The Man Cave

We've been working on the "Man Cave" area of the basement recently.  First Farmer Lynn and his older son went through the whole basement plugging up holes.  This was to keep out as many bugs as possible but also because this guy  

  

was roaming around in the basement ceiling one day.  If he'd stayed outside, then fine, but inside the house, nope!  So patching up holes from the inside and from the outside, and spraying several rounds of bug spray in the basement.  This has been very successful.  Although it has meant no more lizards upstairs either which disappoints the kitty cats!  They loooove to chase lizards.

Then both of Farmer Lynn's sons came and painted the stairwell, stairs, concrete floor, and walls of the Man Cave.  At first they used the extra paint we had, creating a very colorful and creative area!  The floor got treated to Rust-Oleum Epoxy Shield Basement Floor Coating.  They used the gray color (it also comes in tan) and didn't use the included sprinkles. (No sprinkles for a Man Cave, for goodness' sake!)

It looks great.  One box took care of the Man Cave area.  No plans to paint the rest of the basement, either floors or walls.  Then recently it became obvious that one area of the concrete walls needed a second coat.  That's when we discovered Yadkin Lumber Company!  Wow, they have EVERYthing there.                    

                                             
And if they don't have it, they'll order it.  A wonderful place.  They carry the Valspar paint that first went up on the basement walls, but the two yellows (Sunny Daze and Hazy Dawn) had gotten "retired" so after taking paint chips home, we settled on Pineapple Delight 200-2 as the closest match.

Isn't that a cheery color?  Two additional coats of that onto the concrete walls and it's all good now!  So then back to good ole Yadkin Lumber Company for stair railings.  There are NO railings on either side of the basement stairs.  Now granted this is a one-story house so I suppose the trips down into the basement were few and far between, but STILL.  So after getting advice from Yadkin Lumber's Ann & Charles, I got the railings and supplies which they loaded into my car for me, tied the trunk down, and gave me directions on back roads to take to get home with my flashers on and a red flag on the end of the railings.  I had to wave about two cars around me, but it was nothing like the traffic I would have run into otherwise.  Besides, I learned some new roads that way, and that's always good.  Farmer Lynn sanded the railings yesterday and the day before.  After much debate about painting versus staining the rails, we ended up getting tung oil so the wood will show more than it would have with the other methods.  The railings will probably go up on the stairs tomorrow.  Then I'll feel much better about Farmer Lynn's trips down to The Man Cave!  And the stairs will still be enough to deter me (I have metal in one leg&ankle&foot from an injury four years ago) from visiting down there much (hahaha, maybe the whole point of the placement of The Cave!!!) but when I do, I can go slow and hold on to the new railings.  Excellent.  Thank you to Farmer Lynn's boys and to Yadkin Lumber for helping us get The Man Cave safer.  Eventually I'd like a small light fixture at the top of the stairs to complete the safety picture, but there are other priorities right now and the light at the bottom of the stairs is FINE, he says :-)   Also some non-stick treads (http://www.solutions.com/jump.jsp?itemID=3406&itemType=PRODUCT) or tape (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Incom-Manufacturing-RE629BL-2-in-X-12-in-Black-Gator-Grip-Anti-Slip-Safety-Grit-Tape-Step-Strip/21061789 or http://www.allstairtreads.com/gritstrips.html -- suggestions?)  for those stairs would be nice down the road.  Any suggestions?

 

The Yadkin Yard Rabbit

The Yadkin Yard has an adorable rabbit.  It was one of the babies when we moved here.  The rest of the family disappeared one day and this one came back to the backyard with some puncture wounds that looked ominous.  But it healed up and grew up and now keeps Farmer Lynn company in the Yadkin Yard.

The picture on the left is from June and the one on the right is about 6 weeks later in July.  Yes, it really does get that close up to us.  Doesn't seem to mind us being there at all.  Must have figured out that we're no threat.  Besides, it's cool under the house, much cooler than in the yard.  It's a San Juan rabbit which I understand are tamer than regular rabbits.  The video was made in May when it was still a baby:

Farmer Lynn has named him "Gray" because the rest of the family was tanner than this one is. Here's a link to a YouTube video that he shot this week of his little buddy:

OK, so I love pictures and videos of cute bunny rabbits.

On the other side of the yard, there's a white rabbit

which is now two white rabbits.  We figured somebody had gotten tired of an Easter/Spring present and dropped it off here, out in the country.  The rabbits are so adorable and they keep the clover population to a manageable level.  Farmer Lynn has ordered some seeds for red clover and the rabbits (and soil) will like that even better. 

Locally Grown Club at Lowes Foods

Lowes Foods started a program last month, Locally Grown Club, to support the local farmers by pre-selling boxes of their produce. We got our first box Thursday from the Yadkinville NC store (thank you Mike in produce) filled with a great mixture of beautiful produce. I shucked the corn last night. It's been ages since I've done that. This program may just get me back into cooking again! Blueberries, watermelon, eggplant, potatoes, cabbage, corn, collard greens, beefsteak tomatoes, grape tomatoes, yellow squash, and green onions. I signed up for this program because we got a late start on our garden (although it is beginning to produce now -- squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes so far) and I thought these boxes would fill in at the beginning of the summer. Also I thought it was a great idea for Lowes Foods to do this.

http://www.lowesfoods.com/index.cfm/community/locally-grown-club-2012/ 

Congratulations to the local farmers and to Lowes Foods.

Our garden -- the squirrels steal our ripe tomatoes!  We have a truly amazing volume of chipmunks and squirrels here.  It has turned out to be not too hard to keep the rabbits out of the garden but the chipmunks and squirrels are another matter altogether.  Deer get into the garden also but haven't bothered things particularly so far.  

Updates on Pineapple Plant, Pallet Planter, and Peach Tree (AKA the YYY post about PP, PP, and P)

On our February 11 posting, "City Pineapples and Coffee", we told about the two pineapple plants we had grown from the greenery ends of two pineapples.  Once we got them out into the Yadkin Yard sunlight, they've really grown!  Here they are now -- big difference from February.  This has been a fun project to do.

Farmer Lynn's June 7 posting about his Pallet Planter showed how he made the planter, mounted vertically on the yard barn, where it then became the home for a bird nest with 5 blue eggs.  After the baby birds left, the planter was able to be watered more frequently and is very pretty, I think.  The petunias on the bottom row are the Wave Petunias.  Farmer Lynn is teaching the word "NO" to the rabbits who get on their hind legs, intent on munching on the Wave Petunias!

We have beautiful lilies in the Yadkin Yard.  Some we brought with us, but most of them were already here. It had been and is a beautifully and thoughtfully planted yard.  

Over the past couple of weeks, Farmer Lynn has kept track of the growing-number growing-size of the peaches on the old Peach Tree.  In order to avoid the tree limbs breaking under the load of so many peaches, and to give a chance at some fully-ripened edible peaches, he and his older son have been keeping down the peach population on the tree.  However, now it has become apparent that stronger measures are called for.  More "support", as it were, for the old tree's limbs, ahem, so today . . .  ;-)

Desert Rose Plant

This is really Farmer Lynn's post subject, but since he hasn't, I will, because it's so beautiful and needs to be bragged about ;-)    He has nurtured this bonsai Desert Rose plant.  It bloomed back before the Yadkin Yard, but it sure has appreciated the move!  It's on the (uncovered) front porch and is thriving there.  He built a little pallet table to put a few plants on the porch.  I just think this is so so so beautiful, it looks like a painting!

The Desert Rose is a succulent with a swollen stem.  It needs plenty of sunlight.  It's also called a "mock azalea".  It has to come inside during the late fall and winter.  I'll let him post more about it and how he cares for it, but in the meantime, enjoy the beautiful picture of the beautiful Desert Rose!