Mad photo props to Rowan Bee. The first and last photo are from HarbourWaterFest in Halifax in June. It was the last date of our tour. Cud and I were screaming in eachothers faces out of excitement. Too bad you missed it. Good times...

The rest of the photos are from Rowan's visit about a month ago. We had a super great time. There's a sweet photo of Cud and I and our first egg!!! Silflay laid that one, right outside so we could all see her. It was weird, but totally awesome.

the "living room" is really starting to look good!!

living room, originally uploaded by storyallegory.

We put up a nice high window shelf a while back above the couch, which is amazing for storing zines, extra lamps, books, and plants. It really makes the space feel even taller than before, which is awesome.
It'll be nice when we have the new livingroom, but this is great too for now. Cozy cozy...

perry gave us a canope!

0719101223-00, originally uploaded by storyallegory.

So we made an outdoor living room. It's really great. we had to take this carseat out of cud's van the other day anyways, so we made it into a nice couch. It's a really nice spot to sit in the mornings while drinking coffee.

lots of flowerbeds~!!

0720101435-00, originally uploaded by storyallegory.

I've been planting lots of small flowerbeds around the house. we filled in the "moat" that laurie dug us that's never had water in it, and I've been planting lots of perrenials.
I'm hoping that in a few years the perrenials I've been planting around the outside of the house will start to really grow! Lots of sage, some clematis. Should be pretty!

lots of visitors!!
Its been so nice having reece and travis here for the past few weeks. Theyre the best houseguests ever!! It feels like a family. Dinner together every night. They pitch tons on food, clean up after themselves!! Oh, its how it should be...
Weve had lots of other visitors the past week too! Rodeo and lucky from calgary, byron and carina from montreal, and jonahs coming thiss weekend, as well as nolan and his friend. Its very bust, but nice. Been planting lots of perrenials around the house. Sage especially. I hope it takes over the yard.
This week we re getting our driveway done all proper like. Still dirt, but with a big turnaround at the end, which will be amazing. The after that, the well gets dug!
I laid the first stones in place today for the new extension also, which im soo excites about. Its going to be a slow build, moneys tight, but im hoping its done by the end of the summer.
Cud and i also got an old freezer from his boss this weekend that we re going to make into an in-ground root cellar. Reece has this great book on root cellars called "root cellaring: natural cold storage of fruits and vegetables". Its really helpful on learning how to have a nice steady flow of fresh veggies all year long.
Oh! Also, we got our real propane stove hooked up last week, and reece and i did some test baking in it! He made mango orange and fresh lavender cake. It was soo delicious!!

chickens part II

chickens, originally uploaded by storyallegory.

Our ladies...

my first sprouts!

my first sprouts!, originally uploaded by storyallegory.

So, this year I've planted my first garden ever!!!! I'm soo excited about it, even though it's only about 5 x 4 or something. I started most of it from seeds, which i germinated in the house. These were my first sprouts! I think they're beets.

our lovely kitchen

kitchen, originally uploaded by storyallegory.

So, i've been spending a lot of time lately "prettying up" the house. Lots of plants, art, shelves!!! it's finally really starting to feel like home.
Here's a photo of the kitchen.

A recent photo of our house. we just built a new screen door. if you click on it you can see the full image. you can also see the chicken coop and leelou's outside area.

Chickens!!!!!

So, we got some chickens a few weeks ago. 4 to be exact. Two Rhode Island Reds, and two brown chickens. They're names are Spazz and Silflay (the reds), and Thistle and Boxcar (the browns).
Our friend Rowan was visiting the weekend we decided to pick them up. The coop at been ready for a week or so, but we wanted to make sure everything was perfectly in place and their run had only been finished for a day or two.
We got the chickens from a farm on the west end of the island. It seemed like a great farm, with a great selection over the phone. But when we got there, we really got the runaround. They had told me over the phone that adult chickens were 5 dollars each, but when we got there, they upped the price to 7, and refused to sell us the type we had asked for over the phone (these pretty chickens called Barred Rocks).
I almost didn't even want to bother, but we had driven almost 2 hours to get there, and once we got out to the barn, i knew I had to buy at least a few.
In the doorway, layed a dead white laying hen, Rowan almost stepped on her on the way in. The barn had no light or windows, and each small pen had two hens and a rooster of different breeds. The pen with the white laying hens, was very overcrowded, and most of the hens were missing all their feathers on their necks from pecking eachother. We walked past another dead white hen sitting on a table. The barn smelled awful, and seemed like it had never been cleaned. Through a hallway, we could see their "mink farm" operation. Little baby minks in tiny, large gauge wire pens. The lady also had what she called a "pet fox". which was a fox in a chicken pen (which were also made of very large-gauge wire, not comfortable for walking on at all, with no hay). He was all alone in there in the dark, and i felt so bad for him. We took our four chickens (two of them were missing feathers from being pecked at by the roosters), and got outta there as quick as we could.
I'd like to go back to that farm and free some of those animals. Or maybe report them. I'm not sure how legal their operation would be, but then again, I know that factory farming is worse, yet it's legal.
Never-the-less, we now have 4 chickens who have a good home. The two browns seem to lay pretty regularly, the Reds, not so much. I think they're pretty old. the lady lied and told us they were a year or two. I should have known better than to believe her. Regardless, they'll live a happy life with us, and hopefully die of old age.

Big Plans

So, we have some big plans for our house. Currently, our cabin is 10 x 14. A little small for year-round use, and Cud and in not wanting to kill eachother now and again. So, we're building an extension. It's going to be a 12 x 20 addition, including a 12 x 12 living room and 8 x 12 spare room. It's only going to be one story high, with a living roof for my herb garden. we're planning on putting in a door in our upstairs loft bedroom with a walkway that leads to the new roof. we're very excited about it. The house will then be sort of boomarang shaped, with full sun coverage on all sides. i can't wait!!

Also, some other things we've been working on recently have been the new greenhouse that Cud and our friend Beyon built a week ago. It's very cool. This week i plan to dig up the ground its on to get it ready for planting next year. I'm thinking peppers, and tomatoes?

My small garden patch is all planted and doing well as well. I had a bit of a problem with slugs a few weeks ago, but the nice ladies at the garden centre in Montague told me to make a trail of coarse salt around the perimeter, and the slugs would dry up and die if they tried to crawl over it. So far so good, but its a bit tricky i find when it rains. The slugs love the rain, the salt does not. The garden this year has zucchini, brussel sprouts, parsnips, beets, and peppers, and I also planted some cherry tomatoes near the house. Very excited for the vegetables to finally come!! next year i'm hoping to plant three times the size of a garden, and hopefully have a spring, summer and fall harvest.
Pictures soon!