New Update

On March 30th 2009 we gave birth to our 3rd child.
Gavin Craig was 9 lbs 10.4 oz and 22 in long.

Long time no post...

I must apologize for those who enjoyed reading our daily posts. I got lazy...

I will take some updated photos of the house and what it looks like after the year we've been in. We just had our 1 year anniversary last week. We're still loving it and still have plenty of little odds and ends we need to finish up.

Sunday June 17, 2007 Happy Father's Day

Justin wanted to go salt water fishing with Daddy today so we headed down to the Agawam River behind the playground where the kids play t-ball. It was a beautiful day, although a little hot.




Justin was all set ready to catch some blues!


Daddy waiting for some bites on his line too.


Emily wanted to try too.


Mommy gave it a shot just for the photo op.


No fish were caught today, the tides weren't right. The kids had fun though and then they ran around on the playground for a while.

Memorial Day Weekend 5/25-5/28 2007

A little more landscaping in the front.

This kids stained their Home Depot butterfly house project and put them in the garden.
All things in the granite graveyard appear to be growing well...wait, what is that in the background?

The trees are alive!More soffit work.

Bring on the hurricanes.

Seeds starting to sprout, the tomatoes in the back are buried up to their necks in compost now.

Got some mesclun to pick, spinach not too far behind that.

Dressed the lasagna beds with a few more layers, the seaweed on the bottom is really breaking down now. The top layer is leaf compost-a return for all those years Scott raked his parent's yard and hauled wheel barrel load after wheel barrel load of the leaves to the pit.

Saturday 5/19/2007

We finished polishing up the inside of our old house and it went back on the market. The first appointment for a viewing is set up for this Tuesday. We put down a new floor in the kitchen and hallway.

Our kitchen with our "new to you" gas stove.

Kitchen from the hallway.

Kitchen floor.Hallway floor.

Sunday 5/13/07

First off, yay Sens, go Wings!

Today we made lasagna. I've been reading about lasagna gardening and decided to try it since we basically live at a beach without water. I read in one of my books that seaweed is a good green layer. After checking with the harbormaster if it was okay to scavenge it from the beach, the boy and I decided to head off to Little Harbor. We filled the back of my truck up and came home.

Here is what we came home with.

This is how we did it, right or wrong.

We soaked newpapers in water and laid out our garden beds.

Next we covered the newspaper with a generous layer of seaweed.

Then we got a load of composting leaves and leaf mold from various stashes around our yard and covered the seaweed.

Then we covered that with some grass clippings I got from a friend at work. Thanks Rich!

Followed by another layer of composted leaves and leaf mold.
The bed on the right is complete, the one on the left is waiting for the second compost layer.
The completed beds.
Three beds here. The bottom bed needs one more green layer then a brown layer.
Two completed beds here.

Summary:

We have 1 layer of newspapers. 1 layer of seaweed. 1 layer of composting leaves and leaf mold. 1 layer of grass clippings. 1 layer of composting leaves and leaf mold. (a couple of beds have a layer of peat moss in place of the leaves).

Now the questions:
I ran out of green and brown material for the last bed. Any suggestions on sources of green material and brown material? I can get peat moss for the brown but since it is sterile, I'd rather not.
Do I have enough layers?
Will it be cooked enough by next Monday to plant?
Any suggestions or comments appreciated. Thanks!

Saturday and Sunday 5/12/07-5/13-07

We did some more landscaping today. We created what we are calling the granite graveyard. We got a few pieces of granite from the place that did our countertops and we decided to put those out in the yard in our garden. Our intent is an informal garden growing out of the edge of the woods. We thinned out some of our garden from our old house and got some thinnings from mom's garden too. What do you think?

The Granite Graveyard

We'll get our number on this piece at the end of our driveway.

Our cold weather crops are starting to sprout. Spinach, kale, mesclun, left to right.

All tired out from a day of planting.

Friday 5/11/07

Today we had to put down our old dog, Bear. She was actually my brother, Marc's dog that he got as a puppy. When he died my mom and dad took care of her for a while. Then one weekend they came out to see Sarah and I at UMASS and had to bring her because the weather forcast was for sub zero temperatures. Bear took right to Sarah and by the time my parent's left at the end of the weekend they asked if we would like to keep her so we did. I've known bear for almost half my life as she was 15 1/2 years old. It was a very hard decision but she had grown to a lower quality of life. She was not in pain but she had cancers and her muscles just didn't work right anymore. Sometimes she looked horrible just trying to get up then other days she would bound around like a young girl again. We let the vet decide when it was time. The girls in the vet's office all knew her for her whole life as did the vet so it was a very sad day. I'm thankful Sarah was there for her last minutes and regret I wasn't because I was at work. We held a memorial and planted a bush with the kids, pictured below.

Saturday 04/28/07

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day so we worked a little on the front yard.
We planted some stuff in the rings along the walkway, some plants we got from Pam (Scott's mom), and shoveled the pile of stuff the contractor left us to form the walkway. Once it flattens out I think it will look nice.




Along the side of the driveway by the well we transplanted some bushes we had from the old house along with some lily's.


I'll take more pictures once everything is in bloom so you can see them better.

After we worked on the yard Scott took Justin fishing down at the end of our deadend street right on the pond.




Justin didn't catch anything but he got a few nibbles!

Catching up

My brother was here visiting in March, on the 22nd he helped us move our chest freezer and secondary refrigerator into the basement from the old house.


March 24th we finished stacking our pile of wood we had.


March 30th we closed with the bank on our FirstDay Cottage.

The old house.

Then we spent the entire weekend (March 31 - April 1st) kicking butt on the old house. Last week I managed to pack up the remainder of our stuff inside and Saturday we got what was left in the basement and yard. While Scott picked up some of the yard stuff with the kids I was washing the walls inside the house to prep them for some fresh paint.
Front Yard

Back Yard - there was a fence that was all the way around the back yard but since we need to get a new septic put in we took it down.


Saturday while working in the yard our neighbor behind us asked if we had room for a twin bed. He had been keeping it in storage but no longer needed it and it was taking up space. So Justin was able to get a new comfortable bed for free! Was all brand new still wrapped in plastic!! The trundle bed he had wasn't terribly comfortable so this worked our perfectly.

Monday 04/02 and Tuesday 04/03 I finished washing the walls and filling holes and its ready for the paint.