Author: oaknmeadow

Coming.

It has been a while! Things have been busy here. We have laid the reclaimed maple flooring on about half of the bedroom. That was all that we had gotten disassembled. Now we have to disassemble the rest of the 2×8 sections, clean them up and plane them. We’ll do 2 or 3 at a time, and go ahead and put them down, then do 2 or 3 more. Easier to handle, since I don’t have to make space for the sections in the house.

 

Brrrrr!

We’re having a definite cold spell. Nighttime low of 13 degrees Sunday, and high of 19 degrees New Year’s day. Today’s high appears to be all the way up to 27, but tomorrow is supposed to be 53. A definite heat wave.

The solar mass floor appears to be at least tempering the outside cold, even without the sun (we haven’t seen the sun since Christmas day). A couple of days of sunshine should replenish some of the lost heat.

 

We have been carefully watching our solar mass floor. We have discovered that the floor temperature and the air temperature seem to stay together within 2-4 degrees. The air temp in the morning might be 3-4 degrees cooler than the floor, but will warm up during the day.

We will be watching how this works as we go through the winter.

 

 

The big day has come! We have finished up the bathroom. All the tile is installed, grouted and caulked. The tub and shower are finished.

We have set up our air bed in the house, and we both took baths this evening. We will sleep in the house tonight, and all nights from here on.

There’s still a lot of work to do. Tile floors to be laid, and the kitchen to be finished.

But we can live in the house now. Finally, after 2-1/2 years of hard work.

 

We are finding the sheep a most interesting study. Most of the time, they will come when a bucket of feed is rattled. But not always. They are finding plenty of forage – grass and acorns – to feed on, so they aren’t at all hungry most of the time.

We’ve named 4 of the 7 ewes. (Is that a sign?) One of them – Patches (because she has small brown spots on her cheeks below her ears) will come and stick her head in the bucket I’m carrying, and will take feed from my hand. The others aren’t so bold, and one – Eve – will run if you look at her.

It’s definitely a different experience.

 

It has been 2 months already since I last posted.

In that time, we have managed to get some siding up on the house (we’re painting the 4×8 panels first before putting them up); the tile is laid and grouted on the dining room floor; the bathroom sinks are completed and we have hot water; and we’re getting ready to tile the bathtub first, then the shower. It won’t be long now.

The hybrid heat pump water heater is a very quiet and efficient system. It doesn’t have to run very much at all to keep the water temperature.

The kitchen will take a little while, but we have a refrigerator, a microwave, a toaster oven, and induction cooking units. We’ll be able to prepare meals easily.

 

Our new experiment — the lambs — has proved to be most fascinating. The first evening, we brought up a container of corn to give them. They were interested in the sound of the bucket, and did discover the corn.

That whole first evening, and all the next day, they stayed very close together in a tight bunch, grazing the area.

The second full day, they have decided that they don’t have to stay in a bunch, but can spread out and each finds her own area to graze. They also have figured out that when we come around, especially with a bucket, there’s a possibility of something, and they come around where we are to check it out.

They are also used to having corn distributed across the ground from an ATV, so they have decided they can follow our garden tractor to see if something will come of it.

All of this in less than 3 days.

 

We have moved into a new realm — we have purchased 7 6-month old ewe lambs to run on Oak’n’Meadow. Our plan is to have stock here to provide a more balanced environment, and to renew the land and the vegetation.

September has arrived! It is still warm here, but not as hot as it has been. We’re hoping to get started on the outside of the house soon – painting and putting on the siding. We’re using 4×8 panels that look like stucco, but made of composite material. We’ll cut them to fit, and paint each one before putting it up. Then we can touch up the nail heads to finish off the process.

Moving along slowly with the interior painting and finishing. Then we can start on the floors.

We did take a few days to go to Missouri and watch the eclipse. That was an experience not to be missed.