Last week marked our third year of moving into Seven Oaks. A recent post reported on the date we closed on the property and started construction, but the date we moved out of Frontenac Estates and officially moved here was October 14th of 2010. Here are pics of our last evening at Frontenac Estates…we were camping out there with lawn chairs in the living room as well as eating our dinner in the basement. Empty shelves and our faithful Farly in the background. I’m sure he was wondering what was up with this!

Seven Oaks changed from a construction site to our home at that point and there were ups and downs along the way as we were challenged to make sense out of the house and grounds in every way. I needed to get a feel for the interior and exterior spaces in order to figure out how to make these spaces work for our future plans. Big changes continued in both arenas. Here is Dave who gladly uses his chainsaw whenever needed. The overgrowth was overwhelming in the back as well as the front. 
If you are familiar with the current allee view, this last photo will remind you of what the rear view of the same view of the property looked like 3 years ago.

Of course the work continued in other areas we could attack at that point as well. The rear area of my office was rotted away and needed immediate attention. We knew that we had an infestation of several termite colonies when we bought the place and my office exterior was one of their favorite places! The contractors loved the challenge of rebuilding this part of the house.

In the meantime, we are loving the fall harvest and using it in our evening meals. We regularly use the Spinach, Swiss Chard, Kale, and Bok Choi in our evening recipes. I start with a bit of good olive oil to the pan, add a small amount of diced meat such as bacon or hard sausage for flavor.   When the pan is very hot, I quickly add the greens and they cook within minutes. To this I add some lemon juice and feta if I have it on hand and a good grinding of pepper. Yummy!

We continue to enjoy a myriad of veggie combinations that seem to take advantage of our produce. After a couple of nights in a row of this, Dave is keen to keep it on a roll!

The Hetenyis have been fans of these veggies and have welcomed several deliveries of greens recently, now that they have a new kitchen! Here is what they received yesterday morning. We know they put it to good use!

As the weather has turned cooler and and the daylight hours are shorter, I’ve allowed myself some extra knitting time. Here is my newest sweater, knitted with a 5ply Gansey wool called ‘Scottish Fleet’ by Alice Starmore. It is no longer available in this lovely green color which I had tucked away in my knitting stash for a couple of years now. My mother came over this weekend to help me select the buttons to use. We had fun rooting through my button collection and settled on these fine pewter ones that I had gotten from a local pewter crafter. It is chilly enough today that I think I will wear this sweater today!

What a joy to have a harvest moon to admire recently!

We also greet the day with some fabulous sunrises that are visible from our back view.