the finish line

We are almost there...to the finish line on the house, that is. The bulk of our kitchen cabinets and countertop have now been installed. Our drywall is installed and finished. And our electrician, plumber, and septic installer have put us on their schedule for next available. But most notably, all financing has been secured for the complete finish. What a weight off my shoulders! I can't believe how much better I've been sleeping at night now that I'm not always worried about where the next installment of building funds will come from. Whew!

Last week was a go-go-go week to get ready for our friends to come with their seven children to help us install the kitchen cabinets. The deadline seemed like it was going to be impossible to meet at times, but we did it and the results were well worth it. We also had a fun day playing with our friends, despite the day being a rainy wash-out.

This week, we are taking a vacation from working on the house - we so desperately need it - and we are trying to focus on Easter approaching instead. My dear Great-Aunt Mary Violet told me I was working too hard and needed to have some fun. I was thinking the exact same thing myself when she gave me her thoughts, so I decided to take her advice this week and just play around with the kids and the garden and try to recuperate. It's been relaxing and revigorating. Yesterday I felt I'd had the perfect day, bumming around the garden and the yard with the children, doing whatever struck my fancy at the time with no real agenda for the day. I can't remember the last day I gave that to myself, but I've decided I need to take it a little more often.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been trying some new methods with our garden. Here's some pics of the different covers and simple cold frame setups.

I'm also covering our whole kitchen garden with black landscaping cloth - thanks to my dad, the black cloth provider :-) - to try to be proactive about the weeds.

Then, we are trying like mad to build up our land for better growing. Last year, after watching our tomatoes out front piddle and putz around, barely able to fight off bugs and disease, we decided to test our soil. It flunked. It tested poor to very poor on every single nutrient one would expect to find in healthy soil. If that's not a telling assessment of what agribusiness is doing to our once fertile lands I don't know what is. So this year, we're not planting much of anything out there. Instead, we're ordering a bunch of composters. Our first composters arrived in the mail Monday. Fifteen baby white turkeys.

The plan is to cover the land with turkeys, chickens, pheasants & guineas to fertilize for us over the summer. In the fall, they will all be processed. It's a win-win-win-win.We get compost delivered on-site. We get to fill our freezers with poultry protein. We don't have to support any more animals over the winter. And, perhaps best of all, they might make a serious dent in our ongoing grasshopper plague.

For the poultry themselves, they get to free-range as they were designed to do. I suppose it's a win for them too. In the world of day-old hatchery chicks, they've won the lottery for happy living conditions.

Last night there were tornadoes in our county so I woke the girls up at nearly midnight and we all trekked out to the new house. My big girl found it very exciting. This morning she exclaimed, "Last night was so fun!"

I agree. Our first night in our home couldn't have been more cozy, more warm, more comforting, more safe, more just plain wonderful. I'm considering painting and trimming out the bedroom first thing so I can spend every night there. It's hard to believe we will be there permanently in one more short month. Wow.

'til my next quiet moment...