11 Acre Wood Blog

Various notes from the Sanders family

Farm Pup

6:57 pm on Monday, August 31, 2009

Some friends of ours wanted to give Noah a miniature Australian Shepherd to be his farm dog.

Noah named him Blake from one of the characters out of the book Rora. 

He was eight weeks old when we got him.

Noah takes him pretty much wherever he goes around the farm. To the chickens, down to the garden, etc… Trying to get him used to being around it all.

He’ll spend hours chewing on a smoked pig’s ear Momma got him. LOL!

The boys also love to play with Blake. He races all around the yard with them and normally you can find him right in the middle of a pile of wrestling boys on the floor. J 

At least at this age, he’s not super hyper (which we are grateful for). 

Molly hasn’t quite taken a liking to him. She’s sort of a snobbish old lady when Blake comes up and wants to play. LOL!

The Framers Finish

5:04 pm on Sunday, August 30, 2009

Takin’ in the view from the back porch.

Wesley putting in the balusters.

Andrew screwin’ in the decking on the platform for the stairs.

Those are the kitchen windows.

Ethan’s card creation.

Learning from their older brother.

Our fiberglass columns.

The only sad part was that our favorite cement leaf imprint got covered up by a column.

Daddy getting a quote from the heating and air guy.

These dear creatures have been through everything around here. J They don’t seem to mind though (which is a good thing).

LOL!

Almost finished.

We moved the ping pong table down to the basement. Games are now back in full swing.

See the chimney pipe?

One door is up in the basement. 

Momma and Daddy found a good deal on birch and hickory cabinets for the laundry room and guest bath. 

Momma’s fancy laundry room door. J She had gotten it on clearance a while back.

The sound of sawing and nail guns became our sounds of early morning. 

Making sure it’s level.

Next week, Lord willing, our neighbor is coming to do the rock work on our fireplace. Also he is planning on building our front steps from our rock pile.

I’m not quite sure what color the columns are going to be painted yet. It kinda depends on the color siding we choose, which we don’t know yet either. J 

Doesn’t the porch look nice? I think it’s gonna be one of our favorite places to hang out. 

The stairs completed.

Pretty much dried in now. Yesterday and today (8-27 & 8-28) the plumbers have been workin’ here. In the next few weeks the plans are to get the siding and metal roof up. Y’all know me well enough that you can rest assured, you’ll be kept updated with pictures.

Y’all Tired….

7:28 pm on Tuesday, August 25, 2009

 …of house pictures yet? J 

Twenty-four hours after you put on the salt, you’re suppose to dissolve what’s left of it out with a pressure washer. That way the salt won’t keep eating away at the concrete and create bigger holes than you wanted.

Busyness….busyness….

Instructions by Momma.

The final result-leaf imprints with a speckled finish. It turned out well and adds some subtle character to the front porch.

Recently Gabriel’s been letting his turkeys out to roam during the day and putting them up at night. We’re used to having chickens about, but turkeys have different character traits. They crack us up. LOL!

Wesley finished the bottom of our stairs. I really like the final result! It will be one of our high traffic areas. 

Turkeys really mow down your grass.

The small window in the boy’s room.

Building the stairs up to the back porch.

Our little guys loved to sit and watch the process. 

Last Thursday, I believe, our fireplace was delivered and installed. 

Up from bush-hogging the borrow field. 

At this moment, a fireplace doesn’t sound inviting. I’m sure it will come in very handy though, this winter.

It’s a game of “follow the leader”.

Our fireplace is actually an efficient wood furnace.  It brings in outside air and supposedly won’t send all our warm air up the chimney.

We had them leave the back porch ceiling where it wasn’t dropped down, so they are reattaching some pieces to make the rafters even.

Installing our “light windows”.

This is supposed to be storage space, but we are thinking now that it would make a lovely sewing nook.

Here’s the view out the window shown above.

Music room window.

Framing in the fireplace.

A view from the girl’s room.

                 “Above all else, guard your heart, 
                         for it is the wellspring of life.”
                                  ~Proverbs 4:23~
       

Stay Away From "Widows" and Doors..

7:09 am on Tuesday, August 25, 2009

…as our NOAA weather radio advises. J 

If only we had some archers to post behind those openings to stand guard.

The roof nearly blacked in.

Here’s a glimpse of what’s goin’ on at the back of the house.

The front porch before it was poured (obviously).

I wonder how many times these concrete trucks have been up our driveway in the past 2 months? Quite a few, I must say.

Daddy and Cleveland discussing plans concerning the day’s work.

More concrete!

Our neighbors drove up and we got to meet them. A very sweet couple!

Our “castle-ish”  (a new word for your dictionary J) part of the house.

Our windows are delivered.

The grand entrance through a window opening. J 

Can you tell what the boys did the evening before?

Momma was very creative on our front porch. She’d read about how someone did a salt finish in their concrete and pressed leaves in it. So she decided to give it a try. 

The experiment begins.

Voila!

Momma told Mr. Phillip that he could now add this to his resume. To which he responded, “What resume?” LOL!

Turning out nicely. Don’t you think?

The loft area window in.

The boys worked around the yard tidying up one morning. Noah weed wacked around the barn and it looked really nice.

       ”Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, 
                  who daily bears our burdens.”
                    ~Psalm 68:19~

Concrete and Contraptions

7:48 pm on Sunday, August 23, 2009

The basement slab being poured.        

Mr. Phillip and his worker, Gordon.

Able to kinda see what the upstairs is going to look like.

The little guys always had a fun time with Andrew on his breaks or in the evenings. They shot a snapping turtle in the pond, set racoon traps in the garden, collected eggs,  etc…

After the basement slab was done, they poured the footers for the front porch.

A little chat (no tellin’ what was being said. J)

Wesley’s contraption.

Plywood seesaw.

Up it goes…….

Pull hard Eman!

Books and Sanders!

Totally out.

Doesn’t it look good?

The back porch.

Our view.

Michael Jr. and Andrew work on the roofing.

Wesley needing to make another cut.

The rattlesnake skin hatband Eman made.

Blackin’ in.

Shooter.

Cutting a block to fit.

Building up the front porch.

Good-night y’all!

Recap

7:34 pm on Saturday, August 22, 2009

Alright, we’re going back a little to give everyone a recap of the progress made on the house in the past couple weeks. In the next several posts we’ll work towards looking at pictures of the house’s present state which is “dried in”. 

A common scene nowadays. J 

Momma and Daddy drove and picked up the doors one afternoon.

Talking stair plans.

Those are some cool lookin’ clouds!

Ham….

Footers for the front porch.

Ready to be poured.

We’re startin’ to look like a lumber yard. LOL!

The upstairs loft area.

Our big open space.

Every evening Momma and Daddy go out to check over that day’s work. 

Dirt piles + Bikes = Races!

A Marked Pigeon….

7:23 pm on Friday, August 21, 2009

….was found in our basement a couple weeks ago. The boys brought it to the house to let everyone look at it and hold it. It was really pretty. 

God’s amazing handiwork shines through in the color of these feathers.

Ready?

“Fly little birdie…..fly!!!”

Hoop House

6:07 am on Thursday, August 20, 2009

Last January we’d purchased a hoop house hoping to be able to put it up and get a head start on our Spring crop. Well, with us moving and all, the hoop house building project got pushed down on the list and it stayed in it’s box until last weekend. Our cousins Rob, Luke, Daniel and Andrew had volunteered to come help Noah put it up. So they came and worked Friday and Saturday. Edgar and Willie also drove up to help. They wanted to learn how it was done in case they ever needed to build one on their farm. I know Noah was very grateful for all the help. What a huge blessing!

Friday
Uncovering the parts from the barn and loading into the back of the truck.

Noah and his new farm pup (more about him in a coming post).

Working on the roof.

The top of the front porch.

Getting started.

*Starting the job with prayer.

*Tractors come in handy everywhere.

*Carefully driving in the posts. If you hit a rock it could bend the pipe.

Dan securing it in….

Break station…

On its way to being dried in.

We had nine vehicles parked in our yard that day. Eleven including some workers who were in and out throughout the day. J 

Team #1

Team #2

“Boy….this heat exhausts a man!” LOL!

Who will finish first?

Noah and his buddy.

*Noah spraying okra splinters off my hands and arms. I was taking over market prep. for Noah that week, so I was down in the garden picking all morning.

How many hands does it take? J 

Art.

Eman.

“What next boss?”

Lookin’ good.

*Grace and Dan riding up to get the generator. After sending the little guys on a zillion trips back and forth from the garden to the barn  (about a quarter of a mile) charging screw gun batteries, it was time to upgrade to a more consistent source of power! As always, the right tools make any job easier.

Refueling……..

*Hurrying so they can go swimming in the pond before supper.

Tidying up…..

….and finishing a few details before stopping for the day.

Caught in a web.

There were 18 of us for supper. As we say, the more the merrier!

Saturday
Mostly blacked in.

Sideway heart.

Putting up the plastic.

Edgar lifts Noah up.

Melons.

*The wind kept catching the plastic like a big sail and it took all the guys to keep it under control.

Crankin’ up the generator.

*After getting it on, they found out that they were lacking about 4 feet of plastic on one side. Whoops, we must have been given the wrong size. Noah called though, and they are going to send us some more plastic to make up the difference. 

After lunch our cousins had to leave and so Noah, Edgar and Willie finished up in the afternoon.

The hoop house basically creates a 26′x48′ covered garden that will allow us to grow various crops throughout the winter. It’s tall enough that we can drive our tractor in it to work the dirt.

It’s so neat to see the house from the dam now.

*Taken by Willie R.’s camera

Fly Infestation

2:56 pm on Wednesday, August 19, 2009

My personal fly swatters.

One the hunt for the hundreds of flies that ‘delight’ us with their company in the barn each day.

Talkin’ about flies, I better go see if my muffins are cool enough now to bag up. 

Going Down In History….

11:26 am on Tuesday, August 18, 2009

….as the longest catch-up post ever!

Are you ready? Here we go:

The past month the Morton men have been framing our house. They rented a condo nearby where their wives could stay. The normal routine has been to work here Mon-Fri and then go home for the weekend. A couple weekends ago we girls (Bekah, Grace and me) had the pleasure of riding back down with Mr. Michael for a little visit. It was a delightful weekend!

Shelling and blanching peas and cutting and dehydrating okra from their gardens. 

Getting a tour of the new additions around the farm. Here are some of the girls chatting as the rain is pouring down outside.

Darth and me after our adventurous ride on the dirt bike in the summer shower. J Thanks for the fun time, Dee!

Supper preparations. It’s so much fun to just join in someone else’s daily routine. 

Paul practicing for our after supper game of……..

……..charades. LOL! Our very poor demonstration of “fuzz”. J Hey, but we got “Tiger W00ds” later. 

We were playing with the Apples to Apples cards, so we got some unusual things to act out. Here is Darthy and Martha’s fabulous “Bungee Jump” act!

Trazy…..just trazy……… J  

Cellphone?

A giant squid attacks Grace. LOL!

Sam was doing such a great job, but got so excited one time that he looked at his card and then turned around and said, “Fireworks!!” instead of acting it out. It sorta turned out to be the joke of the evening….

Sista act.

Second story view of the garden.

Saturday afternoon tea.

After church on Sunday, we all went back and packed up our belongings. Mr. Morton was having to travel to Texas that week to pick up some cows and the older boys were going to be working on our house. So last minute he decided to take Mrs. Jeanine with him and the younger boys to Texas which meant the girls got to come home and stay the week with us! 

Here we are stopped to eat some pizza on our drive home.

Addie.

Self-portrait.

Grace and Martha.

It was a delight to get to meet the Kendrick brothers and their dear families who came in to enjoy some pizza as well. Our family, as well as many others, have been blessed by their films (a.k.a. Facing the Giants, Fireproof, Flywheel).  

Alex Kendrick…….

….and his sweet wife. They were very kind to let us interrupt their dinner and take their picture.  

And guess what we had brought in the car to watch?

 LOL!

Getting home pretty late.

Work was done on the house that week.

Joel F. came to help Noah around the farm for the week.

One morning we girls had the opportunity to go visit Kress and Rachel at the condo. 

I didn’t get a picture, but we had the kitchen table filled with cards and a huge game of nertz going. Thanks girls for the wondeful time!

Michael Jr. built these miniature retaining walls with rocks from dirt piles. Isn’t it neat? 

Wesley doing the footers for the porch support posts.

Another outing we went on that week, was a tour of a nearby Bluebell Creamery.

Forward ho!

Isn’t the building pretty?

Our souvenir hats from the tour. J 

The Morton sisters.

No pictures were allowed during the tour, but we could take them in the parlor afterwards.

Thanks for taking us, Momma!

Ready to be poured.

House tours.

A little sapling growing from a 2×4. 

Down below the guys are target practicing.

Our view from the loft upstairs.

Getting a scenic view.

Looking into the kitchen area.

Another afternoon some of the boys got to go to a shoot.

I think they had fun.

Grace took the camera when she, Adeline and Martha took a walk to the garden to gather flowers. 

We were very sad when everybody had to go home at the end of the week. We were kinda spoiled with all the help (each of us girls had a Morton girl to help us with our chores and Noah had Joel all week). We all looked at each other when everyone was gone and said, “Now what?” J 

Thank you Lord for friendships and wonderful memories………..

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