The Perfect Shot

You know how in the cartoons, when the bad guy shoots first in the archery contest, and then the hero shoots and hits the first shot perfectly in the arrow?  you know how that never happens?

 yeah, only to my really expensive arrows.

Plaster on the clearstory

 Melissa has been tackling the plastering, and now she's on the clearstory, the little wall between the two roofs. You can see the lathe that has been in place for a while now, ready to be plastered. Not the 'great stuff' insulation around the edges.

Here's the work in progress:

 and here you can see her working away, with the nice (eastern) corner slightly in view:

Brian visits!

Brian came to visit and wanted to get some fresh air and exercise.  I decided we needed to pull a big treetop  (from the recent tree work) out of the woods and get it up on the mill.  This thing is still green, 22 feet long, and *really* heavy.  The guess is around 2000 pounds.   Using the truck to pull it uphill and onto the driveway, we then had to get it on rollers and slides to get it onto the mill

 Which we did without hardly any difficulty.  The thing is huge, and even longer than my mill can handle. (I'll end up cutting off the small end to make it fit)

 Of course, there was much discussion and celebration throughout his visit.

 In the meantime, Melissa added some lovely country cottage touch to our kitchen by gathering a batch of fresh herbs to dry on our kitchen beam.  I love that!

New home made laundry basket

 Well, we finally got our laundry situation *ironed out*.  I made a small redwood frame after a design Melissa saw on some home supply website:

 and she sewed together a lovely canvas bag to fit inside of it... (out of an old duvet cover from my parents' stuff) with handles and ties

and it fits perfectly under the counter in the bathroom, next to the sink. 

Next up: moving the clothes washing machine to the new laundry deck and hooking it up!

New Deck

Remember this tree that got pulled out of the woods?

 Well, it's a back deck now.  This is the deck I set up for our laundry area.  You can see the water pipe and the electric outlet already in place.   The drainpipe you can see in the bottom right corner has a vertical piece ready to take in the gray water coming from the machine.

 Here you can see the deck at a bit of a distance; it's on the northwest corner of the house.

Rain and Flowers

While it's cold and rainy outside, we've been keeping the fire going inside.  That means it's a good spot to keep the yogurt bacteria warm while they're making yogurt.

Did I mention we made a hoopa for our plum tree? no, she's not getting married, just as protection against the February and March rains.  This tree seems to flower so early that the rough weather generally beats the petals off before they can turn to fruit buds. So, with 4 posts and a bit of green-house plastic, we gave the tree a little house.







Which really seems to be working. The blossoms on the tree look great.