There is talk about expanding our livestock flock next year. Adding a few thousand honey bees might just do that!

power!

A week or two ago three guys put a $3000 floor in the new shop here on the “farm.” Earlier two of the same crew put a $2300 roof on the same building. I know, I wrote the checks.

I mention the money part, because I REALLY am not used to writing checks that size. In fact when the final check was written (it was to be for $3300, I automatically wrote it for $33!).

Then last week, I rented a trencher and my son-in-law used it to dig around 400 feet of trenches. New power lines from the box at the house to the new shop and then back to the old shop. There is a water line to the tiny house, and even more wonderful a line to bring in 20 amps of power to my tiny house.

Twenty does not seem like much when you first think of it, but it is a lot for a tiny house. I will feel blessed. That same trench holds another pipe that holds cables for TV and for Internet.

Boy am I spoiled!

Since our old TV was tanked in the flood, I am going to buy a new one. Don’t have to be tempted by the thought of a big screen, there is not room, but there is 18 vertical inches available. I think that I can work a 26 inch LED into that spot. That will truly be by far the largest TV we have ever owned. 

And, the internet. Just thinking of not having it and I go blank. It is both a great source of company and inspiration as well as a fabulous time waster, but that is what I have now, so maybe that part is OK too!

This is that wonderful time of year when the garden produces an abundance of great food. The harvest exceeds our ability to consume, so we can, we freeze, and we compost.

Before long it will be dry beans and canned tomato and corn with home made bread, which does not sound too bad either!

winter is a comin

For the last year I have had one major preoccupation. That is getting ready for this winter.

Last winter was pretty mild here and we were not comfortable. I have seen it 30 below zero in this valley and I have seen 24 to 30 inches of snow on the flat. Once that snow stuck around for over a month.

So I have reason for my preoccupation.

I have drawn, and calculated. I have done research and I have talked with people I think know more than I do (both hard to do and easy to do!). I have dug and I have built and I have insulated and weather stripped and gone through a case and a half of caulking and a half dozen bottles of magic expandable foam goo.

And, in the cool of the night I wonder. But in a few weeks we will put it all to the test.

Winter is coming on, and I think we are about ready. There are still a few tees that have not been crossed and a few I’s without dots, but it is coming together.

When my family came to this valley almost a century and a half ago, they didn’t make it all the way from Iowa in one year, they “wintered” in Salt Lake City. Their horses had gone lame and it was too late in the season to go on.

I have no idea what they did that winter in SLC, but it can be pretty nasty cold there too. Somehow they pulled it off, and did the hard way. It was not a matter of reprogramming the thermostat. 

When they got here in mid summer, one of their early concern was where they would spend the next winter. Somehow they pulled it off, though 1 in 10 who began the western run from Iowa and Kansas, did not make it.

So right now my emotions are all over the place. I am thankful for progress for the tiny house that has risen on the other end of the barn, but I still have a few apprehensions about my winter calculations: Are we ( and mostly my beloved Miriam) going to be passably comfortable?

I think we will, but we won’t actually know for a bit yet. 

The license plate tells me that this one is the one I just bought!

Start of a collection?

Last week I drove the pickup and the flat bed trailer 250 miles west to Salem to pick up a car I bought off Craig’s list! It is another dark blue Cavalier, almost identical to Miriam’s. It has fewer miles and is in pretty decent shape, and I just bought it for a parts car.

The interior is quite nice, though a slight different color than Miriam’s Cavalier. So, I’ll exchange the interior, save the engine and all the parts I might need one day.

I was tempted to keep that car as our daily driver, but alas it does not have AC (not needed in Salem) and that is a deal breaker. No AC, no drive! 

The owner told me that the linkage for the transmission was loose but was an easy fix. He drove the rig onto the trailer, and once here I drove it off the trailer. I backed it up against the fence to turn it around and the linkage came complete loose and it is stuck in reverse. 

Then this week I made a decision about the flooring in the tiny house and went to Idaho for a couple days to do the millwork on the flooring.

Someone said to Daughter one: “Your dad sure doesn’t let grass grow under his feet does he?” No, she replied. 

It is called Vernacular Architecture. It is what non professional people do because they need it done.

late summer busy

It has been a busy time here.

The tiny house is coming along fine, but I am the sole worker and I don’t get as much done any day as I might like. Fall weather is approaching, it is often quite cool in the morning and the squash plants show a bit of frost damage. 

Miriam, of course, is not doing better, there is no better with this hellish disease. She forgets who we all are from time to time, but always insists that she needs to be with her husband.

One night in bed she told me to leave since I was not her husband. That took a while to get it all straightened out. Somehow it was sadly comedic.

Miriam saw a new doctor last week (her old one moved. When daughter informed the Doc that her mother was stage 6 Alzheimer’s the Doc said: “Ahh, that changes everything.” Miriam really needs some surgery, but we all (including the Doctor) agree that it isn’t going to happen.

The big worry now is that she fall. 

A broken major bone now is cataclysmic.

Camping at a hot springs camp ground in the middle of the Oregon deserts. For those that have not been to Oregon, much of the state is desert.

Stage 6

Sometimes things are obvious and some times not so much so.

The 7 stages of Alzheimer's list has been around long before our exposure to the disease. Mostly I have pretty faithfully ignored it. Seemed to me that it was a bit nit picky and that there are days when one is this and other days when it might not.

But this time I glanced at the list and settled down to read "Stage 6". It sounded way to biographical. I had to put it down and look at it later.

Yesterday, she was not sure I should be sleeping with her. She was not sure even of my identity. I wrote down the day we were married, the where and how long ago that was (56 years 2 months and 14 days). I left the list so she could read it. That seemed to be enough to allow me be her husband!

Then this week we had a big event, one of those that seem possible to be a defining moment. Sometimes that defining thing can be instant and sometimes it can be ominous but not provable. Not sure about this one yet, but Miriam seems have crossed a barrier, one of those big ones.

We will see.

It was cold friday morning, so i was motivated to hang the front door.
I bought it from a Dentist who was remodeling. The door came with a lock set and two keys! It is just about perfect for my little house.
It is the color it was when i bought it.
There will be a change!

There is always a pile of scrap wood. I recycled some of the wood in this project and bought a LOT of new.
Oh well.

Most job sites look pretty awful just before they look better.

This one is no exception. 

My goal is to finish all of the outside work by the end of August.

Fall is coming, along with a lot of rain (this is not desert, alas).

Gotta work steadily!

progress

The weather has been hot, then reasonable, now hot again.

I am reminded that this is mid August and that fall is not far away. Our little house is coming along quite well. I go to work at the crack of dawn and work until we have breakfast, about 10. Then if it is around 100 degrees, I wait it out until afternoon.

It is not any cooler then, but the little house is out of the sun and feels a LOT more comfortable. The house faces east, so the morning sun beats right in. In the summer it can be pretty uncomfortably with that sun pounding down, but in the winter that heat will be wonderful, and I have windows to take advantage of it.

For the most part house construction is pretty much one size fits all. If the house is in cold climate they put in a bigger furnace, if it is in hot climate, just put in a killer air conditioning system.

This house is different. It is designed to fit on this piece of ground, with these weather and sun conditions.

Will it work as well as I think?

No one knows until it is basically too late to do much about it.

Oh well.