In last year’s goals and year-end-review post<\/a>, I made a lofty claim about limiting the scale of our projects.<\/p>\n 2011 Homestead Things to Improve On:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Scale<\/strong> \u2013 One permaculture principle involves starting with small-scale systems and building your way up, and frankly it\u2019s one of the hardest principles for me to embrace and obey<\/span>. We have so much we want to do on the property that it\u2019s difficult to limit ourselves. As a result, not everything gets done as well as it could. Our garden, for example, could have been much more productive with some additional attention. We also lost a few of our fruit plants, such as the tea tree and possibly the raspberry cane. This is part of the growing process of course, both literally and figuratively, but scale is still something we need to keep in mind during our projects.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n To put it mildly, the thought of scale went out the window a few shorts months after I wrote that.<\/p>\n The scope of our 2012 projects was extensive. We spent nearly every weekend from January to early November working on our yard – the main exception being 4 weekends in August that we took off for our wedding and traveling afterwards (it was a much needed break from the homestead, to say the least).<\/p>\n To summarize, we spent 2012 working on the following:<\/p>\n Here’s a glimpse at my best estimates of the time that was invested in each project:<\/p>\n And best of all, we also spent some time in 2012 on planning our wedding here in West Seattle that took place in August:<\/p>\n And the final cherry on top of an already great year – just this past week, Seattle Homestead was mentioned in Better Homes & Gardens for the January 2013 issue:<\/p>\n So, thanks to all of our new subscribers joining us from BH&G. I can’t promise that you won’t think we’re crazy, but hopefully you’ll pick up something you like along the way.<\/p>\n So, with so much completed last year, it only brings to mind how much is remaining for this next year. Priority #1 is completing the rest of the wall project and getting our yard back into a respectable state.<\/p>\n Currently there is about 40 feet of the wall that is tarped up, since we were unable to complete the entire base coat of stucco. As the temperatures warm up a bit and we get a few dry weekends, I’ll be back out there to complete the bag construction, and then start applying the chicken wire lathe to the bags so we can prepare to apply the first coat of stucco to the remaining section of wall.<\/p>\n From there, we’ll need to apply two more coats of stucco to wall total. The second coat will smooth out the roughness of the base coat (also called the scratch coat). The final coat will be the finish coat.<\/p>\n The final color of the wall will be a deep orange\/red terra cotta color. To stain the concrete we’ll be using Copperas, which is a type of Iron Sulfate often used by gardeners to add iron to the soil and add more “green” to yellow plants. On the package of Copperas there’s a warning that says “this product will permanently stain cement.” Which just happens to be our goal ;-). Take a look at some of the amazing colors that have been\u00a0achieved\u00a0by other people who have used Copperas to stain their cement floors:<\/p>\n By adding in coffee grounds to the Copperas stain we’ll be able to reach even deeper hues. Beforehand we’ll be testing lots of variations on hidden spots of the wall to figure out the best mixtures. Should have more information on this later in the year, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.<\/p>\n Aside from that, the remaining work on the wall is a lot of finish work, and finally adding the stone cap to the wall. This section is a bit of an unknown for me, but I think it can be completed in under a month of weekends.<\/p>\n A bulleted list of tasks we’re looking to complete this year:<\/p>\nHomestead Projects Completed During 2012:<\/h2>\n
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Interior Home Improvements:
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Removing things from the yard to make room for homestead projects:
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Non-Wall-Related Yard Improvements:
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And Finally, Work Completed on The Wall…<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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![\"Kristina](\"https:\/\/www.kanejamison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/kristina-kane.jpg\" "\\"Kristina")
<\/p>\n![\"Better](\"https:\/\/www.kanejamison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/better-homes-and-gardens-urban-homesteading-2-550x395.jpg\" "\\"Better")
<\/a><\/p>\n2013 Projects & Goals:<\/h2>\n
![\"Copperas](\"http:\/\/members.socket.net\/~llile\/ConcreteStain\/housephotos\/concretestain\/final.JPG\" "\\"Copperas")
<\/a><\/p>\nFinishing the Wall:
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