Drunk birds

Fall is my favorite time of year. The leaves, the holidays, the parties - and the drunk birds! Sounds funny, I know, but this is the time of year when all the birds in town get their party on in my wild honeysuckle tree. I really dislike this tree (because it's so invasive and because the seeds germinate beautifully all over the place causing huge amounts of weeding) but I keep it because Tim likes it and because the birds love it.

Actually, the birds love it a little too well. They gorge themselves on the shiny red berries to the point of boorish drunkenness - in fact, they get so drunk, they can't fly and end up sitting all over the yard so stupid with intoxication that you can go and pick them right up! Of course, they also fly into the windows, which drives the cats crazy with excitement. Cat TV is at its most entertaining when the bird reality show is on.

Most of the time, we have these obnoxious visitors for about a week and we laugh at some, rescue some and bury some (poor victims of flying under the influence into the windows a bit too hard). This year they are later than usual - I just noticed them today. I'm hopeful that this means a mild winter :)

Fall Happenings

Well I can tell you that it sure feels Fall-ish today and the trend will continue all week, it seems. Yes, I know the trend will actually bring us significantly colder temperatures, but for us October can be a fairly warm month. Sometimes Halloween is downright toasty. Anyway - the weather turns my thoughts to all the fun Fall happenings going on here in Northwest Ohio.

For starters, it's time to get into the apple orchards and pick! Probably the best thing about a sunny chilly fall day is a gorgeous Honey Crisp apple fresh from the tree. My mouth waters just thinking about it. My favorite orchard around here is MacQueens, and they have a great apple festival every year. You can pick your own, shop in their market, buy apple fritters and amazing pies and drink fresh cider made right in front of you. I had never seen an apple tree until I moved to Ohio, and MacQueens was the first orchard I had ever been to, so it has a special place in my heart.

Another event we make effort to get to is the Grand Rapids Apple Butter Festival. This ranks right up there as a top 10 thing to do, and we go every year. I have no idea how many people head there for the one day event, but it sure feels like 50,000 - tons of people, but so much to see and do. I particularly like the primitive village and the antique threshers, but the best thing going are the hot apple dumplings with vanilla ice cream. I could eat my body weight in those things, I swear.

Of course, our Farmers Market, here in Perrysburg is a big draw every Thursday, but we're right at the end here now. People come for miles to buy all the wonderful fresh produce and organic meats and veggies. It's a sad day when the vendors pack up for another year.

Speaking of endings, it's also Docks Out time at the boat club. The Maumee River freezes here and so we have to get the docks out come mid-October. It's work to close down the boat club for the season - not just the docks but the clubhouse gets tucked in for the winter. Our club is pretty cool because unlike other boat clubs, the PBC is a Workingman's Club - which means that you can't just pay money and park your boat ... you have to give hours of service for the benefit of all. Each family contributes 8 hours in the spring and 8 more in the summer so the club runs smoothly. We have emergency days too - rising or falling water levels, debris tangled in the poles - and we all get down there and work to put things right.

With the bounty of activities, it's no one Fall is my favorite season :))

Mushrooms in the garden

Today, while wandering about the yard, I stumbled upon several white softball sized things in the grass and garden beds. They were Calvatias, or Giant Puffball Mushrooms! Apparently, this is the time of year for them.

I had always heard to be very careful of mushrooms. In the past I would never have contemplated doing anything more than throwing them in the compost, but I was ambitious yesterday, so I looked them up and discovered that the variety I had in the yard was safe to eat.

Naturally, I was the only one who was willing to try them - even Tim was a chicken - but I don't regret not having to share ... they were delicious! This is what I did:

• Washed and peeled them - I read the skins can make some people have a tummy upset
• Chopped them
• Sautéed onions and garlic in some olive oil
• Added chopped mushrooms and a bit of chicken broth
• Cooked for about 10 minutes
• Sprinkled a bit of parmesan

Ate with relish! Yum!

A resource for wavy glass

If you saw my recent Facebook post, you know that the gorgeous window in the living room recently cracked. You can see how beautiful it was. Anyway, I am having it repaired and had hoped to find wavy glass to repair it with.

Alas, the expense was a bit much, but I did want to share a link to a company that I found who makes hand blown glass panels ... Restoration Window ... I couldn't afford to use them for a window of this size, but a resource is always good to have! :)

Adding storage

Storage can prove to be a problem when you have an old house like mine. The closets leave much to be desired, and in some cases, the basement and/or attic is not an option. Thankfully our basement is dry and a good size, and our attic is usable. But more importantly, our garage has a ton of space that, until this week, we have not utilized.

Our project this week? Put in a loft in the garage!

Here are a few particulars:

• The garage is a 2.5 car
• It has a little loft in the .5 space
• We have a lot of stuff

You may be wondering - why not use the basement and attic? Well, while the basement is not a bad size, it isn't huge, it is chock-a-block full, and Tim deserves a Man Cave. So, the basement will eventually be finished for his drums, geeky computer stuff, and more geeky Star Wars collection. No, I'm not kidding, and yes, I have a room of my own as well. The attic, while decent, is sort of hard to access due to the way the stairs walk you right up into the roof. Decidedly hard to get stuff up and down, therefore. Plus, I like to park in my garage. Both cars. That isn't happening right now.

So, Tim is adding a ceiling (or floor) to the garage! I will very happily be able to move all kinds of stuff (that we really should be getting rid of) up to the new garage loft in the very near future. Then I can forget about it, never look at it again and have a nice clean garage below, a vastly improved basement and PARKING!

Life is very good.

A few garden images ...

I have a few garden images I've been meaning to post. Now don't get excited, nothing special, but I liked them. The side garden shot is a fave mostly because I remember how overgrown it was. It took quite a bit to clear it all out (and we had to wait for a nest of baby bunnies to grow up and hop along). We're working on the other side (West) this fall. We cleared it, tilled it and have put down grass seed.

One thing we did do was take care of the several hundred daffodils growing on that side. They are a treasure from the previous owner. We also saved and moved one of our large viburnums that had gotten a bit out of hand. I'll put up before and afters eventually - haha!

The words I've been longing to hear!

Yesterday, while sitting on the front porch enjoying a beautiful evening with Tim, I heard the words I've been dreaming of for a year or so ... "Honey, I think we should start looking for an architect ... maybe start interviewing contractors, too?"

OH BABY! He made my day, week and year :)

I have been doodling plans and clipping ideas since we moved into the 1880's House, and though we have done some renovating - a bath here, new windows there - this is the big one. This reno will include the new kitchen, the master bedroom (master suite), a new mudroom on the main floor, (hopefully) a finished basement and a gorgeous new back porch. It will add about 800 - 1000 sqft because we will be enclosing the current back porches (we have one up and one down) and bumping the downstairs out a bit.

I am truly hopeful for a master on the main, so that would give us 3 up and 1 down. The house would stay a 4 bedroom, but I'd like 3.5 baths. A mudroom is hugely important to me as well. With so many kids running around, it would be soooo nice not to have to run basket after basket to the basement.

And speaking of basement, I'd like to finish it while we're at it.

My wish list isn't long, ya think? And on top of all this, we have to have it historically accurate (actually, I wouldn't have it any other way - that's why we bought here in the first place), so you can bet your sweet baboo that we'll be doing a good bit of contractor interviewing. And, when the time comes, we'll be working ourselves to get this right.

I'm so excited! It feels like Christmas :)))

A fireplace...

My house has no fireplace, which is truly an unusual thing for a house this old. Now, it does have several chimneys and during the living room restore, we did discover that one of them had a stove pipe, but yet no cheery flames warm me today.

This circumstance has its pros and cons - I GET to put in a fireplace and, I HAVE to put in a fireplace. Here's a picture of the style I'm thinking of (courtesy of the Ballard Designs catalogue). Mine would be a dual so I would have the dining room on the one side and the new kitchen/hearth room on the other. This is, of course, when I have a new kitchen and hearth room.

Bathroom redo recalls the past...

Finally posted pictures of our upstairs bathroom redo on the fan page, which made me recall the excitement I had when I purchased this house. Every home I've ever owned has been renovated in part. The first (a rental) needed some curb appeal, paint and a fence to keep the kids safe. My second home was a serious design nightmare with cheap wood paneling, circa 1970, and a dark ugly kitchen...amazing what some paint can do! But, with this house I had more than a reno, I had a little piece of history all to myself.

As we slowly restore room by room, glimpses of the past emerge - a newspaper, an old photograph, a tin, an earring. People reveal themselves with every layer of paint color I scrape off the woodwork. Economy in building becomes evident when we puzzle over the interesting construction methods and materials people used to get the job done.

With my other houses I was anxious to get the projects completed so we could go about the business of living there. With this house, the restoration is part of the joy of living here. There is a discovery to share and discuss each time we tackle something new.

Space heaters aren't so bad...really!

The weather is so cold right now - 25 degrees - that our very ancient furnace cannot keep up and we are blessing the existence of space heaters. We've got 4 so far and mainly use one in the living room (pictured), one in the den, one in the upstairs hall and one in Katie's bedroom, which is the coldest room in the house.

We use these little life savers for target heating - on only when we are in the room - and though I hear they can help you save on your energy bills, I doubt this is the case for me...since I am so sensitive to the cold, one is always running!

The 2010 project list

In 2009 our project list was decided for us by the winter weather that destroyed our roof and mutilated the plaster in our dining room. While the roof has been replaced and the plaster repaired, we still have some lingering projects in these areas on our historic house. So, here my 2010 house restoration resolutions:

put the gutters up - or have them done, rather...

get the plans drawn up for the massive dining room/kitchen/master suite/back-of-house renovation

new insulation in the crawl and basement 

figure out the right heating/cooling solution(s) for this old girl

win the lottery so I can afford all this stuff ;)

I'd like to say that 2010 will be the year to make big changes happen, but it's really dependent on the economy - big surprise.

Sometimes contractors DON'T work out...

The joy of home renovation. You think you've found a great contractor - in our case, carpenter - but no! Alas, while building our new custom bar, he did a fine job in polishing off 1/2 the keg in the process!