Just one work day later, it was beginning to seem like the outside may finally get finished. The scars on the courtyard side were beginning to vanish. (I'll admit, this is a level of detail only an owner would appreciate!)

Inside, the exhaust hood was finally in place. This whole installation has proven to be much harder than expected, in part because such serious cooking exhaust fans are not the norm here in Germany. We had to arrange far more custom work than I would have thought, but it's all part of the live-and-learn process.

But the dramatic, visible progress would be tomorrow!

I had a morning meeting to discuss telephone and computer network technology with Axel and a technician. This was a discussion I was not looking forward to because, frankly, German phone systems are a lot more complicated than the old Ma Bell things we grew up with. Computers I can handle, but phones?????

The big surprise turned out to be when I looked out on the patio and saw the workers painting the house! When seeing my pleasure at the dramatic change, the stucco guy (who really is a master at rebuilding this stuff) complained that he works for weeks to get a paintable surface and then the painter rolls some color on and everyone takes notice.

By the evening, everyone could indeed take notice because the first coat of paint was almost complete. We think it looks GREAT!!!!!

Not only was there visible outside progress, the kitchen was coming together too. We now had the start of our main cabinets, "the blue ones". The promise was for a complete kitchen by Friday so the granite counter could be designed correctly. We'd see.

Finally, the last of the upstairs lights were in place. These look good enough for make-up to me, but I'm not the expert!

The was the start of the Great Gardening Week (GGW). Marianne was in America with her mom, who was recovering well from unexpected surgery. It was up to John to make use of the Spring weather and organize the entire landscape. Is it possible to complete a quarter acre plan, by one planter, in just one week? Who knows?

Saturday's big event was building a stone wall along the patio. There were two purposes: build a transition form the patio height and reduce our junk stone pile. It may not look like much, but the work was a serious test for GGW.

Next I had to get out the tractor to clean up the back field. All us farmers have tractors but mine's still on order, so Mr. Zuerl did this for us.

On Sunday I dug holes and turned over dirt. All this was done by hand since I don't even want to figure out how to rent a cultivator. Besides, it's good exercise (I keep telling myself.)

Yesterday was a slow Monday, mostly because the cold, winter rains had come back. In an instant everyone's mood was black, mine included.

Today dawned bright and cold, but we'll forget about the temperature and concentrate on the sunshine.

Inside, the major event of the day was "building" the kitchen counter. This was a fairly elaborate process of making a wooden stick pattern that the granite mechanic would use to shape the stone. A week from now, we would see the result.

Outside, the major event was finishing the painting. Finally, it's almost done. The scaffolding started to come down and reveled a nice house underneath. It had been over seven months since we had actually seen the outside of our little home.

At 5pm, Mr. Schlierf delivered our orchard and about 60 other landscape plants and bushes. I managed to plant a row of sticks and three cherry blossom trees. Since tomorrow would be a regular work day for me, I had to plant the dozen other fruit trees in a temporary nursery. That planting proved harder than expected because I chose a place with the rockiest "soil". Oh well, it would only be for a couple of days.

Yesterday was a regular work day, engineer-work, not farmer-work. No planting, no home supervision (in fact, there was nothing to supervise as everyone got a Wednesday start on the Easter weekend.) Besides, it was cold, rainy, and windy; good for farms maybe, but not good for us farmers.

Thursday dawned cold, gray but not rainy, yet. After breakfast I went over to the "farm" and got out all the gardening gear.

My minimum goal was a dozen trees. These were the bare-root fruit trees that need to be safely in the ground before the warm weather hits. For sure, it hadn't hit yet. The rain barely held off until the whole collection was complete, but that drizzle freed me of any guilt from quitting early.

After cleanup, for both the farmer tools and the farmer himself, it was off to shop for a round of miscellaneous garden equipment. I can see this will be a regular event.

First though, on the way out of our valley, I stopped by the stone guys to see if there was any progress on our kitchen counter. I peeked inside the shop and there it was. Mr. Weichert said it's only half done, but it's looking pretty good so far!

OK, the last entry said "finish orchard". That's a lie. It will never finish, just as the rest of the farm plantings will never be truly finished. But, it's the process that's meaningful. I told my self this "truth" over and over again. Tomorrow morning I have to get up at 4 am to go get Marianne and I'm certain my eight-hour day in the yard will come into painful focus as I try to get out of bed.

The day was dry and cloudy, perfect for yard work actually. I'm not sure I ha a goal, other than to spend a full day on various back yard chores.

This was the last day before cleaning and at least ten craftsmen showed up to finish their bits and pieces. By the time of the end-of-the-day check, it was beginning to look almost done. Tomorrow it's cleaning. Friday, it's floor finishing (and a trip to the States for me.)

Front

Side

Kitchen

Range with Tile

Pantry