Recycling Old Glass

Several decades ago, garbage disposal wasn't as convenient for country people as it is today. Now we just pay someone to pick up our garbage weekly, or we deliver it to the dump ourselves. I don't know if farmers weren't able to dispose of garbage elsewhere in the old days, but back then it was not uncommon for a farm to have a garbage pile. Usually, that pile would be separated into several piles: metal and glass, compost, and burnables. There used to be a burn pile on our property from the past farmers that owned the place, but the river washed it away (thank goodness). These garbage piles (the metal and glass ones in particular) are still out there, randomly placed throughout the forests of Upstate NY.

 Most of the State Land here used to be farms. When the farms failed, the state took ownership of the land and turned it into State Land, which is just basically free land for anyone to use. Although 50 or so years ago the land was bustling farm land, you can't tell now. The woods spring up quickly here. But occasionally you'll run into some vestige of the once farm. While we're  hiking along, we'll often run into an old road, a rock wall that once marked property lines, a house foundation, an ornamental pond, or a glass pile. One day, we decided to investigate one of these glass piles in the hope of finding some decorative glass.

You've seen old glass bottles at Antique shops. They sell them for $10 a pop! We like the look of antique glass bottles, but weren't willing to pay the price. Well we were in luck. This pile was full of great bottles still in one piece.

 

I obviously procrastinated finishing this job, since it's been 6 months since we did the picking, but a little cleanup (a few of them soaked for a while), add a few corks if you want, and voila! Antique recycled glass as a decoration.

 

Eve Power

We have 100 acres behind our house. There are fields and a hill laced with roads and trails. You would think then that we use those 100 acres for hiking, but the truth is, it's fairly inaccessible for at least 1/2 of the year. There is a creek between our house and the hill; a sizable creek. The creek is low enough to cross with our car intermittently, and in the summer it's warm enough to cross in sandals. In the fall is hunting season, so we can't use it then, and in the winter, it doesn't freeze over, so the hill is mostly unusable.

Luckily, the Finger Lakes Trail is nearby, so we've been checking that out. We know the FLT in the Ithaca area well, but around here, it's mostly new territory. There is a section of the Finger Lakes Trail here that I have come to love. It is a limited use highway, and at the top of the hill are wind turbines.

Eve Power, a wind power company, has tons of them up around here. I love them. They are incredibly beautiful and serene.

You can see Brian and Atticus in the bottom of the picture above. The turbines are pretty big.

It's my favorite place to take Atticus on a walk. We'll get up there, and I'll just let  him roam while I sit and listen to them and watch them. When they're moving fast, it sounds kinda like a plane passing overhead. When they're moving slowly, you can hardly hear them at all.

When wind power first came to this area, many people were up in arms against the idea. They were convinced that the propellers would move so fast that they would chop up birds as they migrated...bahaha. What a joke. If a bird hit a wind turbine, that would be a pretty stupid bird. People also said that they would make really loud propeller sounds. Also a joke...like I said, when they're moving fast (and only then), they sound like a plane passing overhead.

At any rate, I'm a fan of wind power. Not only are they clean energy; they also add something to a landscape. They have become part of the skyline for me; I would miss them if they weren't around. 

We Found a New Playground!

When Brian and I lived in the west, Southern Utah was our playground. There's so much to do there, and it's breathtakingly beautiful. Seriously, if you haven't been, go. Just amazing. Moving back to NY though creates a huge gap (called the great plains) between us and our favorite playground.

Now don't get me wrong, there is so much to do in the Finger Lakes area. The lakes, gorges, creeks, etc. afford tons of good water stuff to do, and there is tons of wonderful hiking. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about getting away from civilization...going somewhere you can get lost. It's seriously impossible to get lost in upstate NY. Walk 1 hour and you'll reach at least 10 houses even in the remotest area.

The Adirondacks, however, are another story. It's the largest park in America. It covers a huge chunk of Upstate, and it's all pine-laden low-lying mountains. For some extremely strange reason unknown to us, neither Brian nor I ever went to the Adirondacks growing up. So, itching for an adventure, we decided to gives the Adirondacks a try...

Do you see the Grinch-like pine trees in this last picture! All of the pines looked like that. It was fantastic.

The snow came up to Atticus' back, so he had to dive to make each step. He had a blast, and we were all exhausted by the end of the first day.

In the winter, cabin rentals are tons cheaper, so we rented a little heated (yeah!) cabin so that our clothes could dry overnight.

Everything was just draped in snow and icicles. It was so breathtaking up there.

One thing we have especially missed about the west is boulders. Central NY is all shale and slate, which is beautiful, and we obviously love it since we live here, but we have missed large boulders and slabs of rock. When we entered the ADKs, we began to see boulders, so we're excited to give bouldering a try there this summer!

We tried a new kind of trail food:

It's a tortilla (and I got the soft kind so they wouldn't be tough when they got cold) with peanut butter and nutella on it, rolled up. Amazing. My new favorite trail food. It gave me the energy I needed, but wasn't super sugary or tough. You could do so many combinations with this as well: pb and honey, pb and jelly; maple syrup and pb, we're even thinking of making a pizza-type one...the possibilities are endless here.

Such a wonderful trip! It rejuvenated me the way I hoped it would. We'll definitely be back soon!

Dogs Act the Way Humans Should

As many of you know, our sweet dog Sgt. Pepper passed away this past September. It was sudden, unexpected, and incredibly emotional. She was honest to goodness the perfect dog (ask anyone who knew her, and they'd agree).

She left a huge hole in our home; a hole we knew we needed to fill. It just didn't seem right not having a dog in our home. Seeing this as an opportunity to give another abandoned pup a good home, we did some looking and found this ad:

Doesn't that picture just make your heart melt? Someone just dumped him on the side of the road.

We went to look at him determined to take at least one night to think about it and make sure that we were the right home for this dog.

We didn't have to think about it, this dog was the right dog for us, and we were the right people for him. We named him Atticus, and welcomed him into our home.

He is a joy to have around, and although he doesn't replace Sarge, we love him dearly. He is (like Sarge did), teaching us that dogs act as humans should.

The Remodel

The past several months has been a whirlwind of activity. Brian's been subbing daily while doing 18 credits of grad work, leaving me with lots of time to work on remodeling the house. We're fixing this house up for my aunt to sell it. Hopefully our improvements will make it much easier to sell.

I wish we had more before pictures.  There are so many details that went into every room I can't include them all, but suffice it to say that we changed a lot. Every room in this house took at least 5 times longer than we thought it would.

Our Living Room Before:

This room was originally full of junk (including an interesting array of dead bats), and the walls were covered in that paneling Brian's tearing out right there. It was full of holes and super gross. This room had no electricity, so all of that had to be added. All of the lath board on the walls and ceiling was removed, and the room wasn't insulated, so we took care of that too. The room to the left of this one (door on the left) was closed off. It's housing my Grandmother's things; we won't use it.

After:

The Office Before:

I don't have adequate befores of this room. These pictures were taken long after the worst was over in here. No electricity (besides a light fixture) or insulation in this room either. The walls had deteriorating plaster on it (as well as the ceiling) with graffiti from  my cousins when they were kids.

After:

The Bedroom Before:

This room required less work. Only one wall needed to be insulated, and the room had electricity! The walls in all of the rooms had hives throughout them (see photo above). We filled an entire box with them.

After:

The Breakfast Nook Before:

I include this picture because the door on the right goes into the Breakfast Nook. The room was literally full of junk. There are shelves on the walls covered in old greasy appliances, a freezer full of dry storage...the whole room was full old kitchen stuff. I had it half cleaned out here (believe it or not). Here's the room after most of the cleanout:

After:

The Family Room Before:

My Dad used this room as his living room. We've since moved his living to a more private space, so this room is now pretty bare.

After:

The Kitchen Before:

I tried to decorate this kitchen, but the end result was yuck.The scallops over the window are the last straw for me. So, the only thing to do was paint the whole thing.

After:

The Bathroom Before:

I forgot to get befores in this room until I had already started painting (hence the blue tape). The tile was pink though, so that should speak for itself.

After:

While we were working on this, I discovered that I like remodeling. In fact, I think when we buy a house, we'll buy a fixer-upper. Then you can really make it yours.