A month ago, when Crystalie was out west visiting Ricki and family, we had decided I would start the process of remodeling our kitchen. I spent the first night she was gone tearing out the old trailer house cupboards, which were nothing more then particle board with contact paper, held in place by a similar wood frame, with shelves. As you can see in the above picture the panel board was out of the late 60's!
You can see things looked pretty ugly behind it all!

Another look at it with a look at the fridge space and also the pantry closet gone to the left of the stove. Also the stain glass lamp in the middle of the ceiling along with the old aluminum frame window. I also had to replace numerous ceiling tiles before placing the new old cupboards.

 After I cleaned up the floor I placed the cupboard base stands, and positioned them to begin the addition of the new-used cupboards. I have to thank my sister Valerie and her Mike, for the cupboards, we are installing, they were remodeling their house and I took a day and removed them from their house and hauled them home. Saving them the expense of having a contractor removing them.
 Here you can see I placed the large corner unit with turning shelves in it, along with the sink unit, and a 4 drawer unit next to the stove, and next to the fridge, I placed in a small space to fit in the pan shelf unit, which we converted with two pull out units for various kitchen items like tin foil and wax paper roll products, along with our plastic baggy boxes.
 5 days after Crystalie left, my daughter Jennifer, came over and assisted me with putting in the 4 upper cabinet units and also the pantry unit. You can see the small cupboard above the fridge and the corner cabinet in this photo.
 This picture shows you the pantry unit and the stove with the pantry cupboard to the left of it, and also the small upper shelf unit. It started looking like a kitchen again!
 Jennifer also helped me place a 3/4 inch sheet of plywood over the base cupboards and also the cement board on top of that. where you can see I also have cut the sink hole. We received a brand new Kohler white heavy cast sink from a person I worked with and it probably weighted in at about 120 lbs and very awkward to handle.
 As you can see we got the sink in and later that day I got the water hooked up into the sink after Jennifer helped me get it in to position. It was a long day that Saturday and but with the help we got a lot done.
 The next step was to place our back-splash and also trim around the top of the cupboards and the ceiling. We went with a corrugated steel material for the back splash, you will notice it is not the shiny new metal. We actually distressed the metal by heating it with a large propane yard burning torch, which with the hot heat would burn off the silvery zinc finish giving us the dull flat gray look. The heat also was not consistent so it has various waves to it.
 You can see above that I had replaced the kitchen window with a much larger casement window, and I also created a garden area in between the window and the sink. We have about a 10 inch by 24 inch garden area in front of the sink. You can see in this picture, metal next to the stove which is on the back of the pantry cupboard unit. I also added shelves between the upper cupboards above the sink and also above the oven.
 The picture above shows the completed project, with the gray ceramic tiles, I installed on the cement board for our counter top. Please note the re-purposed outdoor porcelin green lamp hanging from the ceiling. also the shelves are decorated with a wide variety of our old treasures. Also you can see part of the open dish storage cupboard next to the fridge. I had to cut down the cupboard I placed there to fit the space, which meant the doors would not work, so we decided it was a nice way to showcase our Mexican Pottery dishes we use almost everyday.
 We swapped out our wood garbage box with an old galvanized box, with a hinged lid on it, below our paper towel holder, and you can also see the front of the pantry cupboard, which was also converted from an oven unit in my sister kitchen, I placed cupboard doors on it installed shelves in the center of the unit. The top cupboards and and the bottom drawer were part of the unit.
 You can see the counter a little better here, it is six inch tile with 3/16inch spacing and I cut the tiles with a small wet saw where I needed to. You can see the space in front of the sink and all the light we now have with the new window, and of course a better look at the galvanized back-splash.
Needless to say the improvement of these used cupboards compared to what we had is huge, and the new old look we envisioned look's great to us!

The last photo is of a cupboard unit I had build years ago, but we also included in the update by placing the galvanized metal on the bottom and also the back-splash area, plus installed the same tile we have on our counter top on it. Crystalie also repainted the window frame doors to a lighter gray instead of the forest green they were! It is all very nicely decorated, and is really tied in to the rest of the kitchen now.

It is always fun to update, things but even sweeter when you can re-purpose a nice set of oak front cupboards and also give it a retro look with all the galvanized steel, and also installing a nice accent tile counter! I know we will enjoy it for years!

 We left on July 31st a Wednesday in the late afternoon, after I got done with work for the day and drove to Madison, WI for the night. Checked into a nice Days Inn around 11:30pm and proceeded to get to bed, after a few scrabble plays. We got up the next morning and drove through Chicago about mid-morning where we probably saw a few thousand orange construction barrels! We had a 35 mile stretch of no more than 45 mph, so it took a while to get through to the east side of Chicago.
We arrived in Ann Arbor about 5pm Eastern time, and got to see these two little guys right away!





We were hosted by Raquel's sister-in-law Andrea and her husband Jon, at their lovely home just a few blocks from Raquel and Eric's apartment which is a little full these days. We were treated to some great meals by Raquel and Eric on Thursday night and also Friday night, we ate out on Friday for lunch as we took Miles and August and Raquel, shopping in downtown Ann Arbor, while Eric worked on Friday. The picture below is Miles looking at some insects, he is quite the insect hunter!
 Saturday we all got up and headed up to the city of Tawas, MI on Tawas Bay on Lake Huron, which is about a 2 hour and 30 minute drive from Ann Arbor, MI. Where Eric's parents own his grand parents home, a few blocks from the beaches of Lake Huron. We stopped along the way at a yard sale and scored some nice items, and also stopped at a fruit stand and bought some pretty nice fruit and veggies for the stay in Tawas. Below you can see me and Miles going for a walk on the beach.
 We gave Raquel and Eric and Miles some free time from August, and they took Miles down the beach and out into the water for some afternoon fun! It was about 80 degrees and a light breeze, and partly cloudy, all in all a great beach day. We also spend some time at a local artist fare, and walked around the park there.


 Saturday, night we fixed some pork chops and sweet corn, and some fruit for supper. After the kids went to bed we enjoyed a game of International Rummy and some ice cream bars! Sunday we spent the morning walking the boat harbor, and looking at all the spendy boats moored there. We also walked downtown through the shops, and when the kids were tired of that back to the house for a light lunch and naps! We had to say our good byes on Sunday afternoon around 3 and headed up north to head back to Minnesota, our route was to go north over the Mackinaw Bridge, and into the UP of Michigan, to Marquette, MI for the night. We didn't make it all the way to Marquette, we decided to stop in Munsing, MI for the night, which was about 40 miles east of Marquette.
 Shortly after we crossed the Mackinaw bridge, we came upon this on going yard sale! We of course pulled in and we wondered through the rows of tables, looking for items for WN or to re-purpose.


 After that yard sale back on the road, we realized when we were getting close to the city of Munsing, we would see 3 of the Great Lakes all in one day, we started on Lake Huron, drove along the north shore of Lake Michigan on Hwy 2 in route to Munsing, MI which is on the southern shore of Lake Superior! Pretty cool, at least we thought so!
We arrived in Munsing, found a hotel for the night and got a bite to eat at a bar and grill called the Dogpatch, named after the Lil'Abner cartoon.
We got up on Monday morning and headed west through Marquette and towards Superior, WI and then in to Duluth, MN and home to Deerwood. Don't worry we stopped at a few antique stores and also thrift shops along the way to break up the sitting time, but all in all we got home around 6:00 pm our time!
Thanks to Andrea and Jon, for their hospitality and also Raquel and Eric and the boys, for all the fun we had and also the great food. At home we want to thank Mitch and Kay, and Jennifer and Matias for keeping an eye on Coffee Lake Farm for us!
Sorry we didn't have more pictures, but we were too busy playing with the grand kids and kids!

After two weeks of very cold weather, and a day where we are getting up to 15 above zero, I thought it would be a good time to start up the old plow truck (Elvira) and also my John Deere lawn tractor/snowplow.

Needless to say they did not start right away, Elvira just needed a little gas in the carbureator
and she did fire up! I thought for a little bit I was going to need to charge the battery some. So after it warmed up I loaded up the dogs and we scrapped off the little snow we had in the yard and on the driveway, after a few light flurries over the last couple of weeks.

The JD was a different story, I did have to hook up the charger and also put a heater on it for about 20 minutes to get it to go, but once I got it running and let it warm up a little also, I used it to clean up some of the snow around my woodpile, and a few smaller spots that Elvira is to big to get into.

The critters got a fresh bale of hay yesterday and also a bale that I used to bed down their sheds with, which they eat more of it then lay on it, but it does give them something to lay on till they do eat it all up. The water tank was also filled this morning, which is a job I need to do about every 5 days.

Other than that we are feeling better but still have a cough, and it is more annoying then anything. We are both ready to be done with it all, but I am sure in a week or so it will be gone!

Work for me has been busy, as we kicked off a new year the 1st of January and this year my sales goals are higher, and there will be lots to do to meet those goals. I was pleased however that I made my January goals by 128%, which will give me a little cushion if I have a down month, but things look to be off to a good start!

Crystalie, is busy making items and selling some stuff to her wholesale customers. We started discussing plans for next summer and some occasional sales here at Coffee Lake Farm, and we hope to make some announcements in March or early April has to our 2013 sale schedule!

The woodpile is holding up well, as I have 4 rows of wood left, and we just started the 4th on the 1st of Feb. With warmer temperatures coming, it will be interesting to see how much I have left by Mid April.

Well, since Jan 12th, I have been battling a very bad cold, and of course after about 4 days of having it, I managed to share it with Crystalie!

It is one of the worst bronchial colds, we both have had in years. We both ran temperatures, along with chills, and lots of coughing and serious hacking. Then of course it moves into your head and nothing tastes good, and the biggest challenge is drinking lots of fluids and getting lots of rest between coughing spells.

I did not miss ay work days, but I maybe should have stayed home more than I did. But after 11 days I still cough occasionally, and I have been sleeping better.

Other than that, we did get our Christmas decorations down last weekend, but it was an effort for both of us to get motivated, and get it all done. Needless to say we took lots of breaks and spread it out over last Saturday and Sunday.

Crystalie is still coughing also but she is fighting it and trying to work on small projects, and cleaning the house trying to get rid of this nasty bug!

All in all we both are starting to feel human again, and hopefully the next week will be more productive for us both.

We have had company since Christmas Day here at Coffee Lake Farm. Rebekah and her Mom and Dad came to visit us, and her dad, Grant had to take care of some business locally also.

But during the visit, Rebekah celebrated her 8th birthday, which happened to be her golden birthday on Jan. 8th. Above you see the beautiful cake her mother Ricki made, it was a 7 layer cake, with rainbow colors for each layer. We had some of the Stanley family here to celebrate her birthday with pizza and cake.

During the visit Rebekah has been learning to ice skate, her dad and mom have had her down on the ice almost daily for some refreshing exercise and fresh air. She has gotten pretty good, and enjoys it a lot, because in Washington, where they live there is no frozen lake to skate on.

We have experienced some weird weather here in the last week, we've had rain and warm temps, followed by a cold snap that put us below zero last night. Needless to say everything is icy and slippery. Along with the weather, I have been suffering from a cold, and I thought I was out of the woods earlier this week, until, yesterday when I came down with it all over again, bad cough, chills and a temperature at times along with a stuffed up head and general achiness all over. We are usually pretty healthy here, and seem to avoid a lot of colds and flu but not this time.

This morning I fed our llamas and horse another bale of hay and checked their water supply, and also played fetch with Smarkle, while doing all of it. Smarkle lives for chasing the bright green tennis ball all over the yard. You can't go outside where she isn't dropping a ball at your feet waiting for you to pick it up and chuck it so she can run and fetch it and bring it back to you.

Hopefully the next few days I will get over this cold, and take care of some projects by next weekend. I need to run some garbage up to the garbage facility in Aitkin, and all the Christmas decorations need to come down and get put away for another year!

We all know that it is now 2013, and it looks to be a very busy year around here!

With the closing of the Wooden Nichols Store, and moving it all home into our new storage shed...a 28 ft semi-trailer and my shop. We have it all stuffed to the rafters! Well almost, the plan is to reorganize some of it when it warms up a little bit. When spring comes we hope to have occasional sales here at Coffee Lake Farm, so our shoppers can see all of our work here at the farm!

All of our animals are fine and as you can see we have lots of snow. Pedro is enjoying some sunshine which was just before Chrsitmas in this picture. He is standing on the old pushed up manure pile, it is amazing how much the llamas like getting on higher ground.

We are currently enjoying the company of Ricki and Grant and Rebekah from their home in the state of Washington. Having a few extra people makes the winter days go faster, and we are easily amused by Rebekah, who will be 8 years old soon.

We are looking to a family Christmas this coming Saturday, which will feature a great meal and gift exchanges. It is always a very special time and I hope those of you who read this also have had a Happy Holiday season!

This years goal for my blog is to post weekly so I can keep you all amused and caught up on events here at Coffee Lake Farm!