Happy merry.

Dear friend,        

This week my lovely Bride asked me why a pile of lumber had appeared in our driveway, thinking maybe I had some Christmas project in store.

“That’s for the garden beds,” I said.

 “You do know it’s December, yes?” she replied. Which, from her perspective, was probably a perfectly rational thing to ask.

“Yes. But one day, it will be warm again. And I want to be ready.”

 Every once in a while, someone asks me where I’m from. I’m always mildly surprised that my liberal usage of words like “Y’all,” “Ma’am,” and “It’s not breakfast without gravy” don’t give it away.

 The guys in the local feed store know where I’m from. I’m the guy buying packs of vegetable seeds in March, a full two months before the locals put away their snow shovels. It’s the South in me that’s in an ongoing struggle with the length of a Maine growing season. Which is rather shorter than my Georgia roots feel is appropriate for anything called “summer.”  I’ve come to love all the New England seasons (except maybe that six-week interval between Winter and Spring, which locals call “Mud”). However, calling the two and a half weeks of mild heat we get in Maine ‘Summer’ is more of a polite euphemism than accurate description.

 This is not the South, where you can lazily decide to put in a tomato plant or thirty any weekend between April and June, and expect to harvest a bumper crop of red awesomeness to top your sandwiches with for months to come. You have got to be *ready* in Maine, or you’ve missed your opportunity and you’ll have to wait for at least one more Mud to come and go before you get to plant again. And like any good child of Appalachia, I like my winter pantry stocked full of the bounty of summer. My Bride will pickle and can corn, zucchini, beans, watermelon rind, and pretty much anything else that used to be tethered to a bit of dirt.

 Last year, I managed to get a little early spinach in the ground, and some lettuce that was worth eating. But I got so busy that even the zucchini I managed to eventually get out into the garden struggled to grow.

When you’re struggling to grow zucchini, either you’re from Los Angeles, or you’ve something seriously wrong.  I’m pretty sure there are Inuit families that can grow enough squash to get sick of zucchini bread before the 4 hours of Barrow, Alaska summer is over.

So yes. Garden beds in December.

It’s snowing outside at the moment. But I’m going to ignore that white crap falling from the sky and go build me some raised beds. Screw winter. And screw Mud.  

Maybe I’ll plant a Christmas tree.

When you come visit, bring seeds.

The Gradys   

March came and went. And it left pigs.

March went by pretty quickly. In part because I was traveling quite a bit for work. Which isn't my favorite way to spend my time, but it sort of comes with the gig. And it tends to come in waves, when it comes. I think this March was a particularly big wave. I was gone 3 out of the last 4 weeks. But on one of my few weekends back in Maine, I managed to go pick up two piglets. 

The kids got to name them this year. The darker one was named 'Apples' by the Boy. The Critter asked if she could name hers after a character from a book. Sure thing, kid. The lighter one thus named 'Beth'. 

(I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure she was thinking of 'Little Women' - Beth was the sister that died later in the book, for the record. There's not much doubt about the fate of these little bacon seeds in our house). 

A couple of days or so after the piglets showed up, it snowed. (Because: Maine). George is still trying to figure out what kind of dogs these things are. 

The pigs this year are a different breed - they're a Yorkshire x Tamworth x Oldspot cross. A leaner, longer, bacony-er pig. Which is totally a thing. The Oldspot is a fattier, heritage breed, which grows great hams. A longer pig gives you more belly. Hence: more bacon. But I still fully expect these to make great prosciutto. 

These particular prosciuttos will be ready for slaughter in early fall. In the meantime, we'll all enjoy their presence, and - when I'm not traveling - I'll get to enjoy my morning livestock rituals once more. 

Happiness. 

Still enough projects left to fill a snowy day

There's one small-ish bedroom on the main floor in our old Maine farmhouse. 

It's hard to say what or how it was used. It's got a fireplace (because all the original rooms have fireplaces. It's Maine. And winters are long and cold here).  And I added a crazy complicated bauble-filled chandelier when we moved in. Because the exiting light fixture would throw the occasional spark when it was turned on. Which seemed like a bad thing.

But there was no real use for the room. We used it as a temporary guest bedroom when my Bride's parents arrived, as it meant not having to go upstairs. But it's located off the center hall near the dining room. And we have bigger, more comfortable guest bedrooms. 

Since it's located on the first floor near the dining room, and we had nothing else to do with it, we decided early on that this would be one of our project rooms. We stripped the wallpaper, and left it a blank slate. We told the crew not to do anything except touch up the plaster. We'd get to it. 

Today was one of those snowy days in Maine, when an indoor project is kind of handy. 

We had decided to make this room into a semi-formal butler's pantry. Dedicated storage for all the glass & dishware we use for entertaining. We still throw semi-regular parties on the scale of a dozen or so to a hundred-&-fifty or more. And in all that, we've managed to accumulate a fair amount of platters and what not. And since we've moved into an old, rambling house with plenty of room, we figure we could get them out of the basement, and into somewhere a little bit more accessible and less dusty. 

But first, we've got to do something about that floor. The floors in the house are a mix of woods - wide pine in the remodeled areas. Older fir and oak or other lumber in some of the less-retouched areas. It's hard to know in this many of them, as they've been painted for years. A few of the rooms had their floors painted a kind of dull maroon, looking none the better for being well worn. 

We decided the simplest thing to do would be to repaint. 

I chose another shade of a gray-green to complement some of the other, traditional colors we had used on the first floor. I wasn't terribly sure if it was quite the right color, but it was within the palette. 

I took my time cutting in the edges, and then planned to roll out the center of the floor. Fortunately, I had a helper. 

For the record, all I told the Boy was to take his nicer clothes off, and change into something he didn't mind getting messy.

He sprinted off and came back wearing what he declared to be his "paintin' clothes!"

You don't have to scratch the surface very hard to get to the Appalachia on this kid. 

The more we put on, the less sure I was I liked it. The color wasn't bad (and it was an improvement to the maroon). But it didn't seem to fit the space, or complement the trim. 

But, at the very least, I figured we were getting a coat of primer down. 

After the whole room was done, I stepped back and took it in, and decided that nope. This was not the color. 

I went through the list of colors we used in the house, and we decided to paint the floor the same as we had used in the upstairs hallway, to match the trim. The color is Concord Buff from Sherwin Williams. A simple, light buttery cream that complements a lot of the old architecture in the house. And I had 2/3 of a can of the floor paint version left in the basement from the earlier work. 

So I tried again. 

Definitely better.

Easier to envision painted cabinets in the room, with a clean, simple palette on the floor and walls. 

To paint a floor, you want something that is hard wearing and will last. Which is why folks used to put lead in their paint. Because that stuff lasts forever. 

But that's bad for our brains, so we looked for oil based paint. Which is getting harder to find. We used a gloss, oil-based marine enamel. A little tougher to work with, and clean up after. And it takes a few days to dry between coats. But it does last longer than latex, for sure. 

The trim is painted in the latex paint of the same color, so I still ended up having to carefully cut in around the edges. 

Fortunately for me, it's a big square (more or less. Nothing in this house is perfectly square anymore). Either way, though, it's just about within the realm of achievable for me. 

The lighting leaves things looking a little more yellow than it actually is - it's all that same, buttery buff, despite my poor shadowed photo above. 

I did find myself wondering while I was painting, how many layers of paint am I going over on these floors? The room I was working on was, we think, part of the early 19th century renovations. And the floor would have been original to it. 3 coats? 5? No idea. Some of the other floors had at least that many. And I've just added another 2.  

But it's done now, and ready for cabinets to be built and dishes to be stacked and ready. 

But that's a project for another snowy weekend.