Tired of Christmas Trees?

Just a reminder that if you are new to this blog, you should probably go to the archives and start at the beginning. The beginning (March 2006) will tell you a bit about the start of this journey and what we were striving to do. The rest is just progress reports on how and why we did what we did! For more current information, to set up a tour/consultation, or for specific questions, feel free to email me at nuttergreenhome@yahoo.com

Hello Everyone,

Well, I was politely "reminded" that I hadn't updated the blog in a while, as some family-member-to-remain-nameless told me that he was tired of looking at Christmas trees on our site. So to appease the masses, here is an update.

As some of you might know, it is currently basketball season - and so with 3 out of 4 of us either playing or coaching in multiple games each week, and the 4th of us relegated to support-duty (ie. chauffeuring), basically nothing much has been done on the house is a while now.

We were fortunate enough to get 4 snow days at the end of January, and so 2 out of 3 bi-fold closet doors were hung upstairs - yippee!!!!!!! Unfortunately, as the 3rd door was going up, a part broke and so now that one needs to go back to the store - bummer. Here's a few pictures of the snow days!

Our Spring/Summer tour schedule is getting full already - several groups will be visiting around the Earth Day holiday, and another group is planned for June. Of course there is the National Solar Tour in October again, but I'm not sure we'll do that one or not.

On our short-term To-Do List of course is finishing the interior trim (oh wait, that would mean that the trim had been started), fiddling with the HRV to get it set up correctly, finishing the stair riser metal, staining the windows, planting the wetland, and starting a vegetable garden. We are hoping to grow much of our own vegetables, strawberries, and blueberries this year. Eventually, we'll add blackberries and raspberries too.

Progress update from last year: many of last years' projects have turned out well. We added snow guards to the house and garage roof to stop the avalanche-effect. The house snow guards have worked perfectly! Unfortunately, the garage roof on the north side sees so little sun that the snow piled up, didn't melt, and the snow guards didn't hold, so now we need to reinstall the guards on the garage roof and perhaps add another row to assist with holding back the weight of the snow for longer periods of time. Or perhaps we just need to attach them tighter? No worries though - there appears to be no damage. You live and learn and that's what experimenting is all about. Last year we also planted grass seed and groundcover the ENTIRE length of the driveway on both sides. It sure felt good to get that done, and I can't wait to see it green up in spring.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm getting excited for Spring to finally be here (or is it just for basketball to be over?) I'll be sure to add photos as I get them - and I'll try not to wait so long between posts!