Spring is finally here: This weekend at Grandma’s House!

As most of you have probably figured out already patience is NOT one of my strong suits – when I want to do something I do it right NOW and with spring finally here I have literally had to grab hold of myself and remind me that: “There are NO deadlines! Stop freaking out!!” Of course that kind of pep talk only goes so far and I am literally sitting on my hands at my day job because being behind a desk just FEELS SO WRONG! Because, finally, after that endless ridiculous winter, spring is here!

Of course there’s more to it then that: For the first time since my divorce I can FINALLY tackle the to do list for my yard and get everything done this year that I’ve wanted to get done for YEARS. No more waiting around for someone else! (I am also just shocked by how much his laziness hindered me and stopped me from so much.)

Regardless of spring technically being here though I was literally sitting on my deck last Saturday afternoon and looking at the over two feet of snow that was still there. “Why are you still here?! You are not wanted!” How can it be over 50 degrees for four days and there still be this much snow? Word is we still have over 36 inches of ice on some of our lakes too lol

(Coolness, I was featured in an article on the DIYIdea center! Check it out by click here 🙂

Big joke on Facebook right now: “Please have all of your ice fishing houses off the lakes by July 4th.”

Second big joke on Facebook right now: “I sure hope summer falls on a weekend this year!” (I can literally hear people sobbing as they laugh at that…)

Sunday, however, I had quite had it with myself – I got up early and hit the ground running. First thing I tackled was my dishes and cleaning up the majority of the house before I forced myself to sit for an hour and have a cup of coffee before I hyperventilated. (I can’t be the only person who gets this crazy urgency in the spring!)

I took some stock and made myself a basic to-do list for this spring and, also, for what’s coming up here on the blog.

Then I tackled the frame project I have coming up the first Friday in May with the Farmhouse Hens Decorate. (See the completed frames here!) I was bound and determined to make a frame that anyone could make and still looked nice. All in, I am quite pleased 🙂

From there I headed to my basement. A few weeks ago my best friend Rachie helped me empty it out of almost everything down there. (Yes my workshop is in boxes and yes it is driving me crazy.) Still down there is all of my scrap wood, my table saw, my miter saw and my shelving unit.

By some kind of miracle I got my table saw and shelving unit upstairs to my future workshop without hurting myself. (As long as some pretty impressive bruises don’t count as hurting myself.) I installed the shelf in the closet and was pretty darned pleased I had plenty of room for my table saw and ladders too.

Finally I am feeling some motivation in getting my new workshop complete! I’ll be posting all about it on the blog here in a few weeks as there is still a whole bunch of work to do. First thing is I need to un-box everything, go through it all and get it organized.

(It makes no real sense that crappy cold weather would effect inside projects like my workshop but up until this weekend all I wanted to do was go home and hibernate.)

At that point my mom showed up and we did what we haven’t wanted to do in LITERALLY MONTHS – we did a walk about of the farm yard! I told her about all of my future projects, showed her where my out house is going to be and told her about all of my plans for this spring/summer/fall. The garage still needs completion (another one of my ex’s projects he refused to finish) and that will only take me a few hours one weekend. I also plan on extending my privacy fence the rest of the way along the road to the property line. I’ll have to save up for seven more fence panels and seven more 4×4 posts!

But with the privacy fence extended I’ll have a full “back” yard that feels enclosed and private. And, once I get myself some doggos, it will be half of my extended dog run as well as I also want to expand my dog kennel someday soon too.

Then we headed up to my horse pasture to groom out our two horses. My gelding Garcia got so fat and sassy this winter I can hardly believe it but who can blame him? This winter lasted so long none of us wanted to move much for the past three months! Besides, at 27 years old, my boy getting through a winter looking this stout is just fine.

We emptied out and moved their water tank into the barn as it was one of the first things on my to-do list this spring. In the barn the tank will be out of the north wind and cost me a lot less to keep from freezing next winter. (I also plan to wrap the whole tank up in insulation and cover it.) On top of that, it won’t be filling up from water run off of the barn so it will stay a lot cleaner and healthier for them.

Remember my big leak out here in the barn that happened this winter that cost me a fortune to fix? Yeah, well I’ve had a milk heater running down by that fixed faucet ever since and that is also costing me! I need to get the empty well shaft filled with dirt this year so I never have to run that heater again. Savings all together between the tank being in the barn and that heater not running? At least $100 a month! That’s a savings of over $500 a year!

Initially, going into winter, I had expected to have at least a cord of wood left over and then winter laughed and just never left. I sent all my girlfriends’ the following photo with the caption: “That’s all she wrote!” because I was literally OUT OF WOOD. (Remember how I planned on moving all of my extra wood to my garage this summer? Yeah, well, that job literally took care of itself!)

Fortunately for me it turns out that my electric back up heat (though rather expensive to run) can keep my house at 60 degrees just fine as long as our outside temperatures don’t get below 10. I will be installing some kind of real heat before next winter though as I am quite done heating with wood!!!

The plan for the wood shed (in the following photo you see just one stall so imagine it being triple that big) is to completely empty it out and then I want to expand the horse pasture into one of the stalls and then keep my hay in the other two.

(Horses are SO weird. They have a perfectly fine shelter off the back of the barn and will they use it? NO! Hopefully this one will be a little more to their liking, if nothing else it will be a wind break from the north.)

So this next weekend I will be tackling my future hay shed and my garage. My ex left as much trash as he could behind in both places so that’s the next job that I can’t wait to tackle. I have removed him from my home so now its time to purge him from all of the rest.

So, a little bon fire is in order, it will take care of lots of branches I have downed across the property and everything that is safe to burn that I can burn left by my ex. Any trash he left that I can’t burn I will be hauling directly to the dump.

Then, with the garage cleaned out it will now house my lawn mower and my wood splitter besides my two cars and that will finally totally free up my old wood shed to truly become my horses’ shed (yay!) my Operation BLISSULLY HAPPY is in full swing! And I’ll be expanding the horse pasture a bit more besides giving them a stall in their new shed, so they’ll have even more room to run and graze!

I can’t wait to get this done this weekend! Do you guys have spring plans that you can’t wait to tackle?