little plaster chips and holes

Turns out having a kid is hard on a house.   I'm trying to figure out how to best repair all sorts of little dings and holes and chips in my natural lime plaster and limewashed walls. 

And by repair, I mean make it look like they didn't happen. I have attempted repairs in the past, and have never really been satisfied.  

bathroom window and finger:

other bathroom window sill and finger:

bathroom windowsill horizontal:

spot by bathroom door that gets hit by a small stool used to bring teeth high enough to brush: 

Drying Persimmons

We've now made bug screen tubes for the persimmons, and I suddenly came up with the idea to put hooks on the rafters on the front of the house.  It's funny how ideas seem to come out of nowhere, and seem so obvious once you have them.

War of the Rodents

So, here's some of the weird damage some sort of rodent is doing in our garden.  These are tomatoes that have been eaten while still on the vine, leaving just the skin still attached. 

Weird, right?  Here you can see one that's not quite ripe yet, so it hasn't been a victim, like the one behind it: 

what else is weird is these aren't down by the ground, they're about 5 or 6 feet up.  

This motivates me to continue my assault on all things rodent. I'm happy to report that I got my 4th mole today, which is in addition to my twenty one (21!) gophers in 2016.   Here's a product endorsement: http://cinchtraps.com/

charged up about the new system

The solar trailer is no more!  Finally, the batteries, that we've had for 10 solid years, had had enough. So I got around to building a new way to hold all that extra power generation stuff.  A little box behind the house:

it was a nice little puzzle to work out how to get the inverter, charge controller, fuses and connections into a tight spot without causing other problems (like overheating):

Just 4 6 volts all in one series to make a 24 volt system that works with the old inverter.  Powering the chest freezer now!

Chimney holes

Deciding to just avoid all possible hot chimney pipe exposure to the walls, I've added a cement board outer wall:

There's still a gap, so I put cement board all the way around as well:

and then added a little extra aluminium at the top for heat buffering. Can't hurt, right?

Rescued umbrella

Home grown umbrella pole attached to canvas umbrella rescued from the trash.  Creates great shade!

hole on purpose

One more step towards fighting off the encroachment of nature on our stuff - removing mouse nest opportunities in the truck.    I finally decided to make the move and cut a hole in the plastic under the glove compartment.  Found a lot of leaves and mouse nest activity:

Cleaned that all out, made a wooden cover for the hole:

Sooner or later, the whole thing is going to be wood.

Sauna updates - ceiling and heat shield

more updates on the sauna, which started with this post

The ceiling started going in, with a vapor barrier above it (which is really just a bit of a drip stopper plan).  Those are cedar fence boards from the lumber yard. 

As the roof was getting done, I started prepping for the cement board and heat shield installation, and thought I'd throw a little more heat shielding onto the studs: 

Here's the cement board - my 'non-flammable material', layer 1: 

Ceiling got done. Later got a piece of trim at the ridge line. 

A round wood post went in to hold up the center of the 'high bench' so it can take a lot of weight: 

And after the corrugated metal went in (non-flammable material, layer 2) I set down an old piece of granite counter top and got the little stove in.  

Now to go get the chimney parts, and figure out how I'm going to cut a chimney hole. 

big things from the outdoors

Zuccs that got away:

Great Horned Beetle that won't go away:

One tree, saved for a rainy day: 

project picking up a little trash

So this little item was down in a gully quite a ways off the road.   It had been used as a shooting range target for a number of years.  

Here's a view of the uphill path it eventually took.  It's maybe 50 yards at about a 45 degree angle.

Surprisingly, with a bit of cable and some chains, it came out of the woods pretty easily.  Now to bag up the trash inside it and get it all hauled off the mountain.

Setting up to bake

The solar oven got wings the other day, to increase reflective heat gathering.  There's also a stick with nails in it to help position them. 

Dragged this cedar shed over from the neighbor's who wasn't using it.  

and took a day or so to get it into place. I had built a simple sled underneath it, to hold it together and slide it on the ground.

And got it settled.  Now to clean it up, add benches and wood stove, and have a sauna!

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