Photos: The cat is “helping” me do some research on an article I’m working on. The inside of one of our “hoop houses.” These function as mini-green houses. The plastic is on it‘s third year and will probably need replaced next spring. My wife mixed up a rhubarb coffee cake. This is the uncooked view. We’d have taken a picture of the finished version but we were too busy eating it when it came out of the oven. It was very, very, good. We got another porch swing set up this afternoon. The tree on the left is still small so we had to brace it up until it gets bigger. Susan cutting up the rhubarb for the coffee cake. Fresh homemade bread tonight. (And, yes, it was great!) Susan packing oatmeal into plastic buckets for storage. We purchase it in large bags then repackage it in sealed plastic buckets. Me feeding the chickens. We have two more chickens that aren’t in the picture.

Yesterday (Friday) it rained most of the day. I worked on an article doing research and getting my outline down then started on the text. After that I went to the shack to do some reloading. Susan dehydrated 20 more eggs, put the horizontal support strings on the long hoop house and got the plastic put back on again. (The wind had blown it off.) We try to cover it a few days before we plant to warm the ground up. She put Styrofoam sheets around the last of the tomatoes and covered the top with plastic. She also finished an article and sent it in and did some more writing on the fiction story she’s working on. I spent a half-hour fixing a phone problem in the evening. Turned out to be a splitter that had some corroded wires.

Today we had better weather, partly cloudy and warmer. Susan packed up some oatmeal in plastic buckets for long term storage then we put together another bucket of emergency supplies that will be stored away from the cabin. I got some stuff together for some photos for an article (and found a compass I’d been looking for). Susan got more stuff planted in the garden. We covered more of it with plastic to start heating the ground up for planting. I washed my clothes this afternoon. Susan dehydrated a couple dozen more eggs then I mowed and she trimmed grass with the hand trimmer. We both took a break on the swing and then decided to play a game of horseshoes. It was our first game of the year and we could sure tell it. Just before the horseshoe game I shot a gopher that had taken up residence too near the garden and house. It was a thirty yard shot. He was sitting, I was kneeling. It was a perfect heart/lung shot. 223 Remington, 50 gr. hollow point, he never knew what hit him. We put up another swing by the playground for the grandkids afterwards. By the time we got back in the house it was 8:30 pm. It was sure nice to see the DIRTTIME site back online again.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Susan worked in garden this morning. Tried to set the plastic over one of the hoop houses but the wind was too strong. We moved hoses and yard furniture (swings, etc.) then I got the gas powered lawn mower started and she mowed for awhile. We’ve had a lot of rain the last week and the grass was getting too long for the reel mowers. I worked a bit on an article then decided to take the studded tires off the Cherokee and put the summer tires on it. I have a tire “machine” we bought from Harbor Freight Tools a year ago. It’s a cheap version of the manual machines we had in the service stations I worked at as a teenager so I was familiar with it’s use. They actually work pretty good on 15 inch and smaller rims. I’ve used it on 16 inch tires/rims too but it’s more work and you might have do some things differently. It’s pretty fast when things go well. It takes me about 15 minutes a tire unless I hit a snag. I was taking pictures of each step today so I lost a lot of time while setting up the shots. The bead on the first tire gave me a lot of trouble also. I couldn’t get it to seat to air the tire up. Professional machines have strategically placed air jets to make that job fast and simple. Out here you have to be a little creative at times.

After she finished mowing she worked on washing laundry. We have enough clean rainwater stored now to use it for washing clothes also. We like it much better than well water.

I let the chickens out (a daily thing) and gathered the eggs. We have one hen who thinks she’s going to hatch some eggs out. We haven’t figured out how to get through to her that we have no rooster so she’ll have no fertile eggs but she doesn’t listen so well. She’s very tenacious about sitting on the eggs she’s accumulated so every afternoon I have to evict her from the nest. Not a big deal but you have to be quick or she’ll peck you. The best way is to reach in fast and grab her by the neck then gently lift her out of the nest box. (Once you’ve got your hand around her neck you can control where her head is.) If you’re slow or grab too low you’ll end up with a blood blister where she got you with her beak. Kind of a pain at times (no pun intended) but she’s a good layer so we put up with her.

The movie we watched last night (The Road) was okay. It followed the book pretty good. We’re glad we watched it but we won’t be buying a copy for our home library.

Photos: 1. The tire machine I use. 2, These are beans we’ve sprouted to plant in the garden. Sprouting them inside gives them a head start. These are ready to plant. 3. The one in my hand is just to give a close-up of what they look like. 4. Susan putting rocks on the plastic over the hoop house to hold it down against the wind. 5. Susan washing clothes. 6. The sitting hen. She’s looking down ‘cause she knows she’s about to be evicted from the nest. She was sitting on four eggs. There were two more in the nest box above her. Two of the chickens having some “dirt time.” We have four red hens and three of the black ones. We raised the red ones from babies last year. The others are on their third or fourth year.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010
I worked on an article most of the day. It’s one I sent a query on and got the go-ahead but I’m having problems putting it together. The editor asked for a specific slant to the article and I think I’m going to have to deviate from that slightly to write it up. I guess if he likes it he’ll buy it. If not I may be able to sell it to another publication that pays less. One thing that’s made my writing life easier is digital photography. No more film to buy or send in for developing then wait for it to come back. I can take the pictures, boot up the computer and download them for evaluation and if they’re good I’m finished. If not, I can do it again and stay on schedule. I took the dog out and fed the buffalo this afternoon then sanded down one of my honing stones. It had gotten worn to the point I couldn’t get a good edge sharpening knives on it anymore. It’s the first time I’ve done it (only heard about it last week). It’s pretty simple, just lay a sheet of sandpaper down on a flat surface (I used a piece of plate glass) then work the stone around on the sandpaper. I’ve done it for automatic transmission valve bodies to flatten them but never thought about flattening whetstones that way. It would have worked better with wet/dry sandpaper but I didn’t have any and wasn’t going to drive 40 miles round trip to get some.

Susan sorted more baling twine to make some “rope” (the cat didn’t help this time so it went faster), went through our seed crate and sorted seeds out, started some pots of pumpkin, and squash (three varieties) inside. Some of it was seed we’ve saved. She planted broccoli in the garden and made the most absolutely wonderful dinner tonight. She also making rhubarb coffee cake for dessert.

We got a Netflix movie (The Road) to watch tonight. We’ve read the book so expect the movie to be a let-down. (The movie version if a book is almost never as good as the book was.)

Photos: 1. Breakfast on the woodstove - Frying eggs in the skillet and toasting buns. Our “toaster” is a piece of aluminum foil placed flat on the stove’s top. With bread we fold the foil over so that the bread is in kind of a foil sandwich. That way the bread stays flat as it toasts. (Without foil over the top the bread curls.) The buckets in the background are drying out so we can store stuff in them. We had one of our kids pick them up from the bakery where they work. We're always on the lookout for good plastic buckets with sealable lids for food storage. 2-5. Our water system. The barrel holds about 20 gallons. We pump it out of it and through the lines to the overhead tank (salvaged from an RV). From there it’s gravity flow down to the sink faucets. We took out the regular faucets because the water didn’t’ have enough pressure to flow through them. The faucets pictured have good water flow. The hose in the line above the pump (also salvaged out of an RV) is used to drain the line. The valve is for switching to pump water to the second tank for the gravity flow shower (which I don’t have hooked up yet). The switch above the pump is for turning it on/off when needed.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day - Rained all day. Got a few things done in the house. I kind of took the day off. Did some reloading (brass sorting, sizing and priming brass). Both articles we sent in (one mine, one Susan’s) sold. Watched a Netflix movie on the computer.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

We had huckleberry pancakes for breakfast this morning. The huckleberries were some we dehydrated last year. I’ve been reading up on knife sharpening for an article I‘m writing. It’s a subject that’s been covered so often I have to have a new slant to it. The good thing is I’m learning some things I didn’t know! Susan sorted through some used baling twine to get some long enough for a project she’s doing. It would have gone much faster if the cat hadn’t helped so much. We drove in to the post office today to get the last half of our property taxes in the mail. We print our own checks using a program I purchased for $3.99 about ten years ago. The check paper cost $3.00 for 900 check blanks. (That was several years ago and I have no idea what they cost now.) Anyway, back when we used more checks it saved a pile of money. It’s always fun to watch the sales clerk when we tell them we printed up the checks at home.

After we mailed the tax check we decided to have lunch at the local saloon. They have new owners and we wanted to see if they were as good as the previous owners (they are). We also shot a couple of games of pool while we waited for our meal. The tables are usually a quarter a game but they’re having a free night tonight and already had the coin slots removed from the tables so we played for free.

When we got back home Susan and I set up some more water reservoirs (one tank, two more barrels) and pumped water from the main tank into the new ones. The main tank was full from all the rain run-off we’ve had lately. After filling the new tank and barrels I siphoned out another catch barrel into the main tank (now that we had room in it). While the tank and barrels were filling I moved our composter to a new location closer to the garden gate. It’s a small plastic unit that was given to us from some friends who didn’t like it. We use it for kitchen leftovers, etc. that the chickens won’t eat so it takes awhile to fill it up. It does a good job but it’s slower than the previous owners expected and they didn’t like it.

I set a trap for a gopher who’s taken up residence too near the garden. I mowed more of the lawn then spent the rest of the afternoon working on the article and watching the cat sleep. Susan’s been busy planting more trees (choke cherry), more peas and more potatoes. She also did a little tree trimming. It’s 8:15 (pm) as I write this and she’s still outside.

Photos are of - 1. Squash seeds drying. We save them, some to plant and some to roast and eat for snacks. 2. Dried huckleberries in the pancake mix. 3. The cat helping Susan with the baling twine. 4. Two barrels and tank for storing more water. 5. Composter

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

We were getting low on water for the garden so I fired up the Dodge and hauled 300 gallons of water from the marsh. (If that doesn’t make it rain nothing will!) I replaced the door knob and latch assembly on the back door of the cabin then dug out more of the trench for the asparagus bed. While the water was siphoning out of the barrels I brazed the last of the leaks shut on the water pump housing. Our youngest daughter and her boyfriend were up this afternoon so he and I shot a few gophers before supper time. We only had about 45 minutes so we only got three. When we got back I noticed that a front tire was flat on the pickup so after supper I took the tire off and fixed it with a plug. I got approval from a magazine to do an article on repairing tires so I took pictures of each step as I repaired the leak. I was kind of wondering if I was going to have to run a nail through a tire to get pictures for the article so I guess it was a good thing that the tire went flat on it’s own … maybe!

While we were out shooting gophers a census worker arrived. (The gov’t. got the brilliant idea that they’d hand deliver census forms in outlying areas here to be sure they didn’t miss anyone. The problem is that their maps are a bad joke and the census takers can’t find half the people who live here. Plus it cost us - the taxpayers - a lot more than a stamp would have to pay people to hand deliver the forms.) Just as he got to the door we shot our first gopher. The sound of the shot reverberated off the cabin and it sounded like we were nearby when we shot. The poor census taker nearly had a heart attack. My wife explained that the “guys” were out shooting gophers and he seemed to relax a little. He told us that they were officially “warned” to be careful in this part of the county so he was a little apprehensive. He also showed her his map with the names of other people he needed to contact. The maps didn’t even show the roads but had little “X’s” where the houses were supposed to be. The “X” they had for our house was in the wrong place on the map. Anyway she gave him directions for the other family living full time on our road and he went on his merry way.

This area does have a reputation. Even the cops contact residents they know before coming out to get some information about the people they‘re calling on. We’ve never felt threatened here. In fact we feel safer here than about anywhere I’ve ever lived. We have good neighbors and we watch out for each other. As long as you’re not a thief and you keep your nose out of everyone else’s business you’ll get along just fine.

Susan peeled more carrots from the root cellar (last year’s crop), diced them up and ran eight trays through the dehydrator.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

We made another trip to Kalispell today … sigh. We dropped some raspberry plants off for two of our daughters’ at their houses. My wife has been thinning out the plants. They’ve gone crazy the last couple of years and we have raspberry plants expanding everywhere. We’ve given them away and transplanted them to different places on the property but still have too many. While we were in town we took a couple of the kids to Costco for some things they needed. We take turns with the kids buying a Costco membership then when someone needs something they just have the person with the current membership take them through the store to make their purchases. With six kids on their own we only have to pay for membership once every six years. We went to another of our kid’s places after that. They had our old Cherokee which we’d given them to drive after their car threw a rod. It wasn’t much and finally died in their driveway. They bought a pickup and needed more space in their driveway so we went down there to strip parts off the old Cherokee to keep for spares for the Cherokee we now drive. They’ll have a nearby salvage yard come pick up the skeletal remains. We actually found some strawberry plants while we were in town. They’d just got them in and expected to sold out in a couple of days so our timing was good this time. On the last leg home we saw a black bear eating grass in a meadow about a mile from our home.

Friday, May 28, 2010

I finished digging the trench for the new asparagus bed today, filled it back up with compost and planted the asparagus roots. The final measurement was 18 feet long by 2 feet wide by 2 feet deep. That’s about 2.5 cubic yards of dirt (and rocks) dug out and 2.5 cubic yards of compost put back in. I’d better get some really good results out of that asparagus. My wife mowed grass and trimmed around some of the obstacles in the yard and planted the new strawberry plants in some tires. (We filled them with compost using wheel barrows.) She also sowed grass seed around the grandkids play area. (And put netting over it to keep the chickens from scratching it up.) I did some work on an article in progress then my wife and I cut up the rest of the carrots she brought in for dehydrating. (There’re quite a few left in the root cellar that still need to be dehydrated.)

Saturday, May 29, 2010

I spent more time on the article today. We drove into Eureka this morning to deposit a check. While there we bought some chicken food to have here while we’re gone to Dirttime. We have a neighbor who’s going to feed the chickens and water the garden as needed while we’re gone. We told her she could keep the eggs that week. On the way back we stopped so I could put the tarp back over the buffalo’s hay stack … again. The wind keeps blowing it off.

It rained all day long. My wife put more carrots in the dehydrator and peeled and cut up apples from the root cellar to dry them later. She also made a couple of rhubarb pies and beans-n-dumplings for supper (one of my favorite meals). Our youngest son was at home so he ran his generator all day to play video games on his X-box. We always try to take advantage of the electricity when the generator is running.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

I went to church this morning then in the afternoon finished up the article I’ve been working on. The dog and I walked over to the buffalo pen and threw in a couple of bales of hay. I moved all the top bales that were wet from the rain to the front of the stack. I’ll feed them first. I put the tarp back on again and tied it down in several places and stacked rocks on the bottom. Hopefully it will stay now. My wife made buns and cooked a roast for supper. She cut a bunch of thin, deli-slices off the roast and we had roast beef sandwiches, Jello stuff (orange jello with mandarin oranges and cool whip mixed in and stirred up - I don‘t know what it‘s called … I just know it tastes good!) and potatoes for supper. Afterwards, I sorted pictures for the article, wrote up some photo captions and sent it in. She went out and planted 72 hills of potatoes in the garden. Our son spotted a moose below the cabin but it was gone when we got back out with the cameras. It’s raining again.

Photos are of My wife planting potatoes in the garden. It's a little cool outside, (hence the coat). The tires are the new homes for the strawberry plants we bought in Kalispell. The trench is the new asparagus bed.

It was kind of a windy, overcast day today. We got a late start (too much time on the computer!) but still got a few things done. My wife planted a couple of the apple trees and I got a stump pulled, another section tilled up and I began digging out a spot for a new raspberry bed. I used my High-Lift jack to pull the stump. I dug out around it with the shovel and mattox then cut the side roots with the mattox. I then wrapped a short section of chain around the base and jacked it up out of the ground. A tripod, come-along and chain will accomplish the same task. The tree diameter was about 6 inches when I cut it down. Pine trees don't have a very good root system so they're lot easier to get out than hardwood trees. My wife is holding part of last night's dinner: home made rolls and rhubarb/raspberry pie. Great stuff! Got some kids up today so I’ll fire up the barbeque grill and char some hamburgers in a bit.

Had the Forester inspect the thinned area and it passed so we needed to go to the post office to mail the forms in to get paid. We decided to ride bicycles (15 miles round trip). It was easy to tell my wife just got back from a three week, 1,000 mile ride. (And that I'd spent too much time at home NOT riding.) Stopped and watched gophers taunt me from the meadow down the road. No gun with me except my 357magnum revolver. Since I want to kill them rather than just educate them I decided not to do any shooting today. Washed dishes when we got home. My wife prepared the most wonderful meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes (Yukon Gold, still firm and fresh in our root cellar), and pineapple from our garden. Hah, I wish! Now we're waiting to eat the rhubarb/raspberry pie she made. The rhubarb was picked fresh and the raspberries were canned from last year's harvest. Got a call from a neighbor this morning. Seems they have some kittens to give away and wanted to know if we want one. Since our cat's been missing the last two days we may be in need of a replacement. We'll see.