We're in the middle of another hot spell. It's been over 95 for what seems like a thousand years. Feh. Isabella went home, so it's just us two humans, six dogs, six rabbits, five big animals, three chickens and a festoon of guineas.
It's too hot to sit at the computer. I may go sit in the kiddie pool.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
A self-indulgent weekend
I got absolutely nothing done around the place this weekend. It was great. My back is wrecked, the hall is full of boxes and the garden is dry.
We spent Saturday at Part 2 of the estate sale. Awesome, it was. We came home with old books and patterns, fabric and lace, nails and hardware and cool rusty bits. C. scored this big piece of silk in a bright Art Deco pattern.
I spent Sunday organizing and tidying the studio. On Monday I took my lovely empty worktable and messed it all up with wooden boxes and metal bits and red things, and actually started an assemblage. It felt great. It isn't done and I'm not sure I like it, but it's a start. What great fun.
And Isabella is here for the week, while her people are vacationing in Montana. What a sweet dog.
We spent Saturday at Part 2 of the estate sale. Awesome, it was. We came home with old books and patterns, fabric and lace, nails and hardware and cool rusty bits. C. scored this big piece of silk in a bright Art Deco pattern.
I spent Sunday organizing and tidying the studio. On Monday I took my lovely empty worktable and messed it all up with wooden boxes and metal bits and red things, and actually started an assemblage. It felt great. It isn't done and I'm not sure I like it, but it's a start. What great fun.
And Isabella is here for the week, while her people are vacationing in Montana. What a sweet dog.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
What is eating our garden?
What the hell! Are small children creeping into the garden and stealing green tomatoes?
Apparently it's deer. They have a flat plate instead of teeth on top, but nice little teeth on the bottom, and this is the bite print of some deer's bottom jaw.
Apparently it's deer. They have a flat plate instead of teeth on top, but nice little teeth on the bottom, and this is the bite print of some deer's bottom jaw.
Friday, July 25, 2014
We have power!
And water!
We've been without both since freak wind storm blew through Wednesday afternoon, sending power poles and huge pine trees falling and snapping in two. Highway 2 was closed down, trailers in the big mobile home park at Riverside were smashed and bisected, metal roofing was ripped and curled upward. The storm hit hard – howling wind, whipping trees, big fat hail – and then silence. It had moved on to the next unlucky spot. Weird. Like a tornado, except that we don't have tornados here. A faux 'nado, then.
We were lucky and suffered no damage. Our big brick building squats on the lee side of a gentle hill. So we hauled water in the car and read by flashlight and kerosene lamp. I hauled our frozen food to town and Em's empty freezer. I blacked vegetables and boiled water on the propane grill. The neighborhood was full of the purr of generators and chainsaws.
It is wonderful to have our conveniences back, though. Running water, flushing water, hot water. The pink electric stove from 1959. Netflix on the TV. The internet!
If Part 2 of that amazing estate sale wasn't set for tomorrow, I'd stay home and surf and cook and bake and shower and flush all day.
We've been without both since freak wind storm blew through Wednesday afternoon, sending power poles and huge pine trees falling and snapping in two. Highway 2 was closed down, trailers in the big mobile home park at Riverside were smashed and bisected, metal roofing was ripped and curled upward. The storm hit hard – howling wind, whipping trees, big fat hail – and then silence. It had moved on to the next unlucky spot. Weird. Like a tornado, except that we don't have tornados here. A faux 'nado, then.
We were lucky and suffered no damage. Our big brick building squats on the lee side of a gentle hill. So we hauled water in the car and read by flashlight and kerosene lamp. I hauled our frozen food to town and Em's empty freezer. I blacked vegetables and boiled water on the propane grill. The neighborhood was full of the purr of generators and chainsaws.
It is wonderful to have our conveniences back, though. Running water, flushing water, hot water. The pink electric stove from 1959. Netflix on the TV. The internet!
If Part 2 of that amazing estate sale wasn't set for tomorrow, I'd stay home and surf and cook and bake and shower and flush all day.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Catching up
Well, the weather finally cooled off a bit. Saturday we went to a brilliant estate sale run by our favorite estate-sale people, and we staggered home five hours later, tired and grubby, with some amazing things and four hammers. (The way I lose tools, I need four more hammers.) The car was crammed full, and our new-to-us 1950s lawn chaise (that folds down into a double bed) was strapped on top. Some wag mentioned The Beverly Hillbillies, but that's not at all appropriate. Granny was not riding on the lawn chair on the roof. She was driving.
I could post photos of our finds, like the tin ceiling tiles or the perfect 10-gallon crock, but then you'd hate me because I have such cool stuff.
Sunday we unloaded the car and played with our new things. And tended the garden and waited on the many animals. We had deer damage in the garden again – about half of the pole beans were gnawed off and the non-heading broccoli might as well be called non-leafing broccoli, as only stalks are left. I upped the trailer-park quotient in the garden-fence department, adding more cord and plastic flags, and scattering old printing plates on the paths. They're thin aluminum, and make a lot of noise when stepped on. It isn't pretty, but I don't care.
Monday I had to work, and came home tired. And unloaded the last of the stuff in the car.
Today after work I bumped out the fence in the big-animal pasture. C. has been bringing them all kinds of garden greens and tasty weeds, but the goats wanted more. I could tell because Mo escaped twice and Pants got his horned head stuck in the fence twice. Pants cries when it happens, and the sheep come find me and tell me about it ("Bleahhhhh. Muhhhhhhhh.") I rush out and finagle his big old head and horns and poor soft throat back through the hole, and he looks at me for a while with his creepy yellow slit eyes and then clops casually off, pretending nothing happened. It's scary, though – if a coyote or loose dog found him first it would be grisly.
So now they have plenty to eat and new ground to explore, and unless the goats find a weak spot in the new fence, they'll be good for a while. There is even a nice big mossy rock to play King of the Hill on.
C. made the dogs something green for dinner, and I sampled it and liked it and shared it with them. It was sort of a quiche or pilaf thing made of greens and eggs and rice and such, baked in the microwave. I had ketchup on mine.
I could post photos of our finds, like the tin ceiling tiles or the perfect 10-gallon crock, but then you'd hate me because I have such cool stuff.
Sunday we unloaded the car and played with our new things. And tended the garden and waited on the many animals. We had deer damage in the garden again – about half of the pole beans were gnawed off and the non-heading broccoli might as well be called non-leafing broccoli, as only stalks are left. I upped the trailer-park quotient in the garden-fence department, adding more cord and plastic flags, and scattering old printing plates on the paths. They're thin aluminum, and make a lot of noise when stepped on. It isn't pretty, but I don't care.
Monday I had to work, and came home tired. And unloaded the last of the stuff in the car.
Today after work I bumped out the fence in the big-animal pasture. C. has been bringing them all kinds of garden greens and tasty weeds, but the goats wanted more. I could tell because Mo escaped twice and Pants got his horned head stuck in the fence twice. Pants cries when it happens, and the sheep come find me and tell me about it ("Bleahhhhh. Muhhhhhhhh.") I rush out and finagle his big old head and horns and poor soft throat back through the hole, and he looks at me for a while with his creepy yellow slit eyes and then clops casually off, pretending nothing happened. It's scary, though – if a coyote or loose dog found him first it would be grisly.
So now they have plenty to eat and new ground to explore, and unless the goats find a weak spot in the new fence, they'll be good for a while. There is even a nice big mossy rock to play King of the Hill on.
C. made the dogs something green for dinner, and I sampled it and liked it and shared it with them. It was sort of a quiche or pilaf thing made of greens and eggs and rice and such, baked in the microwave. I had ketchup on mine.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
The ides of July
The garden is producing lots of food these days. C. picks huge bowls of greens for the rabbits twice a day, and keeps kale and such rotating through the dehydrators for winter "hay." She makes a huge salad for people everyday, too. (I have a little. Crunch, crunch. Not crazy about salad.) We've had more spuds, some good-sized and weirdly knobby. More snap peas are going into the freezer, and we shelled a bunch of regular peas last night. The tomato plants are full of green fruit, and the beans are blooming furiously. There's garlic drying somewhere. C. is a fine gardener.
The heat wave is supposed to ease off tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
There are a bunch of forest fires near Leavenworth, in central Washington, and the skies here are grey and smokey. Air quality has gone down to "unhealthy," so I'm staying inside. I've got five boxes of books. I'll pick peas tomorrow, when the sky clears.
The heat wave is supposed to ease off tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
There are a bunch of forest fires near Leavenworth, in central Washington, and the skies here are grey and smokey. Air quality has gone down to "unhealthy," so I'm staying inside. I've got five boxes of books. I'll pick peas tomorrow, when the sky clears.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Hot hot hot
Em came up yesterday to take C. huckleberrying. "Our" spot was pretty picked out, but they found enough for a pie. I'm looking forward to that pie.
I was feeling sorry for the chickens, who have been confined to their house and yard since the garden went in. (We let the guineas out to forage in the evenings, but the chickens are too destructive.) Their house is hot, and their yard is pretty bare. So I took some fencing and grafted a 4x10-foot shady, grassy space onto the run. They like it and hang out there. I can move it around to fresh grass, too. I'm hoping it's located on a major grasshopper trail.
Azul was hot, too, so Em turned the hose on him. He loved that, and turned around so she could get all sides. Then he sat in a puddle.
It's miserably hot. I tied up some tomatoes, then came in and cooled off. Then put the soaker hoses around the rows, and came in and cooled off. Good thing we have five new boxes of books.
I was feeling sorry for the chickens, who have been confined to their house and yard since the garden went in. (We let the guineas out to forage in the evenings, but the chickens are too destructive.) Their house is hot, and their yard is pretty bare. So I took some fencing and grafted a 4x10-foot shady, grassy space onto the run. They like it and hang out there. I can move it around to fresh grass, too. I'm hoping it's located on a major grasshopper trail.
Azul was hot, too, so Em turned the hose on him. He loved that, and turned around so she could get all sides. Then he sat in a puddle.
It's miserably hot. I tied up some tomatoes, then came in and cooled off. Then put the soaker hoses around the rows, and came in and cooled off. Good thing we have five new boxes of books.
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