Hello! It’s the spring wrap-up! Things are moving at a much slower pace this year–well–as far as the house work goes, so my posts will be more sporadic. We’ve been super busy getting everything set up and cleaned up for the season at the farm, and also with family stuff. First, we celebrated Zin’s Graduation from Jefferson (summa cum laude!)! Yay Zin! We attended allll the Ethan events: two nights of drama club, the chorus concert, the band concert, the Memorial Day Parade. Yay Ethan! Finally,  we hosted a large beautiful memorial celebration in honor of Kevin’s dad this weekend. Lots of family & dear friends came in from all over the country. It was a wonderful tribute to Tom, and it was really great to catch up with so many great people. 

All this means nothing here at the house has before and after pictures yet, I’m afraid! Some stuff did happen, though. Mostly random cement pourings, like so:

The back door ramp is for the brewery, the pad out front is to make the step less of a step or something? The circle is the base for the fountain. Up next for the fountain are the rebar-reinforced sides, to be poured hopefully very soon. I guess Kevin decided to extend the cement future dumpster pad or something, honestly I have no idea what the heck is going on with that part, but it looks snazzy! It will get a stone sidewall soon, but at the moment the ground itself is as hard and dry as cement since it didn’t rain at all in May! That seems to be putting a pause button on several of the digging projects, including installing our garden fence. 

Oh, here’s something! We did a bunch of awning research, and ultimately decided to try out these cheap amazon awnings for the time being to keep the doorways and the HVAC equipment dry. I like them! I think they are subtle enough that they don’t stand out, and they were about 1/100th the price of anything else we liked. 

We’re still called Pigeon Manor for a reason, though the rabbits and this pileated woodpecker are both doing their best to try out for the job as mascot. The rabbits stay so close to us we could probably pet them if we wanted to, and that woodpecker has been going to town on our stump planters! 

A big brown bat auditioned for the role as well, flying all around our apartment this past Saturday night. I’m assuming it was a big brown bat, because we had one in our basement once before that needed help, and our friends at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center told us that’s what it was.  This one only needed help getting the heck out of dodge, so when we finally got it trapped into Ethan’s room, I donned my hoodie and crawled across the floor to open the window for it. It swooped at me, and I admit I screamed and dove under a comforter, hahaha. It’s not that I’m afraid of bats per say, but I had to sign a bunch of papers last time verifying that no one had gotten bitten or scratched because they carry rabies, and no thank you, I do not want rabies or rabies preventative treatments! 5 minutes later, it was outside, and hasn’t been seen since. And since then, I’ve learned that bats swoop low in the center of rooms, but stay high along the walls, so you’re supposed to hug the walls to stay out of its way, not charge through the center like this dummy did.  Huh! 

But back to the pigeons. I didn’t mean to let them procreate again, but real estate has really become quite difficult to obtain for pigeons, and this eager young couple was so DELIGHTED when they figured out that they could get in between the plywood on the outside and the 2nd floor doorway to the inside. You should have heard their cute happy cooing noises as they (probably) discussed how they would remodel. I didn’t see their pinterest boards, but I’m going to guess she wanted white shiplap, but he wanted to leave the wood looking like wood. I tried to discourage them by wadding up some craft paper and shoving it in their entryway, but they ripped it right back out again and the next thing I knew, there were two eggs, and then when I thought about it again, bam! Two babies. Now the hallway smells like ass, and I’m regretting not being more proactive, but in another few weeks they’ll be gone, all before anything else manages to happen to that wall, in all likelihood. Ah well. 

Well out on the porch, the lack of rain meant I could just really go to town with the rail painting, and I did! Boom!

Three chiropractor visits later, and I’m recovered from all that scraping and sanding and painting, haha. Next on the porch list: The floor! I’m probably going to scrape, sand, and refinish it with deck stain, but we’re in a weird holding pattern. I’d like to be able to stay off the porch for a few days once I put the finish on, but right now, it’s the only way we can access both our and Bo’s apartments. There’s a back entrance, but it’s currently obscured by scaffolding until the stucco and repairs are done out back. So I have to decide whether I’d like to leave it for a while, or do at least the scraping part while we wait. Or maybe I’ll just get a really fast drying stain. We shall see! Once the floor is done, it will be time to stucco the foundation and boy, won’t the front look fabulous then! 

So that’s it, that’s where we’re at. I’m making no promises on when my next post will be, but I suspect I will wait until the fountain is installed, because WOW is that going to be monumental! I’ll also let you know when the brewery opens! 

Have a great start to the summer and pray for rain!