New Bread recipe

I can't believe it, but I saw a recipe in a magazine (Mother Earth News) and thought I'd try it... and it was great! Really nice bread, good crust, nice 'crump' (inside), and really easy. Guess I'm doing that again.

Visitors to the Mountain!

Leora and Eric and Snoop and Ollie came up for a day trip... drove their VW toreg (sp?) all the way up, and it barely rained while they were here. We did have fun sitting in the yurt picking burrs off the dogs.

Not much productivity....

Because I'm sick (still have a cold from Japan, going on two weeks now) I don't really have the energy to do too much... so I'm doing little projects, and goofing off.

Painted the first coat on an old rocking chair that will eventually sit out on the patio



set up the 'cold air intake' for our living room. This is pretty cool. We intend to have a wood burning stove in our living room, and while I doubt our house will get to the 'air tight' stage, I've read about having a place where outside, cool air can be used to stoke the fire, instead of already warmed air from the room going into the fire and up the chimney. This tube goes through the foundation to the outside, then will go through the gravel under the floor and pop out right below the door of the fireplace. I'll work on some cool looking way to have it come out of the floor... in other words, it won't be a plastic pipe sticking out of the floor.






Fixed the hose by putting a new end on it. that'd been bugging me for a couple months. Notice I needed two clamps. cheap stuff.






And, even when I'm not working, the compost pile is working away. I'm really happy with my 'speed composting' bin, where I've been working the kitchen scraps, horse manure, and leaves from around here. All this will go right into the garden, and I'll be making another batch or two before next spring.

Holiday Decorations?


before we went off for Thanksgiving, we peeled and hung 82 persimmons from Melissa's folk's tree. They should be great candy by Valentines Day. In the meantime, they're our winter decorations.

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.