Hello again

It's been awhile since I've updated.
Here's what's been going on...
The chickens have a nice little summer house now. A movable coop with a fence around it so we can stick them in different parts of the yard. They enjoy exploring around the yard!


The garden did pretty well considering the slow start to summer. The peas, eggplants, watermelons and a couple of other flowering plants that like warm weather didn't produce very well but the onions, potatoes, cabbages, and winter squash have done fine. :)
a small pie pumpkin~
we are getting ready to put in the winter garden. We'll be planting carrots, lettuce, spinach, and salad greens under a cold frame. This is our first time doing a cold frame in the winter, I'm looking forward to seeing how it works.
Mr. socston is almost done with the never ending shower stall. He is actually working on tiling it today. Our summer house work plans have been spoiled by pesky real work. I usually only go in three days a week in the summer, but this year due to a co-worker being sick I worked five days a week most of the season. Mr. socston has gotten a lot of forced overtime and while the extra money we've made is good to pay for projects it sure has gotten us behind in actually doing the projects. He's been working almost 100 hours some weeks, if he only works 80 hours a week this summer we've been lucky.

We've gotten some canning and drying done. I planted more herbs than I usually do this year and I've had fun preserving them. Some things I've used the dehydrator for but others I was able to just hang to dry. Chives, dill and chamomile went in the dehydrator, most everything else was hung. I also made some herbs ice cubes. It's something local farmer told me to do a couple of years ago. Chop up herbs, place them in the cube sections of ice cube trays, add a little to cover them and freeze. This is great for soups in the winter. :)
We've already canned snaps and zucchini relish and are doing summer squash and tomatoes next.

Mr. socston wants me to show a picture of the shower tiling but I've refused. I told him when it's finished completely I will post it. It's a little carrot hanging in front of him, eh?

I do want to show y'all a picture I got for him. He loves his corgi and I had a painting done of him for an anniversary present. It's a very cute pet portrait I think and it captures him perfectly. It doesn't just look like any old corgi, it looks like fenris. A girl I've known since childhood and reconnected with online painted it, she did a wonderful job!:)

gardening stuff

So New England this june has been wet. Really wet. Lots of rain. We saw the sun twice and that was nice and then there was lots more rain. Luckily we got all of the last minute seeds in the garden before the rain times really kicked in and since our garden is on a well drained (almost too well drained) spot it's actually good for us to get all this water. All the plants have done well and only just are starting to show signs of needing some sun. We realized today that although our boston lettuces are tasting perfect they actually are kind of pale!
picture from today~


We've had two flash floods in our streams and pond. There is a little penisula between the pond and one part of the stream and it flooded completely over one day. There is a wooden bridge over one section of stream and it was actually picked up and moved a little. Normally the water is a good four feet from even touching the bridge.



The chickens are getting BIG! They will soon have their coop built outside, for now they are still in their little house with a heat lamp keeping them warm.
we call them the goofball militia~


Inside the house we've finally gotten around to the bathroom renovation. Yay! We've got a shower stall halfway done. Mr Scoston did the plumbing and everything. All we have left is putting up the backerboard and tiling. Two rooms are turning into one so when the shower is ready to use we are going to knock out the wall to the old bathroom and take out the bathtub.

I'm back at work at my part time summer job and that's really fun. The boy is at summer camp and will be home soon. I have no idea how he's doing because he doesn't write letters. Bad boy!

Later,
Socston

Hot water heaven!

So we finally got the propane boiler installed! This is fantastic news and I'll remind you why...remember early on the blog right around this time last year when I posted the tragic story of the horrible water pressure? Well it's better AND the water generally stays one temperature now. I had gotten quite used to showering while standing on one foot like a flamingo so that I could use my other foot to constantly adjust the hot and cold water knobs. No more! It's been 3 days now and things have been wonderful! The system we replaced was original to the house and was over 45 years old, it used tremendous amounts of oil. We'll be removing the old boiler and chimney in a few months when are installing the new radiant heating under the floors. I'm looking forward to removing all that because when we do we will build some real stairs to the basement and not always have to go outside to get down there. At that point we will also be sealing up the windows nicely and letting the animals have access to the basement. They will be happy with the extra space I'm sure. 3 people, 2 dogs, 4 cats, and a bunny are a tight squeeze in 960 square feet!
here is a picture of the beautiful boiler~

I'm a slacker girl!

It's been very busy around here and I haven't updated in over a month, sorry! Here goes~
~We got six little baby chickies to raise for eggs (no eating chickies over here!)
~We got the garden started, it's looking nice.
~We cleaned up the last of the winter debris and cleared an overgrown area near the edge of the woods to plant nut trees.
~We both worked a gazillion hours at our jobs.
~The boy worked as a backstage intern at the show at my work and had a fun time.
~I'm off tomorrow from my main job until next fall, I'll have a couple of weeks off and then start at my summer job.
~Mr socston built a cute little animal hutch for the baby chicks to live in while they are growing. It will work nicely for bunnies or more baby chickens in the future.
~He also wrangled together a nice little cold frame for the seedlings.
~I came close too but did not actually have a nervous breakdown at work.
Yay for us and all our accomplishments!

So we got six chickens, two new hampshire reds, two black giants, two black sex links. The sex links are a cross of rhode island red and barred rock chickens. I wanted to get two buff orpingtons but there were problems with that shipment and so no go this year. I still want them, I'll get them next spring.

Oh, so have you ever heard about how mint really spreads and you should have a border in the dirt around it? Yeah me too! So last year in my little herb border that I planted, I put rocks down and around the mint. I had the border about four or five inches down. That's not enough just so you know. Next time I want to plant mint near other things I will sink a ten foot concrete wall in the dirt around it. We dug out a big chunk of the mint and found a nice spot near the woods on the other side of the yard to relocate the patch too and we dug out mint roots for a good half hour. A couple of days later I found more little mint plants and more roots to pull out. I think mint might be from outer space. I'm just saying, it was pretty treacherous.
This year we put a large load of compost into the garden. We're still cover cropping the second garden. So far in the ground we've got three varieties of lettuce, spinach, onions, beets, summer squash and zucchini, butter cup squash, pie pumpkins, tomatoes, and strawberries. I made a specific herb section in the garden this year also; in there is oregano and chives that I planted last year, and parsley and dill. I'm going to put in a bunch of basil. In my little herb border the things that came back from last year are doing nicely; chives, tarragon, thyme, and sage. (I'm not including the aforementioned alien mint)

You can see one of the little apple trees back there. We had three but are down to two, one had rodent damage on the trunk last year before we moved in and it didn't make it through the winter.
So there's what we've been up to, gardening, playing with chickens, not quite having work stress related breakdowns.
I promise it will not be so long again before I post!
Later,
Socston

Syrup is done...

and here is a picture of the finished product~
the one in the back right in the jar with the white lid is for me. I like my syrup underdone. It's so nice and light tasting! We discovered it by accident and I insist on a very slightly underdone jar each year now. It has to stay in the refrigerator and I use it up first because something about the sugar content bla bla bla it doesn't keep the same as properly prepared syrup. Altogether we ended up with two and a quarter gallons. Not bad. He cooked most of it down outside on a propane burner grill kind of set up that he finagled and finished on the stove inside.

We planted seeds a couple of weeks ago. They are coming up nicely...
now the challenge is to keep the poor things water and alive until I can get them outdoors. I started stuff last year so late that I was able to keep them outside most of the time and they didn't need as much watering. These are driving us crazy trying to water enough. I guess it's drier in the house than I realized.

Last two kitties.

Here are the remaining pet bios~

Have you ever tried to get a picture of a solid black cat? It's harder than you might think.
This is Shadow. She's less housecat and more leopard. The boy picked her out of her litter when he was 5 and she was a few weeks old. She's about our oldest pet right now, she's 8 years old. She is also the one we have had longest. She loves the boy a lot but isn't a big fan of people or animals she doesn't know, or people and animals she does know actually. She's moody but we like her that way. She likes bast and that's about it. She abhores fenris, and the poor guy just doesn't get it. She's a wonderful guard cat though, she knows she is the main pet in charge here, she bosses the dogs and the other cats wonderfully, she's the matriarch and she doesn't let anyone forget it.



And last but not least, Bast. She is her daddy's little baby, he loves her more than he does me or the boy. She's a fat piggy and will guard the food from the other cats if we don't watch her. She is sweet and lovey, she sleeps with us a lot, and she makes a cute little chirpy noise instead of actual meows. She is part maine coon we believe. I worked as a receptionist at a vet's office once and she was brought in as a stray kitten. I fell in love with her and called home to beg if we could have another cat. At the time we only had shadow. Mr. Socston was a little put out but he likes cats and he said finally gave me a grudging yes. I brought her home and he was smitten from the start. I like to remind him about how grumbly he was when I wanted her and how if I hadn't kept whining we wouldn't have her and he tells me to hush.

So now you've met all the animals! Aren't they wonderful? :)

Now let me fill in on some of the house mess going on. We knocked out the drywall in the room that will be the bathroom a while back and then stopped working on it. Mr. Socston has project ADD. He is always working on something and he's always finishing but he tends to skip around and do three or fours things at once, bless his heart. So we finally bought most of the mess we need to build the shower and get the bathroom going. We still need to get the base of the shower stall, I'm not sure if has ordered it or not yet, he keeps saying he will "soon" everytime I ask. We seem to have very different definitions of "soon"

He is hip deep in syrup right now though so I'm not going to say anything until maple season is over. He thinks he might hit three gallons before he's done.
His birthday is coming up on friday and I am presently annoyed that it's his only day off this week. At one job he sets his own schedule and when I asked why he didn't give himself another day off he said it snuck up on him. How does one's birthday sneak up on them? I suspect that if it didn't naturally fall on the day between shifts that he always leaves free he would have actually forgotten and worked.
I'm going to try to think of something fun to do that day and some nice treat to make him.

goodbye for now!

The sap must flow...

I'm a Dune fan I couldn't resist that little homage.
I know I owe y'all two more cat bios but I'm a slow blogger and mr. socston is all excited about tapping his trees and said I must update now with his tree pictures.
He went out yesterday and today and got some trees going. Today I followed him out with the camera and took some pictures and a wee bit of video.

Here he is drilling a hole with his wonderful, fabulous, brace and bit that he found BRAND NEW at a second hand store. He's very proud of it.



Here's a picture of our collection set up.
That's some high tech stuff there. Milk jugs and twine. It's expensive high quality equipment but it's the price one pays...

We did 15 taps in 14 trees. Some of them were done yesterday and we checked them this afternoon and a couple were almost up to half full already. We're hoping to make about two gallons of syrup.

Meet some cats and the bunny

Here is Tanner and Baby Bear. Baby Bear is also known as Bootsie. His fur gets matted very easily even with diligent brushing and he often gets fur balls so occasionally we have him shaved. They leave his head and his feet fuzzy so he looks like a naked cat that is wearing furry boots. It's adorable. And pathetic. But mostly adorable.
He is the kitty who was recently so sick. He's come back wonderfully. You can actually see in this picture a bald spot on one front paw. Right in front of the bunny nose is the shaved bit. That's where the IV was. He has a spot on his neck that is bald now also.
We've had him about 4 years now. My mother gave him and Zoey to us when she had to move. She had them both since they were kittens and they are very attached. They are often found together and when fenris chases zoe down the hall the next thing you will see a moment later is fenris running away from baby bear in terror.
He's a quiet and lovey kitty. Very sedate and loves to be rubbed but hates to be picked up and held. He is usually found sleeping and he's very smart. He already learned that he eats separately from the other cats since his illness. Now when they all run to the cat food area he stops halfway down the hall at the room where we feed him automatically and waits there at the door. He meows when he is done so that we can let him out. Very smart boy!

Tanner is the boy's bunny. He wanted an angora for awhile and he read up on them and thought they were very cute. We took him to a bunny show to buy one and all the angoras he liked were the various breeders best rabbits and weren't for sale. One lady was walking around with us and she joked that he has a great eye for rabbits. Tanner was the only one he really loved that was for sale was not an angora at all but a Netherland Dwarf. He got him strictly as a pet and he's a great one. He's very inquisitive and loves to hop around. His cage is in the boy's room and he sometimes wakes him up. He likes to rearrange the stuff in his cage and he's a rather loud thumper. He slams his back legs on the ground and it sounds odd, such a loud noise coming from such a small light creature.


And here is Zoey! She's probably the sweetest cat we have. She sleeps in our bed every night under the covers sidled up next to mr. socston. She does this thing when you pick her up where she goes all floppy and just lays there limp and purring in your arms, it's funny. Her coat is very soft and she's the only cat with white fur to shed. She and baby bear are the light colored half of our cat team. The other two are dark colors so lucky for us no matter what color fabric or laundry is lying about it will soon be covered in the cat fur with the most contrast.
There's not a lot to say about Zoey actually, she's the pleasing and quiet sort. Very girly, she always runs to her brother (we call baby bear her brother but they aren't actually littermates) when she needs help with dogs or Shadow, our grumpy cat. She usually hangs out in our bedroom or the the cat food room.

Next time I'll introduce the last two cats and catch up on some of the house updates. The living room is now all dry walled and about to be painted. Yay!

meet the dogs

Scouty is my baby girl. She turned five in November and we've had her since she was about 9 weeks old. She was a christmas present from my mom for the boy and he almost had a heart attack when he first met her.
She is sweet and girly but she has a deep scary voice and people who knock on the door are expecting to see a ferocious dog and are often surprised to be licked mercilessly upon entering our home.
She is very mouthy in that way that golden retrievers can be. She likes to put one's hand or wrist in her mouth, and while she doesn't actually bite down she is usually bouncing and squealing in joy when she is holding on gently so her teeth do tend to bang up and down.
I met a golden on the street with his woman and while talking to them the woman taught me a neat trick. When I asked if I might pet him she told me yes but to wait a second, she then pulled out a clean washcloth from a pocket and put it in his mouth. When I loved on him he made squeaky noises and bounced just like scout does but he held his cloth in his mouth and never even tried to grab my hand. It was like magic. We've been trying this trick with scout a bit and it really does work.
As I type now she is sitting under the desk at my feet, on one of my feet in fact. She follows me around the house and if she isn't following me it usually means she is asleep somewhere warm with her kitty friend bast. She has a spot on the bed next to me with her own pillow that she sleeps on at night, but I'm not allowed to move at all or she fusses at me and gets up and won't come back until later when I'm asleep.

And this is Fenris corgi. He is actually our guard dog, beware intruders! Fenris will mess you up from the knees down! We've had him since last christmas and he will be two years old this summer.
He has very strong herding instincts and the cats really get annoyed after being run up and down the hall all day. Also he makes interesting noises, less like a dog and more like...some other sort of animal? His main noise is a short sort of grunt that sounds like "mergh!" It's hard to make up spellings for noises that only exist in the throats of corgis but trust me, that's really close. He is a destructive monster and if there ever was a dog that would eat one's homework it is fenris. We've been supplying him with a nice supply of chew toys but when he finishes them off there's no telling what he'll find. He seems to prefer hard plastic and small metal bits. When I wake up in the mornings, he and scouty are sleeping in bed with me and I have reached over to fumble for the alarm clock and found the most interesting half chewed things on the pillow next to me.
Speaking of sleeping, he's sort of like a parrot. If he gets agitated we can tuck him under a blanket or towel and he immediately lays still and falls asleep. It's odd. He also burrows down in the covers between the two of us at night.
Fenris is mr. socston's baby and he follows him around the house like scouty follows me.

So those are the dogs, I'll do a couple of the cats next time.

Cheers!
socston

chaos and drama

We've had animal problems. First of all, Baby Bear our sweet fuzzy boy cat got very sick. He had a urinary blockage and almost died. He was acting a little off one morning, but still eating and drinking fine so I didn't really worry. I went to work and took the boy with me and when Mr. socston got home from work that evening baby bear was almost dead. He rushed him to the after hours emergency animal clinic. The clinic is in the town I work in so I ran over to meet them. My poor kitty looked awful and they were talking how he probably wouldn't make it. He spent 5 days at the vets and he came home fine. He is a strong good kitty and we are all so happy he is still with us.
This wednesday it was snowing and I had a snow day from work. I was snuggling on the couch with scouty our golden retriever when she started acting funny. She jumped off the couch and her back legs weren't working right. She ended up having an accident and throwing up. I was freaking out. Mr. Socston was at the vet with baby bear for a last check up and I called him. They said to come in and I got her in the car and we left. By the time we were leaving the house she was fine but I was terrified. Our vet said she probably had a seizure. We have another cat that has seizures and they looked nothing like scout's. This was the first time for scout and I hope it's the last. I don't think I could handle that again. She scared me to death.

So that's our scary animal updates. We've got performances this weekend at work and then I'm off for a couple of weeks. I'm tired at this point, can't wait for the last show on sunday! Sales have been very slow this season but this has been the slowest seller of all. I'm lucky if I get half a house in there. Hopefully the next play will be busier.

We've been coming along with walls and things. The living room wall is almost done. We've put up all the drywall now and are covering the seams with tape and plastery stuff. There are some pictures in the camera but I don't know how to put them in the computer. Someone will do it for me and in a week or so maybe I'll be posting some completely finished wall pictures. :)
I also think I should do a little bio of each of the animals and post a picture of them. Look for that in the future!

I'm off for work!
socston