Brr . . . It's Cold Outside

Currently it is -3 degrees Fahrenheit in North Manchester, Indiana. Pretty darn cold by Indiana standards. We are celebrating this evening because we finally have electricity to our house after 3 days of not having it.

Friday morning we woke up to an ice covered world. We had electricity when we got out of bed around 5:45 AM but by 8:00 AM ice and strong winds had knocked lines down, and we were in the dark. The photos we are posting tonight were taken that morning before the power went out. We braved falling ice and branches to go outside to check on our chickens, and turkeys, and take a couple of pictures. We were drove back inside quickly by a fierce shifting wind, and THUNDER! As the next band of freezing rain came through we were treated to a very rare lightening and thunderstorm in December, followed by another set of flashes from transformers shorting out in Liberty Mills.

All in all, we are very lucky, and the only damage we have to deal with so far is fallen tree branches. We are looking forward to warmer temperature later in the week to melt the ice skating rink that is our yard.

As The Dust Settles

This weekend, we finished the demolition part of our living room redo, with the help of Sarah's Dad and Mom. Ryan and Dad took down all of the plaster and blueboard on the west wall of our living room to reveal the tongue-and-groove oak sheeting. As you can see from the spotted photos, it was a very dusty process.

After they got the plaster down, and removed all the nails related to the blueboard and plaster, we tried various ways of cleaning up the oak. We tried a palm sander and a wire wheel brush on the drill to try to clean up the surface of the boards without getting rid of the original saw marks. We found that the wire wheel brush on a drill did the best job of cleaning things up, and is fairly quick. After the holidays we hope to get that done to the whole wall, and clean up the plaster on the rest of the walls to get ready to do some finish work. Dad cleaned up and lightly sanded an part of the wall, and then applied polyurethane to give us some inspiration to work from.

Today, we worked on cleaning up the room, and putting our can't live without it stuff back in the living room (i.e. couch, tv, lamps, etc.). We really like the existing tongue-and-groove oak floors, except that they are a pain in the neck to clean because of all the cracks. We are looking forward to the smoothness of a laminate floor, but will miss the old look of the original floor. But hey, it will always be there under the laminate floor, and maybe 25 years down the road when it's time to redecorate again, we'll have more time, money and patience to revive that old floor :)

After we got everything cleaned up and put back, we put up our Christmas tree that we bought last weekend. It's pretty small, only 5 foot, but more than adequate for a room in transition. We hope to decorate it in the next couple of days.

The Beginning

After reading lots of other people blogs, I'm finding that it is a pretty spiffy way to share info, pictures, and whatever with family, friends, and other interested parties. So, here we go . . .

At O'Hara's corner farm we are currently settling into the winter season, and all the holiday partying that goes with it. This evening I am making fabulous smelling stock from the carcass of our first homegrown, free-range, Bourbon Red Thanksgiving turkey. A fairly small turkey by supermarket standards, tipping the scale at 8 pounds, it was nevertheless very flavorful, and provided an overflowing platter of meat for our intimate Thanksgiving dinner enjoyed by my parents, my sister and her husband, my paternal grandparents, and my husband and I. Other homegrown foods at this meal were: sweet potatoes and mashed white potatoes from our garden, and green beans from mom and dad's garden. Everything else was home-made, including cornbread and sausage stuffing, and cloverleaf and cinnamon yeast rolls, and pumpkin pie. We were proud to say that our meal was about 80% locally grown.

After a busy summer and fall, we are enjoying moving into winter with freezers and pantry shelves stocked with our garden's bounty. Since weather no longer favors outside work, we have moved our attention inside, and have decided to refinish our living room. Luckily this does not involve a major remodel, but just removal of wallpaper, repair of plaster, applications of new paint and trim, application of brick veneer to our plastered chimney and installation of a laminate wood floor. We have taken most of the wallpaper down now, and it is exciting to be to start visualizing what the new set-up will look like.

Our "fabulous smelling stock" cooking.