There are a lot of jobs that need to be done before the snow flies, but some of them are more weather dependent than others.

Working on the sun room is one of them, because we basically have to empty it in the process.

So instead of working on winterizing the garden beds and yard, as I’d originally intended, I started on the sun room.

Well. Half of it.

The main thing was to clear the area in front of the pair of windows on the east side of the door, so that I could clear away as much broken glass from the inner pane as possible.

My daughter had already cleared the big pieces of broken glass from the bottom window – the top one has cracks, but hasn’t broken apart, yet. There were many jagged pieces left that she couldn’t get out. I tried using the glass cutter, but it really didn’t do much of anything. I ended up breaking most of the pieces off with a pair of pliers. Some pieces came out entirely, others broke away closer and closer to the frame, while still others just got crushed by the pliers.

After sweeping as much of the glass as I could, I used a vacuum to get the rest.

While doing the concrete floor, I spotted something that either I completely forgot about, or somehow managed to miss when we first cleaned out the sun room of my parents’ stuff.

Right in the corner, there are foot prints in the concrete. You can see one hand print as well, and there are just barely signs of a second hand print.

My late brother poured this concrete. My guess is, these are his son’s prints.

Awww…

Once the glass was cleaned up as much as possible, it was time to put insulation in place.

I covered both windows, as I’m hoping the insulation will prevent the top window from cracking even more. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s temperatures that are causing the cracks, though they certainly are a factor. The entire sun room is shifting, and sinking slightly, at the corner by the rain barrel. Likely because the barrel was allowed to overflow and, before winter, simply tipped over on the spot to be emptied.

I decided to rearrange this side of the sun room to something I hope is more functional.

The shelf I had the kibble bin stored in used to be in this corner, and the counter shelf you see now was in the opposite corner. It’s on bricks, in case the floor gets wet. The roof leaks above this corner – which will hopefully no longer be a problem soon! We still don’t have a date for the roofers to come int.

The hanger on the wall was on the wall beside the door to the old kitchen, but it was too long, so it was mounted diagonally. It partly worked, but it’s in a more useful spot, now.

Then it was time to clean out this corner, by the bathroom window. That space on the left is where the hanger had been. The counter shelf was in the corner, with all sorts of stuff, including my husband’s walker and my crossbow target, blocking the front of it. The top had become a mess of tools and containers.

Unfortunately, by this time, it was getting late. The shelf went into the corner and I started out organizing things as I brought them back in. After a while, though, I got a daughter to help, and we just shoved everything into this corner, to be finished another time.

The other half is going to take more work. Aside from having to wrestle the swing bench out the door, that side is where the cats – and sometimes skunks – would leave messes in inaccessible corners.

Thankfully, we’ve got a couple more warm, dry days before the temperatures start to drop, and we have the possibility of rain. We won’t be able to get back at it tomorrow. In the morning, we’ve got the cat lady coming to pick up the bitty babies, then in the afternoon, the girls and I are heading out to pick up my mother, then going to the marsh to see the migrating birds, while we still can this year. So after tomorrow, we can get back to work!

Speaking of which, one of the things the girls did while I started on the sun room was head out to a stand of willows behind the barn, with the loppers. They were looking for branches appropriate to use on the wattle wall I’m building in the old kitchen garden. Unfortunately, the only long, straight ones they found were branches that died long ago, and were in no condition for use. The live branches were not suitable for wattle weaving. The best they were able to do was prune some small but straight maple suckers that can be used as space fillers. I’d already gathered some last night from the maples now clear of the branch piles that got chipped, that I hope can be used. I did not expect it to be this difficult to find suitable materials for that project!

Well, that last paragraph took a lot longer to write compared to the rest of this post. The bitties needed attention, and are now back on me. The black and white is content to curl up on my chest, but the grey and white tabby wants to explore!

Time to get off the computer and

Ow! The little bugger just bit my thumb!!!

Time to ten

3d o 7bia

bie7sl7

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get a kitten off the keyboard.

The Re-Farmer