I love my old house. I really do.

But we have to return two of the three ceiling fans. My lovely, lovely (albeit non period) Casablanca ceiling fans.

Because of basically old house issues.

The electrician installed one in the cats' room -- it has 3 steel pipes with wires running to its outlet. Our bedroom only had 2 pipes, and he felt the fan we picked out would be too heavy. We had him replace our (I think original FWIW) light fixture. The dining room fan was supported by one screw in the box and had only one steel pipe. In his opinion that wasn't even adequate for the fan that was there. We had him put up our Art Deco fixture I'd found at a local consignment store (which actually looks a lot better than the fan) that we'd used in our previous house. (I did order some bulbs from Rejuvenation today.)

On the window front....

Bad and good news.

Bad news is restoring the arched windows would be at least around $12,000. Yep, that's the correct number of zeroes. So, on Ed the window guy's suggestion, we're going to paint the non-glass portions white to match the trim in the rest of the house (right now they're blackish greyish) for the time being.

Good news: we're going to do the windows in the living room, the cats' room, and our bedroom, and have the one remaining original window restored. Install date is the 31st of July.

We're going to wait on the screens til the windows are done.

I've contacted a company who makes old-fashioned wood screens about making screens for our windows, as well as a company who restores old windows as well as custom building windows in the same style. The window person is coming out this Monday to do an estimate.

We also have an electrician coming out Monday as well to install the new ceiling fans.

We've eaten the May Pride peaches, a couple of Babcock peaches, and some Snow Queen nectarines -- the latter are especially delicious. I'm surprised and pleased that any of the trees had fruit this year, let alone some that tasted great.

I've also already harvested a couple zucchini and a half dozen squash. Rigel adores the squash (he hasn't tried any zucchini yet). Oddly enough he seems to prefer veggies to fruit. The basil is going nuts -- I'll have to make & freeze some pesto.

Worm Bin

The worm bin is set up! They got their first meal today (strawberry tops, lemons, eggshells, overripe apricots).

The May Pride peach tree has multiple small fuzzy peaches that smell really, really good & peachy. The Black Jack fig actually has a couple little figs starting. The tomatoes, squash, zucchini and basil are doing great (to the point I want to tear out the last remaining rose bush and replace it with one more vegetable).

The penstemon spectabulis has some lovely purply flowers.

I think we are beating the grass.

Fresh mozzarella, farmer's market

Fresh mozzarella
Originally uploaded by stephannie_t.

I made the cheese! It really was tremendously easy -- and it tastes delicious.

We went to the Torrance farmer's market today.

I bought some Gaviota and (the last pint) Seascape strawberries from Harry's Berries (from Oxnard). They are expensive but oh so worth it. I bought some organic Eureka lemons from another stall and made some strawberry lemonade this afternoon (am drinking as I blog!).

Other items: zucchini, asparagus, peaches, cherries, nectarines, dog treats for Rigel, and a lovely, fat heirloom tomato.

That tomato is destined for dinner with the mozzarella and some of our basil.

Worms in our Fridge

No, really.

Our compost worms (red wigglers) arrived yesterday and we're going to set up their bin this weekend. Their instructions said we could keep them in the fridge for a few days before moving them into their new home.

Still haven't made cheese yet but plan to do so this weekend. I did dust off (literally) our bread machine and made a loaf of basic bread -- very tasty.

The veggies continue to thrive. I tried a snippet of basil -- very tasty! Many of the natives are flowering -- I hope that's a good sign, and not their last ditch attempt to procreate before death. The fruit trees have caught the interest of a rather large crow (who's visited several times). We've also had a couple doves hanging out -- I'm not quite sure what they're going after, since they just huddle in the mulch.

We really need to start hunting down some windows. Dave knows someone who owns a salvage operation, so we need to email our window dimensions to him.

I'm also on the hunt for a smallish vanity table that we can have converted into a bathroom sink -- we've found some at Studio Antiques in El Segundo, so if I can't find anything on Craigslist that's where we'll go. They have mainly English arts & crafts furniture.

Dave's planning on repainting this summer in between summer school and the start of the new school year.

I've ordered ceiling fans; as soon as they all come in we'll have them installed, as well as have some electrical work done in the foundation area. (We really need one for our bedroom, the cats need one for theirs (especially because Obi is an escape artist, so we can't have the windows open in there at this time), and we ordered a replacement for the dining room fan.