Roofing Installed

And they finally finished installing the shingles!

Some of the shingles appear tannish in color; that is because they have been sitting around unpackaged in our basement for around five years and they are dusty. They were leftover from our house reroofing. That discoloration will hopefully wash off in the next rain.

Our weather bounced up from the 60s to 70s last week to the 90s this week. Ugh. I had planned to have a garage sale this Saturday, but I cannot do it when it's that hot. I am barely functional when it gets over 85℉. You'll find me hiding out in the basement, hopefully sifting boxes for a later garage sale rather than playing Elder Scrolls.

Update: Here is where they stopped at the end of the day.

Allegedly, they are also planning to work on it tomorrow morning until it gets too hot.

Excavating the Basement

Ever since moving out of the storage back in 2014 our basement has been stuffed full and unusable.

Basement disaster we're trying to clean up

This is the mostly before photo

This summer we are finally trying to deal with the mess. Primarily, we need to sift boxes and get rid of stuff, but there is so much to deal with, it's quite overwhelming to even get started. The space in our front storage was used pretty inefficiently. We did some measuring and realized we could add several more racks so I ordered another five 4' racks.

We're still in the process of building shelves and shuffling boxes and tubs into the racks, but it's already getting better.

We are hoping to spend the summer shifting boxes into these shelves from other areas of the house and then start sifting them for what we need to get rid of. I'm hoping we have the energy to have a number of garage sales through the summer and then just donate what is left when it doesn't sell.

I'll share some more photos in a few days when we finally get the rest of the shelves built and get them filled up.

Not Much Progress

The last time Erik was out to work on our shed was Jun 2, but here it is Jun 18 and only half the roofing has been installed. In fairness, we had a bunch of rain last week and he, understandably, doesn't want to work on ladders when it's wet out. I assume he has some other more important job, but I'm not thrilled about having the tar paper getting rained on.

Aaron has been out a couple of times to help hang the plywood on the walls, but his bicycle business has gotten really busy this year so he hasn't been available much this spring.

On the bright side, with all this rain, our transplanted ferns are delighted.

And some of the new bleeding hearts from Breck's are looking like they'll make it. We probably won't see flowers until next year, but I'm glad they'll get established this year.

Resurrecting Cooking Blog

Jeff and I have been depressed about the world situation right now. Really depressed. He responded productively by getting extremely active with Indivisible Oregon. Sadly, I responded by diving back into my Elder Scrolls Online game, but this week I have finally decided I need to stop hiding out in the game.

Starting now, I am going to try to make some overdue positive changes in my life. First starters, I've decided to become a lot more proactive in our menu planning because over the last couple of years our eating has drifted back into a lot of store-bought prepared food, i.e. things like canned soup and less healthy foods. Jeff has tried to keep up our nutrition—he still makes a lot of salads—but sometimes he just doesn't feel like cooking. This has resulted in a much larger food budget. I'd like to work to reverse the trend and use more of my time helping out with the cooking tasks.

Last Thanksgiving, the Instant Pot was deeply discounted and since many of our friends had been raving about theirs for months on social media, we decided to give it a try. Jeff has gotten good use out of it, since he uses it most days for making oatmeal for breakfast, but I am going to try and add a lot more recipes to our arsenal. I'm hoping ultimately we will buy less canned foods, especially soups.

Anyway, for folks who are interested in our cooking exploits, we'll be resurrecting Jeff's mostly neglected food blog and resume posting about our successes and failures. I plan to do quite a lot of Instant Pot recipes and I'm hoping to try my hand at some crusty breads and filled pastas (not too much of these because of carbs).

Progress on Shed

Finally, another day of work happened. It got really hot, but at least it wasn't raining, for a nice change. Today they starting framing the door and windows and the roof.

Installing the brackets. I actually bought these on sale last fall from VanDyke's Restorers. They are called Restorers Rustic Merced Arts & Crafts Outlooker Bracket. They match our house pretty well, though I don't like the groove they cut into them (I didn't notice it in the picture at the website when I ordered them).

 Here's where they left off for the day.

We're hopeful the weather will hold and they'll get the roof on this week.

Breck's Order

We finally received the Breck's order from March. Even though it came about a month later than I had expected, the bareroot plants we received actually looked healthy and appeared to be viable. Jeff planted them yesterday and once they start growing I'll post photos. I only received the flowers; the bulbs will arrive in fall.

There is still absolutely no signs of life in the dead plants we got from Wholesale Plant Nursery. It's time to dispute the charge.

Our rain has continued practically non-stop since we started the garden shed/chicken coop. We're hoping next week brings better weather and we can make more progress on the framing.

Vegetable Garden

Over the weekend Jeff went off to the Master Gardener's Incredible Edibles sale and bought a few plants. We're doing a much smaller garden this year because we tended to be pretty unreliable about caring for them in earlier years. The chard and kale will also survive over the winter.

Jeff got them in the ground, but he didn't redig the whole garden so there are still a few herbs leftover from earlier years. It's kind of hard to see the new plants.

As usual, I'm just going to cut and paste the list into the post so I have a record (for next year):
Rainbow Chard, Kale, Lettuce (Merlot and Red Sails), Slicing Tomatoes (Early Girl, Black Zebra, Indigo Rose and Purple Bumblebe) and Basil.

We also picked up a squash plant for the backyard to help shade the dirt to help prevent weeds.

I also ordered a number of seeds for the front planting strip. I learned from my earlier lessons not to buy plants, but I have not been totally cured of online shopping. But now I start with the lists of 30 good companies at Dave's Garden and only shop at those. At least seeds are much cheaper if it doesn't go well.

I'm not sure if I should post the list of seeds as I receive them, or as I plant them. :)

We'll probably do the major planting in fall when we receive all the bulbs. Jeff is considering double digging and amending the soil before we plant everything.