More of the Mess

A batch of photos of the mess from the tree trimming. (much worse than a christmas tree lot)

 One or two branches came down on a plastic barrel I had over by the hot tub, dented it but didn't break it.

 I'm in this photo, way in the middle back... for a bit of the scale. the amount in this picture is about a fifth of what needs to be picked up and moved around, and then chopped up. I'm tired just looking at the photos.

Huge Mess!

(looks like blogger has changed their formatting. will be interesting to see how this looks on the published side) 

So we got a guy back up her to do more tree work.  This first picture is a little into the project already, but you can see the trees directly to the south of the house... with the sun creeping into the shot on the left (east)

Then check this photo out after he was done for the day.  (I was his helper, to save money.  mostly refueling the saws and organizing rope. not unpleasant work, but a surprisingly hard workout)

Barely looks like anything was taken out, right? well, there's days and days of 'slash' clean up on the ground. A HUGE mess. Just going in there to organize it enough to start to cut the stuff up will take days. I'll take some pictures of the before and after today. 

In the meantime, Melissa worked on all the solstice cookies - Great Grandma McTavish's date-filled-oatmeal cookies. Made on the mountain on the shortest day of the year. 

    

Work on the Gen

Well, I've gotten the diesel generator all up to speed for running on veg oil.  Here's the full view:


You can see the fuel line "T" here with the valve switches (the brass bits):


and an old lemonade/ice tea jar for holding the (cold looking) veg oil:


and the still annoying alternator being worked on to get it to create the proper amount of electricity.


Days can just disappear when trying to get this stuff done. sheesh.

Living the life

December is the time for setting up the firewood for winter. great stuff.

Different kinds of accomplishments

Melissa has finished the first round of cushion making. Here's the love seat by the fire with the micro-suede cover sewn to fit over the hand cut re-used foam cushions with hand made (and stuffed) pillows.

Here's the fuel injection pump from a gas generator that my neighbors gave us -unworking - about 3 years ago. I managed to take the thing apart all the way down to find this little brass bit needed to be adjusted and cleaned. I put it back together and she runs.

The morning view

I finally got my laptop holder together. Foolishly, I wanted to make it extra cool with some special notches (through mortises inside a rabbet groove) which took 5 times as long and ended up looking worse than other options... but it's done now, and holds the laptop above the keyboard.

You can see I also bring my morning tea up to the loft on a little wooden tray. The tray was a gift from Art and Joanne's last trip to Hawai'i.

Apples and Fans and Wind
(this post never got published for some reason... if it shows up out of order, oh well. it was written 12/2/11

The Gravenstiens are in! and yes, they are as tasty as they look:

Built my own ceiling fan. We got a standing oscillating fan from Art and Joanne, and I took the stand off, added more wiring, and hung it from the ceiling. Done.

the big wind storm came through and knocked tons of branches down all over the place. Here's the yurt deck:

and while this doesn't look like much on the roof, it sounded horrible all night long. time to clean the gutters! Again.