The plague has struck again! Both of us were sick this week and are finally getting back to normal. The kids came down this weekend and we were able to tear down the old bed frame and clean up the other spare room. We then moved the box Murphy bed into that room for company, usually the kids and proceeded to clean out the other room. It used to be Sarah’s bedroom eons ago. We had purchased a sewing table for Annmarie and I needed to get it assembled and set up an area for her to sew. Clothing is going up in price and the quality is not as good so she is going to start sewing her own work clothes. I have two vests that need done and now that I have gained some girth it is a perfect time. My two other ones started to get too small ten pounds ago. I will need to cut a plywood top to go over the top of the two dressers. She was able to find a cutting mat that is 36×48” so I will put that size sheet of plywood over the two dressers and the mat will fit right on top of that. We have a sewing light and I was able to find a lamp for the room but we need another overhead light over the cutting table. I have ordered another draping stained glass light and will put in a new hook for it when it comes. The stained glass lights just do not put out a ton of light. I have started to overcome this by just putting in more lights. I am pretty sure I will be adding a second light to our master bedroom. But I will need to go up into the attic to do it which will mean pulling up some of the floor in the attic. It won’t be as simple as when I did it before the attic floor.

This would have been simple if I had not just used every scrap of plywood I had on the farm inside of the fencing shed! I have to go to Hermiston and order tiles for the bathroom this week so I will get a piece of plywood to cut for her cutting surface. I need to get the tiles ordered and start working on our bathroom vanity and towel storage cabinet. There was a shopping event on Saturday where you could visit six different sites and go shopping for various Knick knacks. Annmarie was able to find a new potential bathroom vanity. This one is a lot longer, a whole whopping 10.5” longer. But honestly, that is a lot of counter space! The old one we were going to use was 33” wide and this one is 43.5” wide. This one is also taller. I like the higher one and think it will make it much easier to use the sink. The new one needs more work than the other one. I need new drawer pulls and all the drawers need new bottoms. I will need to hollow out two of the drawers on the new cabinet. It is doable but I will need to start on it ASAP.

Mr Rainman came out today and we were able to get a few little things knocked off the list. We installed the new Gazebo lights so thy are now remote controlled. We also took the light strand from the Gazebo and mounted it alongside the old house to light up the walkway and cat feeding area. Now when I think there is a raccoon out back I can just flip the light on, via my phone, and I will be able to see the entire area behind the old house. No more hiding for the raccoons. I was able to program the light via my phone so it can be turned on remotely. I just need to get it programmed to come on for an hour every night around the time we feed the cats.

We put the trellis back together next to the house. I will need to train the trumpet vine in the spring to follow the new trellis. The fencing shed anchor bolts came but I could only get four of them to drive in the entire length. I kept hitting something so old and tough that my impact driver would not move the anchor, no matter what I did. So there are now four anchors and more supplies inside the shed holding it down. I am not too worried about it going any whereas it did nothing in the 70 MPH wind.

My windmill got ripped out and tossed on the ground and our old chicken coop door got torn up by the wind. The windmill lost a blade and we put it back up but had to hammer it into the piece of wood so now it won’t spin. So I will need to get another one and this time I need to make sure it has bearings and some way to make sure it does not blow away. The latch on the old chicken coop got torn off. It needs some screws and may need to be rebuilt. It will depend on how rotten the wood is and attempting to repair it will let us know that. At this rate we may be able to get the drying lumber pieces moved out to the old middle granary. It is all cleaned out and ready for wood. Some of the wood has about two more years to dry out. We will be putting all of the maple and black walnut out there.

Mr Rainman has been organizing the machine shed and tossing out all of the accumulated trash. He has been doing a great job on getting things organized again. It is an annual process as I do not do as you go throughout the year. Once we get the old chicken coop lumber moved out then we can move all of the tools from the old house out into the coop. This will then create a single room we can use as project space.