Life at Turtle Knoll

Summer Harvest Time!

It's finally that time of year - flowers and vegetables galore! No season goes without problems, I've accepted that I will never have a 'perfect' garden, but this year is pretty good. We've had consistent rain, which means less watering on my end! :) The temps haven't been too outrageously hot, which I think has contributed to a later harvest than I anticipated given when I got my planting done. I had really hoped for late July, and it was mid Aug before we started to really harvest. But all the plants have been very strong and healthy. The biggest problem in my garden this year is a little furry, fluffy tail bunny. Bunny ate all the leaves off my beans so there goes my awesome Cannelloni bean harvest! One of the crops that I count on as a regular vegetable at our table are string beans. We started out strong, and then bunny showed up. I even had beautiful looking scallions that he's munched on. Leaves are growing back on the beans so perhaps we haven't lost all yet. 

Here are some pictures of what is going strong in the vegetable garden along with a few beauties from the flower garden! I've been cutting bouquets for a few weeks, but there will be crazy flowers in about a week! 

This is going to be my best year ever of bell peppers! Along with a fun variety of hot and little sweet peppers. 

 

What I typically find if one of my crops isn't doing as well as it has in the past, another is killing it! I have not had a good tomatillo harvest in probably 5 years. The salsa I make from them is coveted and looking forward to delivering again! 

Cucumbers, squash and tomatoes are the holy trinity of the garden. I planted about 5 varieties of cucs, 8 of squash and I lost count on the tomatoes! They are not disappointing! 

 

I'll finish with a few of my favorites from the flower garden. I am so excited about this gorgeous dahlia, who is throwing out new flowers daily! Finally some good sunflowers in my vegetable garden! This is just the beginning! 

Spring Garden Update

I thought I would do a quick update of where the garden is on this last day of spring! And believe me, except for a few unnaturally hot days, it's time for summer weather! It's been a rainy, cool spring. While I do believe that it has helped the plants, it would be so nice to spread it out. I don't want to go into some full on drought where I am watering constantly.

For me and what is going on here at Turtle Knoll - my gardens and the prep is far surpassing what has happened in the last 4-5 years! Before Rosie I had decided to let some of the plots 'go to the weeds' so to speak. Disease and insects had gotten the better of me and I felt it was time for a break. Then I had surgery which postponed the start of the 2014 season and the last 2 years have been managing a baby! The vegetable plots weren't even tilled until June 13 last year! Most of my planting didn't happen until the last week of June. I am happy to say that this year I am on top of it all and we're almost all planted!

Here's an update on some. As soon as I'm done fully planting, I'll do another post (I hope..)

The asparagus has been INCREDIBLE!!! I really can't stand watering my garden in May. Often it's chilly, I haven't bought new hoses so the old ones leak all over me, and frankly my mind isn't there yet. The rain this year has helped to produce nice plump, green, tight-tipped, asparagus! I do have to battle the beetle. I put a little can of soapy water out and try to pick them off in the evening. I thought we were done last week, but it looks like we're getting one more batch.

Our friends Gary & Julie came over during the Memorial Day weekend and tilled the plots! I love how Gary does it because he does not leave a foot print and the rows all look perfect! He's so good at getting close to the edge which helps me not have to do too much clean up and prep. In this picture you can see the asparagus in the top right, which is plot D; and the garlic in the bottom left, which is plot B.

My goal is to have a zinnia area bursting with color and flowers that beg for you to cut them! My Mom has access to a greenhouse and started over 100 for me plus a few other plants. Stay tuned for pictures on them!

 

I had a great helper while planting dahlias! I was able to get my main garden all weeded and ready for planting by Memorial Day weekend, which was a huge check off the list. I have not had great dahlias for the last few years so I have high hopes for this year! Rain and now sun will hopefully have them blooming soon!

This picture is from about 3 weeks ago. The peonies have all bloomed, the iris put on a lovely show, my one poppy plant bloomed for my birthday and now we have tons of pink, yellow, purple and other colors starting to show up! I'm off to finish getting the cutting plants in. The final piece of the vegetable garden is to put in the squash and cucumbers. I have learned to wait some on those to avoid a few of the bugs, i.e. vine borer.

 

 

Gift packaging

*** This was supposed to post in Feb and never did.*

Going to change gears a little! While the kitchen has been under construction I haven't really been in the craft room. I finished up a couple of projects, but our food is in there along with my desk being piled with all the paperwork that had been in the DR - to never return there! I did this project last fall for my goddaughter. She and her sister love to build fairy houses so my 'co-godmommy' Jenn and I added to their collection. I had fun wrapping them up in gusset bags lined with tissue paper. As I always do, I picked a color theme and built from there. I chose purples, pinks and teal/aqua.

I started by searching through dies and punches to see what I could make gift tags with. Three of these dies are from Stampin Up - the dies on either end were from Chalk Talk, which was recently discontinued but can still be found on the clearance rack. The third from the left is a die from the new collection Cheerful Tags, which fold over and are great for adding a tag to bottles or jars. The second from the left is a new favorite tag die from Papertrey Ink called Quilted die. I added images and stamps to all the tags, wrapped up the goodies and added satin ribbon.

When I was picking out the fairy stuff, I thought one of the little fairies looked just like Annabelle's younger sister, Chloe. I made a tag for her using a different color pallet-gold, green and coral and a couple of Stampin Up punches that allow you to make tags very easily.

Hardware & Lighting

It's actually all coming together... no joke!! This week various people have been in and out working on all the finishing pieces. Changing doors out, hardware on new doors, hardware on cabinets, new lighting, grout, final coat of paint, microwave put in. This will be my final post before I do a full reveal! I know I've said it, it's freakin amazing! They joked that the photographer is scheduled for this afternoon to take pictures for print! My favorite was Monday morning when the cabinet maker and the guy that did the first part of the work, Chris, walked in and were dumbstruck! I overheard them say "Whoa, this place looks incredible." It's certainly been a journey. I started to come apart at the seams this week. Sheer exhaustion. Over the weekend we can live somewhat normally, cook a little, leave the coffee maker out, leave our dishes out. Come Monday morning it has to all be packed up and put away again. I just said to Mark "I think what I'm looking forward to most is leaving my coffee on the counter and having it be there every morning when I come out."

Here is a picture of what we've been living with in the dining room. Poor Rosie has learned the old adage "look, don't touch." She walks around saying "It's Mahks. Do not touch." I have really tried not to yell at her because it isn't her fault that all of the stuff is there. She is curious, she wants to know what it is. Of course it's dangerous, dirty and all that other good stuff!

We have gotten a little accustomed to using all the empty space; i.e. playing ball in the kitchen or letting her climb thru the empty cabinets. As this comes to an end, she's going to have to get used to some more changes. 'Mahk' won't be here every day, it will be quiet, and the cabinets will be filled and child proofed!

I mentioned the doors a while ago. We have not had hardware on them since they were installed about 2 months ago. That's been fun keeping Rosie out too. She is older, she can climb, she can see things on my craft desk and want to get to them. Which, of course, I do not want her to! This is something I have long been waiting for! None of the old door knobs worked. I can now close my craft room door!

Finally... a sneak at what the finishing touches look like! I am so in love with the hardware! We're working on the lighting a little still. Without the big globe light over the sink, there is a low light place by the DR. All the workspaces have plenty of light, it's the overall light is still too low for me.

Seeing the finishes

When I post that we're almost done, I think I might see a finish line. Yet I don't get my hopes up. Mark is ready to move on to another project. This is the part that he's good at, that he loves, the creative part. Putting up the tile, painting. And he's rocked it! Again, just going to want to live in my kitchen!  I've had to make color decisions this week, my least favorite part. Picking paint and grout colors. I have to go in with definitive colors in mind.

He started working on the sink side first. Got up on the counters and did over the sink. It really defines that side of the kitchen, makes a statement!

Here is a look at the tile behind the sink with a sample of the paint that I picked out. You may ask "how did you pick out the paint color?" Well, that's a funny story! I love the paint that I picked for Rosie's room and our back hall. I thought I was just going to do the hall paint in the kitchen because it had a great brown and grey tint that would bring out those colors in all the textures I've chosen. Having to choose again, go through all the samples, was just something I didn't want to do. I love color but that process stresses me out. I had Tina come help me. She got out all the paint samples and started combining them! From there we came up with a color that carries greys in certain areas and brown in others. Mark loved it, then shook his head at how we came up with it! I went to Sherwin Williams and had the paint mixed, and I LOVE IT! Even the contractor on the job commented that it was a nice complimentary color.

One of the elements of the kitchen that I have been waiting a very long time to see is how the tile looks behind the stove and in my corner! Oh man it did not disappoint! I cooked a little last night and I felt like I was in some cool Italian kitchen! It's so pretty!

Mark is working hard to finish the tile. He had lots of little areas that needed tile cutting. I picked a grey grout that he should get to early next week. The carpenter comes in Monday to put hardware on and set the cabinet doors properly. The lights are also going up on Monday. We really are in the 'finishing' stages of this! I think by next weekend I'll be bringing in boxes and saying "hi" to some old friends in the form of kitchen utensils, cooking ware, plates, platters and all that other stuff I have accumulated over 20+ years!!

 

Craft time

I sat down to my weekly craft table time and instead of working on my planner, the schedule of stuff that needs to get accomplished, finishing 2 gifts and putting something together for the nephews Christmas moula, I saw the inspiration for the monthly blog hop over at Paper Trey Ink and was HOOKED! The picture was so beautiful and the colors really spoke to me. PTI is one of 2 stamp companies that I spend my money at. The designs, quality, dies and accessories are very along the lines of my style. Here is the inspiration picture that was posted:

It was kind of nice to just sit at my craft table and create. I could have gone easy, just die cut papers, added some embellishments and been on my way. But I decided to color. I am a very green 'newby' at the coloring thing. I possess a few different mediums to color, being originally taught with the Stampin Up watercolor pencils, which they are reintroducing in the latest Spring catalogue. They tried to add alcohol based markers a couple of years ago, which I was thrilled with. I had always wanted to try them and having colors from a line that I am familiar with and use, was wonderful to me. Unfortunately it did not work out. I still have several of the colors and used them today to color the purple tulips and leaves. For the pink tulips I used my Stampin Up Stampin Write markers. I try to get those in every new "In Color" line they introduce so that I have a wide variety of colors that match most of the paper that I use. One of my goals this year is to take a Copic marker class that I subscribed to on line. It is such a peaceful way to craft! I spent an hour and a half coloring today.

Other than that, I kept it simple. As mentioned, I colored tulips. I've said before that one of my favorite lines from PTI is the Friendship Jar along with all the seasonal stamps and dies. I use mason jars throughout my house for flowers, food and other household items.

I made the card from the one sided shimmer paper by Recollections at Michaels. I felt the need to stock pile this paper in every color! It takes embossing very well and has a matte inside to write on. The base is the 'brown', which l0oks copper on the glimmer side. I layered with a purple/wine color and used a smoky grey color as the top matte. I die cut the mason jar from pink vellum. Finally added the bow using the gold glimmer paper with purple distress embossing powder. I added a little Wink of Stella on the tulips and the edge of the bow

P.S. I took the picture on my new counter with the new backsplash... updates on the kitchen coming !!

Doors & shelves

A quick post with the cabinet doors and shelves being installed. We're getting there! Electrical work was started too. You can see the under cabinet lighting that was added on the sink side. Other 'unseen' electrical work was done, prepping for dishwasher install and the microwave above the stove!

Here is a full view of the kitchen with nothing on the counters - which I secretly love and would keep if it was at all practical! My girlfriend, Fran, told me when this started that I was going to want to just exist with empty countertops. She was right! Makes the kitchen look so big.

A closer look at the corner with the stove and the pocket door stained. Unfortunately I think the pocket door will have to be replaced because there are 2 splits in the wood.

Finally... I sound like a broken record, THIS PIECE BLOWS MY MIND!!! Mark added the shelves and doors yesterday. It makes our DR look so big.

Exciting stuff happening this week! New lighting, finishing molding on the cabinets, painting might even start! And in the basement I've started to organize the laundry room.

Not done yet

Yah, in the last post I was hoping another week to week and a half. Which puts us about now. Not done yet! No sink for 2 weeks, barely any counter space to put a sandwich together, but we're surviving. We now have more of those amenities. Rosie and I finally came home on the 8th. Sadly not being able to watch our beloved Patriots win the best Superbowl of them all with Daddy. That was tough too. We stayed away so Mark could really focus on getting the new hutch all done and all the cabinet bases. He has set up a workspace offsite that has better heat and air flow to encourage better drying for the cabinet doors and drawers.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was this masterpiece! It looks like it's been a part of the room. I couldn't be more pleased.

The day before Valentine's we got the faucet back! Mark installed the cabinet doors and drawers on the sink side. The lineup of the faucet not with the window is something that will probably always bother me, but the faucet needed to be in the middle. I am happy that I changed my mind from having it over to the right. The counters, cabinets and stainless all look so beautiful together!

Finally a look at how the stove side is looking. I love the new cabinet! I'm working on the 'office space' details. I truly feel that I have so much more working space!

We have counters!

I am seeing an end... albeit still probably another week to week and a half, but it's there! Rosie and I spent another week away while Mark (the painter) did all the sanding and started to work on the staining. It is great when I've been away for several days and can get home to see changes. It's a slow process - the staining is a 3 step process that need to dry in between. The big  thing that is done is all the cabinetry work. All the drawers have their fronts, the doors were all up (before being taken down to be stained) and any last adjustments that needed to be made to the existing cabinets. This means that Mark can work his magic! The first thing that I saw on walking in was the first coat of stain on our new doors - they are so beautiful, I'm so in love!! You can see that below with the existing tall cabinet sanded down.

Before leaving again to let Mark finish the magic, I got to see the counters being installed! My sidenote here is that I loved our old sink. But there was no way to keep it. Thankfully it's going to a new home where I know it will be well loved and appreciated! These guys were awesome, very professional and fast. First is the view on the stove side with the new cabinet. The lines are so clean, I love it!

Here is a look at the other side. I am going to do some work on the refrigerator so it doesn't look so worn down. That will happen when I can finally stay put and work in the house! It's a lot of counter space! I spent the whole night that they went in having a 'lovefest' with them! When the painting and tile is done, I think I'm going to spend a day or two just looking at it all with nothing to clutter! We're adding under cabinet lighting on this side.

One fun feature that was uncovered when the old counter was removed, was this really nice edge that can be seen with the new counters. Instead of a plain, plywood edge, it's got detail. I was so excited! Mark is sanding it down and making it look nice.

Once again my lil lady and I took off for Byfield. At least on this trip Grandma & Grandpa are back from California so I'm not running solo; and most important, I get a day with my friends tomorrow! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worn down from all of it. Watching Skip at the same time was hard. Rosie just loves him, he's an easy target for her! He doesn't growl or bite, loves all the treats she gives him and tolerates her.

Coming along

The kitchen is coming along... slow and steady! It's looking like overall it's going to take 6 weeks. I'm hoping to have it done by Valentine's Day - that would be nice. I'm already dreaming about some of my first meals.

After spending almost a week with my parents, Rosie and I went home for a week. Many of the cabinet doors were up, the 2 new base pieces (the pie one and the one where the washing machine was) were installed, and the cabinets that needed to be modified were. This helped me to see all that was being done and if I needed other adjustments. The only thing that I've added is to replace the base of all the lower cabinets. We're keeping 2 drawers that I had contemplated changing because they can not be made as big as I had. Right below the microwave is a huge drawer where I had all my spices and herbs, which I love!

Next step was to bring in Mark, the painter! He took all the doors off, set up a place in the basement to start the staining and sealing. I really want this kitchen to be 'sophisticated rustic.' In my eyes, that means the cabinets will have an almost raw feel. I do know it's hard to achieve because they need to be sealed with polyurethane. Mark did a really great job combining some stain colors to achieve an overall color that I am absolutely in love with! Our carpenter, Bob, even said "wow, is that one color?!" because he really liked it. I am excited at how the hardware looks with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately the light is making them look different - the one on the left is closer to how it will look. I love the knotty pine!

The other very exciting change that was in when I got home was the new doors on the bedrooms! I've wanted to paint the old ones white! Keith felt a little like it was a hospital, but once I get pictures on the walls it will feel more homely. I chose antique brass door knobs that will go on after the final painting.

The next step was for Mark to start sanding down all the cabinets that had been left. We decided it would be best if Rosie & I left during this, even if they do have some awesome vacuums these days that keep dust to a minimum. So we're back in Byfield for the week, with no Grandma & Grandpa - they are in California visiting with my aunt and uncle for a couple of weeks. I have to say, I am enjoying it! I am on duty full time with my sweet girl and 16 year old Skip, but I'm getting a lot of down time to catch on some other stuff. Before we left the guy finally came to measure the counter tops! One of those pieces that makes me feel like it's getting close. Keith said they were in doing all the final modifications for the cabinets.