5 September, 2014 Getting ready for winter.

Fall is here! And along with fall comes a whole slug of things needing our attention.  The garden is coming in strong now along with the attendant canning and drying.  Bow hunting season for big game - Deer, Elk and Bear - begins tomorrow morning (6 Sept.).  If successful it means more canning and butchering.  There's still wood to cut as well.  Overall though, fall is a great time of year.

We've been firing up the wood stove mornings and evenings for about a week now just to compensate for the dropping temperatures outside.  That also means we do more cooking on the wood stove.  As long as we're using it anyway we may as well save propane and cook on it too.

 

Susan had her violin out practicing.  When she put it down Scott decided to try his hand at it. He has a ways to go before he's ready for Carnegie Hall!

 

We showed our son and DIL the trail going into Martin Lake.  Scott, of course, takes his place on Uncle Tristan's shoulders.

 

Tristan is young and strong and Scott took advantage of it on the trail in.  The trail is short and easy by Montana standards.  It's only a half mile with only two small hills in between.

 

It is a gorgeous little lake though and not greatly used.

 

Krystina and Scott.  The mountains in the background rise about two-thousand feet above the lake level.  They are steep and heavily forested!

 

Scott gets a lot of clothes dirty and with the unusually rainy weather we've had lately, we were making too many trips to the laundry mat in Eureka.  Our oldest son had an extra automatic washer to give away so we took it home and hooked it up ... redneck style!

 

The pump drains the wash/rinse water into the black tub.  This thing uses 20 gallons of water each time it fills the washing chamber when on the "large load" setting.  We haul water and use captured rainwater for washing clothes and needed a way to conserve on the water supply.

 

I drilled a 3/4 inch hole at the base of the tub and screwed in a male hose fitting.  You don't need to thread the hole in the plastic.  Simply screwing in the brass fitting will make a seal that's leak free.

 

The drain hose from the washer runs into the top of the large plastic pipe going into the black tub.  The plastic pipe can pivot so we can take the tub out from under it as needed.

 

We have the drain hose to make it easier to drain the water away from the cabin and get it where it's needed (watering trees).  We use the wash water for watering trees then save the rinse water in the tub and use it for the next "wash" cycle.  That way we save and recycle at least some of the water

 

The water comes from our rain water tank.  We pump it out of the tank using the well pump we were given (it had a cracked housing so I had to fix it before putting it into service).  I personally like the old way we did wash better but the automatic washer has some good points too.  It's a lot easier on zippers in coats and jeans and gets the clothes dryer than the wringer does.  They don't have to spend as much time hanging on the line.  Of course we'll have to put some RV antifreeze in it soon or the water left in the pump will freeze.

 

Scott is helping Susan strip Thyme leaves off the stems after drying them. (She grows an assortment of spices in the garden.)  We've bought Thyme from the store where they just ground up the leaves and the stems.  It takes us longer to do it our way but we really don't like having the stems in our food.

 

Well, Scott was helping for awhile anyway!  He did pretty well for a three-year-old!

 

Some of the things Susan has been doing ... Cans of huckleberries, cherries and raspberries on front.  You can see the muffin pan to the right.  The corn muffins were made using home grown and ground sweet corn.  You can't get better corn flour or corn meal than that!  If you want to have some fun grow some different colored corn for different colored corn meal.  Our electric grain mill is on the towel above the canned food.  Susan had just finished grinding some wheat into flour.  The pan at the top right has scraps waiting for a trip to the compost pile.

 

Under the towel are cans of home made salsa in front of canned chicken and canned chicken broth.  We grew and butchered the chickens.

 

The fire danger is finally down low enough to burn some slash piles.  This one has so much green stuff in it that's it's being difficult to get it burning.  We've been clearing off more of the land.  If you don't keep at it the trees will keep coming up until everything is choked out.

 

We've been covering the less frost hardy plants in the garden at night this week.  The night time lows are about thirty-degrees.  If we can make it through a week or so we often get another month of warmer weather.  The blankets were salvaged from the dump.  We also purchased rolls of cloth on clearance.  Sometimes material that doesn't sell well is available for pennies per yard.  We bought several bolts of cloth a couple of years ago and use them to protect the crops from frost.

 

Onions were pulled and brought into the cabin to cure.  The tops will go in the compost pile.  We cut up our onions and dehydrate them.  We've never had any luck storing them long term unless we dry them.

 

Zucchini squash tucked in to bed for the night.

 

We stack boards of Styrofoam insulation around the bottom of the greenhouse and add cloth covering to help protect the plants.  One more month will make a lot of difference in the amount of food we harvest.

 

Now to get ready for hunting tomorrow!



5-15 June, 2013 - Greenhouses, car repairs, pruning raspberries, solar power, and more.

It's been an expensive month.

Susan is painting the porch in preparation of putting the screen on it.  I have most of the framing done but still have some minor things to finish up (like trim).  The mosquitoes have been out in force the last week so we need to finish this project up.

 

The garden is a never-ending project.  Susan is pruning some of the raspberry bushed we have.  She cuts out the old, dead stalks to make way for the new (and productive) growth. 

 

The chickens must have heard us talking because they've boosted egg production this week.  We mentioned to them that one egg per day from five hens wasn't going to be tolerated.  We've been a little concerned about them since some of the hens are approaching eight-years-old.  Anyway, they've boosted production a bit so we're now getting three or four per day.  Some of the slack may have been due to moving them.

 

In any case, we splurged and bought some real "layer" food for the hens so they'd best keep production up!

 

We've been working on the greenhouse.  This one will be a small one (6 X 8 feet) in practice for the larger one we plan on building next.  I can adjust the radial arm saw to make angle cuts but then I have to replace the back-stop more often.

 

 

What I prefer to do is clamp a guide board to the table at the proper angle for the cut.  It's easier than replacing the back-stop and easier to get the precise angle I want.

 

 

 

The argument goes on forever whether a radial arm saw or table saw is best.  As usual it depends on what you're going to do with them.  When I bought my RAS it was a choice between a radial arm saw, miter saw or table saw.  I chose the RAS because it was the most versatile and easier to work with on construction projects.  I now have a table saw too which is nice but on construction jobs it can be difficult to cut the rafters and other long pieces of wood.  The table saw is really nice for finer work such as making furniture.   My next purchase will be a miter saw.

 

Here I'm ripping down a 2X4 into two - 2X2's.  I can buy the smaller lumber but a 2X2 costs more than a 2X4 so I make my own 2X2's for about half the price.  The table saw does a better job ripping but it's in another building.  I was only doing a couple of them so it was faster to just use the RAS.

 

I had to replace the blade on this one. That was another $20.00 expense.

 

We are just going to put the roof and end walls up for now.  The clear roofing was left over from a project two years ago but we forked over real cash (around $30.00) for the rafter boards.  The rest of the lumber was scrounged or left over from other projects.  It's still been a pretty cheap project though.  We're going to replace the roof on the cabin in July or August and I'll have some more clear plastic panels from the old roof.  We'll use them for the sides.

 

One thing saving us money is our solar power.  I run an extension cord from the cabin's electric system (solar powered) to the greenhouse project in the garden.  The extension cord was expensive ($1.50 per foot - it's a heavy gauge cord) but we've had it for several years.

 

Scott loves playing with my stuff.  He grabbed the cordless drill from another project and ran (to escape with his contraband goods) out to the greenhouse and began "drilling" into this stump.  I have the screwdriver bit on the drill but he managed to drill into the stump (it's old and partially rotted out) using it.  The grimace is from how hard he has to work to hold the trigger and make the drill run.  His hands aren't big enough to go completely around the grip.  He told me to "go away" (he didn't want to give up the drill yet!), so I snapped the picture and did some other projects until he tired of the drill. 

 

 

More parts for the car and lawn mowers.  I hit a rock and destroyed the blade mount on one of our power mowers so I had to buy another one.  I also bought a blade for the other power mower we have along with an oil filter for the Cherokee and another for the small generator. 

 

 

I did some judicious blade straightening on the rock casualty then re-sharpened and balanced it.  I was afraid I'd bent the crankshaft but then saw that the blade was bent rather than the CS.

 

I installed the new blade in the spare mower.  We normally use our reel mowers but we've had so much to do that we got out the power mowers to keep up with the grass.  (We've had lots of rain this month.)

 

 

More flat tires.  I finally took this one to the water tank and submerged it to find the leak.  It took  about three weeks to deflate so it was a very small hole.  It was punctured in the sidewall by something very small (probably wire).  I tried patching it but the patch didn't hold (didn't think it would but it was a Sunday and the parts store was closed so it was worth a try).  We bought a radial tube for it on Monday and that did the job.  The tube was about $13.00. 

 

It's also been making some growling sounds so I ordered a wheel bearing assembly while we were in town.  That was another $80.00 and another trip to town.  They had one of the more expensive bearing sets in stock but they wanted $130.00 my cost for it.  We decide to wait the extra day for the $50.00 savings.

 

We also put air shocks on the rear.  The springs on Cherokees are designed for ride rather than work and ours is often heavily loaded.  We got tired of hitting the axle stops and decided to install air shocks.  Those were another $75.00.  When I went to put them on the top mount bolts for the shocks were rusted in and broke off when I tried to remove them, so ... I had to drill them out (all four) and cut new threads.  I've always enjoyed having hot bits of metal falling onto my face while drilling out the broken bolts (NOT!) so it took a lot longer than planned.

 

I'm going to change the oil and filter on it today.  When I bought the filters, the parts store tried to sell me the top-line they have.  It would have been $17.00. I asked for the "econo-line"  (AKA - cheap), which brought the price down to $7.00 for the pair.

 

Our daughter loves her old Land Cruiser but the radiator's core is rotten.  I've tried fixing it but to no avail so we ordered a new one online for abut half the price the local part store wanted (we paid $230.00).  I put it in during the week so she is back on the road ... sort of.  She wanted me to check the tail pipe which was rattling on the rear axle.  I checked it out and found out that the top leaf of the driver's side rear spring was broken and letting that corner sag.  They're looking for some used springs.

 

 

Another of our kids hit a deer with his car so we had some minor repair work for it as well.  It wasn't a lot of damage but it will still need a grill and radiator.  We took it apart and the parts should be here next week.

 

 

Susan took Scott on a bike ride outside of Eureka.  It's an old railroad right-of-way that follows the river and ends at Lake Koocanusa that's been opened to walking and bicycling.  This is just one of the photos she took.  Last year they had a grizzly bear hanging out on this trail so she took her bear spray along just-in-case.  It's about 14 miles round trip.