12 "Dones" of Housemas

Since we bought our house 7 years ago, we've had a running To-Do list that seems to operate a little like a starfish. You cut off one arm and another grows in its place. You cross one thing off the list and another inevitably appears—often because when one thing becomes pretty, it illuminates the ugliness of the thing beside. Like when we enclosed our breezeway with a wall of redwood planks and suddenly realized that the garage door looked so hideous next to it, we needed to buy a new one.

Thankfully, in the last year or so we've been able to successfully amputate some of the starfish arms, taking our once two-page list down to about 3/4 of one page.

I've been terrible about blogging this year, but I wanted to post a list (partly for our own selfish project-tracking reasons) chronicling the To-Dos we've turned to Dones in 2019.

1. Driveway
This was essentially a miracle. I don't know what year our crumbly old asphalt driveway was laid, but it was The. Biggest. Eyesore. It brought down the aesthetic of the entire house. And every time I swept it after gardening, it would disintegrate. I was convinced that eventually, there would be no driveway left to sweep because every crumb of it would have been pushed into the lawn and the mulched planter.

Mr. W refused to even entertain the idea of a new driveway, so I would often say things like "When I win the lottery, the first thing I'm doing is pouring concrete!" I'm still not clear on what brought him around, but in the early fall, Mr. W decided to get a quote on cement. And it was so much more affordable than we thought it would be! So we did it. And it has totally transformed the front of our house. Worth every penny.

2. Retaining wall
Along with the driveway came a new niche for our trashcans and, possibly someday in the future, a cute little trailer. The catch was that we needed to make sure our neighbor's yard didn't accidentally avalanche into our new niche. Thus, the handsome new retaining wall.

3. Fountain
I think Mr. W added "fix fountain" to the to-do list like four years ago. We've had this fountain since we lived in Hollywood and I missed looking out the kitchen window to catch hummingbirds drinking from it and mockingbirds bathing. Very excited he got this puppy back up and running.

4. Sliding glass doors
The doors in our dining room and living room were original to the house—meaning they were installed in 1959. In addition to being murder traps (there was no way they were tempered glass) they were drafty, didn't slide great, and had grime around the frames that I couldn't ever seem to get clean. We (read: Mr. W, not me...) still need to patch the stucco around the new ones, but they have made a huge difference in our ability to control temperature inside the house and they look great (especially with our new carpet).


5. Curtain Rods
This was a minor update but I'd been wanting to do it a long time and am so happy. It's the equivalent of adding eyebrows to where none used to exist on a face.

6. Carpet
Not sure when the carpet was installed in our living room, but it was in sad shape when we bought the house. We shampooed the room two or three times, but as my dad once said about my beat-up Ford Escort "You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." There was a thinning spot next to the slider where water seepage had destroyed the padding and rug. And when we got two kittens whose favorite game involved plucking individual fibers from the grid and tossing them like captured prey, thinning turned to bald. We needed to pull the trigger on new carpet. The room is now thick and lustrous as a Kardashian.

7.  Backyard staircase
We just checked this one off the week before Christmas and there's still much to do with it. But the stairs are framed and we can now get down to our lower yard without having to walk all the way around to the dirt path that runs between our neighbors' house and ours. It's thrilling. I plan to run up and down these suckers to get in shape like Rocky. And one day, there will be grapevines growing on the slopes that border them.

8. Wood surround on the pizza oven
We put the pizza oven in two years ago and the BBQ platform next to it had been a skeleton ever since. After finding a master carpenter to help us with the trim above our kitchen cabinets (which should be #13 on this list...) Mr. W hired him to finally put some meat on the BBQ platform bones. Now this pretty redwood matches the rest of the wood on our property and finally the pizza oven can stand in its true saucy Neapolitan glory.

9. Garden fencing and boxes
Very early in the year, Mr. W set to work installing a deer fence around all of our fruit trees. We decided this part of the yard would be a better place to plant our big garden, and that garden would need protection from the local herbivores. The fence paid off in pounds and pounds of apricots and plums in the early summer and thanks to the planter boxes Mr. W built, we were able to save most of the smaller plants from the titanium army of undestroyable gophers. We need to do some work on our soil (we didn't get a single zucchini in this garden, which is unheard of) but were happy with our tomato, basil, tomatillo, and pumpkin yields.

10. Greenhouse plants
I did find time to craft a blog post about the greenhouse we built in the spring, but sadly that beauty sat empty and unfinished most of the year. Finally in the fall, we completed the assembly of the shelves inside of it and added some plants. I'm happy to say I've been getting jalapeños all winter and we're hoping our tomato plant will fruit soon. The cauliflower plants are also coming along quite nicely. The dream is to have some semblance of produce production going all year, every year.

11. Gas line in the fire pit
In spite of my deep-rooted love of campfire smell, Mr. W insisted we put in a gas option so we could use the firepit without having to go to bed smoke-scented. I guess it's nice to have the option, but I'm likely going to lobby for real wood the next time we make 'smores.

12. Murphy bed
With six nieces between the two of us, Mr. W and I often have families of four staying in our house. Sadly, we only had one guest room and one bed, so multiple members of the fam were relegated to the couch and aerobeds if they spent the night. We had decided quite awhile ago to buy a Murphy bed for his office so we could have another guest bedroom, and this year we finally bought a kit and put one together. It's nice that we can pack it up when it's not being used. And I dig how it kinda looks like an old fashioned bar or something. Cocktail, anyone?

Yard Plan, Interrupted

When Mr. W and I started house-hunting in the Santa Ynez Valley 7 years ago, one of our non-negotiables was the size of our lot. We had to have an acre. No ifs, ands, or buts. In our minds, it was the ideal amount of space for a chicken coop and a veggie garden and maybe some goats to fuel our cheese-making aspirations.

Fast forward to 2016 and we'd scrapped the goats but had a pretty clear design in mind for the half acre of empty land behind our house.

I begged for that yoga platform. I was certain I'd use it to host spirit-restoring day retreats for my friends from LA.

Then, last fall, Mr. W and I went to Sonoma. And we visited the Sunset Test Garden. Which had the raddest greenhouse ever. Immediately, we both knew that instead of the yoga platform (Mr. W was never in love with it anyway) we wanted a nice big greenhouse on our green acre.

We found a kit for one from a local vendor and decided to splurge on the purchase. It took several Saturdays of wood staining and audio book listening in the garage (Sharp Objects—what a thriller), but we got all the boards prepped and Mr. W assembled them with all the glass panels. Pretty sure there were 18 total when he was done. After that, it was time for an old-fashioned barn-raising, complete with help from neighbors on both sides of us. Farm life takes a village, people.

Fully constructed, it feels like we have a little church in our backyard. It's pretty and serene and looks out onto all of spring's natural beauty.

Because we couldn't just revamp one part of our yard plan, we also decided to level the garden we've had in place the past two summers and map out an even larger one near our baby orchard of fruit trees. Of course, this also meant we'd need to build a deer fence around everything.

It's funny how home and garden projects always seems to have a ripple effect. You get a greenhouse, then you want a better veggie patch. You hang new curtain rods and you need to upgrade the decades-old sliding glass doors. You install a pizza oven and then you've gotta plan a trip to Italy...

I have a feeling that my new gigantic vegetable garden will ripple out to keep me boiling and bagging tomatoes and drying plums and apricots all summer long. Which, I guess makes up for the fact that we never got those goats we were going to use for cheesemaking. Interrupting the best laid plans seems to be a pattern here.

Thank goodness we never changed our plan to own the world's cutest chicken.

You Know You've Finally Made It When...

When Mr. W was a youngster, he had three big dreams: To be a Top Gun fighter pilot, to work in the film industry, and to someday own a Porsche. While some guys his age had pictures of Tiffani-Amber Thiessen taped to their bedroom walls, Mr. W had centerfolds of Carreras.

Though his dream of becoming Maverick got back burnered, he chased his film aspirations from St. Louis to Los Angeles and vowed to buy himself that car as soon as his paychecks could support it.

After several years of grinding away in visual effects (and fetching the occasional coffee), Mr. W was established enough in the industry to splurge on the ultimate driving machine. He bought himself a shiny ocean blue metallic Porsche 911 Carrera.

It was a declaration that'd he'd finally made it.

His friends teasingly called him Jake Ryan. Shy guy. Good hair. I think it kinda fits.

Fast forward about 15 years and the marker that represents making it has changed dramatically.

I don't want to say that his double decades in Hollywood jaded him, but he outgrew the Porsche aspirations and moved onto fantasizing about a more practical sports car: The Tractor.

Success shifted from the Hollywood Hills to the Santa Ynez Valley, and included the remodel of an outdated house, the planting of a backyard vineyard, and the purchase of something powerful for mowing and tilling.

Folks, I am so happy to announce that my highly motivated husband has "made it" yet again. He is officially a real farm person now, with the purchase of his Massey Ferguson GC1715.

I've named it Mater after the tow truck in Cars. And it runs like a champion.

Weeds in the back 40: Watch out—he's comin' for you.

Warning: Chicken Panic Is Contagious

Whoever wrote the story of Chicken Little and his famous "the sky is falling" catchphrase must have been a hen owner. Anyone who has spent even a small amount of time in the company of poultry can tell you that the feathered girls are usually high anxiety. The intensity of their panic is somewhere in the realm of fainting '50s Beatles fans or, if we were measuring it in abs, maybe like 8 Ryan Goslings.

Our new chicks, Agnes and Barb, are especially uppity—I think because we didn't get them until they were about 6 weeks old. The ladies in our first brood have been handled by us since the day they were born, so their neuroses are slightly less (maybe around a factor of 6 Gos abs).

Barbie and Agnes currently live in a sectioned off portion of the big girls' run. And yes, their coup is a souped up cardboard box...

Anywhoo, it occurred to me last week that chicken anxiety might be like the avian flu. Catching. And I'm infected. Mr. W has been away for work (which always depletes any reserves of calm I have) so I've been on chicken duty all by myself and was pretty much flapping around the house squawking like a featherbrain Wednesday when I thought our little Samantha was eggbound. (Teaching moment: Chickens can get eggs stuck between their uterus and ....exit hole....and it they stay that way, they can die).

Sammy hadn't produced any eggs in a few days (or she may have laid in the yard and hidden them from me) so I was keeping a close eye on her. When she finally went into the nesting box, I checked on her about 3 times and when I opened it to find her standing with her beak wedged in the corner, painting and straining, I freaked out.

THE SKY IS FALLING!!

I raced through the yard like a crazy person, looking for some sort of bathtub so I could throw her into an Epsom salt soak. I couldn't find my normal tubs, so naturally I began to blame Mr. W for losing the hen spa box. Finally, I grabbed a mini ice chest, ran into the house to heat water in the microwave and frantically searched for the bag of salt.

Then I realized that I've never actually witnessed one of our girls laying an egg. Maybe Sammy was just doing that. Maybe she wasn't eggbound, but eggbirthing.

I zipped back to the chicken coop and sure enough her pretty blue egg was waiting in the nesting box.

The sky was still intact hovering above my head.

Apparently chicken labor involves standing in a corner, straining and panting. Duly noted.

Though I feel much calmer about the situation, I'm fully prepared to have the avian panic flu strike me again. If only I could get these little ladies to chill out before it hits.

In other farm news, our garden is going crazy. In the last two weeks, I've given zucchini away to I believe 6 different people and I still have more than I know what to do with.

As a result of the overly abundant harvest, the dehydrator has become my new BFF.

I've dried about 7 zucchinis, a dozen or two apricots and a few plums.

Oh my gosh and - happy day - our almond tree is ready to be harvested for the first time! Super excited to roast some nuts. 10 Gos abs on the excitement scale for that!

Hipster Farmers' Almanac

A few weeks ago, Mr. W and I spent two days laying down our "big" summer garden in the lower, wild part of our backyard. Creating a functioning garden in the middle of a weed field requires just a smidge of elbow grease. So, naturally, we started with a call to our neighbor asking if he could roll his tractor over to plow our plot for us.

I assumed that our neighbor's tractor pass would to make our jobs exponentially easier, but that was before I knew all the details of Mr. W's very intricate garden construction plan. Dig-and-plant is for amateurs. Instead, we dug three 6-inch-deep, 25-foot-long trenches into which we placed chicken wire as protection against gophers. (The one thing we planted outside of the "grid" recently disappeared into a tunnel in the ground. Thank goodness Mr. W knew we needed to lay down the wire...)

Now, I'm pretty sure that I've told Mr. W about twelve times that I will no longer dig ditches for him. I'm happy to help with other chores, but I when it comes to digging—the ultimate grunt work—I'm out. Yet, somehow, there I was with my shovel, breaking my back alongside him for hours.

Thankfully, Mr. W had a blue tooth speaker pumping out 80s music from Spotify. So as we covered our gopher barrier with a mix of compost and regular dirt, Adam Ant and Robert Smith serenaded us.

"How many farmers do you think listen to the Cure while they work?" I asked Mr. W.

"Only the hipster ones," he answered.

Were we hipster farmers?! 

I felt like I needed to run out and buy some high-waisted pants and vegan sandals. But when I told my 22-year-old niece the story, she quickly informed me that we were NOWHERE NEAR hipsterhood.

So, I guess we're just farmers who listen to 80s music.

In spite of all the sweat and dirt and body aches our project entailed, we're pretty psyched about the new garden. Hopefully sooner than later, our kitchen will be overflowing with tomatoes, tomatillos, bell peppers, jalapeños, zucchini, pumpkins, cantaloupe, corn, and some edible flowers.

A wee baby pumpkin

Until then, we'll distract ourselves with the other latest addition to our farm: Santa Barbara (Barb) and Santa Ynez (Agnes) the pullets. We picked them up last weekend and we're in love.

CHICKEN BUTTS!

If having really cute chickens doesn't add to our hip-ness, we're hoping our other latest project will help: cafe lights on the pergola. Summer al fresco dining, here we come.

Hip that.