Schmidt Homestead

Our new home in Woodburn, IL

Monday, July 2, 2007

We had a bad valve on the toilet in our bathroom, so Steve worked on getting it fixed. The carpet behind the toilet (yes, we have carpet in our bathroom, and I hate it) had gotten wet and smelled awful, so Steve removed it. He discovered that the floor was made of particle board, and it had sunk more than an inch making the toilet sit at an angle and rock slightly. A simple valve replacement project turned into removing the toilet and replacing the floor. Steve eventually got the project finished, and now we have a working toilet in our bathroom! Now we just have to rip out the rest of the carpet in our bathroom and put down linoleum – but that’s not at the top of our to-do list right now.

Steve has been wanting a canopy for his tractor, so he went by a golf place the other day and asked if they had an old golf cart canopy that he could buy. The guy had one that had recently driven into a garage door that wasn’t totally open, so it had broken the canopy off its braces. They gave it to Steve for $10. It’ll take some patching and some paint, but after ‘Custom Steve’ finishes with it, it’ll be great.

We picked our first squash and beets Saturday and the first green beans yesterday. The blackberries are getting black faster than the birds can eat them, so we got a few this weekend. The gourds and pumpkins are starting to grow. We’ve had several cucumbers, but none of them were very green. Their taste is not as strong as I expected – a little plain. We think that maybe we’re picking them too early, so we’re going to try leaving them out there longer.

We were out in the yard yesterday afternoon, and the horses and sheep next door (at Bob’s place) began to go crazy. The horses were neighing and whinnying and the sheep were bleating. I decided to go over and see what all of the ruckus was about. Bob and his wife had a friend over, and they were bringing the horses out front, one at a time, to show him. The animals that were left in the barns were all excited about the commotion. I went into their barn for the first time and got to see their animals. They have a dozen or so horses, a colt, sheep, a 3-legged lamb, chickens, dogs, and a whole bunch of cats. They had some kittens running around, so we may take one or two to keep in our barn to control mice and moles. Bob asked about our garden. He said “for city folk, you sure do have a green thumb!” I stayed over there almost an hour, and Steve eventually showed up to see why I hadn’t come home. As we were leaving, Bob’s wife walked into one of the barn stalls and says “Here are some eggs!” There were two brown eggs laid in the hay! She gave them to us, and said “have these for dinner,” so we did! We made waffles with bacon and Bob’s eggs. It was a breakfast of champions for supper!