October 2, 2011

Fall grass on our south ridge slope

I did rake up five more bags of pine needles on Friday, but I spent most of the day up in the loft unpacking boxes and re-arranging my crafting area. I had forgotten how many craft supplies I had - polymer clay with all it's necessary implements; fabric; paper; paint; rubber stamps with all their necessary inks and powders; paper and all the necessary decorations to make cards; pens; scissors; paper; etc. I made room for most of it and there was still a small area for me to actually work.

JB spent most of the day in his shop working on the sides of the trailer, cleaning up, and putting together our very pretty, "old fashioned" wood stove that was in the last load up from storage. We have never had a fire in it, but in our last two homes we used it for decoration. All he needs now is the right pipes and to cut a hole in the side of the shop to let the pipes and smoke out. He also harvested all his tomatoes from his two plants. We had a very short growing season Up Here this year and so even though both plants were more than six feet tall and heavy with tomatoes, they were all green. We now have three tiers of tomatoes ripening in one of our south windows and some in a paper bag on the counter. JB is going to make fried green tomatoes with dinner tonight. Neither of us have had them. We were amazed at how many recipes there are for them in our cook books.  Our son has had them and says that if you add enough salt, pepper, garlic and bacon grease, anything will taste good.

We needed some light entertainment for the evening, so we watched the "A-Team" movie. So funny!

Saturday was overcast, with a few light showers in the afternoon. I split the last of the Douglas Fir from Seattle, which turned out to be three good loads. Got it all stacked and we now have 3-1/3 rows of regular fire wood, a couple tall pallet loads of small branch wood, and a large box of pitch wood - probably a total of 3 cords. We are a little behind but shouldn't have a problem getting all we need by the end of October.

Now that he has the sides of the trailer all cut to fit, JB finished painting them with spar varnish. Of course, he also pushed the wheel barrow from the splitter to the wood shed all three times that I filled it. Got done splitting just as the first shower started.

After lunch I finally crawled under the house again to see how well it is drying out. The dirt is still a bit damp down about two inches, but there is no standing water. That means all the water we had in the Spring is from a drainage problem, not a leak in the water pipes. I was kind of hoping for a leak as it would be easier to fix. Didn't see a frog of any kind (small or large), but our son asked if I saw the snake that ate them! There are no snakes down there either, just two very loud tree frogs.

Don't think any more wasps got in the house since for last weekend, as it has been too cold for them. There are still some yellow jackets out and about, but not nearly as many as there were. And the traps are still catching them.

Don't think I mentioned the dead pack rat that JB found in his shop before he left for Seattle last weekend. He has been putting the "Just One Bite" poison out in the shop on a regular basis, and a nasty odor greeted him as he entered one day. After quite a search, he found the dead critter - which he thought weighed about five pounds - in his scrap wood box. Glad that was his job and not mine. There is no smell with dead mice or small pack rats.

I think I mentioned that I probably wouldn't do any canning this year other than pie filling, but I completely forgot about the rose hip jam I want to make. I'll probably start picking them in a couple weeks. There are so many and they are huge! I'd say that the jam makes great Christmas gifts, but most of the people who will receive it read my blog every day. . .