Three Year Anniversary at Century Farms!

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December 22, 2024, marked 3 years since we bought Century Farms!  Wow!   I took the video that day, and then a few weeks later I came down with a respiratory flu that turned into bronchitis.  So along with regular life, it has taken me awhile to get this post together for you.

I really enjoy looking back over the year and seeing what we accomplished.  If it weren’t for these videos and posts, I think we would forget and think maybe we didn’t finish very many projects.  Sometimes progress seems so slow.  In actuality—what a lot we did accomplish! 

One of the things I like to do is look at the previous year’s video—and that helps remind me what wasn’t done yet then.

So in no particular order—-

One of the first things that my husband did this year was start digging a trench outside our basement.  Our hope was that it would redirect the water from going into the basement, away from the house.  He hand dug a huge section, until he reached the driveway.  The rock was too much for him to dig through, and we hired a neighbor to dig the rest.  Later on we realized there had been a barn there years ago, so it was a foundation that he would never have been able to dig through by hand.

Thankfully, the trench was successful, and our basement hasn’t had any more water coming into it! 

My husband also worked on extending our gutters further away from the house, and that helps keep our basement drier also.

The old bathtub that I was going to use for a dog washing station—well, we were able to sell it to someone for $500, so that was better than keeping it.

My husband put in a new sump pump, and also a new pressure tank for the well.  It’s so nice that he could do these things on his own, without having to pay somebody crazy prices.

This project took a lot of time—I don’t remember whether it was the weather, or getting sick (a different time) or just life— but I finished redoing our rock wall that borders the driveway.   Instead of stacking it straight like a wall (I realized I didn’t have the skills to do that well), I decided to lay it more on a hill—a hillside style rock garden thing. 

The rocks are huge.  The pink ones are from South Dakota.  The very largest ones I had to roll into place.  A couple I used the side by side to drag into place.  And a couple my husband I moved together.  But overall I did most of it myself—and I’m thankful that I didn’t tear any muscles or anything while doing all of that!

I put down weed fabric (I found a huge roll for $2 at a yard sale!) so that I can put hostas or other flowers and plants along the top edge.

I know that dirt and leaves are going to want to settle in between the rocks, so instead I want to grow succulents and cactus and who knows what all, in the gaps in the rocks. You can even spy some broccoli in there!

After remodeling the downstairs bathroom, we needed to redo the entryway wall.  We used tongue and groove wood paneling.  I just clear coated it after installation.  I want to leave the other side as is because it shows the wood siding that the house used to have before it was sided with vinyl.

This cabinet is very handy for things that are going in or out the door.  It was a free-by-the-side-of-the-road find.   I painted it with Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint to compliment my living room curtains and stained glass light fixture.  I love the color- don’t you?!

I got most of the back of the garage pressure washed.  One little section—not sure why I didn’t do it—I must’ve been exhausted or ran out of time or something….

Our basement has a lot more room in it because we gave 5 of our bicycles away to a missionary family.  We had replaced our bicycles and kept our old ones….  And I spent a good deal of time gathering other household items that this family needed, too.  It is so fun knowing that our bikes are going to get a lot more use out of them!

        

When we realized that it was very likely that our neighbor was going to put in a bunch of solar panels into his field that is adjacent to our property, we decided to plant some trees proactively.  A neighboring farm was selling them for $5 each—dig your own.   So we went on 2 different weekends and dug and planted 15 trees each weekend.  

That was right before a very long hot spell in the summer—and I did a lot of hauling of water to try to keep the trees alive.  Later— well— I realized I may have actually overwatered them….   I think 13 of the trees have died so we plan to replace them.  At $5 apiece it’s really not too bad of a loss.   I hope they are the same price when we go to replace them this year!

I rearranged my craft room so that it seems to be staying more neat, and allow me to work better in it.  My husband also replaced one of the heater covers in there.

We finally figured out where to put a dog fence.  It was tough because there are no doors on the back of the house!  I came up with the idea of using a window like a patio door to let the dog in and out. And I found a free chain link fence— it was a tall tennis court fence that was free if we removed it.

So in 2 days we removed the fence, including the posts. And my husband started working on cementing the posts into place.

So with the plan to use the window for a dog door, the posts are in, and now we just need to attach the fence and gates.  We’ve had a very cold winter with more snow and precipitation than other years, so it’s been difficult to make progress.  I’ll be so glad when it’s done!  It seems I’m fighting more than usual the amount of dog hair in the house…. Sigh.   And while we have a huge property—every time she gets a chance, our dog will roll in deer poop—- so you can imagine the problems that causes because she can’t come back in the house like that!

I plan to do a full post on the Rock Wall Garden– is there anything else that you’d like to know more about? This post is just about the home improvement projects that we did– of course our lives were full of other events– and yes, even more projects like craft projects and birthday cakes.

Watch the video for more details!!

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