Something Fun on a Saturday Morning

This morning Todd and I went to the Lexington Farmer's Market.  They have a wonderful outdoor Pavilion at Cheapside Park.  It is open on Saturday from 7:00am-3:00pm.  We arrived at the market at 10:00am and it was packed with people.  It has expanded from the Pavilion and ran up Short street for a block.  First we just looked around and then went back to the booths we wanted to purchase items.

                                       Maggie Green with "The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook"

                                                        Bev Nichols and Kentucky Honey

One reason we went today was to meet Maggie Green.  She is a Kentucky native and author of the new cookbook, "The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook".  www.KentuckyFreshCookbook.com    I found out about Maggie from my daughter Sarah.  She taught Maggie's child piano and Sarah shared her blog with me.  Maggie takes the reader through a year of seasonal recipes using items in season from January through December.  What a wonderful concept!  It's a great book and would make a wonderful gift.  Check it out.

A treat for me was seeing some former vendors that I had in my shop.  Cafe Marco was there with his wonderful coffee.  We had a cup and brought two bags of beans home.  Cafe Marco is also available at Marksbury Farm.  Next I saw Beverly Nichols who owns Kentucky Honey with her husband Nick. It was so good to see her again and I highly recommend  their honey.  Proper Plants was there and I used to buy hanging baskets from them for the shop.  They had herbs, hanging baskets, mixed pots and vegetable plants.  They are on Military Pike and are open to the public.  They have 5 or 6 greenhouses you can walk through.

The Farmer's Market also features musicians throughout the Pavilion.  There were some young string players and several singers there today.   There are several food vendors too.  One had fire grilled pizza,
and there was one that made homemade crepes with savory or sweet fillings.  We didn't taste any but it looked delicious.  

Some people sold cut flowers.  One man had Asian lilies and each bloom was as large as a dinner plate. They were cut flowers and $9.00 a stem.  Several booths had homemade cheese.  Another had "go green" info.  You could buy Farmer's Market t-shirts and bags too.  The produce is what we enjoy so we bought peaches from South Carolina.  They had ones from Georgia too.  We got tomatoes from Lee County, KY that were hydroponic.  Pretty tasty.  We got a English cumber, some zucchini and yellow squash.  You could also buy locally raised beef and pork.  We had a great time.  Of course we went to the Wilmore Farmer's Market before we left.

Demolition is Done

Five full days and we are finally done with the demolition.  We had extra hands on Friday as Marylee was home to help us.  We are all whipped and very sore.  I'm not sure what people charge for demolition but we feel like we saved a lot of money by doing this part ourselves.  The best part is that Todd and I are still on speaking terms.  We had a few moments here and there but we survived it!  We are still weeks away from completion but the hard part for us is over.  Have a look.

 There will be a half wall between the living room and kitchen.

 New plumbing for the upstairs bathroom.  Didn't want the ancient plumbing to burst on the new kitchen.

 Hiding behind the cabinets the last of the school bus yellow of the previous owner.

 We are down to the kitchen sink which is also our bathroom sink. That's a mirror above the sink so we can see ourselves when we brush our teeth.

                                                            Downstairs bath next to kitchen.

                                                Looking into kitchen from bathroom.

        We were hoping for nice wood but it is ancient linoleum stuck to plywood.

                                          When was this color popular?
In case you were wondering, the refrigerator is in the living room.  At least it's not on the porch!

Demolition

Before we can get the work done to redo the kitchen demolition must happen.  Todd and I have been at it all week and to say we are tired is an understatement.  We are whipped and have a least two more days to go.  This old house is full of old plaster, lathing, and sometimes dry wall on top of all that.  Our goal is to get the kitchen down to the studs.  Then, because of our lack of expertise we get to hire people to come in and finish it.  We have certainly made their job easier and hopefully saved ourselves money.  This is the last major redo for this house and we couldn't be happier about that.  ( I do need to paint and do curtains for some rooms but that is not major, that's fun)  This is not fun.  Our friends, Paul and Jennifer, came buy last night with a saws-all to help us with something we couldn't do.  I guess if you have the right tools all jobs are easier.  So here are some pictures of the progress.  Two more days of demolition and then the carpenter, then the electrician, then the drywall , and then the cabinets, then finish up the plumbing and electric.  Hope to be done by the 4th of July, but that may be optimistic.

May I add that we are trying to live and cook while all this is going on!  I know, that's crazy!

Plumbing work is dirty.

In the long saga of our kitchen redo plumbing is dirty but not the dirtiest.  Spring break Todd and I tore down the dropped ceiling in the kitchen and we were so dirty I wouldn't dare show the pictures.

The last two days our plumber has replaced the plumbing that hung at the top of the kitchen ceiling.  It's the upstairs bathroom plumbing.  We couldn't bear to think about getting new cabinets and having the plumbing burst in the kitchen.  Every job you do in an old house causes 10 jobs.  So after two days the job is finished and it looks great.  Back to the 10 jobs.  If you are replacing the bathroom plumbing shouldn't you replace the old fixtures,  especially if they are 1928 water wasters?  We didn't want one of those super water savers that have to be flushed twice, so we got the same toilet we have downstairs which is an American Standard that is guaranteed to flush 28 golf balls.  Enough said about that.  This is a great toilet, my only complaint is the crummy plastic handle on the one downstairs broke after 6 months.  To avoid that again we bought a metal handle.  The vanity is wood with a porcelain sink and quite an improvement from the 1928 cast iron 100 pound rusty sink.  Ten jobs,  patch drywall, repaint, change out the lighting. need I say more.  It's always something when it comes to home ownership and an old house ramps that up 10 fold.

Next the electrician to move the outlets and etc.  The saga continues.  Here are some pictures.

Spring in My Yard

I wonder if we're the only ones with a grass problem.  A few weeks ago it looked like we wouldn't have any grass.  Todd seeded and put straw down and the new grass is coming up.    Our flowers are loving the wet cool spring.  Here are a few shots of what is blooming now.

                                              This is a common old fashion lavender iris.

                                                          
                                                                Chives

                                                            Yellow-Green Ground Cover
                                                            Lavender in the foreground.

This is a beautiful plant called False Indigo.  It's a perennial and only blooms a few weeks but it has a beautiful foliage that is great for floral arrangements.

This is another shot of the False Indigo.   It forms pods in the fall and if you leave them on until they dry you will have seeds.

                                Todd's lettuce garden: Red Leaf, Romaine, Bib, Kale and Spinach.

                                            Todd's Strawberry plants.  They are blooming!

It's a little Crepe Myrtle.  Very popular in Texas and the deep dry south.  I will be trimming off all the green at the bottom so it will look like a little tree.  That's how they do it in Texas.  There are some crepe myrtle's here but they are all over Dallas.  I mulched it well in the fall.  They can freeze out here but if they don't it's a beautiful plant.

More iris and my favorite evergreen.  It's called an Hanoki False Cypress.  It has an irregular shape and that suits me fine.  I never want my garden to look formal.  I don't like shrubs that are balls and boxes. I like a more natural look.   I do have some boxwoods that are totally out of control that were supposed to be dwarf and not grow more than two feet and they are now over three feet.  I thought they were slow growers.    Soon it will be time to plant the annuals and bring more color to the yard.  Get outside and play in the dirt, you'll have a beautiful reward to come. :)

Spring in Wilmore

I love Spring.  I enjoy green grass and beautiful spring flowers and the gradual warm up.  The trees are all budding out and soon it will be hot as blazes here in Kentucky.  So for now I am enjoying a cool and yes rainy spring.  OK, we have had enough rain.  Last week I took some pictures of the blooming trees downtown Wilmore.  I think they are ornamental flowering cherry.  Right now it is raining pink cherry blossoms but here as well as regular rain.  Here is a look back.