I'm Blue, Da ba dee, Da ba die

**Song title this week is because we are in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, and to remind you all that Eiffel 65 was a thing. Oh yeah this is Charlotte.**


Day 69 Monday, November 7^th

Before heading down to the garden, we took the compost and helped Virginia move some things. Then she finished up her cream cheese and showed us how she makes yogurt. It's super easy and I'm so glad we know how to make it now. She makes maple yogurt and it's fantastic.

Elise with her halo

Finishing the cream cheese

She had to organize some of the stuff in her cars so we could later take one of them to the community junk yard, so Karol and I went down to continue on the greenhouse until lunch. We finished putting the metal pieces at the bottom of the arches, underneath the long piece connecting all six arches. We discovered at lunch that we were supposed to put metal along the entire first and last arch and none on the four in the middle. Oopsy. So that was something we had to rectify.

Oh yes we also started trying to estimate the length of cloth we'd need for the smaller hoop house covers

Undrilling the channels!

We helped Virginia move some of the stuff in the cars she organized and then took the car to the dump (we'd fix our greenhouse error tomorrow). We also opened a care package from Karol's family, and got a ton of stuff (thank you guys!). 

The car graveyard

Stuff from our care package

She made her version of palak paneer, an Indian dish, for dinner and it was sooooooooo good. She also had some homemade garlic naan and brown rice to accompany it. Out of this world delicious. Karol worked on the last blog post and I read for the remainder of the evening.

Day 70 Tuesday, November 8^th

Going to get some of this written so I can stop panicking about the election. I normally don't give a crap, but ya know, that Trump guy. My brain doesn't quite process what the hell could possibly happen tonight. I guess we'll just see. We helped Virginia start more strongly attaching the whiteboard they have in the hang out room. Then down at the garden, Karol and I removed the pieces we weren't supposed to drill on the greenhouse and put them around the first and last arches. We also had to saw off the ends of the pole on top since they were sticking out too much.  

Oh yes, forgot that I used the chop saw to make some stakes to hold down the hoop houses

Fixing our mistake

Before we sawed off the pole ends sticking out, after we got the channels up

Lunch - o

After lunch, we went to the barn to get some plastic. It is supposed to rain tonight so we weren't planning to cover the whole thing. We managed to clip plastic on the front of the greenhouse, and then put on a door at the back. Putting on the door was really satisfying, and surprisingly to me, not too difficult. We tidied up and then headed back to la casa.

So much for that

This is Wally with Rocco a dog that hangs around the farm

Bella, the white one, is another farm doggie

Plastic on front

Back door!

Our finished work for the day

Karol is making beef stir fry for dinner and I can't wait. Molly is hands down the best dog I ever met. She is loving in such a gentle and genuine way. Wally is wonderful too, also very loving, but in that frantic “LOVE ME LOVE ME PLEASE, FOREVER, LOVE ME” sort of way. I can't wait to get a dog once we settle down.

  

Karol worked on his forks before he started din din

Molly had at least 20 ticks that I pulled off of her, she is quite the explorer

FOOD PORN

Finally tines

Day 71 Wednesday, November 9^th

Well, today is an awful day. We woke up and Karol says to me “Trump won.” I didn't anticipate being as upset as I was, but I think I truly believed he wouldn't win. That there was just no way. But it's real. It happened. I cried twice today. It feels like a step back for humanity. But humans are what did this. My gut reaction was to flee – I wanted to just buy a plane ticket to anywhere but this disgusting country this morning, even if it was temporary. I guess that's running away from the problem. I should stay and fight, although I don't know what that means yet.

As for the days' events, we put some lumber underneath the white board to hold it up better. I think we also primed it, to be honest I forget haha. We then went to the greenhouse and started some work but it was chilly and started raining. We took a trip to the hardware store for a few things we needed, came back, were going to go back to the greenhouse when it started raining harder and felt colder so Virginia said to just have a relaxing day of mourning our country. It was really nice of her, I was pretty numb all morning. We watched some movies (The Black Mirror Christmas special and then 10 Things I Hate About You, one of my favorite movies in an attempt to cheer me up) and hung out until we drove her to get her truck that had some work done on it. We lounged some more until dinner which was scrumptious stuffing and a sweet potato and apple casserole. Nothing else really, oh yes we did clean up some broken tile in the bathroom so we can soon put some new tile in there as a nice border. Yeah that's all, going to go be a sad bum now.   

Almost done

I don't know what this picture is supposed to show HAHAHAHA (...it was just showing how the weather was appropriately dreary o: and maybe the clouds looked sorta cool to me, whatever yo =k)

HEALTHY AND DELICIOUS

Day 72 Thursday, November 10^th

We got right to it today, feeling refreshed from our day of mourning. We finished putting on the second door and put another piece of wood above both of them which would eventually hold the automatic openers we will attach. We also got the plastic on the front and back sides of the greenhouse. It is really starting to come together and looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself. We had leftovers for dinner and Karol worked some more on his forks and I don't remember what I did.  I was either finishing reading Child of God by Cormac McCarthy or starting Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

   

I'm like Ash from Evil Dead or wait what's that movie? Army of Darkness? Someone help

First door (back of greenhouse) from yesterday

Front door added today

One door closes, another one opens, oh wait they're both open, even better

Reading something with miss Molly my favorite doggie

Fork city LA LA LA LA LA sorry inside joke

Day 73 Friday, November 11^th

Karol had a tattoo appointment today so Virginia said we could have the afternoon off and we'd just work Saturday morning. Friday mornings are cleaning mornings so we helped Virginia tidy up until lunch. We swept, vacuumed a little, cleaned the bathroom, blew leaves (heh, that was all Charlotte =k), wiped kitchen counters and cleaned some windows. Oh yeah and we stacked some wood for the wood stove first thing actually.

  

Lots of wood

Having way too much fun

After lunch we hung out until around 2:30 and headed to the ACME tattoo shop in Staunton. The guy was a little quiet but nice enough. He finished in one hour. I couldn't believe how quick we were in and out. He got the wandering jew continued, and while it is very different from the first artist's interpretation, I think it's better. Way more purple, but the color choice actually makes it look silvery which is how the plant looks.  I do totally understand Karol having wanted a slightly more subtle transition (at the very least more green cause the plant is mostly green with purple highlights, as far as I know it, not the other way around =k), but it's at least good work.

Wandering Jew Tattew

Had some leftover brown rice with butter and furikake (a delicious Japanese seasoning I never had before but is really really tasty) for din din and then Karol watched Wrath of the Titans while I read Stardust. I have a bazillion PDFs on our tablet (from when I panicked about not having a library to go to) and I am starting to enjoy tablet over an actual book. I was slightly upset by this revelation but oh well. I can't have books taking up space at the moment, so I guess it's good that I like reading electronically. Anyway Stardust is really good so far. Neil Gaiman is incredible.   

Day 74 Saturday, November 12^th

A WWOOF guy came to help this morning, kind of like Scotty, just seeing what this place is all about. It was good to have an extra person because we put the plastic over top the whole greenhouse and 4 sets of hands was ideal. It went quite smoothly and we put some chicken wire holder stuff (it's called wiggle wire. =k) to keep the plastic in place (that stuff was really cool) and voila we basically have a greenhouse!

Taking the no longer needed electric fence since there will now be an enclosed greenhouse, ahh and before the guy came we finished covering the hoop houses

Pretty close to done! Still have to do the automatic openers (for the top, heat vents basically =k)

After that (the guy left before we had lunch) Karol and I ran to the hardware store so he could get some bolts for the forge he is making. On the way back we stopped at the little manmade beach on the farm for some sand Karol needed for his forge (for the refractory lining. I like pretending like I actually understand what that word means. I ended up using a propane torch to hold the shape of the hole. =k). Virginia showed me how to crochet while Karol worked on his forge once we got back to the house. Pretty nice afternoon. In a little bit we are going to a music/dinner event thing with Virginia so that should be nice.

Lake

Beautiful dock

Step 1

Step 2

...slight fail

Day 75 Sunday, November 13^th

Dancing was fun last night! We had some dinner and wine and danced to some oldies (WITH some oldies =k). There was an Artisan Open Showcase type deal on Sunday where you could drive around to local artists and see their work. We went to two places that had wood art and then a blacksmith. There was some really beautiful stuff, and the woman at the blackmith's place (her husband (I'm not sure they're married =k), the one who did most of the blacksmithing was away, although she makes some beautiful jewelry) was nice to talk to and Karol told her about his homemade forge he's making.

The first place, Pettigrew something

We want to make something like this

Second place, the artist told us a quick run down of how he does bowls - starting with those wood pieces there split in half

We then went to Waynesboro to go to Home Depot and also Panera to use wi-fi.  The wi-fi basically didn't work so that was a huge fail.  At least we had mac and cheese. 

Carbs and cheese is all I need

We also stopped at Wal-mart to get some aquaphor (the tattoo shop didn't give Karol any we discovered after we got home on Friday), a notebook (Karol and I are writing every morning when we wake up and that is killing some trees big time), and...oh yeah floss.  Exciting, I know.

Our drive back, it's basically pretty everywhere around here

We made some pizza for dinner, our best ones yet!  We normally make the dough recipe and make one pizza from it.  This time we split it to make two and it was much less dense and better, in my opinion.

Homemade Alfred sauce from fresh cream that came from an actual cow, also other ingredients.

We watched the first episode of Black Mirror Season 3.  I've seen them all, and it's been a while so this could be inaccurate if I re-watched them, but I'm pretty sure I liked all the previous ones better than this episode.  We'll see how the rest of this season is.  If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it.  Alright, adios, people.  I miss a lot of you guys.