Little Free Library

Our neighbors, Jim and Beverly, next door at Hartwood Winery are very special to us.  I often say that they are family we were privileged to choose for ourselves.  Jim is a retired school librarian ... and I knew exactly what I could do for him as a big Christmas surprise.  A librarian needs to have a library, so we built him a Little Free Library of his very own!

The design of our little library is influenced by our red barn, which is clearly visible from almost everywhere on the winery property.  The actual plan is based on a Little Free Library at the police station in Fredericksburg.

I first found out about the Little Free Library program in this blog post by Karen at This Old House 2.  I instantly loved the idea ... to exchange books, take a book/return a book, as the sign says.

It took us about a week to build the library, and it cost very little because most of the materials we used were leftovers that we squirreled away after finishing other projects.  The body of the library is 3/4" plywood.

It's painted with the remnants of a can of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  (Primer Red, of course.)

The library needed doors and windows, to truly reflect the design of our barn.  It didn't take long to measure, tape, and paint them with acrylic paint.

The trim boards are cut out of scraps of 1x2 poplar from our front porch column project.  The little 'roof' over the door opening is a scrap of brick molding that we had lying around.

Couldn't resist adding this photo of our grandson, learning to use a brad nailer to attach the trim around the roof.

Roof shingles were leftover from one of our outbuildings.  We bought the white aluminum drip-edge.  (The biggest challenge in this project was to do everything possible to make sure that the inside of the library stayed dry.)

The door is made from 1x2 poplar, rabbeted to hold a piece of plexiglass (which is secured with glazing points and sealed with silicone).  We installed a piece of adhesive gasket inside the door opening, for further protection against the weather, and the door is held closed with a barrel bolt.

The library base is made from a scrap 2x4 and four shelf brackets, and it sits on a 4x4 post set in concrete.  Our neighbors were out of town last week, so we could work on this part of the project on their property without worrying about spoiling the surprise.

I see that I forgot to paint the bottom of the trim.  I'll fix that when the weather is favorable.

To make the library look extra festive, since it's Christmastime, I made this ornament for the door.  A $3 glitter deer head from Target, hot-glued to a $2 bell wreath from Michael's.  

To complete the set-up, I added a few books and a Christmas card.

All of our effort and sneakiness paid off, when Jim and Beverly came home the other day and saw their surprise!  Jim said that he is going to have a lot of fun with this ... and that was the whole reason behind doing this for him.  Those who have seen it have promised to support it by donating books and telling their friends.

Do you have a Little Free Library nearby?  You can check by searching the world map on their web site.  (BTW, this is the only one in zip code 22406.)   

Throwback Thursday ... Our Barn

I will be working back by the barn today, which is about 200 yards behind the house  I'm prepping a small area to extend the English Garden, to plant iris, peonies, and climbing roses.  I will show this to you later when it actually looks like something to share.  For now, let's take a quick Before and After look at our barn beside this garden ... the barn was in sorry shape and was in desperate need of attention when we bought this property in 2002.

Here it is in the beginning, choked by brush and structurally compromised.

Bye bye, Brush.

Initial stage of shoring up the rotten framing.

Working down the length of the building, zig-zagging from one side to the other, replacing beams and posts.

Framing is finished, and new rough-sawn siding is going on.  The old siding is stacked inside.

The beginning of a paint job in the perfect Barn Red.

Finished ... except for a little bit of trim painting!

As I work nearby, I remember the awful condition that our barn was in before and I smile to see the state that it's in now.  (Click HERE if you haven't seen the whole story of the restoration, which is also in a link on the sidebar.)

Gotta go get to work!

Sunday Snapshot ... More Wildlife

Moving my game camera to the path overlooking the Rose Field has proven to be less-than-fruitful, as far as capturing photos of four-legged wild creatures is concerned.  It was, however, a great way to document the comings and goings of The Husband and me on Saturday, as we worked to clear out the front left section of our barn (so we can stack the slabs of our oak tree in there, and finally get them out of the front yard).

Bright and early, I walk to the barn to check out the situation and get started ...

 

 

... followed shortly thereafter by The Husband, bringing things in our golf cart.

 

 

 

Here he is, walking back to the garage to get bolt cutters ...

 

 

 

... and walking back to the barn.

 

 

 

Back to the garage again ...

 

 

 

... to get a pitchfork.

 

 

 

One more trip to the garage as we are finishing up ...

 

 

... to get the leafblower and his mask.

 

 

There are no photos of me returning from the barn, because I walked up behind the camera to grab the memory card and take it back to the house.

 

The game camera has been sitting in this spot for a week.  Other than the fox and deer photos that I showed you last week, the camera has captured exactly ONE photo of real wildlife ...

 

 

 

... a cat.  I don't recognize this cat, but it looks like it's definitely a well-fed cat.  I would like to think that he/she is returning from the barn after a successful mousing expedition.  This may really be true, because we only found two mice while we were working, and there were a bunch of old abandoned mouse nests.

 

I plan to move the camera to another spot later this morning.

 

Have a great Sunday, Everyone!!

 

(some of you have asked about my game camera.  It is a Bushnell Trophy Cam ... click HERE see it on the Bushnell web site.)

 

Snow Day

The temperature here has been below freezing for the past two days.  Overnight, a small storm system dusted our part of the country with about an inch or two of snow.  It's light, frozen snow ... delightfully soft.  I had no problem sweeping it off our deck steps, so the dogs can safely get down to the backyard to do their 'business'. 

From where I stand here in the kitchen, my dining room window view is really beautiful!  No winter whining, for sure, when I can stand here and look out at this ... from the warmth of inside the house, of course.

 

 

Just to let you know, I added this photo using the regular Blogger photo uploader ... instead of having to switch back and forth between 'compose' and 'html', like we have had to do for the past few weeks.  I guess Blogger finally got to work and fixed whatever was broken.

 

Have a great day, Everyone!

(remember, No Winter Whining!)

Sunshine At Last!

I was standing here in my usual spot at the peninsula in the kitchen earlier this morning, catching up on happenings in the cyber-world while the dogs and cats were finishing their breakfast, and something wonderful happened.  After seven consecutive days of grey, wet weather, we have bright sunshine and blue sky outside! 

View from my spot at the peninsula through our dining room window, toward our barn at the back of the property.

 

 

It is windy and cold, but that's okay ... the sun is out, and I am going to need sunglasses when I go out to the store later today.  There sunshine puddles throughout the house for the cats to enjoy, and the baby roses in the greenhouse should be warm and toasty by mid-afternoon. (I'm not running the heat in there this winter, so solar heat is all it gets.)

 

Later today, if everything goes even remotely as planned, I expect to be hanging clothes in our new master bedroom walk-in closets!  (cue the happy dance!)  Finishing the outer part of the new wall, with all the doors and molding?  I'm going to make like Scarlett O'Hara on this one ... tomorrow (or whenever) is another day.

 

Here Comes the Sun

My habit in the morning is to drink my first cup of coffee while standing at the end of the peninsula counter in our kitchen, checking the status of the world on my laptop, and staring at the view toward the barn through our dining room window.  This morning, the sunshine and fall colors made the countryside especially nice to look at ... made even sweeter by the return of the sun after so much wind and rain from Sandy.

 

 

I have to get moving and take my shower ... I'm hitting the road later this morning, meeting Deborah at her new booth at the antique shop in Leesburg ... then we are going to go to Lucketts to see what we can find.  This is my last mental-health day until after our Greyhounds Rock benefit this weekend.  I intend to enjoy it to the fullest.

 

Walking the Dogs

When the weather is nice, I love to grab the leashes and take Daniel and Ruby for a walk around the property.  We have 9 acres, and access to Hartwood Winery's acreage next door, so the dogs and I can take a really nice walk in the country ... without leaving home.

On this particular day, there was a light breeze, and a beautiful blue sky with cottony white clouds.  Come along with us, and I will show you around.

In the corner of our pasture, we have an ancient apple tree.  I like to think that it's the last survivor of the orchard that I know was here in the 1890s.  (We have a copy of an advertisement from when our house was sold at auction at that time, and it specifically mentions an orchard.)  The tree bloomed better this year than it has in a while.

As I was looking at the apple tree, Ruby was distracted by something ... it was a pile of some sort of small animal poop.  Fortunately, I noticed what she was doing before she rolled in it.  (Remember last year when I found the bear poop?)

The ramblers on the back fence of the Rose Field are really big now ... too big, to be honest.  This year's early spring cut into my window of opportunity to prune these before they leafed out.  On the bright side ... there will be a whole lot more flowers on them like this ... I can't wait!

That's "Peggy Martin" in the foreground, and 'Erinnerung an Brod' farther down the fence.

This is my view from the back of our property toward Hartwood Winery's vineyard.  (There's something on my lens in these photos, and I didn't notice it until I was processing the photos for this post.)

The grape vines are all pruned and ready to grow and produce the grapes that will be this year's wine.  It was an early spring here, too, and the winery's crew of two raced to finish pruning as the vines broke bud and began to grow.

Here is the view of our barn from the vineyard.  The neighbors have the BEST view.

My back neighbors have a horse farm ... which is still for sale, if you or someone you know know wants a great horse operation.  As I stood at their fence talking to these two guys, I heard a low growl beside me.

It was Ruby ... hackles up, tail at attention, growling under her breath.  It's the first time I have heard her growl at anything!  I guess she doesn't care for horses.

While we are back here, let's head toward the barn.  See that little yellow building on the left?

It has the worst of the damage from last year's earthquake ... which, fortunately, isn't really all that bad.  I can fix it.

The two new gardens by the barn are still empty.  The Labyrinth is still staked out, awaiting paths and edging and plants.

The Miniature Garden is in the same condition ... but with the underlayment on the paths in place.

The English Garden is doing great!  These roses were planted a year and a half ago, and most of them are thriving.  A few are struggling, and I plan to replace them as soon as I can with others that I already have on hand.  That's what I was doing when I found the cannonball earlier this week ... right where the arrow is.

The weeds you see have already been shot with herbicide  and they're beginning to look a little sickly.

The bottle trees at the entrance to the English Garden didn't stand up to the winds this winter.  They're still firmly anchored in the ground, it's the metal 'trunk' that bent over like that.  Fortunately, none of the bottles broke.  I need to run next door, get some empty wine case boxes, and store the bottles until I can straighten and reinforce the trees.

The figs I planted on the south side of the barn are looking really good.  This bed is an experiment ... planted with eight different varieties to see which does best without irrigation or winter protection.  These two are thriving, but I don't know which ones they are because the tags are lost.

At this point, it was getting late and it was time to turn for home and give the dogs their dinner.  I don't think I've shown you this view of the back of our house before.  The green building is our detached garage ... the dormer is a storage attic.  The little white building to the left will eventually be a studio/workshop/I-would-love-to-put-an-antique-shop-in-there-one-day.  It's a dream to work toward.

As I predicted, the cool weather of the past few days has pretty much stopped the progression of bloom in the garden.  This is a good thing, because I don't want everything to be TOO early, and I'm definitely not at the point where I can open the nursery and garden to visitors quite yet.  It's getting close, though.

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I remembered that I have a photo of a 'view from space' of our property that I used in a post in 2010 (which was about burning the brush pile, which is why the brush pile is noted on the photo).  With a couple of modifications to highlight landmarks mentioned in this post, this should help you get your bearings.  Pretend the red property lines are straight.  :)