Renewable energy festival

When I was a kid, the Kempton Fairgrounds was the place to go for church fairs, funnel cake and any event involving four-wheel-drive trucks, mud and big motors. I remember going there to sell funnel cakes for our church and to watch a hill climb, where beefy, beat-up jeeps tried to make it up a muddy bank without tipping over. Yes, sometimes even I'm amazed that I can form complete sentences.

How times have changed. The latest event at the Kempton Community Center — notice it's no longer a fairgrounds — was the Pennsylvania Sustainable Energy Festival. Although it was held September 22-23 and I was out of town during the event, I think it's still worth mentioning, especially considering how progressive it is for the region. The festival covers everything from environmentally-friendly construction and solar energy to natural foods and sustainable farming. As the website says, the festival is meant to "inform and educate ourselves and the public on renewable energy production, energy efficiency, and sustainable living through meetings, workshops, educational materials, and energy fairs."

I'm impressed. It looks like there a lot of great discussions and vendors that attended this year's event. Hopefully next year we'll be able to make the festival.

Approaching one year: What's been done?

Our first year in the house is nearly upon us, and right now I'm feeling like we haven't made much progress. But when I look back at what the house looked like when we first set foot inside, well, I suddenly feel like we've made a pretty good dent. Sometimes the to-do list is daunting and at 3 a.m. I'll find myself staring at the ceiling wondering how we'll get it all done and, more importantly, how we'll afford it all. Then my mind will wander and suddenly I'm thinking, hmmm, if we can knock this sucker out, open it up and pop in a skylight this room would ROCK. Hopefully in twelve years I'll have a son that can take over the lawn-mowing responsibilities, which will free up plenty of time for doing such gratuitous things. For now I need to keep things standing. So here's where we are:

Furnace: Had 30+ year old furnace replaced with a much more efficient model that's about half the size of the old beast. The cost of fuel oil subsequently skyrockets and we count our blessings that this one doesn't suck as much fuel as the old model. Circulating hot water system works fine, but there's a lot of window work and insulation needed to keep the heat inside.

Floors: Ripped up nearly a dumpster full of carpet and padding from five rooms, a stairway and a hallway. Random width pine floor was in decent shape, so I replaced the worst boards with some salvaged pieces and proceeded to sand them down. In the span of two weeks, I finished the living room, library, three bedrooms and hallway and finished them with oil-based polyurethane. A professional would most likely cringe at the finished product, but I'm pretty happy.

Stairs: Stripped all the treads on the stairway and they've remained that way for nearly a year. Hopefully I can sand them down and refinish them next year. I don't want to do it in the winter, especially with a new child in the house.

Windows: OK, I'll admit I didn't get very far on the windows. I only tackled three total, but it's a start. I had to replace the frame on the East side of the house after I realized everything was rotted. I'm currently praying that the job lasts more than one year, considering I was completely winging it. Renovating Old Homes by George Nash comes in very, very handy during this project. So do regular martinis and my Sawzall.

Painted: Living Room, Kitchen, Master Bedroom, Office and Library. Also scraped and gave a first coat to all the garage doors and the summer kitchen. That should keep the weather at bay for a while, though I'd like to get on a second coat before winter hits. Where in the world did summer go?

Garden: Dug up a good bit of earth and planted a pretty successful first garden. We currently have garlic for next spring and spinach for this fall.

Misc: Replaced kitchen light with a relatively inexpensive Ikea chandelier, and recently replaced the porch lamp with a nice hanging model. I also replaced the front storm door after it was ripped off its hinges during a wind storm. I was holding it at the time and it nearly threw me off the porch and lofted me into the potato field.

Still to do:

Kitchen: We had two people come out and look at the kitchen to get estimates for a renovation. One never got back to us and the other, well, suffice if to say the cost forced us to shelve that project for now. Hopefully we can tackle this next year.

Barn painting: I invite you all over, dear readers. I will supply ladders, paint, beer and pizza. The rest is up to you. C'mon, it'll be fun!

Barn roof: There is a corner of the barn roof that's got a nasty leak that has the potential to wreak havoc on a support beam. It needs to be tackled soon. Very soon.

Windows: I need to tackle more of the windows, reglazing them and repainting them.

Bathroom: We only have one full bathroom in the house, and it's small. There's plenty of room to bring the wall out a foot or so and really open up the space. While the pink tile is cute in a kitschy-sorta way, that needs to go as well.

Raise a kid: Somewhere on or around December 7, the big project in the house will be the addition of a little tyke. I imagine all projects will cease for a while as we try to figure out what the hell we're doing. This is the most exiting and terrifying project.

Giddiy up

Living in the county, on a small lane that connects two larger roads, we don't get much traffic. It's generally the same few cars that pass by reguarly and although I don't know the names of many of the drivers, I always wave and they generally return the gesture. Today, though, while mowing the lawn (will it ever stop growing?), I saw a massive line of traffic coming down the road.

This wagon train passed by last year while we were working on the property and we were completely amused. Apparently the horse farm over the hill has a two-day gathering each year that involves music, a bonfire, and a wagon train.

Ya just don't get that in the city.

Breaker, breaker

In the process of thinking about some changes to what will be the nursery (T-minus twelve weeks), I discovered that we've got a slight problem. I knew that a few of the rooms on the second floor were on one single circuit, but I figured we'd deal with that in due time. Right now it's just the two of us, so it's not a big problem; just don't vaccuum, run the computer and iron at the same time. Last week, though, we made said discovery. Gina fired up the washing machine on the first floor to do a load of clothes, and then went upstairs to finish some iron. *POP!* As soon as she fired up the iron, the washing machine went off along with everything else on the second floor. Oh, man.

So that's our current problem -- a single circuit supplies a good portion of the second floor as well as the utility room. With a kid on the way, we definitely need to split it into several circuits. Time for an electrician. Right now we're on the hunt and have a few leads (no pun intended), but I have no clue what the damage will be in the end. And since we need an electrician, it seems silly for me to install a switch and light in the nursery. For the time being, I'll just stick to painting the nursery. I also discovered a slight leak over the east window in the room, so I need to get up on the ladder and find out what's happening there. As we all know, if I discover some rotten wood somewhere up there, there's certainly more behind it. That scares me. Hopefully the problem is minor and easily fixed.

Ernesto, we hardly knew ya.

The one nice thing about having a farm is the storage space – there's no lack of outbuildings in which to stash countless amounts of junk. The storage space came in particularly handy this past weekend, when hurricane Ernesto was threatening to ruin our Labor Day picnic. On Saturday, with the rain sweeping horizontally across the meadow and very little clue what Sunday's weather would bring, my dad and I busted out the brooms and cleaned out the lower part of the barn. Where cattle once stood, we'd have people.

By Sunday most of the rain was out of the area, bringing partly-cloudy skies and slightly cool temperatures to the valley. My father and I had stashed all the tables, chairs and other necessities in the barn, so Sunday morning we began moving everything from the lower part of the barn into the barnyard. By 3 p.m. I had cooked about 25 lbs. of ribs and people were just beginning to arrive.

By 9 or 10 p.m. we had gone through all but a few pounds of ribs, 15 lbs of chicken, almost three dozen ears of corn, plus all the goodies that people brought. Luckily I haven't received calls informing me of any salmonella-related illnesses caused by the round of undercooked chicken I served. By 11 p.m., well, honestly I don't remember much beyond 10 p.m., except the bonfire.

One really satisfying part of the picnic ended up being the positive comments we received from guests. As anyone restoring a house knows, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of a project and feel like you're making no progress or that your efforts are futile. This is the first time many of the folks saw the property and I was really pleased by how truly impressed they were with what we've done. We've got something really special, but sometimes I need others to remind me of why we purchased the property in the first place.

Oh, you're probably wondering whether Alton Brown stopped by the picnic. Sadly, no. Looks like I'll need to try again next year.