New Garden and Rustic Garden Fence- To be Con't

The New Hearth!!! To be continued...

Just the start but a start none the less. We're deciding on what the rest should look like, what materials it should be made of, what kind of flooring should replace the rug and what color to paint the walls... so many decisions! Nice hearth, Mark!

9.12.09 Mark and Olivia

Once upon a time, in a town far far away...

Anyone for chicken tonight. Yum! Hey look, it's Pammy, the frizzle. She be crazy!

Chickens on the back patio.

Our Tomato Plants... to big for their pots!

Slowly

But

Surely

We're

Getting

There...

...

Only

Years

More

To

Go!

Our First Egg!

Who done it? No idea but it's an egg none the less. Found at the bottom of the coop, far from a nest box. A little brown egg... plenty more to come!

What in the?

Hey lookie here- Mark got his first tractor, a riding lawn mower. It's like watching a kid in a candy store. Thanks Uncle Russ and Famalia Shea! Now we don't have to rely on chickens to cut the grass!!

Oh yeah...

Then there's the beach! This is a two minute walk, is private to our community and it makes you feel like you're in Maine or even the West Coast. This place in NOT your typical Long Island... thank GOD!

My favorite View

So, this is what's best about where we now live. You look out the window or hang out in the lawn amongst old mature and beautiful trees. This my friend, is the view into the state park from the "sitting room". We own about 30' into it. Quite amazing!!!!

Just an image from the backside of the house. Out here is where it really gets good. Huge old Oak trees and pines. We also have one of the largest Japanese Maples I've ever seen as well as a 14" caliper flowering dogwood. Come see!

"The Sitting Room"

So here are some images of the "sitting room" and some of the "shabby chic/we have no money and just go to garage sales and buy old crap" style! :) We will predominately use this room for reading, sitting, drinking wine, daydreaming, viewing the beautiful property, etc... Hey look, it's nude Mom. My Dad is a great artist and his work should be displayed. These are from when my mother was first preggers with my oldest Bro! Line drawings are my favorite! Notice the chicken coop out back? The door is open, we let them wander the lawn in hope they eat up all the ticks! nasty little things...

Sailboat Centerpieces for the Wedding!!

This is an idea I saw at a local farm/country shop that fixes up old antiques with a nautical feel. I made these sailboats from driftwood collected at the beach and recycled linen shirts or whatever I find at the local thrift shops. I want to use some lace and some toile too... keep with that Provence feel! They will all be different fabrics and different sizes!

Well, chickens are growing up as you can see and... we got two ducks. Indian Runner Ducks. Funniest thing ever. Wait til you see them "run". They don't waddle and they look like bowling pins!

Wow, the farm has begun! :)

June 2009 cont'

June 2009

Ripping, chopping, sawing, pruning, weeding, hoeing, raking, mending, watering... woo, we've barely started and already it's been a lot of work. We're working on the cheap so the ornamental grasses will add an instant effect cheaply. We'd like to change the path layout and materials but we have too much to do before the wedding so we just went for it and are doing what we can where we can. We be broke so grass and some cheap perennials is what we're going to do for now. We chopped down that spruce as you can see from the before pictures. Not that we wanted to chop anything down but it seemed to block what we hope to be a nice garden in the front. Once chopped down we realized how much of a garden just the front of the house will have eventually.

2 Maple Road

So this is the house - BEFORE! Seiler no mo!

Yay!!

And then there was 11...

Mark loves to call me oblivious or Oblivia (which is actually a name I made up) but sometimes, if the shoe fits... Mark didn't bring home 10 chickens but 11. I started counting these buggers as they learned to fly and escape their "coop" and we'd come home to find them lounging all over. Gross! Time for you guys to the grow up and move out of the house!

You see that bigger chicken 3 up and to the left? That's Roostie- as Mark likes to call him. He's pure trouble and as it turns out, a ROOSTER! Hence the name Roostie...

Oh and see the nice plywood interior of this coop? No more cardboard boxes for these guys. We have a new and improved coop that Mark constructed. Now, this is his first attempt at carpentry so lets give him some props for growing up into a man but I like to call this place the ghettoop (ghetto and coop). It aint pretty but it does the trick! Picutres to come!!!

And so it begins...

Ahhh, the babies. As spring arrives in the beach community of Oak Hills in the pastoral country of eastern Long Island, so too do the lives of 10, yes 10 baby chicks. Here we have 4 Aracucanas, 4 Buff Orpingtongs and 2 Rhode Island Reds all running a muck in their tiny cardboard box of a coop.

Since Mark is an egg slut and I am of hippie descent and destined to become both my mother and my father, the obvious progression for the lives of "Mark and Olivia" could only lead to these 10 wonderful, sweetly stinky, feathered friends. Not only will they give us the bounty of protein goodness but being such sweet natured animals, a break from the annoying and frustrating nature of two male dogs... WHO BETTER KEEP THEIR PAWS OFF OF THEM!!!