June Berry Face of Produce

Ready for winter...

Today Sheri received her new winter sleeping bag in the mail.  She is now ready for anything that the snow gods can throw at her!!

Progress on the kitchen in New Hampshire

Bug season is in full swing in New Hampshire, so we have been focused on the kitchen renovation and only making short trips out into the wilderness.  Hence, the kitchen is coming along quite nicely and should be completed before the next ski season!

  

 In early June we received a shipment of cabinets - over 50 boxes in total!

After re-routing some wires and cutting a hole in the outside wall for the extractor fan ducting we were ready to get started.

  

We had help installing the new tiles while we were at work in Connecticut.

We began (and got warmed up) by installing the wall cabinets.

The new hood and the base cabinets were installed next.....

Of course this involved cutting holes in the new cabinets.....

 

...and making sure that they are attached firmly to the walls...

..and to the floor. 

Not forgetting, of course, to keep everything perfectly level at all stages of the installation!

Next trip up north we will be building an island and a buffet in anticipation of new counters which should arrive in early July.

Hopefully we will be able to reclaim our dining room and living room soon, and we may even be able to graduate from eating off paper plates to real dishes before the summer is over!

Soft fruit season is upon us

Fruit and nuts

Here at Hangman Hill we have a bumper crop of strawberries.  The two cookie sheets worth (or half bushel?) were picked picked after a weekend in New Hampshire.  Stop by for poundcake (DiAnns's recipe) and berries!  

Fruit

Meanwhile, progress on the kitchen at the chalet continues.  We have a new tile floor, cheerful yellow walls and a few cabinets on the wall.  It was a perfectly sunny weekend with mild temperatures, perfect for arranging cabinets.  Actually as lhe black fly season is in full swing, it was a good weekend to be inside.

Nuts

Let the season begins...the first strawberries are in!

Harvesting arugula

Recent rainfall has helped things to grown in the garden. This year may be year of arugula. We are thinking of having a highly exclusive farm stand that only sells arugula.

The peonies are popping too!

Gardening season

One of our pressing projects for 2015 was to rebuild the raised beds that we have been using to grow our summer veggies. The original wooden ones had started to rot away, so we decided to upgrade to a more long lasting solution made with stackable concrete blocks. 

The blocks were delivered and we employed two local lads to move them up to the garden (to save our backs).

Then we had the fun of moving around the old rotten wooden beams, shoveling lots of the dirt, and building the replacement beds. 

So far we have completed about fifty recent of the project and we are taking a well earned rest. 

Finally, we installed a drip irrigation system to ensure that the plants are well watered. And of course it rained for the next three days....