Whew! What a weekend! Upfront, I'll say I likely forgot some things... we did a bunch of stuff this weekend and apparently my brain is incapable of remembering them all!
We worked on the machine shed some more... we watered the stone dust and its made a nice base now... I drove the lawn tractor back and forth over it to help pack it and its nice and stable and firm... not quite concrete, but a heck of a lot less work and $$ and dang close! :)
We also stapled up some hardware cloth (finer than chicken wire, bigger holes than screening) over the windows. Once the doors are up this will help discourage anyone from moving in. One window has a proper glass window in it and we'll leave that, but the other has only the hardware cloth in it so far, so we'll have to cut a piece of plexi glass to screw over that one to avoid the worst of the winter winds and weather getting into the machine shed while still letting in light.
We also bought most of the supplies to start construction on the doors of the machine shed... the plywood... the pressure treat that's needed to frame around the opening... I still need to pick up paint and get painting it in stages, so all the surfaces are covered. I plan to go into town later and get the paint.
Oh and I lied to my Dad *gasp* on the phone the other day when he asked what colours I was going to paint the outbuildings... ok not LIE exactly... just changed my mind... we were originally going to paint them barn red, barn green and white.... I decided that was boring and that I wanted something a bit different. So now, the parts that are red, will be painted burgundy (for those of you that dont know what colour that is... think red wine ish)... the parts that are currently white, will be painted a cream colour... and some of the parts that are not eyt painted will be navy blue. These colours will eventually go on all the outbuildings (the ones that wont be torn down!) in various combinations. I think it will look nice... maybe nicer than traditional colours... we'll see... at least it'll be DIFFERENT :)
We also bought and laid landscape fabric under the tarped building where I plan to park in the crummy weather... wait we're not going to GET crummy weather HERE, are we??? ha! Shanw cut the grass very short first and then we laid out the fabric and tossed a couple shovels of stone dust on it to hold it down. We'll work on that this week in the evenings... hard work like that helps Shawn forget his day at work and relax a bit more... oh he'll be relaxed this week... perhaps to the point of comatose ;)
We went to TSC in Arnprior this weekend also... bought some step in posts (the short ones with the little spadey part that you step them in with) as Shawn needs some for some of his Halloween display he's planning. They are handy when doing a variety of things, especially when something you're trying to explain to your spouse requires a visual demonstration... sometimes a picture just isn't enough! We had some at our last house, but they got bent all to heck from all the dumb kids walking by the sidewalk, apparently they were great fun to play with at Halloween, with the caution tape on them. Idiots.
Saturday we also went to the Carp farmers market... its a small market and very different from the Waterloo county markets that I'm used to.... but interesting and I'd go back. There are more crafts and stuff like that... less farm fresh produce (although there is some... and the time of year might be affecting that! plus we're in *eastern* Ontario!) There was an absolutely awesome stand there... the girl with the most cake and it was amazingly aweSOME!
We got a small vanilla bean cake that was just beautiful. I took a couple pics and have posted them here! The major drawback is the price... VERY pricey. Have a look around her website though, its really neat... look under "cakes" and "special occasions"... there's a RAT CAKE she made for some guy!! Shawn and I both thought that would make an awesome Halloween cake :)
While back on the Halloween topic.... Shawn and I were experimenting with making more "scary people" this weekend. We have Antoinette, but she was a ton of work and we're looking for an easier, quicker way to make people. We are experimenting using plain wire and so far, so good.... (when Mom was here we looked at a magazine that made people out of chicken wire, but Shawn and I thought that would be a little more than what we wanted to do ... at least this year!) We'll see how it goes... so far, not bad.
I also got to talk to my Mom, my Dad and Jess this weekend... all on the same call!! My parents were kind and generous enough to invite my girl to stay over this weekend and feed her well and take her shopping to pick up some things she needed. Mom and Dad sounded happy to have her and Jess sounded happy to be back in the "warm security of the family" if only for a day or two. And *I* was happy that someone was checking up on her, feeding her and reassuring me that she hasn't dropped 100 lbs since I saw her a couple weeks ago ;)
Its working out o.k. being far from her... but really, its not what either of us signed up for she she applied to university last year on Boxing Day. We both thought I'd only be ONE hour away... and I know I'd be happier about that, than 4.5 - 5 hours!! But apparently things change and life goes on and all that crap... and we're (meaning ME) managing. I will be VERY glad to see my girl again at Thanksgiving though!! VERY glad.
*blink blink blink* change of subject....
For everyone that has been to my house and to this area we live in.... you'll know its kind of a strange little area... strange little people... strange ideas... very small town... very rural, even so close to Kanata and Ottawa... well last night, we had an interesting experience that was rather amusing. Now that I have your attention, you'll have to wait... I have work to do, errands to run and I'll post that story separately later! :)
The ONLY hint I'll give is... I spent the entire morning vacuuming out my mini van! ;)
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2 comments:
Hey!! I'm looking forward to the first painted out building. Those colours sound GREAT!!
So, stonedust works. OK I'll be giving it a try. I wonder if it will work over sand????????
I can't comment on the parenting thing. I know you are very close to your family and the 'homesick' feeling must be just awful as both a daughter and a Mother.
Hallowe'en... just don't care. Bah humbug :)
Looking forward to your 'cleaned out the mini van' story.
Jayne
Jayne, thanks for your vote of confidence on the colours... I took a bit of flack at home depot when I picked up the paint... several different people wondered what I was painting outside in those colours... I told them outbuildings... they didnt say much else, but there was definitely no approval!! I even said to like the 3rd person, "I'm bucking tradition and not doing red, green and white!" Painting starts today, we'll see how it goes.
Stonedust is awesome, I cant say enough good things about it... but you DO need to put it on a firm base...I wouldn't put it on sand... it should be scraped down to firm soil / rock or whatever and then put in the stonedust. I would guess if you put in on sand, there would be a good chance it would erode away from the sand pulling away from underneath (if that makes sense??).
Halloween is definitely Shawn's thing... I dont know that I would do much if I were on my own... but he likes it and it IS fun... we'll see if its fun this year... here... I'm thinking it might be less fun because we won't have the foot traffic through, but we'll see.
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