around the homestead- spring cleanin n other stuff

new shelves for things n stuff
new shelves will go on the wall above the wheat

Sorry for the brief delay in posting but I have been buried in clutter and couldn't find the computer! This whole sustainability and self reliance thing is great and is a lifestyle I would never change, but YEEGADS, this whole saving stuff that has another use is hard to keep under control. Nearly everything has another use as something else or in making something else. Unless you live in a home that has gracious amounts of storage space the stuff eventually starts to spread out, create a giant mess and it looks absolutely wretched. This is exactly what I allowed to happen around here over the last year or three. I was going to post before and after pics of the room but it was just TOO messy!

This is coming from a person that hates clutter and in a former life would throw absolutely everything that was not being used away. I think long term unemployment and learning to live with what we had on hand contributed to the mess I had going on as I didn't want to lack anything that we perhaps could need in the future. At the same time one can only use just so many containers, boxes, old clothes and other fine collectibles and the rest have got to be done away with. This week I have spent most of my time cleaning the clutter, making what space we have more user friendly, and sprucing up the joint. Manthing, on his days off, has been making me some shelves and a bed frame for us. The floor was getting too hard to roll out of in the mornings and he built it with storage totes in mind so we can fit 8 of them under it with no trouble.

I am still not done. I have one other room to weed through and rearrange, some touch up painting and switch plates in the project room and a few more shelves to get put up. For the bed project, the shelving project and paint we spent about 250 dollars most of which was on brackets and screws. Whatta racket! The wood left over from building the bed frame was just enough to make all of the shelves. Paint was found in the "oopsie!" section of local hardware stores so cost very little. Colors for the project room were chosen because they were cheap and what they had, not because I have an affection for the Denver Broncos. I also wanted it to be a happy looking room and since we live in a shack I am allowed to paint things in any manner I choose. Eventually, art work will be added to the walls as people see fit. Allowing people to create art on stuff is something we enjoy as it is a way for people to leave a bit more than a memory of their time here and we like it.

Now I have a lot more space to stash my things n stuffs and I can do so in a much more orderly fashion. Now I can collect more things n stuffs. In actuality, I simply shifted everything into different locations although some of those locations are compost piles rather than in the shack. Nothing really is getting thrown away, just being used in a different way than I had originally put them away for. Boxes, old papers, phonebooks and so on are being composted or used in making lasagna beds. Old clothes for mending or rags are also going into making another bed or three and a much smaller box is being kept for mending. All extra containers are now going to be listed on free cycle or will be otherwise recycled as I am slowly going to all glass storage containers rather than plastics. I have found that we use less containers than we used to because we buy less and less from a store and with gardening year round it eliminates many storage vessels and space.

In other news..
We went from beautiful springtime weather back to craptacular in one fell swoop. It has been cold, gloomy and rainy now for the latter part of a week. In fact they were even forecasting snow for last night but it did not come. What a cruel April Fool's joke Mother!! To the Northern folks that did actually get snow, my condolences to you! The water tables are rising with all this liquid so I am trying not to complain too much although the constantly changing weather here has caused my rhubarb to go to seed already as well as most of the overwintered crops. Everything else that has been seeded or planted is coming up nicely and the seedling maters and tobacco are chugging along. By Sunday we will be back to 75 degree weather so spring can officially commence for real this time.