Sorry for the lack of posts....

we were in Japan for two weeks, and now we're on our way out of town for Thanksgiving. Here we are in Nagasaki having lunch at a tempura spot.

Neighbor Cat

This cat saw me on the road yesterday and followed me back to the yurt. We've seen him down by our new neighbors' place, but I think he came with the land anyway. i.e. he was there before they bought the place. Of course Melissa pet him, and he stayed around overnight.

If he sticks around, he'd better be good at catching gophers.

Rocks, piled.

Looks like we've got a lock on all the rest of the 'rock' we need for the house... but we're going to have to make a bunch of trips to do it. (anyone want to come and drive back and forth to Felton for us?) Melissa has started making runs, while I do who-knows-what around here. Here's two loads, somewhat organized by size and shape. 10 more to go!

"Green" logs

So, last April or so, I cut a few redwoods down to prep them for use as posts and beams in our house. I had done a batch the winter before (chronicled here) and after peeling the bark off, those looked great. However, the ones I took down in April, I peeled the bark off right away, as I had discovered that it comes off really easy in the first week... like peeling a banana.

Well, over the summer, when they should have been drying out, they developed a weird green mold. It's not the end of the world, but it means that each one is going to have to be sanded/scraped/washed to get it off.


I just added another log yesterday, one that Surfer Mike cut down amost 2 years ago. I peeled the bark off and put it with these others... it's the third from right in this picture. (the other white-ish ones are logs I just turned over) Now I can really see how green these others are:

Veggie Power Tower In Action!



People were asking what the heck the whole veggie power tower was about, so here's the first photo. I pour the used veg oil from the 'cubies' (the square jugs) that I get from the restaurants, into the filters in the top barrel. Then it drains into the second barrel, for more settling. Then, when I need fuel, I can now drive right up to the tower and use gravity to fill the tank.

Party Ridge, Skview Lane.

About a 10 minute walk from our place, the neighbor guys have set up a couch on 'party ridge', where they often go to watch the sunset. Nice view, huh?

Dan and Wiley come to visit!

my good buddy Dan from nursery school ---yes, that's 35 years I've known this guy--- (he's so old) and his dog Wiley are doing a west coast tour. We got a bunch of stuff done while he was here. One would have to say he set a record for helping with projects. It helps that he was here for 4 or 5 days... we got to have a bunch of fun, but had time to work too.

We fired up the earthen oven and of course baked some pizzas:

we built the "Veggie Power Tower" to hold my filtration system up above the truck tank....

here's the victory dance when we finished:

and we did find time to practice our throwing knife skills.

Evidence of work:

So, while often there isn't much to show for the work we do around here, since a few more inches on the wall or more oil filtered doesn't exactly make for exciting photos, here's some solid evidence that we are actually working.

Below is a shot of all the leather gloves I could find around the place that I've basically had to stop using because I wore them out. I think I've purchased 9 pair, but I'm not sure. I decided to spend the big money and am now going to see how long a pair of $30 gloves last.










You may recall this photo from July. That's a shot of 22 or so tons of gravel just delivered.




well, guess what? it's gone! well, it's put in the house foundation. what's amazing is that we're going to need another load.

Oh Deer.

For the second time, the deer have stomped my light fencing and chomped the heck out of the strawberries. You can see from this picture that I had stakes in the ground with deer fencing stretched across them (also keeps birds out, but not slugs) but the deer just went crazy and chewed on the fencing, stomped everything, and kicked stuff over. these were full grown strawberry plants.










here's a close up of what's left of one:

Each bit of wall

Every time we go down off the mountain, we plan our trips so that we get groceries, mail, and do whatever errands we need. Every time, that includes a load of broken concrete to go into the wall... unless it's bags of mortar, which are too heavy to include with a load of 'urbanite'.

here you can see what one smallish load looks like before I toss it onto the ground to be sorted and stacked onto the wall. Yep, these rocks get touched a minimum of three times. One to get them into the truck, one to get them out, and one to get them onto the wall. Each load is about 1000 to 1500 pounds.


You can also see used veggie oil containers that I picked up, ready to get filtered for fuel.

The wall continues...

I'm getting flack because I haven't posted in a week. well, besides being under-the-weather (not that stops much around here) there really isn't much to show. This wall building stuff is darn slow work. I took some pictures though. Here you can see the outside (what will eventually be waterproofed and buried) of the north wall. There's still a ways to go.










I took a minute in photoshop and drew in the area that the north wall (here seen from 'the front door') still has to cover. it's just chunks of old concrete and mortar mix until that pink section is filled in.







Here you can see a happy spot. This is the lower north wall, about where the bathroom sink will be, and the stone wall has come up as far as it needs to. We put in the tooth rocks to help connect the stone wall to the future 'cob', that is, adobe-like, wall. Seeing the 'teeth' means that wall is high enough.