spring garden and birds

                    Stella keeps an eye on the chickens.

                                        Birds in the greenhouse

                                           Birds on the table

Robin invited a few of us over to fold origami birds in preparation for Carrie's wedding. We are all doing our part to reach 1000 cranes. As the number of days to the wedding decreases, the number of cranes increases. We are getting there! Thanks, Robin, for corralling us to fold and serving us coffee, strawberries and blueberry muffins.

Otis had no interest in our paper birds.

Best of all I got to wander through Robin's garden. Everything is budding and pushing up out of the ground. Birds flew from tree to bush to fence post. This is what we wait for in New England.

Birds arrive from Davis, California

Thank you Sylvia, Alden and Cody!

chapter 5 New Home

The turn into the driveway was tricky.

Settling down on a bed of gravel.

Done.

Chapter 4

Maybe some readers have seen where I am going with this story. Yes, the truck is gone, the barn is built so what is to become of the shed? We have considered this question for years and this year decided to get rid of it. But not into a dumpster if we could possibly manage it. This old building still has some life in it.

A neighbor with two teenage boys who work on cars, go carts, bikes, and other stuff was looking for a place to house all the contraptions that had been gathering in her driveway. She said she would love to have the shed. So after two moves on our property, it came time to move it again. This time it had to go on the road. Good bye shed.

Down our driveway, just fitting through the stone wall

Turning onto Moccasin Hill

A left on Laurel Drive

Keeping within the speed limit

Squeaking under two sets of power lines. A right turn into the neighbor's driveway.

Back home here is what it looks like without the shed.

Moving a building was really a thrill and we didn't pass one car, hit one power line, knock off any tree branches or lose the building entirely around a corner. Three vehicles, five men, a lot of strategizing and a lot of fun. We all felt victorious. How's that for recycling?

A Story, Part 3

The garage or shed as it came to be called served many purposes over the years. Before the barn was complete, it served as David's workshop. He had many admiring visitors who worked on projects there. (remember the beeswax candle making?)

But with the barn came a chance to move in and spread out and eventually the shed went back to it's original use; a place to store the truck. At some point during one of the two moves, the green doors with the windows were lost.

The Willys engine faltered and it sat for many years in the shed unused except as a home for mice and raccoons. A few years ago we decided to sell the truck. An ad in Craig's list attracted the attention of two high school seniors from the Putney School in Vermont who drove down, reached into pockets, handed us a wad of bills and towed the truck away with plans to refurbish it for their senior project. We liked knowing that there would be a new life for this old friend that had once hauled brush, trees, and little girls to swimming parties at Valley Pond.

Jump starting the truck one last time.

A Story, Part 2

Concrete floor! yeah! (but I am jumping ahead)

So the house construction project was completed, the garage watched from the side and baby Eliza arrived. Or more accurately, baby Eliza came and the house got done....eventually. The garage was too close now, so we moved it down the hill in the spring. Imagine moving a building! I was in awe of this.

Carrie helped.

We had to move it to make room for the new barn. Doesn't everyone need a barn? Framers came down from Vermont and stayed with us for three days and put up the timber frame that David had designed. For the next few years, David and occasionally helpers worked on it, putting on siding, roof, and installing windows and doors.

What did the old garage think of all this? Things had sure changed since the day the little house and garage sat side by side.

Here's the family standing in front of the old garage.

Now there are three building and four people in the family.

More to come in the next installment.

A Story, Part 1

In the beginning, there was a small house, a freestanding garage, two parents and a baby Carrie.

All was well but eventually we wondered, how will our new baby fit into this little bungalow?

And so the architect dad designed an addition and raised the roof of the little house, creating another bedroom and a living room. Best of all, a laundry room was added, for there had been no room for a washing machine so the mother and the baby went to HER mother's house every week to wash clothes. Which was actually really fun. The freestanding garage with the beautiful doors watched as her partner, the house, was transformed.

Here the garage is a backdrop for the family that sits on the foundation of the new living room smiling at the camera. She had been moved from next to the little house, to a distance away. Everyone is excited about the new addition AND the new baby.