It was just one week and two days ago that I cut our grass for the first time this season. I didn’t trim the weeds though, frankly because I was a little tired from cutting the grass for over an hour and I didn’t know where the weed trimmer battery was, although I knew wherever it was, it wasn’t charged 😉

Later that week, my husband charged up the battery for me, although I still didn’t get around to trimming the weeds; it was a busy week and weekend. Also, we’ve had rain a few times, so I’ve just been watching our weeds grow tall and proud around our yard…

Today, in-between the rainstorms, I started thinking, well sometimes if you can’t beat them, join them… So I decided that instead of worrying about how wild our yard is looking, and since I’m not going to mow the lawn or trim weeds in the rain, I would just photograph them and have some fun with it 😉

A friend of mine said, “There are only plants, no weeds!” I happen to find some of our weeds quite lovely, along with our overgrown grass bunches… hopefully my neighbors will appreciate the beauty in them too, at least till I can get out to mow and trim things up later this week.

Nancy  🙂

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows. ~ Doug Larson

Fresh Cut Spring Grass…

We haven’t written in our blog for quite some time, it was a busy year and blogging slipped off our radar… so it’s a little funny that our first blog post back is all about cutting the lawn! We had a longer, winter or maybe just a later spring as I see we cut our grass for the first time a lot earlier last year, in March and this year it’s today, the 13th of May! So here’s my welcome back to our blog and welcome to spring post!

Today I found out there is something rather nice about cutting the grass in spring… Our grass was getting rather long, we’ve had a lot of rain recently, and our small dogs have been up to their bellies in long grass. While they are cute trying to run and bounce over it like bunnies, I thought it really needed to be cut.

Normally my husband cuts the grass, but he’s still recovering from a badly sprained ankle, so lots of walking back and forth, especially on our very uneven lawn is not a good idea for him. So I thought I would bite the bullet this morning after I got out of class.

It was a little chilly early this morning, overnight it was in the 30’s but when I got home this morning it was about 50 degrees, yes, Spring in Wisconsin, we can get up into the 80’s then back into the 30’s and everything in-between, sometimes in a matter of days!

So it was a nicely cool, lightly breezy, and quiet Monday morning to cut the lawn. I started on the side; we have a fairly decent sized corner lot, then moved on to the front lawn. What I noticed was how nice it was outside, how green, everything is growing, flowers are coming up, and it was quiet.

Part of the quiet, and the thing that makes me enjoy cutting the grass, is that we bought a push/reel mower last year. We don’t have a garage, so we don’t have anywhere to store a gas mower, we tried storing one under a tarp the year before but the elements really ganged up on it, and the result was not good for our used 20+ year old lawn mower… so we bought the push mower, it’s fancier than the ones you see in pictures of the “old days” but it’s easy to use, and best of all, there is no gas fumes, and it’s quiet!

Someone walked by and commented that it must be harder to cut the lawn using a push mower, actually, it really doesn’t seem that way, at least to me, and compared to our old mower. Again, the best thing was not smelling any gas fumes and that I was able to smell the fresh cut grass as I was walking through it and I was able to just enjoy nature and the sounds of it also, while cutting my grass. Oh it makes a little noise, a bit of a whirring, clipping sound but it’s negligible especially considering I can hear the mower my neighbor has going several houses down, and I’m inside.

So as I spend the rest of my week prepping for final exams (I am finally finishing up my degree program!), I’m glad that I took the time out to get some fresh air, some Vitamin D, and enjoy the spring in my yard this morning.

Hope you are enjoying your spring!

Nancy

Green Lawn, Green Mower

First, let me acknowledge… It’s been a while. I make no promises about the future, but I’m going to try.

Second… Over time I’ll probably fill in things that we’ve done since my last post… but to trying to catch up at this point will be crazy.

So… On with the new blog update!

For the last two growing seasons I’ve been using a lawn mower that was graciously given to us by Nancy’s Dad. It has done a good job, but we needed to replace it. I’ve been fighting that mower for some time and I wasn’t going to wrench my arm again trying to start it. Whatever mower we ended up with, was going to have an easy start feature.

Since last year, we’ve been doing a lot of research. There are some good, if not great electric mowers out there and thats the way that I was starting to lean because it would mean, easy start, no gas or oil to deal with and it could easily be stored inside. But the things are so darned heavy, with the battery carrying pretty much half the weight, so I wasn’t quite sold.

So, we looked at manual, or reel, mowers. These are the old kind that don’t have an engine in them. At first, what I read made me think that this was not the way to go… Harder to push, takes longer to cut everything, etc. But there There are some really nice features too which kept me thinking that I should continue to think about it. Like, wouldn’t it be nice to not buy gas OR have to plug something in? and… It’s healthier for the grass, because it’s an actual cut, not a tear from a quick spinning blade… You know I’m all about the great looking yard!

Doesn't it just look easier to push around?

I’ve been looking all winter long and finally the time came this last week where I either had to buy a new mower or just pull out old “Bessie”. I really didn’t want to pull out Bessie… I figured it was time to put her out to pasture… A decision had to be made. So, another quick check and low and behold a miracle! I happened across a mower that I hadn’t seen before while looking though some reviews with Nancy. It was the Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower. This thing had everything… A reel mower, which is supposed to be easier to push with a fly wheel to keep energy when going through tall grass, super sharp cutting blade designed to not go dull, no maintenance, wide blade, and it cost much less than any other mower I had looked at.

We picked it up and I put it together this last weekend… So, what do I think about it?

I have used it, but first let me say something about this spring that needs to be mentioned when mowing the lawn… I HATE BUGS! I don’t know if it was the lack of gas or noise from a mower, or there are just a bunch more bugs this year, but they were out in full force. It’s going to be a bad year for bugs. I couldn’t open my mouth for fear of swallowing a large quantity of them. Thank goodness I was wearing my in-ear headphones, because many headed straight for my ears! The little buggers! They were everywhere and on me like white on rice. I will be using bug spray or the little clip-on devices they have now to see if that will help keep them away, because I do not need that kind of protein in my diet.

You can almost see the grass tremble with anticipation of it's first "haircut"!

Anyway, enough about that… back to the mower… I really like this mower. I’m glad I took the time to go through the adjustment process to make sure that the blades were set right because I think it made a difference and it was easy enough to do.

It was super quiet… I mean, I could actually listen to music without having my phone set to a devastatingly loud volume. I could hear what was going on in the neighborhood! Can you imagine mowing your lawn and still being able to hear? It was crazy good!

Before the exciting first mow of the year!

The grass cutting went great. There are a lot of websites that state that with a reel mower you should start with the setting tall and then make multiple passes with the mower getting progressively lower. Not with this mower! It cut like a champ! Grass flew out the front of it (it has a discharge out the front of it, which is really nice).

I will say it was a lot of work… One, I’m not in the best shape, while it was hard, and I was a bit sore the next day, I do think it was easier than Bessie. Not to mention I didn’t feel like I had been shaken out of my shoes from the vibration of a gas engine. I also think it was faster than Bessie, I could do a section of the lawn in about 10 minutes, it was also easier to take rest breaks because I knew I didn’t have to restart the mower. I could take a quick break, and then startup where I left off.

See! It's just too long, we've just got to get it under control!

So far, the only real downside I can see is that it’s not a “mulching” lawnmower. There were a few leaves from fall still on the ground and this just ran over them and didn’t touch them. Which means that I’ll have to do a good job in the fall to take care of the leaves. We did a pretty good job with the raking last year and I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

See, doesn't that look so much better!

A big plus is that it can be stored inside. We don’t have a garage, so Bessie, being a gas engine mower, has to stay outside. Since we can’t even put up a shed without approval from the Historic Society, Bessie has just been covered with a tarp, which isn’t the best, but it’s what we’ve got. Our new mower doesn’t have a gas engine, so it can be stored inside without worry. It’s small enough that it can be put out of the way in the back staircase and I don’t worry about it wandering off or blowing up the house or even just plain stinking of gas fumes.

Looks like a great fresh crop of grass!

My Brother suggested on Facebook that I’d be back to using a gas engine mower in no time after trying this. I don’t think so. I think this will work out just fine. I’ll post something if it just doesn’t work out, but so far I really like it.

Nancy has named it Martha, after Martha Stewart, who does wonders with a good pair of scissors. Hopefully Martha will be a good addition to our little family of gardening tools.

I know, it doesn't look different at this angle, but It's better over all... I promise!

Let There Be Light… and Fans!

It is pretty, that's why we're keeping it, but it needs to move.

Lighting a room is always interesting… Lots of considerations to think about. The size of the room, the color choices, the purpose of the room, all things need to be considered…

Well, when we first started thinking about three rooms we started with, we looked at the ceiling fans and lighting in each of the rooms and started to make a plan. The ceiling fan in the “living room” that will become Nancys Art room doesn’t have a light on it. The ceiling fan in the yellow room that will be the library doesn’t have a light either and is ugly (and I do mean ugly). The light in the dining room that will be the studio is plenty bright (with 9 bulbs it had better be), but it did not have a fan and with Nancy planning on painting in there, it really should have something to move the light around.

So, we made a plan. To save some costs, the ceiling fan in the art room would get just a light kit upgrade. Easy to install and adds a bunch of light to the room. The chandelier in the studio would be moved to the hallway to provide a dramatic light there and really brighten up that space and a new, more fitting ceiling fan would be installed in the studio. Then in the library, well lets just say we tried a couple of things before we got it right.

Just a light kit upgrade here, that's all it really needs.

Installing the light kit in the Art Room was easy. The kit went up without any problems at all. The metal work doesn’t quite match the fan, but most people aren’t going to be looking at that with all the art on the walls and in the room, so we think it was a good trade off to save some money.

As usual, changing the light in Studio was an interesting challenge. Taking down the old light, we discovered a couple of things. One was that the entire chandelier was held up by just two screws in the lath, not a joist or using special bolts, just two screws barely holding on to lath to support 6 heavy glass globes, 1 glass plate and all the metal. So, that needed to be fixed. Fortunately the wiring hadn’t gotten to the point where it was crumbling, but it certainly wasn’t the best either. The fun discovery was the pipe that ended where the light was installed. Just an open ended pipe that disappeared into the ceiling. The thing to remember here is that the house is old. Like, before electricity old. Homes were lit using gas lights. The gas had to be piped in to the chandeliers, so we had discovered an old gas light pipe… Fortunately, the gas had been turned off since the end was just left open.

This is what what holding up the chandelier in the Studio, not very much.

This did present a new problem… The pipe terminated below the ceiling line and there was no easy way to remove it from it’s location. It was in a spot that made it just in the way for installing a ceiling fan brace. I did think briefly about trying to cut it, but if you’ve worked with plaster, you know that would probably be asking for trouble. All those vibrations just ready to knock the plaster loose. So, I ended up making a bigger hole to accommodate the brace and fan. Now we had a big hole in the ceiling that the cover of the fan base wasn’t about to handle. Nancy came up with the idea of using a ceiling medallion. These are round decorative molding that are used to put around fan bases for cases like this. Easy to install, just a bit of an adhesive. The only “hard” part was cutting out the center to fit the base of the fan and really that was easy, more messy than anything. I think it turned out nice and actually adds a bit to the room.  Installing and hanging the fan from there was easy.

That left the Library. At first we thought about doing the same thing we did in the front room. Just install a light kit. It would be cheaper than a new fan and would tide us over till we could save up a bit more. The first kit I got, had a broken globe, but I didn’t realize that until I tried to install the kit. By the time I realized the globe was broken, I figured I would at least try out the lights. Hooked everything up… No lights came on… Rechecked the wiring, no lights. So, with the globe broken and no lights, I figured it was a bad kit and returned it and got a new one. Hooked that one all up, no lights. It seems that fan just didn’t want to have a light kit installed. At this point, I tested the wires that the light kit was supposed connect to (yes should have done this first) and there was no power, so that wasn’t going to work no matter what light kit I installed.

Isn't it pretty... no, not really, it had to go!

So, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new fan. We didn’t like the one that was in there anyway and a new one would freshen up the room a bit more and would finish things off in there. So, Nancy went shopping. She found one she liked at Home Depot and just had to make a quick stop at Menard’s on her way home, where she found another one which she liked better… So the first one she bought had to go back. I really like the one she finally choose better. It really fits with the style of the room and library. Always an excellent decision from Nancy.

Then came the time to install it. Not too surprisingly we found another gas pipe. This room would have originally been a parlor (we think) so it makes sense to me that it would have had some type of light hanging from the ceiling. The way this room worked out, there was a joist that was easily available for me to hang a fan on. Did the people who hung the existing fan take full advantage of the joist to make sure that the fan wouldn’t come crashing down? Nope, two screws, one in the joist (fortunately), the other pulled straight out of the plaster and lath. You read that right it pulled straight out of the lath, it wasn’t holding anything. The whole fan was basically hanging from one screw. Somehow it managed to stay up there, how I don’t know.

You can see the holes for the old Library ceiling fan, one in the stud the other not...

I did a little research about hanging fans off a joist and found a “Safe-T-Pan”, I checked with my Brother-In-Law, who has helped out a few times before, who stated that it should work just fine. So, we proceeded with that plan. In theory, with long enough screws I could have installed the Safe-T-Pan right on the plaster. I decided that I wanted it closer to the joist, if only to reduce the fan vibrations on the plaster. So, used an ax and broke out a circle of plaster to fit the pan right next to the gas pipe and installed it there. The plaster was thick enough that the pan was flush with it , which coincidentally is how it is supposed to fit with drywall.

The rest was “easy”. For some reason, this fan had more un-installed parts than any other fan I’ve ever seen. Most just have the pole, motor, blades and lights. This one had covers, decorative pieces, wires and all sorts of things that were just waiting for the home owner to install themselves. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, the fan looks perfect in the room. I love the stained glass globes. I really think it adds something to the Library. You’ll also notice that we used a ceiling medallion again. While the hole wasn’t nearly as large and the fan base almost covered the hole, we thought it looked better than trying to do a patch job on the little bit that stuck out from under the base. I think it was a good choice.

The Library Ceiling Fan, much improved!

The interesting thing with the new fans was how they each handled light differently. What bulbs do you install? There is a plethora of bulb types out there now. If you haven’t dealt with bulbs recently, there are some interesting issues around them. Some ceiling fans are designed to work with only certain types of bulbs. If it comes with CFL bulbs, it probably should only have CFL or maybe LED bulbs. If it came with Incandescent bulbs, you might get an interesting effect when you try to use CFL bulbs in it.

In the Studio, we’re trying to stay with as close to daylight as we can and as bright as we can. Incandescent bulbs can be bright, but they tend to be too warm, too yellow. Also, in a ceiling fan, most of your power is going to the motor, so they usually have lower wattage bulbs, so less light. CFL bulbs have the advantage of having “daylight” bulbs (which if you’ve never seen them before, feel blue when you first see them or come from a traditionally lit room) and you can install a brighter bulb in a traditional lamp because the wattage usage is so much lower. So, bright, daylight bulbs, that use less electricity… sounds like a perfect fit!

Well, the fan in the studio was designed for incandescent bulbs. Installing the lower wattage, but brighter CFL bulbs work, but they have an odd slow strobing effect. They go bright, then dim, then bright again, just switching back and forth about twice a second, just enough to be annoying. Rumor has it that a dimmable CFL won’t have that problem, but I haven’t been able to find bright enough dimmable  CFL bulb in a “daylight” color temperature. The solution until I can find some to see if that works, is to install a single incandescent bulb. Apparently, there is a wattage inhibitor or something that doesn’t like the low wattage or CFL bulbs for some reason. Adding a traditional bulb equalizes everything electrically to make it work. The only problem is that the lamp looks a little weird with the single warm bulb… Oh well, can’t have everything… Apparently…

The rest of the lamps have CFL bulbs, though are usually using a warmer light, which is what people typically expect in a home lighting situation. Most fans that are bought now are designed with CFL’s in mind and state that the max wattage bulb allowed is 9 – 13 watts apposed to the traditional 40 – 60 watts. Also, since these are CFL’s they will last longer than traditional bulbs, but only if you use them properly. Once they are turned on, they should stay on for at least 30 minutes to let them warm up completely. Something to keep in mind when installing lights, don’t put CFL’s in places where the lights go on and off in just a few minutes. They will burn out faster than an incandescent bulb, so you don’t get full advantage of the savings.

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Anyway… That’s it for the lighting… next up is the a new lock and thermostat!… So very exciting!