As in all good lesson plans, it’s always good to do a review. While it feels like the school is ‘finished’, for those who know us, it’s never really done and as I looked back on the year, I realized we actually had a busy year and did some pretty cool things.
Right off the bat, we upgraded the schoolhouse vehicles with this beauty. Unfortunately our good neighbor talked us out of her a few months later, but it was fun for awhile!
We had great aspirations for a garden early on too. We started here (ignore the mold on a few of them, I’m sure it will be OK)
But never fear, later on we remodeled the front parking space into a garden and planted seeds that actually wound up growing – much to our surprise, really. Fortunately, we waited until AFTER the great hail storm of 2022. It looked like snow, but our roof says it was much harder. One more project to fix next year.
Our Spring Break project was a fun one. We had tons of left over beadboard from the entry of the school and wanted to reuse it somewhere. So we tackled the knee-wall in the dining room and the wall around the chalkboard. I think it turned out great!
Summer time = Tree removal. We had ignored this tree for a couple of years just because it was too big to tackle with hand tools. A couple of weekends, we had it sliced, then a couple months worth of splitting and stacking, Then yet another storm brought down more trees. Back to the chainsaws. Good news though, we decided we had enough to heal the school exclusively with wood this year, and what a huge savings that has turned out to be!
Fast forward to the end of summer, and after 2 years of saving up, we were finally able to start the garage. Pandemic shortages and work stoppages made it hard to get what we needed, but it was more than exciting to see it go up. And once it did, wow was it fast! Three weeks from slab to shingles. We had some great help from wonderful friends and neighbors to get it done.
Of course, as per tradition we hosted a sale and tour at the River Road Ramble in September. The crowds were enormous and we got to see so many people we hadn’t seen for a few years! (so busy in fact that I didn’t even take one picture!) But Doodle, Henry and Clive watched over the event all day.
And speaking of chickens, our 7 ladies got a Primp My Coop Upgrade. Check out that copper roof! (leftover from the bell-tower).
And to reward us, they are providing some spectacular egg colors. Kevin discovered they love cheese curds – they’re Wisconsin Chickens, so of course they do!
Here is Red, Greenie, Nugget and Cacciatore are begging for more.
And now we are back to Christmas, tucked snuggly in front of the fire while it’s cold and snowy outside. We had a great year with family and friends and I wish you all the best of 2023 as well!
