Look up! Fixing up the Farmhouse, Part III

After the interior painting project was completed at the Flown Piggies Farmhouse, next on the 'get that stuff fixed' agenda was lighting.  Honestly, I don't blame the previous owners for installing the cheapest possible lighting. Why sink $$ into a house they weren't planning on living in? But where is the joy of living in a pretty house where you look up, only to see a boob light glaring down on you. The Boob Lights are throughout the house, ten in total, a few are closet dwellers

AKA 'Boob Lights'

There were other not-to-Madame's liking sort of lights as well. 

Tri-Light Unit

There were several of these fixtures referred to as 'tri-lights', not because they conjure up images of glowing sexy teen vampires, but because they have 3 lamp units. Only 2 of the lamps worked for each tri-light. The is only enough wiring in their base power boxes to allow only 2 of the 3 lamps to light. Geez, talk about setting off one's OCD tendencies. 

I decided all lighting needed updating. At first I intended to have them all installed by Handyman Jim II. But I thought, how hard could it be? I've known some fairly dim 'bulbs' that replaced their own lighting fixtures and such so decided I must be up to the task. So armed with knowledge gleaned from YouTube, I ordered a bathroom vanity light unit.  

The realtor photo on left, doesn't quite show the rust, grime and state of 'Ugh!' that was the vanity lighting on the first floor bathroom.   

At right are the genuine, Claire-installed 'lily lights'. Damn, but I think they look great. The whole bathroom has a theme of garden greenery. So freakn' cute.

With one whole project under my belt, I went on to order additional light fixtures. Below is the light fixture style decided on. 

The light below hangs by its grounding wire, during installation. It surprised me how the fixture is held up by its own wiring while one diddles around clamping like wires to other like wires and such.

A bit crooked...

All of the lighting bases were round, and all the new base light units were square, so it was a pain-in-the-bum getting the square pegs into the round fittings. The first couple of fixture bases had to be unscrewed and re-connected which was easy-ish but nevertheless annoying to do.

TADA!  All straighted out... sort of.

With 5 first floor light units replaced, next up was the stairwell lighting. I was sure I could install a new light there myself - that being IF I could reach the stupid thing! As there didn't seem much hope I would grow a foot or two any time soon or ever, so I had to hire an electrician.                                                                                      

Two bulb tri-light stairwell light fixture

I couldn't wait to see what kind of fancy ladder or what-not the electrician would use to reach the old light fixture. Turns out, as he exceeded 6 ft in height, he used a fancy set of tools, called his 'arms' to reach up and get the work done.  

Spiffy new replacement light fixture 

1/2 painted with old light fixtures

While we're up here on the second floor there were yet another pair of  'need replacement' boob lights, one of which can  be seen there on the right. This photo was taken when the corridor was about half done with its paint job.

I got 2 additional fixtures, this time with two bulbs each and I put them in.  As with the other fixtures, these hold those new fangled, old fangled retro 'Edison' bulbs. Yep. Everything old is new again.

Last up for replacement lighting was the dining room and central kitchen lighting. The lighting had been installed haphazardly by someone with no sense of either design or balance. Dead center in the kitchen there was a weird white fan with a light & weirdly short, ten inch fan blades. There are also two boob lights, as well as two tri-light fixture thingies.  

Kitchen lighting... rather unorganized

Deciding the units I'd purchased were too heavy for me to deal with on my own, enter Handyman Jim II. He did lovely job removing 4 light fixtures, replacing them with the 2 new spiffy, fixtures. 

Final kitchen lights.... Aren't they d' lovely?

And that is how the old dairy farmhouse got new lighting, upstairs and down. There are still 3 bedrooms worth of boob lights to be replaced - eventually  - with overhead ceiling fans, but that is a future story for another time. 

An Old Fashioned Trade

 

Lots of rainbows up to the north

I've mentioned before, that my former Port Angeles house mate  does the mowing at my place. Recently while mowing near one of the sheds, he was wasp stung. I promised I would remove active wasp nest.

The old shed

I once removed a small one in California. Uh... sure I would. I meant to remove the nest. While I'm not afraid of bees or wasps, having experienced multiple stings over the years, I do respect the striped warriors. 

I watched loads of YouTube videos on wasp nest removal, but finally  to call in the troops. I called a local pest control company.

THE wasp nest

When the pest control guy came out, I showed him the nest. Unlike the last time I viewed the nest there were now zero wasps flying in and out. It seemed the wasps had flown away. The pest control guy rapped his knuckles on the eave over the nest, but nothing flew out. We stood there 'talking wasps' for a bit, but then a little wasp showed up in its doorway, as if to see who had knocked at the door.

Someone was home! You can see arrow pointing at the tiny face peeking out from the shed's nest, in the photo on the left here. 

Bald-faced Hornet

The wasp nest was identified as that of the 'Bald-faced Hornet', the largest native wasp in Washington state. As long as someone was home, the guy set about removing the nest, and I took off home, to avoid being around for that bit of action. 

So when he'd taken down the nest, the man came to my front door, telling me the nest was down. Then, when I brought up his payment, he offered a trade instead. He said his fruit tree failed to produce much this year, and he asked if in place of payment if his wife and father in law could come pick some pears. I was totally tickled with the idea and agreed to the trade. 

A few days later, the wife, her dad and one kiddo, came by and picked pears. I was beyond tickled.

And trust me... that pear tree had enough pears on it for that family and then some. Here's a photo of it taken a week or so ago.  That tree is chock full o' pears.  

If you're thinking I haven't thought to donate pears or apples to a local food bank, remember in Washington, fruit trees, particularly apples, abound. You can drive around Sequim and literally see tons of apples on trees, and piled up on the ground under trees. There is no scarcity of fruit trees in Washington you practically have to get on a waiting list to donate fruit.    

The photo on the right here is friend and former house mate Ingrid, whom I encouraged to pick pears. The load of fruit on the tree is AFTER  about a couple of weeks of fruit picking. 

I've baked pear cake, pear cream cheese pie, pear tart and pear cream pie. I'm not running out of recipes either, and still have pear upside down cake and other recipes to try my hand at.

No doubt, I have plenty of fruit for  baking into my experimental pies, tarts and cakes. 

One of my experimental pies: half left over store bought blueberries,
 and half of orchard pears. I know!

The Orchard of Flown Piggies Farm

View, west from dining Room Window

Just to the west of my farmhouse, just across the driveway stands my (can't believe it's actually 'mine')  orchard. 

North (Canadian) Facing View of Orchard

That's a total bonus as I've always wished I'd had fruit trees, but sadly, I was always too discombobulated to plant any. Shortly after I moved into the house at the end of April, I noticed the trees were in bloom.

I knew there were both apples and pear trees, as the previous tenant of the cottage told me the deer love to come by and eat the fallen pears. I also could have guessed as apple trees are as common as sparrows in Washington. A week or two later, there were ensy little fruits forming where the flowers had been. 

Mini-fruit in Mid May

Additional mini-pears

There are about a dozen apple and pear trees on the 1.9 acres here. I get excited because as the fruit began to grow I could see there are more than one variety here, although I do not know what varieties are present. But I can guess!

The fat pears by the driveway look like Anjou type pears... 

Pears on a neighboring tree at least superficially resemble Bosc type pears

And this tree, also in the circular driveway area, are perhaps my favorite 'red' pear variety

But wait, there's more! Aside from several pear trees (my favorite hand fruit) there are the ever present Washington Apple trees. 

Mystery Apples with red freckled & green skin

Apples, Red as Cherries

The red apples have me a tiny bit over-excited. My housemate Curt, from when I was staying at Ingrid's house, brought us a few deeply ruby apples, and the thrill was that fruit had red flesh! I was so intrigued, never having seen apples with anything other than yellow or white interior flesh. 

Then a couple of days ago, Curt was on Flown Piggies mowing and weed wacking, and he brought with him, a gift of tiny red apples with red interiors. Unlike the previous red-fleshed apples, these apples were quite tiny, no bigger than ping pong balls. 

Teeny Tiny Red fleshed Apples

Ruby Red interiors

I was so happy to get a second sampling of these unique fruits. In flavor, they were tart and mildly sweet. Because of their tart flavor and small size, my friend/neighbor Barbara - who got her share of the tiny treasures - think the red fruit might not be totally ripe as yet. 

So all that need be done now is to wait for the apples and pears in the orchard to finish ripening. They seem so huge to look at them, but when you sniff them, they haven't any odor at all and are rock hard. They might be HUMONGOUS when they are done with the ripening process. 

While we humans wait for the ripening fruit, the local deer seem unperturbed by such details as ripeness, and they are enjoying the windfall fruit now. Video below shows one of the more polite piggies... erm, does, 'nibbling' at a windfall pear. Come for the nibbles, keep watching to see the doe in the background, standing on her hind legs to get at better bits in an apple tree.

UPDATE: My red orchard apples have regular yellow/white flesh, not red. Rats.