We’re still looking for the farm. But “start small” was never supposed to mean “wait for the perfect place.” So while we keep touring properties, Jason and I spent a day making the space we already have a little more ours. It turns out “keep it weird” also means draining a truly foul hot water heater.
First, the water heater (yes, really)
Our hot water heater was overdue for a drain, and what came out of it was.. foul. For YEARS we would prep for overnight guests by draining most of the stinky hot water out (running the spigots until it got cool). It made the whole office stink. But, it kept the worst odor at bay for a week or so.
If you’ve never seen the sediment that collects in the bottom of one of these, count yourself lucky. We used a little tool called a sediment buster that my dad happened to have. It allows you to shoot compress air into the tank when the flow tops to break it all up and flush it out.
I cannot overstate how satisfying it was to watch that go. Genuinely one of those “why did we wait so long” jobs that’s earned my 5-star recommendation.
While we were in there, we pulled the old anode rod, the sacrificial hunk of metal that corrodes on purpose so your tank doesn’t. Ours had clearly been at it for years (Exhibit A, below). The plan is to swap in a powered electric one that never wears out, being delivered today! To be continued.
My dad built these speakers
The best part of the day wasn’t a chore at all. We finally hooked up a pair of Voigt pipe speakers my dad built himself, and that he recently re-drivered with Dayton Audio point source drivers. He built the cabinets. He swapped the drivers. I just got to plug them in and stand there while the room filled up.
There’s something very Start Small Farms about that. A thing someone made by hand, years ago, quietly waiting to be useful again. We talk a lot about making real things instead of buying throwaway ones, and this is what it actually looks like: a speaker that is now in its third loving location.
Wasps, a bird’s nest, and a very patient husband
Somewhere in the middle of all this we evicted a bird’s nest that had set up shop in the bathroom fan’s outdoor vent. Nobody was home, but it had to go.
And then there were the wasps. Jason handled them (I’m allergic and, frankly, terrified, so this is not a shared job in our house). If you’ve ever wondered what “in sickness and in health” looks like twenty years in, sometimes it’s one person standing very far back yelling encouragement while the other deals with the wasps.
The weird wall
We ended the day where the fun always is: hanging art. Two new pieces went up on our gallery wall.
The first is a stunning sunset photo our friend James took. The second is a piece of classroom art we won at a school auction. We don’t have kids in that class, but Jason and I are deep supporters of the Montessori Country Day School - Berks program and the kids in it. Also, the piece is super neat, so it was an easy thing to bid on and an easy thing to love hanging up.
That’s the whole philosophy in one wall, really. Nothing on it matches: every piece has a story, or a person, or a program attached to it. It’s not curated to impress anyone. It’s just full of things we actually love, which is exactly how I want the farm to feel someday too.
You don’t need the dream place to start making a place feel like yours. You need a free afternoon, a trip to Lowe’s, and someone who’ll take the wasps for you.
— Kim