Little bit, here and there.

It has been several months since, I have updated any activity on the Farm. There are several reasons for this. 1. we have not been on the farm. 2. my Mom had her knee replaced which requires a lot of Physical Therapy. (Which my Dad goes with her, so it delays his time to tinker) 3. my Dad injured his shoulder, so it has slowed him down and he also has been going to Physical Therapy. 4. I personally have had some medical issues. I have been having severe headaches all day every day. The headaches are very similar to a horrible Migraine. I have been to numerous Doctors and appointments trying to find relief. At this time I do not know what medical condition I have or the solution. Once I do, I will most likely do a blog post about it. Once I have those details I will be able to divulge further details. 5. And finally Chad has injured himself. He was at a Kennel Training for work and forgot he was not as young as he used to be. He jumped out of a truck bed and injured his knee. (Still waiting to see if it will require surgery)

So now that I have updated y’all on the boring stuff time to move on to the reasons you are here reading my post. As most of you reading this post know, I have a tiny hobby (obsession/addiction) with anything related to cooking. So when we purchased the Amish farm, it was extremely minimalistic in all areas. Well I have a ton of kitchen gadgets, utensils, pots, pans, cook books, spices, cups, bowls…ok ok you get it. So I will have to have several things in my dream kitchen. Number 1 priority is pretty storage. Number 2 is useful counter space.

I have given my Dad my vision of what I NEED…. (not want) in my kitchen. So he has begun to custom make the kitchen cabinets. Now mind you, this is all being done with him having an injured arm having to take my Mom and him to PT, Hunter to work, along with everyday Farm chores. So it will not be an over night project. When it comes to the cabinets we could have just went and bought cabinets at Lowes, Home Depot or some where, but where is the true vintage “farm house look” and design for that? If y’all recall in earlier post about a year ago Chad bought a Pallet of rough cut hardwood boards from the Amish lumber yard down the road.

The wood is a large mix of hardwoods Oak, Elm, Beech and not 100% sure what all. When we bought it was not seasoned yet. So now that the boards have had the time to season they can be used. Here is where my next dilemma has come. I have watched, researched and obsessed on every Pinterest, TV Show, Magazines and you name it images of Farm House styled kitchens. I have debated on what style of cabinets I wanted. I have tossed around what color of paint I want to color them in, I have dreamt of what color, type, style, and material of countertop I wanted for yeeeeeeaaarrrrsss. I am finally in the last stages of achieving what I want and I am still not 100% sure of exactly to the T of what I want. 🫣

I have asked Chad what we should do. He is not very helpful. He keeps saying, “Babe, the kitchen is your dream, I don’t care what it looks like. I am more concerned with getting the benefit of your delicious food and baked goods”!! Asking him questions about the kitchen choices and designs is about the same as asking him what he wants to eat for supper or what restaurant he wants to go out to eat at.

With all that being said my Dad, has completed the first set of upper and lower cabinets outta the Amish hardwoods. I will let the pictures speak for themselves !! In the pictures the lighter wood is raw & natural. In the last pictures the wood appears darker. This is because we decided to use Butcher Block Oil on them. You can really see the beauty in the wood with that oil!

As you can see by the photos, this is why I am so conflicted. There is zero chance, I want to paint over that gorgeous wood. Can you see that beautiful wood grain!! So now I want to keep the cabinets natural. The problem with that is my original intention was to have a “butcher block” counter top. If we did that it would be way to much “wood” color and I feel it would drown out the beauty of the hand made cabinets. So I had to decide what to do about the counter tops.

Chad and I have gone over just about every material you can imagine for the countertops. Granite, Quartz, Marble, Concrete, Stainless Steel, Quartzite, and many more. Now the number one problem with choosing counter tops is $$$. Not sure if you have checked into prices of building materials lately but OMG. I can’t justify spending the same price of a brand new car for the same price as kitchen cabinet counter tops.

So Chad came up with a solution. Marble looking laminate. His selling point was, we can afford this out of pocket now and if I do not like it, we will save up the money to afford the countertops of a different material later down the road. He also said Laminate material has come along ways so we went and looked at different ones at Home Depot and Lowes and I was surprised how the quality looked at that price point. So I agreed. So the little bit here and there will eventually be all brand new 100% hand made cabinets by my Dad that will be passed down generation after generation. (We are paying outta pocket and saving up money 💵 for our projects. We want to remain debt free)

Another project my Dad, was able to work on was, installing hardware on my pantry door. I choose new hardware that is replicas of the old time hardware. We utilized one of the doors we had found on Facebook market place. He also has taken one of the vintage doors and made me a Dutch door with a pie shelf. Currently it is finished however due to Dad’s injured shoulder he can not install it by himself. This door will be installed eventually in between the kitchen and mud room !

So I am sure, y’all will be excited to know our critters have expanded the herd. On April 2, 2023 Ginger gave birth to the 2 most adorable little kids you could imagine. We got a new boy we named One Eye Jack (due to a black patch over one of his eyes) and girl we named Diane. So dad knew that she was fixn’ give birth, so he made her a nice comfy place in the barn with hay and such. But, Ginger decided to go on an adventure up the to the rocky patch on the hill to give birth. 🤣 We now have a grand total of 10 goats 🙂

Spring has officially arrived at the farm. Things are getting really green and trees are blooming. Last year we planted several fruit trees in the Pink Squirrel Farmstead Fruit Orchard!! Most of the trees have grown over 6 foot tall already. Unfortunately a few have bloomed to early and I’m afraid they may have died from a late frost. We have planted:

Gala apple

Fuji apple

Braeburn apple

Honey crisp apple

Winesap apple

D’Anjon pear

Bartlett pear

Red Haven Peach

Red haven peach

Au Rosa plum

Santa Rosa plum – has died.

I am really excited to be able to some day walk out my door and pick fresh fruit to eat, bake breads, make yummy desserts, make jams, and be able to can a lot !!

As you can see there has not been a tremendous amount of projects completed, but its no big deal, little bit here and there and some day my dream farm will be completed.