The Tile update:


Melissa has completed the tiling of the shower, and it looks outstanding.


Here's the floor, with tiles from our neighbor (up here) mixed in with tiles from the stash we found in the back yard of a house that was being demolished. She had to cut the terra cotta colored ones up to get to the 4x4 inch size.


















here's the north wall, with the window. You can see the little latch I carved to hold the window shut. just a stick with one bolt through it, and a notch.






















The same north wall, and you can see the skylight. (sliding glass door also from the demolition site)





















This is a view out of the shower, looking out the window back towards the yurt. Note the towel hooks, again carved from redwood branches.























And, the highlight--- the mirror moon mosaic! Pretty amazing, huh?

Getting the garden started


I don't know how this happened, but it seems the pictures that were taken today show just Melissa working... when in fact I believe I did all the work.

In these pictures, you can see (us..) working on the second terrace of our garden. We'll probably do a total of four levels. The first one is done, and covered with straw, to keep down the weeds and protect from heavy rains this winter.

We're using old logs from around the area as the 'retaining' walls between terraces, with good-sized redwood branches as posts. I'm surprised we're already working on the garden, as I thought we wouldn't get to it until next spring.

Some other little things I've been up to:


I got a truckload of old cedar shingles a while ago (weird day of going down to Morgan Hill, CA and digging through these folks' back yard pile [5 feet high, 20 feet wide]) and I used them to cap off the roof of the bathroom/outhouse... but I had tons left over.

So, I've made some little spots for firewood storage. I think they look pretty cool.


This is the 'close pile' for when it's raining and you don't want to go too far to get more wood.


















Melissa has been making 'kindling bundles' by wrapping dry redwood needles and small sticks in a burrito of newspaper. This way, we can easily carry in kindling without spilling stuff all over the yurt, and the whole thing goes into the fire, burning hot and fast, getting things going.



















This is the 'deep' firewood pile, with I think two rows of wooed piled behind the front stuff. When we took down the old oak to put up the yurt, I milled a bunch of it, but the stuff that was too curved or rotted when towards firewoood... but it's still so darn hard, I can't split it with my maul. That tree came down last May! so that oak is sitting in the back, I hope waiting for next winter.

















Anyone who comes out here has to take the tour, and one of the mandatory stops is the compost pile (since no one would go there by themslves) and I'm really proud of my little roof for my hay pile, one of the bins of the composting system.

The Hot tub is in



It's small, (4 feet in diameter) but is just perfect for us as a vast majority of the time, there's only us up here. Of course, when friends come up, we just end up being friendlier! (note the little firewood shed on the far side of the patio. keeps the wood dry!)

So, once the hot tub got set up, I slipped off to LA for a work thing with my buddy Tom, and then we drove back, wine tasting on the way... so not much work was done last week.

I did set up a page on my website for further adventures of the generator, as I'll probably end up getting so specific that no casual reader of the blog will be interested. Check out www.ideamountain.com/lister.html if you want.

I'll try and take a good picture of the hot tub soon. We did get the first few persimmons peeled and hanging to dry. They make great holiday decorations.