I’ve taken a two week vacation to help Tony begin renovations on our house in West Virginia. We originally wanted to start from scratch (using reclaimed building materials from the house already on the land) when it started to make more sense to keep the frame of the house we were dissecting for materials and build up from its skeleton. Much of the work we’ve done so far is demolition – ripping out the many layers of a house to get to its juicy (and oh so dirty) innards. Out here in the humidity we are dealing with not only wiping back buckets of sweat from our brows while we work but reclaiming the territory from wasps and plump bumble bees and yellow jackets and chatty horseflies who have taken the house as their own. We’ve salvaged a lot of wood and I’ve pulled out enough nails to melt down and build a suit of armor to go along with these bitchin’ biceps I’ve been developing during this boot camp of good ol’ manual labor. Below are a couple of discoveries on our arrival/excavation of our future home site:
A "housewarming gift" left by a friend who camped on the land this spring!
A cherry tree bearing fruit ready to pick right next to the house!
Entry into many locked things!
Possibly my new favorite "flower" - wild onion blossoms!