John and Barb's wine room

John and Barbara have made some serious progress on the wine room (it was top on the priority list) and it is AWESOME!!!  It is complete with this cool door that is covered with wine and beer labels.  (see below)  They still have a few things to add, but it is off to a good start (and it's made me want one for my basement)!

door to wine room

Storage for the many bottles of wine

working surface

John and Matt prepping the doors for our house

Barbara painting and staining a bookshelf for their living room

Hard at work

another shot of the door

Safety first!

John and Matt have started putting in guard rails at the bottom of the driveway.  (this is actually old, just haven't posted in a while) Eventually, many parts of the driveway that have a steep drop off or seem dangerous will have guard rails, but we're just getting started.  We're using railroad cross ties and a lot of cement.

new wine cellar under construction

Here we go.  I am building a dedicated wine cellar in the basement of the "new house".  I want a place where I can keep the carboys, barrels, bottles, cappers, presses, washing and the other endless supply of equipment I use to try to make good wine.

 

One corner of the room includes the well water tank.  Ground water contained therein will help cool the cellar.

 

 The other end of the cellar includes a sink (which will be upgraded at a future date)

 

 

So the cellar will not be huge. I don't have enough room for that.  It will be long and thin and two walls will be concret walls that are completely underground.  The other two walls are framed and will be insulated.  The whole idea is to keep the temp low and cave like.  I am hoping for about 60 degrees year round.



new ground

Right to the side of the house Barbara is planning a plot for herbs and a sort of kitchen garden.

Breaking ground

Every gardener needs a mule

 

 

 

 

The mule's best side

down this slope we plan to plant blue berries

Lots of saplings and weeds need to be removed.

Summer Living

We are really enjoying living out here on the land, it's really too good to be true!  Here are some of the things we get to enjoy on a daily basis!

Home grown tomatoes, there is nothing like it!

A beautiful view with a beautiful sunflower

The hops

loads of cucumbers

Tomatoes!  These are the Roma tomatoes, but we love them all!

More sunflowers

Our first apples from the orchard

Matt and Landen enjoying the view

Grapes from the vineyard (yes, we have a vineyard. Crazy, huh?) And they are DELICIOUS!

Fresh picked produce.... zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, asparagus, apples, and peppers 

Hanging out at the shed

The men of the land...

Not bad, huh?

A turtle we spotted on our way back down

Off the path

The first apple ever picked from Kinnaird orchards...hope it's delicious!

So many cucumbers....making some pickles

Score Update

I stand corrected.....Bear-5, Kinnairds-0

Bear vs. Kinnairds

So, the bear visits again.  She has gotten in our trash about 4 times now.  After the first 3 times, John came out and built this little trash/tool shed against the house.  We thought we were in the clear, but the bear tested it out last night and after a few tries (it was very loud), she successfully broke it by ripping of the board with the latch on it.  I came out on the stoop to attempt to scare her off so that I would hopefully have less trash to clean up this morning and realized she also has a cub...so I promptly came back in and locked the door.  The cub climbed a tree and was adorable.  Mama Bear ran to make sure her cub was ok, then came back to drag off more trash.  I'm pretty sure there's another bag out there somewhere a little farther up the driveway.  

Must bear-proof out trash bin!

Score:

Bear-4

Kinnairds-0