Based on this photo (as of Monday afternoon) I’m not sure if forecasting has gotten super accurate, or if they just wanted to cover all the options. Either way, I’m prepared for 1 inch… or 10 inches of snow.
It was a cold weekend…
Oddly enough, it was perfect to start some of the flowers for this spring. The last few years, we’ve been starting our own sweet potato slips and moving them out the the garden. We normally plant two or three slips and end up with a few meals of sweet potatoes in the fall. With how well that’s work the last few years, I thought we’d experiment this year and try to start our own decorative sweet potato vines for in the flower pots around the house as well.
Last fall, when we were cleaning out the flower pots for the fall, we saved five of the tubers we found in the flower pots off the sweet potato vines. Three of them kept until this Sunday, so I figured we might as well start early.
Starting slips is really pretty simple. Suspend a sweet potato in a container of water with half in and half out. Set it in a warm sunny spot and wait. Once the slips are a couple inches tall, you carefully remove them and suspend them in a container of water until they have adequate roots to be planted in potting soil.
Just to be clear, there is a difference between the sweet potatoes grown for food and the decorative sweet potato vines. From what I’ve been told, while both plants will produce plenty of foliage and a cluster of tubers, the decorative variety has been breed for foliage for so long that the tuber is no longer edible. I just hope starting slips still works the same.
Now all we have to do is wait and see. If it doesn’t work – at least it feels like spring is getting closer.
Our bedtime routine is pretty well set the last couple of years. A half hour or so before “lights out” for Lulu, it’s into bed for reading time. (Since Peanut sleeps in most mornings and still takes a nap most afternoons, her routine is similar, just a little later in the evening.) Over the years the DW and I have read countless books to Lulu (some of them countless times). From collections of nursery rhymes to Barbie themed books, James and the Giant Peach, The Magic Tree House series, The Little House on the Prairie series, the Pinkalicious series, just about every Junie B Jones book every written… and the list goes on and on.
But, the other night was something a little different. For the first time, it wasn’t me or the DW reading the bedtime story to Lulu – it was Lulu reading the story to me.
Of course, not just any book would do for such an event… it had to be a classic… a Dick and Jane book originally published in 1954. (Apparently, they didn’t update any of the artwork as the book was re-released.) Lulu is now set on reading the entire series, though she still prefers someone reading to her before bed.
#4 A Rainy Day at Adventureland
#6 A Muddy Mess
#7 Photo Op
#10 Helping Out
#12 Shaping Up
#13 A Different Type of School
#14 Group Hug
Shortly before Christmas, Peanut had her quarterly check up at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. The quick summary: Peanut is doing phenomenal! Maybe the most telling sign is the progress on her growth chart. When Peanut was born, and for several months after, she was in the bottom 1% on the growth chart for her height and weight. Even when things were going great, she was only around the 25th percentile. But, after a healthy 8 months Peanut has shot up and is now close to the 75 percentile for her height and weight. With Peanut doing so well, it meant it was time to make a change in her diet. Typically, that meant a change to the supplement we were adding to her “famous” green bean shake. But since the next step down in supplements would mean no supplement at all, Peanut’s green bean shakes will no longer contain green beans! Her shake is now nothing more than PediaSure Peptide and whole milk.
So after growing, pureeing, and freezing more green beans than any sane person should…
And burning out three kitchen blenders in the process…
Peanut’s Green Bean Shake is now a thing of the past…
Except for the fact that Peanut still calls it a green bean shake. And, that’s a problem I don’t mind having.
We’d been waiting for a great snowy December day to get a couple photos of the kids for our Christmas card. We finally gave up on that over the weekend and while it was raining outside we rounded everyone up inside for “just one good shot.” If you can remember a couple years ago you’ll know that “just one good shot” is easier said than done. But, I was optimistic… everyone was now two years older. Potato Boy and Sissy wouldn’t be an issue. Lulu was no longer a toddler (and almost past her fear/hate of having her photo taken). That left Peanut as the wild card…
Peanut: I’m ready! CHEESE!
Peanut: CHEESE! Lulu: Stop. Saying. Cheese.
Peanut: Group hug!
Everybody: CHEESE! Peanut: BLAH!
Everybody: CHEESE! Peanut: Sissy, say cheese!
DW: OK… we’re done. Peanut: Let’s do it again!
Ah… yes… it just won’t dry out and it just won’t freeze. (The car was clean two days earlier.)
If this keeps up, we’ll have to change the name of this site to The Mud Road Home.
We received our first taste of winter over the weekend with a fast moving snow storm that left us with just under a foot of snow. As far as snow storms go, the timing on this one was about perfect. The snow really didn’t start accumulating until after everyone was home Friday evening and wrapped up so that I could have things cleaned up before lunch on Saturday. A cold snow covered weekend was great for wrapping up a number of projects.
Sissy’s New Bed
I’ve been working on a new bed frame in my spare time for Sissy for a few weeks. She liked the loft I built her, but was starting to out grow it. Since her mattress is still in great shape and she’s always looking for more storage, I decided to go with a captain’s bed – minus the drawers. The frame was based roughly on plans I found on the internet and this drawing:
Having the components built and painted, I enlisted the DW to help carry everything out of the basement and up two flights of stairs so I could assemble the frame in Sissy’s room. Once everything was together and squared, I added the finishing trim pieces. Lulu stuck around to tell me how I was doing.
I still haven’t decided on plans for the head board yet. I’ll have plenty of time for that if this winter weather keeps up.
Lights!
With the electrical upgrade we completed this fall we now have electricity to all of the outbuildings. The building we converted into a chicken coop always had electricity, so that was just a new line to the building during the upgrade. The machine shed had nothing. We installed the line, breaker box, and one outlet during the upgrade, but over the weekend I added additional outlets and lights. Lights! I don’t want to sound like I’m afraid of the dark, but I’m in and out of this shed a lot during the winter in the dark… the same shed that I’ve met a skunk in on several occasions. At least now I can see him coming.
Pumpkin
There was one last Musquee de Provence pumpkin left from the garden that needed to be pureed and put into the freezer for the kiddos’ pumpkin muffins. The first pumpkin I pureed this year I cleaned, pealed, sliced and boiled. This time, I just cut it in half, cleaned it out and threw each half face down in the oven. Once I could easily slice it with the knife I knew it was cooked.
This pumpkin made 23 cups of puree… that’s enough for 11 1/2 batches of pumpkin muffins… or 11 1/2 pumpkin pies, if you prefer.
Photos
We also had a chance to sit down and go through some old photos with Lulu and Peanut. The two of them could sit for hours going through old photos and asking questions. Peanut giggles nonstop at pictures of her older siblings as infants and toddlers. While we were flipping through our wedding photos, the DW stopped to laugh at a photo. The photographer caught one of our groomsmen with his hand in the perfect spot to give another groomsman two seats down a giant hand mustache. Instead of needing to explain it to Peanut, she immediately squealed and mimicked the photo. (Of course we had to recreate it for you.)
We’re collecting just shy of 4 dozen eggs every day now. While most of those eggs look one just like the other, there’s still a bit of variation. Then there’s days like the one last week when there’s more than just a bit of variation.
The porch plan was simple: new paint, new floor, done. And we were well on our way. The floor was in. The trim was back on. The DW was painting away. Then it rained. The next thing you know, I’m looking at this:
Let’s back up. We believe the room was originally just an open porch. A few joist over dirt with fir flooring. A couple posts to hold up the roof… no basement, no crawl space, no walls. At some point, walls were added and windows and a door were installed. Over time things shifted and settled to where they are today. If we were serious about remodeling the space, it would need to be rebuilt from the bottom up: new foundation, joist, subfloor, windows, entry door, HVAC, electrical – you get the idea. Instead, our plan is to eventually remove the porch and add a garage to the house in that spot. That’s why even though there were other issues with the porch – including an entry door in less than ideal condition – the plan was new paint, new floor, done.
Then it rained… and water puddled near the door on the new floor.
For years, water had been sneaking in around the door and going undetected through the floor. The new floor blocked that path and the water ended up in a hard to miss puddle. I was optimistic at first, hoping I could seal things up with a tube of silicon and we’d be set for a few years.
But, then I removed some exterior trim from around the door and started poking around. Pretty soon I had this…
That’s what was left of the triple 2×6 joist that ran under the edge of the porch. When I said the rain leaked in for years undetected, I meant many, many years. By the time I was done removing the water damaged lumber, there was nothing left under the door. The fir flooring was holding up itself through its tongue and groove structure, there was nothing left underneath it. I had to remove the door to fix the joist and the door was in no condition to be removed and reinstalled. The project just expanded to include lumber and a new door.
So after a few extra hours of framing, the joist was rebuilt and the new door was in place. Now back to painting… and a little extra trim work.
After receiving a tip from a family friend, my wife and I ventured down a dusty road for the first time together in search of a house that was for sale by owner. The potential was there: wood floors buried beneath dated carpet, solid wood pocket doors surrounded by 100 year old trim, and a faded screen door leading to a covered porch complete with a white wooden swing. So, in July of 2011 my wife and I became only the third family to own this 100+ year old two-story farm house and surrounding acreage on a quiet dusty road in rural Iowa. What you’ll find on these pages is the story of what comes next.
