Here is some thyme that is thriving on the roof! (and a crazy kid who wants to be in every picture!)

Another shot. There is a dianthus blooming in the foreground. I love the look of this plant. We tried planting some little seedlings, but they didn’t make it. This was was a larger potted plant and did well.

Here is a blooming Monarda fistula, also called ‘wild bee balm’ or wild bergamot’ (sorry for the blurriness.. I have a crappy camera). I have two on the roof that were given to me by a friend. It’s one of the medicinals on the roof, though I’ve not used it much. I love the feathery purple bloom!

Here is a great patch of roof! The Delospermas (or ice plants) are doing fantastic. Here are a pink and a yellow variety. Later in the day, when it warms up a little, this part of the roof is covered in blooms!

Not all of the plants are doing so well. The Roman Chamomile have mostly died. The calendula are blooming and hanging in there, but scraggly. And you can see in this picture that some of the sedum seedlings just aren’t growing very fast. I’m hoping if they make it through the heat of the summer, that they will have time to settle in and establish roots in the fall, before the cold hits.

The California Poppies are blooming nicely, and the red yarrow is sending up lots of new greenery!

And here’s a shot of another area where the delosperma are taking off!

I haven’t posted about the house is a while, ’cause, well, I was kind of tired of talking about it But, we’ve been in here almost 3 months and we are all loving it! I’m really looking forward to our first winter so we can use the radiant floors and wood stove.

So, in the last 3 months, we’ve finished up some projects, like shelving in the bath closet, built a computer nook desk, rearranged the furniture about 178 times… we have to mount the door to the secret nook, and finish building the kitchen book shelf and I think the inside projects will be pretty much done! Wahooo! Then there’s tackling the outside (if you can’t hear the dread in my voice, it’s there, believe me!) We’ve still got a boat load of construction waste to deal with. All the left over wood (that is not usable for building) needs to be chopped up and stacked for fire wood. There are big piles of gravel, sand, and roof dirt to deal with, and trash here and there. It’s not actually too horrible, it’s just dealing with it! We’ve given ourselves until the Fall equinox to get stuff cleaned up, ’cause that is when we are finally going to have our house warming party! I would really like to get working on preparing the ground for a garden next year, but I have to say, that totally intimidates me! Our ground is complete hard clay and nothing but ragweed grows in it! So, I guess I need to till it all up and add a ton or two of compost and minerals. We’re not sure if we are going to plant in the ground or use raised beds. Any thoughts on what you prefer? I’d like to pack as much food into as small a space as possible so the space is used as efficiently as possible. I’m also hoping to plant lots of fruit trees and bushes and maybe some nut trees. Right now we have one peach (with about 10 fruits on it), and one nectarine.

Oh, and we’ve had lots of rain in the past 3 weeks, so the living roof is really taking off!!

We’ve almost got everything out of the little house. Toby has started using the upstairs for his office, and I’m setting up the downstairs for my office/clinic. So at the same time as moving into our new house, I’ve been boxing up and moving everything from Viriditas! The new tenants are supposed to be moving in on Sunday, so that is just about complete!

Inside the new house, things are looking mostly settled. There are still little projects here and there that need to be finished… shelving in the linen closet, back splash in the kitchen and bath… stuff like that. And the yard still looks like a war zone with construction crap everywhere! We had planned to have a house warming party on June 21st, but have decided not to. I want the house done and the yard cleaned before having everyone over! I think Fall time seems more reasonable.

The roof has been planted. We had some friends over a couple of weeks ago and we got most of it done in one afternoon! It looks nice so far, but the little plugs are hard to see in pictures. I will take more pictures when they start to grow and post them. I can’t wait until they have filled out and covered the roof. It is going to look so cool!!!

I’m really enjoying my space! I go back into the little cabin and think, “WOW, How did we ever live here for two years!!???!!”

Here they are almost done…

The soil didn’t always flow easily through the hose. Sometimes you would hear a change in the tone of the pump and you would know that a huge amount of soil was about to push through. The guys would brace themselves and hold tight to the hose while they waited for the soil monster to burst out. It was really cool.
Here’s a close up of the soil. As you can see, it is mostly chunks of slate with a little compost matter mixed in.

Our plants are being delivered next Thursday, so we hope to plant the roof next weekend! I can’t wait to see how it all looks!!

While he was doing that, I closed off a section of the chicken yard and built a little brooding box for Ralph. She wasn’t too happy about being moved at first, but she quickly found her eggs and went back to sitting on them.

And here is the house so far. They need to do all the trim work, but the main body color is done. We were supposed to have a creamy yellow, but the painter called me the night before starting and said he really didn’t think the yellow was a good idea. He said yellow is the quickest color to fade and doesn’t cover as well. He had mentioned this before, but I really wanted to have a yellow… but when he stressed this again I felt like we needed to go with something else. So, we picked out a grey/blue that looked really nice on paper. Unfortunately, I’m really not that happy with how it turned out on the house. I was wanting a cheery, light color that would stand out from the green around it, but still look like it belonged. What I got was a cold color that sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s not a bad color, I just don’t feel like it fits. I know it will look much better once the trim is done. When we get screens, I may paint the frames with a pale yellow or something to lighten up and warm the house color.

Inside, we are done with all the messy work, so we are trying to get things moved in. Then, we can take care of the other little details while we are living in and enjoying our house. Here’s how the kitchen counter tops turned out. We just need to put up a back splash. (I know, it’s hard to see ’cause of all the crap all over them… I’ll take more pictures soon)

SOOOOO! Here’s what’s happened in the one day that we were down…. WE passed electrical, mechanical, and plumbing final inspections!!!!!!! We have a few more things to do and then it’s on to the final final inspection before we can move in!!! Can you see me doing another dance????

So, here are some pictures from the last week:
Putting the plywood, and then the backerboard down for the marble countertops (with the help of our amazing carpenter cat)

We had to buy a special tool for cutting the granite and marble. We are doing a mosaic of the pieces that we have, but we still needed to make some cuts.

Here’s what the area around the sink looks like so far. We haven’t grouted it yet…

Installing the fan…

…from a precarious position

Fixtures going up!

I’ve got some of it cleaned up, but I want to do a better cleaning before I publish an indoor picture, and I’m sure I will be posting lots of pictures after this next week!

The electricians, plumbers, gas guy, and painter (for the outside) are coming out to finish up in the next week and a half. We’re still trying to arrange a mulch blower truck to come and blow the soil on the roof (but the inspector said that he won’t require us to have the dirt on the roof for our final Certificate of Occupancy, so we don’t have to worry about the soil right now!)

We’ve got the bathroom vanity mostly done, started laying the marble on the kitchen counters, got the railing up on the stairs, put up all the battens outside, and a bunch of other things! I hope to take a bunch of pictures in the next few weeks for you all! We’re in the final stretch!!!!

I think he likes it out there!

Toby took the pics with his phone camera, so the quality isn’t too great, but can you see the smile?

We had a busy weekend doing things other than working on the house. But, 5 of the cordwood walls are now done inside and out, (WOOHOOO!) and I will hopefully finish them off early this week. A lot of the ‘big’ stuff that needs to be done so we can move in are things that we are waiting for others to do… like plumbing, electric, and gas finals, finishing the stairs, painting the house, and dirt on the roof. Oh, speaking of dirt on the roof… I may have found a way to get it up there that doesn’t involve us and a bunch of 5 gallon buckets full of dirt! I’m going to try to hire a mulch blower truck. They work well with dry, light dirt also and can blow it up on the roof! There is a long hose and someone stand at the end and directs the dirt exactly where we want it. Wouldn’t that be great!!!???