Backyard Renovation

While Tamme is busy inside the house, I've been busy outside. With the help of friends, family, great neighbors and mother nature I've been working on the backyard renovation. Luckily it's a never ending job, because I love it. Warm (HOT! these past few days) sunshine on my back and lots of pulling, pushing, digging, etc. make for great nights of sleep. With the two older children right by my side or off wondering they love coming here as well. The only difficulty can be keeping an eye on my one year old Isaac who of late has developed a passion for exploring, so every few seconds I'm looking to see where he is and every few minutes I'm running to bring him back. So here are a few before and after pictures of the garden and yard.

I created a fenced in play/snack/rest in hammock area for the children as our home base while working at the house.

Future Garden

Tamme built the hoop house out of some found materials and then we just bought the poly film.

The Garden

As much as I adore my neighbors, I've been working on planting trees to buffer the view of their house. These here are actually sixteen assorted apple, peach and pear trees, while along the border of our property I planted different varieties of oak, maple, dogwood, holly, pretty much anything I could get my hands on for free or little cost. I'd still like to plant some evergreens this fall.

Chaos ensues when Isaac gets hold of the hose that's supposed to be filling up the pool!

Hope everyone's staying cool in this hot, hot weather!

Red Rock House goes "au naturel"

Before

My brother, Phil, power washing each stone

Prior to power washing the house the guys had to chip, chisel, and beg the stucco off of the stone.

Tamme covered all of the newly renovated windows with plastic before power washing. Power washing is such a dirty job. Phil said he will never do it again! And when preparing to throw some of Tamme's dirty laundry into the wash I discovered enough sand and plaster in his pockets to fill a large sandbox, well, maybe not that much sand but there was a lot!

After

Photo from across the road looking at our house from the neighbor's field.

We love the new look and will eventually point all that lovely stone. What do you think?

Introductions

I'd like you to meet some new additions to the family...

This is Mossy, "because his coat feels like moss, mama." Of course it does, Sienna. He is a really sweet, very independent little guy, but training has gone well and by the size of those paws we're thinking he's going to be quite big. We found him at a local adoption center, so he's what you'd call a mutt. I have a soft spot for mutts and everyday we are glad that we brought him home.

Our twenty Rhode Island Reds aka chickens!

Sorry I never posted pictures of them as chicks, but take my word for it, they were wicked cute.

Tamme built the chicken coop and my sisters and I painted it. We're not thrilled with the color, so come fall when we have more time it may get a makeover. It's a great design though, we just move it around the property by hand every couple of days and put up the netting.

Happy Sunday!

Hello again!

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time, spring came and life just took off! Now that we have the warmer weather Tamme, the children and I have been spending all of our time at the house. I haven't found a healthy balance for the children yet with napping and the work at the house, because I get to the house and there's just so much that needs to be done that I lose track of time and before I know it it's dinner time and the children are tired, hungry and very, very dirty.

Tamme is feeling fine. He gets headaches in the evenings sometimes, but not too bad. The doctors say he is ready for surgery, but having those same doctors actually get back to us with a possible date for the surgery is another story. Time is a good thing though, it gives his brain more time to heal. But it would be really nice to have the surgery done so we wouldn't have to worry anymore.

So here are some projects and renovations we've been working on since I last posted:

Tamme, Peter, my dad Phil, and our good friends Silvano and Field worked together to build us this beautiful fence. They finished it in just one weekend! It was rough work though with the soil being 30% dirt and 70% rock!

The fence really does wonders for the property. The field no longer feels like it just spills out onto the busy road.

Tamme has also been renovating the windows. He wanted to keep the original windows because they have that old, wavy glass he likes so much. It takes about 3 to 4 hours to fix one window, so it's been slow going, but definitely worth it. The pictures don't do the work he's done justice.

"Before"

"After"

I have a lot more projects and pictures to share, including some yard work I've been spending most of my time on, since it's safer for the children to be outside with me.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying spring!

Tamme

Our family had a terrible shock a week ago, Tamme suffered multiple strokes while at the hardware store with a friend. He had spent the morning wiring the second floor when he and a friend took a break to pick up some needed lighting. He was looking at the selection when he suddenly felt very dizzy and went down to his knees. He lost his vision, ability to talk, and his motor skills. He was conscious the whole time and tried to tell his friend what was happening but his words were just sounds. After about ten minutes his speech came back, but he had a severe case of vertigo and nausea. His friend brought him home immediately, where I called his parents to watch the children as I took Tamme to the emergency room.

The next couple of hours were a nightmare as I fought to get the doctors to understand that this was more than a migraine and that there was something seriously wrong with my very healthy husband. When they tried to give him migraine pain medication I flipped and made the doctor look again. Tamme's one eye would not follow when I would pass him. The doctor now saw and called a neurologist at Jefferson Hospital, who immediately sent for Tamme to be flown by helicopter to Philadelphia.

To make a very long story shorter, the doctors found that Tamme had suffered multiple strokes in his cerebellum caused by a hole in his heart. This hole is called a foramen ovale and is

"located in the atrial septum that is used during fetal circulation to speed up the travel of blood through the heart. When in the womb,a baby does not use it's own lungs for oxygen-rich blood, it relies on the mother to provide oxygen rich blood from the placenta through the umbilical cord to the fetus. Therefore, blood can travel from the veins to the right side of the baby's heart and cross to the left side of the heart through the foramen ovale and skip the trip to the baby's lungs."

"Normally the foramen ovale closes at birth when increased blood pressure on the left side of the heart forces the opening to close.

If the atrial septum does not close properly, it is called a patent foramen ovale. This type of defect generally works like a flap valve, only opening during certain conditions when there is more pressure inside the chest. This increased pressure occurs when people strain while having a bowel movement, cough, or sneeze.

If the pressure is great enough, blood may travel from the right atrium to the left atrium. If there is a clot or particles in the blood traveling in the right side of the heart, it can cross the PFO, enter the left atrium, and travel out of the heart and to the brain (causing a stroke) or into a coronary artery (causing a heart attack)."

After lots of different, very uncomfortable tests this is what was found to have caused Tamme's strokes.

So, in 6-8 weeks Tamme will go through a procedure to close the hole in his heart. They will insert a catheter into a vein in his thigh and then advance it up to his heart. This catheter has a balloon and a camera attached to it. They will use this to measure the size of the hole and use the camera to see if there are more holes. If there are more holes or the hole is too big, Tamme will need to have open heart surgery, but if it's just that patent foramen ovale then the surgeons can close it right then and there with a closure device that looks like a double headed umbrella. Incredible!

So needless to say we are praying that the latter will be the outcome for Tamme's situation. At this point we are already extremely grateful that Tamme regained all of his speech, vision, and motor skills. Most stroke survivors are not as fortunate. We are taking one day at a time now. I brought Tamme home after four days in the hospital and for those of you who know Tamme this was probably the most challenging for him. Imagine Tamme laying in a bed all day!

He has to take an aspirin a day and our family doctor also has him taking some anthroposophical, homeopathic remedies as well. He now only deals with a kind of constant, mild dizziness that he says he's already gotten used to. Hopefully that will heal with time. He is very glad to be back at work today and returning to our normal rhythm as a family.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I can not leave before I mention one of the most awe inspiring things about this event in our lives and that is the amazing amount of love we were enveloped in. Our brave family, our dear close friends, our dear distant friends and our ever supporting community. The many, many phone calls, the nourishing meals made, the loving words of support, the care packages, the flowers, the knowing that our young children were in the best possible hands while I stayed with Tamme, the chocolate, ah yes, the chocolate, the feeling of knowing that no matter what happens we are not alone.

Much love, Susan, Tamme, Loic, Sienna and Isaac

Family portrait

We woke up to a fresh inch or two of snow this morning and much excitement ensued with all the many possible adventures that could take place. Once we were all dressed, we headed outside to find that it was the perfect snowman making snow!

All we had to do was make one little snow ball and then roll it around and that little ball would pick up anything and everything in its path. We even discovered a missing sock! The children were a bit disappointed that the growing snow ball would take all of the snow in its path leaving a trail of green behind, but once our family of snow people began to take shape it didn't matter so much.

from left to right: Isaac, Sienna, Loic, Mama & Papa

And our family just wouldn't be complete without including our sweet, playful, patient cat, Mena!

Enjoying a couple of snowman noses

But our snowy morning was quickly interrupted by none other than Mrs. Thaw!

(Elsa Beskow's "Ollie's Ski Trip," a nightly favorite these days)

Who gently reminded us that it is indeed February and the weather is not to be trusted, but definitely enjoyed.

A peek inside

Lots of projects have been going on inside as well. My dad and Toma took the plaster off of the ceiling in the dining and living rooms exposing the beams.

Most of them are in good condition, some with a beaded edge. The next step is to sand everything down, router a beaded edge on the beams needing one and then stain or paint. I'm leaning towards painting the ceiling an off white to give the room a feeling of more height, but we'll see. We're a good way off from the painting portion of the renovation. So far the work is moving along pretty smoothly. We run into snags once in a while, but the unwavering gratitude and joy we have for this opportunity to work and create a home for our family makes any hurdle seem surmountable.

I am often reminded of Thoreau's "Walden Pond" when working at the house and lately these words have been running through my mind,

"There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? "