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Barn-work – Decorations – Fire Pellets, Pits & Stoves – Gardens – House-work – Lawns – Renovations, Restorations, Repairs & Re-Purpose – Tree-Trimming
Each subject on the list has a link to an “Introduction” page. Click the link and the Introduction” page will open in a new “tab” on your browser. Each “Introduction” page has a link to a “Portfolio” page where photos of work are posted… like an old photo album (for those of you who remember those).

BARN-WORK: Disused and abandoned dairy barn. Clean-up, clean-out and install a window. A trash-catch to a work-shop and a nice place to just sit and contemplate. DECORATION Benches, fence-posts, Halloween decorations from “barn scraps”, sign-painting (old shingles, political signs and scrap wood) and solar lighting along the back walk. FIRE PELLETS, PITS & STOVES Stacking (properly), pellets and fire-wood (and bringing them from stack to kitchen), fire-pit (building )from an old tractor wheel, and wood-stove maintenance. GARDENING FLOWERS: Beds of lilies, hollyhocks and peonies ignored and restored. Beds of zinnias, cosmos, marigolds and more, created from previously ignored and wasted space. And another property “make-over” including the replacement of a narrow strip of “front lawn” with ever-green vinca(myrtle) that was found growing “wild” in a wood-land. GARDENS (FOOD) Portfolio: Organic vegetable and berry gardening including corn, squashes, root vegetables, beans and such. And the green-house preparation work prior to the planting. RECLAMATION Portfolio: Turning a wood-stove ash dump into a colourful flower-bed of zinnias, cosmos, marigolds and petunias. Then clearing-out and cleaning-up what was once a small “hen yard” behind the old barn. But a truly most rewarding reclamation: A small herb garden, lost in a jungle of multi-metre high weeds, brought back from herb, to vegetable to flower garden with a bench to sit and enjoy. HOUSE-WORK: The kitchen, where the wood-stove is located, needs, at the very least, a thorough washing, generally once a year at least. Large, long ladders, buckets and time. Luckily, it’s only once a year. As for the rest of the year, a few photos of a common weekly routine clean-up of dishes, sink and floors. LAWNS: Mowing, seeding and sodding. Mowing 3 acres (1,2 hectares) * With reel (motorless) mower until the gas-powered came along about a year later. Cultivating, seeding and sodding to create a lawn that wouldn’t grow. And at last, mowing 1,5 acres (0,6 hectare) on… a ride-on! The “sod” here, as else-where, was cut from areas that were turned to flower-beds or that simply needed trimming. Square foot sections ere cut from the lawn, hauled, placed and tamped, watered and after a bit of passing time, became… lawn. Often, sod replaced bare patches (as at “172” and “5199”). RENOVATION, RESTORATION, REPAIRS & RE-PURPOSE: RENOVATIONS: Disused and ignored for many years, washed and painted, old rooms given new light and life, ceiling to floor and wall to wall. RESTORATION: Old chairs found during barn reclamation, rustically restored. REPAIR 20-year old garden gate, repaired. REPURPOSE: Converting the frame-work of an old & discarded living-room love seat to a garden bench with the additions of pallet slats and an old wooden door. TREE-TRIMMING: Maples, pines, lilacs… Felled limbs, annoying limbs, dead limbs. Trimmed and pruned with hand-tools only, most of which provide warmth as fire-wood for the wood-stove. Waste nothing!

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