December!

 So much has been going on this December that i've forgotten to post on it until now! The big news, we're back in our bedroom and have a gorgeous master bathroom!

Brandon's wall patching, came out really well! 

Old Barkley Bear, getting quite white in the face. 

The annual making of the mincemeat! 

Tiling! Vinyl tiles, but groutable, they came out really well, and are definitely warmer on the feet in winter than ceramic tiles...though I still think heated floors would have been awesome...

They came in quite an array of patterns, so really did go down well. 

Tiling the cupboard. 

And some more creativity, cupcake toppers for a friends Christmas party.

Santa had an accident! 

Our friend Karter came over to help us with our tree. 

The finished product! 

The floor really did come out well, though I love all of it! 

This Christmas we have two chinese students from work staying with us - they're headed back home on the 27th, but had to be out of the University dorm by the 19th, so they're staying with us for Christmas week. They really helped out with the prep for the Annual British Christmas Dinner! 

They even folded napkins into boats to go with our underwater theme! 

Some animal love going on by the fire. 

Peter lighting the Christmas Pudding! 

And a game of pictionary to top it all off. Girls V Boys. Despite a good start, the boys did win.....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving brought our second snowstorm of the season. Miss Phantom says enough of that, i'm staying put right here.....

We dog sat for the long weekend. Jackson enjoyed the snow and a game of football! 

Brandon kicking the ball for Jackson! 

The day after the snowstorm saw a beautiful sunrise and clear sunny day! 

Miss Barkley showing off her grey eyebrows. 

The bathroom project is STILL ongoing......Barkley inspects the work so far! 

Progress! All the moldy drywall is patched and repaired, and the new subfloor is down. 

And the annual tradition of making and canning Christmas mincemeat! 

Eggies!

Lots of eggies for us! 

First snowstorm!

Every year i've lived here we've had our first snow storm around Halloween, and this year was no different! Unfortunately it'll all going to melt this week as we hit 60F again, but hopefully there will be more of the white stuff soon. 

This years storm was pretty impressive, it wasn't that cold, so the snow was wet and sticky. Today i'm on my third day at home, as work is still out of power because many downed trees have taken out power lines. We lost power for around 48hrs as well, which I always find fun, what a great excuse to stay in PJs around the fire and beat Brandon at boardgames....:) With the the generator switch Brandon hooked up last year, both of us did "go to work" as well, which for me was on the couch, for him was in his office in the back living room. Barkley didn't quite know who to hang out with, since she usually hangs out with Brandon all day, but Mamma was home on the couch! 

Snow Bear

Our Halloween pumpkins got a dousing! 

Throwing snowballs for Brody during the start of the storm. 

We put up the chickens winter quarters (plastic wrap around their inner run to give them some space without snow and keep in the warm a little. 

They were quite happy with this arrangement! At the moment we're getting around 4-5 eggs per day - yay! 

By the next morning (Monday), we'd gained about 6 inches of snow, wet and sticky it took down many trees, including some of ours. 

This was our "Bee Tree", which we're sad at losing. Neither of us liked it much, or knew what it was (ornamental planted pre-us), but last year when we went to take it down, we noticed the bees love it, literally covered it, so we left it alone. we have an apiary right behind our land, so we figured it was helping them out, and bringing the bees into our veggie garden. Sadly it snapped at the base...gone. 

Our raspberry patch took a beating too.....we're hoping it'll spring back! 

A large oak that Brandon wanted to keep, and I wanted to get rid of, took a beating too. Most of the top came off, luckily missing the chicken shed. So I guess it'll come down after all. I'm kind of excited, as I want to put apple trees there instead....

Brody loves the snow! 

Barkley snuffling in the snow. Don't be fooled, she's really looking for frozen poops to eat. Dogs are gross. 

The deck. 

Post romp in the snow, Brandon goes back to work and Brody decided he really needed a warm place to settle. So somehow stuffed himself into a heated cat bed we have for our old cat. 

But I fit.....really......

Must be time to demolish something.....

Tis the season to start indoor home improvement projects! We'd been planning a master bathroom redo (not really a remodel since we're using a most of the original fittings post-reno) for a while, and since we've decided to get builders in next summer to redo our upstairs layout, we figured it'd be nice to get this done first, so that when they're done, our upstairs is entirely done! 

The original plan - rip out our cabinet (moldy from a leak pre-ownership, so has been sealed ever since we moved in) - replace with cabinet from second upstairs bathroom (which is being emptied with the builders next year); replace toilet; paint walls; replace light fitting with a light fitting from downstairs. Cheap fixes, but would make a huge difference. 

The reality has been somewhat different. But we were also lucky. The mold it turned out ran into the wall and into the floor. The wall was pretty minor (some drywall repair), but unfortunately the tile floor has to be ripped up and we have to replace the subfloor too. Though we'd love to replace it with a heated tile floor (it gets brrr here in Maine!), we can't run that cost right now, so we're replacing it with groutable vinyl sticky tiles. Way cheaper, and we looked around, they don't look too bad and will be much warmer underfoot than non heated tile. One day, maybe when we can put in a proper shower, we'll redo the floor...again. We also found our upstairs heating is somewhat more interesting than we thought. Rather than 3 radiators in our bathroom, the other bathroom and the back bedroom, it's actually one pipe that runs through the wall. For our bathroom remodel it doesn't mean much, but for the back bathroom it changes plans somewhat (and of course, will cost more $$s...). Stay tuned for that one....

Everything else has so far gone to plan.....though very slowly, we've had a string of visitors and visits, which has been great fun, but i'm keen to move back into our bedroom soon! 

Brandon removing the "contractor quality" toilet that both rocks and drives us both crazy. This might be the part i'm most excited by, a new toilet....:)

The mess behind the cabinet, mold running into the wall and into the subfloor....

Apparently our radiator doesn't end, it just runs through the entire back half of the house, and into three different rooms.....

Our bedroom has turned into a painting station....

The tile floor, which we had hoped to keep, is gone....Brandon had fun with the sledgehammer.....

A weekend of skunks, pumpkins and friends

 This week has been an interesting one. Midweek we awoke at 4am to screaming chickens. Brandon wandered down (in a rainstorm!) and checking in on the chicken coop and found himself faced with a skunk coming out of the coop with the second of his chicken prizes. We'd forgotten to close up the chicken shed that night - to be honest, we'd got complacent, because we'd never seen any evidence anything had been getting past the larger fenced in area. Lesson learned. We lost the two frizzles, which were Brandon't favorites, so he's been a little sad. More than that though we ended up with a skunk living under the compost pile...

The skunk....tucked way under there.....

After 2 days of not letting the dogs out, we called a pest control guy. He came and set two traps, which I thought odd, but okay. The next morning two traps were shut, not one, but two skunks! 

The rest of the week went well, busy at work, but a great weekend to look forward to. Our friend Kathy and her daughter Laura came to visit from Cape Cod! 

Fall has brought the beautiful colors! 

On saturday we decided to go to Camden, had lunch in town, wandered and then came to the top of Mt Batty to see the colors, so pretty and peaceful. 

Kathy discovered her new passion....photo bombing....

Kathy and Laura with Camden in the distance. 

Laura is quite the animal whisperer, so the animals were in heaven, and way too spoiled for the weekend....

Sunday we went to my favorite festival of the year....Pumpkinfest at Damariscotta! The pumpkins are enormous, and beautifully decorated. This year the largest pumpkin was 1695lbs! The Darling Marine Center students also made a great pumpkin! 

The DMC pumpkin! 

Creepy spider! 

Hedgehog, possibly my favorite of the festival

Medusa

Anglerfish!

Laura and Kathy for scale! 

Fishing net.