warm

Some might see scrap lumber, even worthless.
I look at the pile and feel the warmth for my small house, when it is cool outside.
And as my grandpa used to say: A wood fire will warm you twice, once when you cut the wood and another when you burn the wood.

firewood

This is firewood time of year.

We live in a time warp where we heat our house with a smallish wood burning stove, and cool it with a small fan. When I built the house it was the very best "renewable" idea out there, not I am not to sure, but I have to live with what I have.

If I wanted to go cut mountain wood, this is the right time to begin planning. Likely I’ll do neither.

A cord of good fir or even pine (we don’t have anything much in line of hardwoods in our forests).

Sometimes I buy wood, orchard wood being my favorite, but this time I have enough in stock to take us through this year easily. One friend gave us a trailer load of end cuts from his building project, another gave us a big pile of dimension lumber from his remodel.

I pulled the nails, stacked the nice fir boards (hard to get good fir studs any more), and cut the rest into firewood.

Our acre has a LOT of trees growing, but most are not very good as fire wood. Russian Olive, which grows like the weed it is, is not a great firewood.

This morning it is cool as I sit in my chair writing. Before too long, my morning ritual will include building a fire.

The trick is to make a hot fire in the morning, that warms the house but does not produce very much smoke. That is a skill that few consider useful any more!

downsize?

I have worn the same size pants for a couple of decades.

But lately they have been a bit baggy, which Is not a big deal to me, but if I take the belt off or loosen it up, swoosh the pants are not where they were!

That is what happens when you put an amateur in the kitchen. Swoosh.

So Today I bought a pair of Wranglers the next size smaller. I was nervous because the difference is a full 2” and that seems like a lot.

But they fit just fine, feel a lot more comfortable. Hmm.

Moral: Wear what fits! Hmm again.

chaos?

Some might argue that this is not even controlled chaos.
All sorts of plants competing for space.
In theory they compete on different levels, and are beneficial all ways.
Harvest will be in another month or 5 weeks. Then we will know!

sisters

The indians planted corn, beans and squash together.

My friend who lived in Africa for some years says the Africans plant a bean between every corn plant.

So, this year I gave it shot. I tried it last year, but the corn was too close together and the beans and squash got crowded out.

The idea is simple. The corn is tall, supporting the pole beans and the squash is hidden by the big leaves. The beans give the corn added nitrogen, and the corn provides support. The squash just revel in the shade!

How is it working?

The beans are climbers. They will be harvested as dry beans. There are several varieties of the squash.

The pop corn is fairly short. The beans are growing taller than the corn, but the corn will crop, I am sure. All three of those sisters will harvest at the same time this fall.

The flour corn grows 8 or 9 feet high, and can support all sorts of bean vines, and they harvest all at once this fall.

But the sweet corn is a bit more complex. The stalks are about 6’ high, the beans are about as high, and the squash are knee high, and I am going to need to get to that corn about next week!

I’ll make a few changes next year, but I think the three sisters are here to stay.

Maybe it is part of being a smart (and lazy) gardner.

the old mason

I find it unsettling to see those guys who have been so strong, get old and weak and have trouble getting around.
Inevitably, my time is coming.

a ramble

We drove up to the reunion Saturday.

Our daughters both arrived about the same time. Miriam had lots of cousins to talk to and I had grandkids! Our daughters are all quite gregarious and found 3rd and 4th cousins to talk with!

One cousin came from San Diego just for this day, others lived a mile or two from the park. Not a huge group but they all seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

One of Miriam’s cousins married a mortar mason. They had two sons who are masonry contractors in their home town. I spent some time talking to the younger son, who is in his late 40’s at this point.

We agreed that being a small contractor was to take an oath of poverty. Our only chance of “success” is if our wives had good jobs. We are always the low bid, and often so because we made a mistake in our calculations.

We hope our wives have health insurance through their work, because there is no way we can ever afford it, and our retirement savings are meager at best.

Yes, we sometimes have $300 and 400 days, but we also have zero days.

So, what insanity drive us on? Part of it is the independence; the illusion that we are “our own bosses.” Part of it, I think, is genetic. Both of my fathers were very independent. Neither worked for anyone else too often or to long, and neither did I.

Of my four daughters only one of them has worked for a the same company for a very long time.

The others get jobs easily, stay and work hard for half a year or so, and then split to go back to free lancing. And, they have done quite well with it. One has a well employed husband, but the other is a single mom.

I talked to one daughter last week. She has been free lancing, working very hard for the last several months. But the money has been slow coming in.

So she has had an extremely busy, extremely cash starved summer. Sounds familiar!

I had to retire to get a steady check and health insurance. Ahh, but this is America. Why would you want to change a wonderful system like that!

We wallow in the joy of being an independent worker! We can’t get fired, but we sure can get hungry and be very broke!