Until Later

Our working staycation has come to an end and my vacation has just begun. As I type this my lovely sister is en route from Virginia for a short visit to the lean-to. We've gotten the house about as ready as it's going to get and it looks a heck of a lot better than when my parents visited this same time last year.

Before

Now

Of course the house isn't finished but what house truly is? In fact, I think our last house was only "finished" right when we sold it. I hear that rings true for many a do-it-yourself-er.

You might be asking yourself, "What projects still remain? A jacuzzi? A three car garage? Sorry to disappoint, but those things will most likely never be on our agenda. We think a bit smaller here, some due to land restraints but mostly due to our desire to live simply. If we had a three car garage, we'd probably fill it with stuff we really don't need or more bikes. There is a reason that pictures of our storage room don't make it on this blog.

Full disclosure: this is the best this storage room has ever looked. Honestly.

So, the projects we have left are those which we have already started but will not be finished Until Later. Until Later can be a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we give ourselves time to finish these projects, rather than a hurry up and get it done stress inducer. A curse because we give ourselves so much time that when we really need one of the projects done, we end up having to hurry up and get it done.

I fear that our porch project may be heading toward the cursed side of things. We've poured the concrete pilings and installed one of the posts. It has so much promise and I can imagine midday lunches in the shade.

The post to nowhere

The state of this porch, however, will probably remain in this condition until June when the searing summer sun will finally be too much to bear. Then we'll throw up some sort of ramshackle structure that will be beautiful in its own funky, rustic way, which is fine, but a little forethought, planning and execution of a plan goes a long way, too.

At least we'll have these burly chairs to sit on in the sun, and eventual shade:

The barnwood comes through again!

The "yard" is another project. I had big plans for an edible, native, pollinator-luring, wildlife-habitat-creating landscape. What we have instead is a swath of clay interrupted by a few fruit trees and some holes I call our garden. The first garden bed is finally sprouting, so there's a sign of hope with that project. The rest of the yard, however, will not be this lush landscape (in the desert sense) that hip gardening magazines will beg to have on their cover. No, instead, we've decided to seed the yard with meadow grasses from our local nursery. If all goes well, we'll have a yard full of a variety of grasses which will include some fodder for the chickens and Indian Ricegrass that I can actually harvest and grind into flour. That doesn't sound so bad, but my vision was altogether different. I guess my vision will wait Until Later.