our new home for six months and it feels like it's been home forever. We still love her. Thank you for stopping by and have a great week. 

Town House Homestead Tuesday.

We are taking our time and doing it as right as possible, but the waiting is killing us. We had a couple of days at the end of last week that we really did not feel well. Tired mostly, but Sunday with the help of a dear friend we pushed through. The floor was washed three times and vacuumed even more to get it as clean as possible. It was worth all the scrub. We got all of the walls touched up and started the trim and down went the first coat of floor paint. We let it dry and got the second coat on. This basement tear out and renovation is coming along great and barring no further delays in a couple of weeks we can move the studio in and re shelf the pantry.  Wish us luck. We are racing mother nature because as soon as the studio is moved out of the garage we need to fill holes to keep critters out of it.

While the second coat was drying we moved on to the third portion of the basement. We'll call it the furnace room and got the cement walls coated in white with the primer. The further wall will be blue and the wall on the left may need another coat. 

A portion of the space that will be the food storage room got a start with the floor. We did just enough to be able to move shelves in and organize the pantry when the time comes that we can walk on the floor.  

As I said we are doing it to the best of our knowledge and ability. Thanks to friends, YouTube and research it is going to be nice. We have even found some one who can help with the 59 year old screen windows that need replacing.

Once the shelves are in place we will be adding the canning that we have been doing, yes, while we've waited for paint to dry and in between the regular work. Here we have pasta sauce and apple butter. 

My daughter wanted to make something from scratch doing all the work herself and the canning herself. So she spent time making the apple butter and I gave her the first basic lessons in water bath canning. It was a job well done. We put the apple peels and scraps in water with sugar to make vinegar. It's doing well and fermenting in the cupboard.

Today's adventure in the kitchen was a batch of root beer jelly. The root beer was from a recent trip through a drive through for a quick bite and it never gets consumed so today I made jelly. It tastes like root beer candy. It will be shared with friends and the excess added to the pantry.

That's what's new at the Town House Homestead this week. All the work is beginning to feel great and the results have been amazing. On October 15th we will have been in our new home for six months and it feels like it's been home forever. We still love her. Thank you for stopping by and have a great week.