Unpacking Boxes and Then Building New Ones

More planning took place here this weekend than anything else. We were visited by folks from various tree companies. It is truly amazing the price range we were quoted to cut down the two trees I mentioned in my last post~ one company (a national chain) wanted well over $3000 to do both trees WITHOUT grinding the stumps and another, on the low end, would do one for about $600, stump and all. We got to meet lots of different personalities too, which was VERY interesting for a people-watcher like myself. There is still one company left to give us an estimate, and a few weeks before we'd schedule the work, but I am pretty sure we know who has the job already. Although we have yet to hire someone, my advice if you need to do this someday: actually talk to the people and meet them if you can. There are A LOT of wackos out there with chainsaws!

Other than plotting the murder of our trees, hubs and I spent the majority of Saturday unpacking the last of the boxes in our garage and planning out cold frames. We finished unpacking everything within the first year~ an astonishing achievement! As far as the frames go~ my aunt recently gave my dad some old shower doors he passed on to me which I thought would make awesome lids for the frames. It'd be awesome to be able to grow some herbs and spinach a little earlier and later in the year. Spinach goes great with eggs, which hopefully we will have a lot of around here in the near future. We don't have any plans and I am not a visual artist, I'll admit, so it took us some time and a lot of sketches to agree on a design and materials. Though we originally planned on just using untreated pine and resigning ourselves to rebuilding them in a few years, if I can successfully drum up a few more writing gigs to pad my farm fund, I think we'll splurge on cedar so they will last longer. I love my husband very much, but trying to explain what I had envisioned to a tech guy when I have no art skills was pretty frustrating. I guess I want to make all the confusion involved a little more worthwhile and just do it right the first time.
Our weekend was otherwise uneventful and relaxing, with the typical preparations for the coming week taking most of the day today. The fridge and pantry are filled back up, the clothes are washing and drying, and my amazing (and patient) former-chef husband made a fantastic frittata for dinner tonight. The perfect ending to a perfect day. Next come five more days of the job-that-pays-for-this, and then the awards ceremony at the college for the poetry contest (I got second place!) and a trip to Amish country to stock up on dry goods. I see more steel cut oats in my future. :)

Hope you all have a fantastic week!