Pause for a Cause

Since we built the kitchen before winter hit, and with spring in our sights, our goal is to finish up the winter projects. Summer projects are already filling our minds. A few items on the list include an expanded garden, Bee keeping classes, and the new goat barn. Also, a greenhouse is planned for later in the summer. It is going to be another full year.

Turns out something more important came up and we postponed the projects.

Last year I joined the board of the Laurel Shelter. A wonderful charity dealing with domestic violence and sexual assault. The charity has a thrift store to help support the work they do. The past few years have been a struggle for the store. I knew a way I could help. We have had a few retail businesses in the past so I knew a great resource. After discussing it with the board I went to step one. “Heidi, the thrift store needs some help.” I knew she could do a better job than I ever could. I was right.

Heidi and I worked with some great volunteers and employees. The volunteers, with the help of Wilbanks family (Heidi, Robert, and yes, Rachel) worked one weekend to remodel the store and add new fixtures. We also tackled pricing and tagging. Heidi not only spent at least two days a week at the store she spent a lot of time at home working on ideas and plans.

New look at thrift store

The results are very encouraging. The store looks great, sales are up and the future is bright. We still have work to do. Heidi and I have committed to at least one day a week for the foreseeable future. This gives us time to start on the project list. I had all the material delivered for the barn. The floor and walls are up. I will start the roof next weekend. Heidi has already spread a dump truck load of mulch and we expanded the raised beds in the garden. The chickens, garden and barn will be our primary focus to start with. The upside to all the new projects is that I have less than half the area to mow that I did last year.

Garden 2016

Goat Compound

One thing we are looking forward to is the elevator raising party in May. Our home has a neat elevator that currently is stationary on the first floor. We want to move it to the second floor so it will be in our living room. It is going to be an interesting project. The elevator is functional but I have to buy new rope first. Then we are inviting friends over to help get it to the top and brace it in place. That will be a good blog post. There are other things on our list but I don’t know if we will get to them this year. Guess we will see how things go.