( our hearts and best hopes go to everyone impacted by the Covid-19 virus.
Just because we're doing non-Covid things, doesn't mean we have forgotten the folks suffering from the virus. We also really, really appreciate all those folks out there keeping things going and keeping everyone as healthy as possible )
May 10th, 2020
Still Staying At Home
all this at home time and still a long "to do" list
We've been good at staying home and not spreading the virus about. We've pretty much been at home for almost two months now. It's kinda comfortable, but the whole daily dynamic has become a lot less dynamic as far as regular life is concerned. I'm not complaining, mind! The healthcare folks are worn to a thin thread and their stress levels must be unimaginable. Our interactions with other people are now a lot less stressful, not that they were overly stressful before the virus, but now things are even more mellow. We get to wave at one neighbor and talk across the driveway, which is much more than the regulatory six feet so we're properly 'socially distanced'. Another neighbor drops by for occasional visits. She lives two houses over so that's about 200' feet away which kinda is almost like family and she doesn't go out much, either. She lives alone and visiting us is pretty much her only interaction with real people, I think. There's still 'face coverings' and the six foot social distancing so we're still being good in any case.
So, what have we been doing since the last "New News" update? Mostly working on the various projects around here such as the extreme fixer upper that we've been fixing and upping since late last summer, a new bunny hutch- although that's only half done, the sheep fencing - although that's only half done and gardening. Pretty much the same projects we've been working on for awhile
There's been website coding happening, you may notice the occasional change to the website. I'm also thinking of adding a 'gardening' tab since a lot of posts seem to include gardening. It would be better to put some things in groups after they've been on the blog page so folks can see them later as a group without having to go look through several 'Old News'. There should also be a better way to code the navigation. Coding and editing pictures for the website can suck up a lot of time but, I only work on the other projects when it's daylight and not raining, so computering is good for non-daylight time.
The Newest Raised Bed Garden
knee high corn
This is the newest raised bed garden - our 'apocalypse' garden that was built since we started this 'stay at home' because of the virus - and it seems to be doing quite well. According to the continental United States 'flyover states' wisdom (i.e. the concensus of Midwesterners), the theory is that if your corn is knee high by the Fourth of July, there will be enough time for it to grow ears before frost. So according to that wisdom, the corn here is doing exceptionally well. Not that we have frost, but should we have been on the mainland, we'd be really happy with the growth of this corn. Grass - and corn is a very grass like sorta plant - does seem to grow well around here. There used to be sugar cane plantations all over, that's another 'grassy' kinda crop. Wonder why there's not a lot of sweet corn being grown around here? There are corn worms which get in the tips of the corn, but if the tips are clipped the ears not only look nicer, but no more worm.
Well, anyway, this particular variety is an open pollinated heirloom variety called 'True Gold' from Baker Creek Seeds so we can save the seeds of the best ears for the next crop. It's supposed to be a tasty corn, we will find out.
So far the only things we've added to the soil of this garden is 'bunny berries', it didn't even get the usual amendments of oyster shell and bio-char. We will see how it goes, maybe the soil is fertile enough that just bunny berries can be all the required fertilizers? Perhaps for the first crop, anyway.
But, anyway, the new raised bed garden is growing well and I'm thinking of starting the next one sometime soon. It's on the project list, just not up at the top yet.
Happy 'True Gold' variety of corn
The corn is fenced in to keep the chickens out. It's also good to grow corn in blocks instead of rows since it's wind pollinated and there's more chance of the ears of corn being pollinated if it's in a block. There's also a few beans and watermelons planted with the corn in the garden. The beans can grow on the fence or climb up the corn if they want since they're 'pole' beans instead of 'bush' beans. Not sure what the watermelons are going to do I don't think they climb things. I may have to arrange nets if they set fruit outside the raised bed area but before their vines reach the ground.
This garden is a modified version of the 'Three Sisters' method of planting. The story is the First Folks (everyone living in the continental United States before those European folks showed up) used to plant corn, beans and squash together. The beans would fix nitrogen in the soil to help the corn to grow. The corn would provide a trellis for the beans to grow on and the corn would shade the squash so the summer sun wouldn't dry it out. The squash is supposed to block out the weeds from growing around the corn and shade the corn roots to keep in the moisture. At least, I think that's the benefits the plants are supposed to trade off, guess I could go look it up.
In any case, there's corn, beans and watermelons all closely planted in the little raised bed garden. I'm keeping a close eye on it to make sure it has enough water and fertilizer since it's so overplanted.
a fun reddish 'Sport' color of nasturtium?
it seems much darker and redder than the usual oranges
There's more color difference in real life than in the pictures, but oh wellos! I'll try taking more pictures later.
Generally the nasturtiums which just sort of appear in the front of the house (where there's more moisture and shade) are an orange color. This one showed up as a much darker reddish-orange instead of the lighter orange color of the rest of them. I did save some seeds from it and planted them over at the Little House since that will be further away from the regular orange ones. Hmm, the seeds probably cross pollinated with the regular orange ones since the bees seem to like them, so should I move the whole reddish-orange one over to the other garden? Then when the plant is pollinated it would be more likely to be self pollinated and more likely to be the darker reddish orange color.
I'm not sure if this is a different variety which showed up - since I plant as many types of nasturtiums as I can find. However, the one which keeps coming back is the basic orange one. Maybe that means all the ones which were planted cross pollinated with each other and the orange color is dominant over all the others? I don't know a thing about the color genetics of nasturtiums, but I'd guess the orange is the dominant color.
Three Baby Birds
they are getting bigger
They are growing little feathers now so other than not being quite as ugly, they are becoming green. I think these are Japanese White Eye baby birds, that's a small green bird that is pretty common in this area. They like to perch on tall grass stems and eat grass seeds among other things. Not sure if the mum bird feeds them seeds or bugs, though, since I've never seen her near the nest. Somebody makes a lot of commentary from the hedge, though, when I get near the nest.
The pictures were taken several days apart, the little birds seem to grow really quickly. They barely fit in the nest anymore. They're very quiet little birds, they don't make any noise at all that I've heard.
Empty nest!
just a couple days later and they've gone somewhere
I don't think they are big enough to fly yet, but what do I know about baby birds? They aren't in the nest anymore. They may have just moved up into the hedge, though, since there was still commentary from the top of the hedge when I went to go peek in the nest again. Probably they ran out of room in the nest and have gone to live in the hedge until they can figure out the flying thing. Either that or a cat ate them? I'm guessing they're in the hedge though, otherwise there'd be no reason for the hedge to have birds that scold folks for being in the area.
After a couple of weeks, I'll possibly go collect the nest out of the hedge and save it as a curiosity since they used a lot of bunny fluff to make their nest. Maybe I could put it next to the display of Hula Bunny yarn at the shop to show folks the many uses of bunny fluff?
A closet in the bath!
it didn't have one before
One of the reasons for the bath renovation was that there wasn't any closet in the bath at all. Although the main reason was because it was in total disrepair to begin with, but since we were redoing pretty much everything anyway, it seemed an excellent time to fix the lack of storage in the bath.
The theme of the fixer-upper is 'tropical cottage', hmm, well, that or '50's cottage', so this bath closet fits right in there with the overall cottage theme. It's a touch on the 70's side with the tan tile, I think if it were a true 50's style it would be white with an almost primary color. But, it is the tile that we found at Restore, so it was what was affordable. Have you looked at the price of tile these days? Maybe it's just tile in Hawaii, though, since it has to be shipped in. But, this turned out lovely. The little detail on the bottom of the door is nice, too.
I think the door not going to the floor is so something like a vacuum cleaner or dirty laundry basket can fit in there? Not sure, I'm doing the exterior of the Little House and my S.O. (Significant Other) is doing the interior stuff. At least, so far that's how things have been going, we may both end up working on the interior before it's finished? Or maybe both working on the exterior? Guess we will find out before the project is finished.
I keep thinking it would be nice to move into the Little House, but we're supposed to be fixing it up as a rental. Sigh! Again, the reason is because the house we're living in isn't nice enough to rent. Maybe while we have a renter in the Little House we can fix up the other house and then when the renter moves out, we can then move in and then rent out the other house? Guess we will find out, eventually. Otherwise, perhaps we can build a brand new house up in back and rent out both of them and live in the new house?
Well, this is supposed to be about the bath restoration (renovation?) so here's a couple more pictures of the continuing Bath Project:
Toilet & Tub
new fixtures for a restored bath
The toilet isn't installed yet, but the plumbing is in place for it, that's the black circle on the floor next to the milk crate. It's easier to work on the floor with a handy milk crate to sit on, that's kinda a work tool, I guess. Like a ladder, but different. As you can tell from the location of the drain, the toilet will be next to the wall facing the sink which is behind the viewpoint of the picture. Sitting on the toilet, it looks like folks will be able to reach into the closet to get more toilet paper if they need it. That may come in really handy at some point.
The geometric floral tiles go up to the same level as the wainscotting around the rest of the bath. When we started the project, we thought we'd gotten enough wainscotting to finish the job, but it looked like we would need a few more sheets to finish the back bedroom. It was hard to find and we'd just bought the stuff a few months before. It turns out this wainscot paneling isn't going to be brought into the state anymore! We had a hard time locating it and finally found a few left at a hardware store on the other side of the island. Guess we won't be putting wainscotting in any more houses! Wonder what other 'standard' sorts of construction materials aren't going to be brought in anymore? Doing a special import of stuff triples the cost usually, but we sometimes can't even find it even if we were willing to pay the shipping.
I've been kinda surprised by the things that seem to not be available these days. This isn't just from the virus, this seems to be a shift in construction materials being stocked at the stores. We tried to find 'tileboard' which is a fairly inexpensive paneling that looks like tile and is waterproof. I saw some at the hardware store about a decade ago, although they only had it in white and not the blue that is in the other 1950's house that we have. Tile board is perfect for putting around tubs and showers, but even though it's available in the continental United States, it's not being brought into Hawaii anymore and those mainland people that have it, won't ship it to Hawaii. How weird is that? Do they think we are a foreign country> Apparently, wainscotting will now be on the 'extinct in Hawaii' list.
Lanai Restoration Project
beginning the railings
It was a toss up between starting on the roof or starting on the railings. Since the railings would hold the roof posts steady, the railing was decided on to be the next phase of the project. Kinda makes sense when you consider that most construction projects start from the botttom and work up.
Originally, I had planned on putting panels of tempered glass under the top railings since I have some old sliding glass doors around here, but that would take a couple extra weeks, so now there's crosses under the top rail and there will probably be horse fence in that area to keep things from falling through the braces. It would also be harder to sweep off the lanai if the glass were there since the glass would go from the lanai floor up to just under the top rail of the railing. Braces and horse fence also look more 'cottage', there aren't a lot of 'cottages' that have things like glass railings. That would be much more an item in a 'Modern' or even a contemporary house style.
Guess we're pretty much caught up to the current state of the current projects, since it's daylight, I guess I should aught to get over there and continue with putting up the lanai railings.
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