The rains of change

     The rainy weather continues on the farm and with it comes life's changes. This past Friday was my last day at my job. For the past three years I have been working as an assistant architect under the great mentorship of my boss. With the changing building climate in our area and his mind shifting towards retirement, he decided to scale back the office.  The loss of employment will stress our remodel finances, but I am looking forward to some time off.  The current plan is to take the summer off and really crack the whip on all things homestead while keeping any eye out for jobs in my field.

   The first weekend of "vacation" has been an unscripted and random string of short attention spans where I am attempting to wrap up many little things that have remained unfinished for far too long. This post and possibly the next will be a summary of those projects. 
    A few welcomed signs of the growing season to come peaked their heads out between the clouds and rain this past week. The first was the rhododendron flowering in glorious fashion and the first signs of the coming apple harvest in the fall. So far we look to have a nice crop on the trees. 

     I am still taking full advantage of our neighbors tractor and had a long enough break in the rain to finish removing the sod from the new garden expansion. Through the great patience and support of my wife, we made it though the mud pond stage and made it to a nice, finished surface. I am glad she has some faith in my lack of sanity and focus at times. I will be the first to admit that my attention span is like a game of pinball. Sometimes I will walk by something on the way to one project, get distracted, and start on another. Usually I will make it back to the first after finishing the second, and other times the second will be interrupted by a third or fourth. I'll finish them all....eventually. 

    With the removal of all the sod came a mountain of dirt. Fortunately we have plenty of places to put it. One area was on the backside of the garden, leveling out some of the inconsistencies of the the grade, the other was fixing the lawn near the road. There used to be a fence along the road line and over the years the wash from the road caused a significant drop in grade. After many tractor loads of dirt, a few long days, and a dash of sunburn, I finished grading half the lawn between the garage and sidewalk. 

    With all this newly found time, I am attempting to get back into homebrewing. The request from my sister to make all the beer for her wedding has definitely accelerated getting back into it. I had brewed the beer for our wedding, so she knew it could be done. It does not hurt that I have most of the ingredients that I need to be able to make nearly 100 gallons of beer, my wallet can take a sabbatical from the local beverage center for the time being. My hap hazard setup above will be getting a rework this summer out of necessity and safety. 

    Baxter is probably the happiest of the bunch with the change in profession. He has always been an outside dog and it has always been tough leaving him locked up. He tries to help at times, but his vision of assistance is much different than mine. But he is king of the mountain on the farmstead. 

So happy he is telling everyone