16-18 Sept, 2010 Thursday

Lots of rain the last few days made it difficult to get things done outside.  I did get time to write and I have another article nearly finished.  I need to do the final editing and write photo captions then get it all printed up and mailed.  Thursday we had some sunshine part of the day.  After writing for awhile then having breakfast I took some more pictures for the article then went to splitting and stacking firewood.  I worked on the load that was still in the truck.  Some was green so I stacked it to the side.  The rest was split and stacked in the wood shed.  About half was from a tree with a lot of limbs and was a pain to get split.  It took me several hours to get the job done.  Susan laid linoleum in the bathroom, tightened up the rain gutters where they were sagging and washed window blinds.  We also tied the goat out to browse.  I had to move him to a new area because he ate everything in the old one.  We've been getting five or six eggs a day from the chickens.

Friday we shot into town to get the mail, dump trash and fill water jugs.  Some books we ordered finally came in.   It seems that everything we order from Amazon books takes forever to get here.  I printed up some pictures and we mailed them to my mother and former mother-in-law.  Susan and I diced more onions to dry them.  We had a lazy afternoon and watched the first of a series called "Fringe."  It isn't really our type of show but isn't too bad.  We ran the generator while watching the movie and charged up the battery bank at the same time.  The solar doesn't put much out on these coudy rainy days.  Tristan brough home a pizza from Euerka.  It was good.

Saturday we were expecting company but they cancelled out.  I washed dishes then me and the dog went to the shack.  I fired up the stove there and did some cleaning up and re-organizing.  I checked traps, stretchers, etc. to see what I need to do to get them ready for the winter season.  Susan has the pathroom furnishings in now.  I need to hook up the vent and drain for the composting toilet.  It's an "envirolet" that we bought a few years ago and just now have a place to put it.  I still need to build the frame for the wash tubs and wringer and get them hooked up.  Tristan went to Kalispell earlier in the day but came back in the afternoon and played Halo online.  He had his generator running so Susan ran a load of onions through the dehydrator.  When he brought the mail in I had another check for an article I'd sold.  We watched a couple of episodes of Fringe in the evening.

This is our toaster.  We've tried different kinds (store bought and home made) over the years and this works better than anythng else on the wood stove. 

You just take a sheet of aluminum foil, fold it in half and put the bread inside it.  Check it and turn the bread over when you're ready to toast the other side.  If you don't have the foil folded over the top the bread dries out and curls on the edges.  It makes the best toast I've ever had/\.

The last of our spaghetti squash from last year's harvest.

These are fresh from the garden.  Tomatoes are always an "iffy" crop unless you have a heated greenhouse.  The summers are short and the nights cold.  This summer has been one of the worst for our warm season garden crops.

This is a tomato plant we started from a clippping after reading John's post.

Summer squash from our garden.  Susan is cutting some of it up to dry as I write this.

The composting toilet ready for me to hook up the vent and drain tube.

Susan tightening up the end of the rain gutter.  The snow is hard on them in the winter.  When it slides off the roof it rips the gutters off.  We plan on taking them off this year before it snows.

Cleaning blinds in the water tank.

 She made me smile for the picture. I'm not normally this "smiley" when washing dishes. 

I took hot water out of the kettle for washing dishes and I'm now refilling it so we'll have hot water when we need it for the next task.

Time to feed the stove.

Apple pie Susan made from apples from our garden.

The mountain is framed in the clouds.  This is a few miles from home on the way into Fortine on Friday.

Dog outside, cat inside, each wants to trade places with the other.