Earthquake Prep

Since we our pantry is just a bookcase with jars in it, I decided I could make little walls for the shelves, so that if an earthquake shakes things up, the walls would hold the jars on the shelves. So that's done. I think they look pretty good.

The Supply of Urbanite

Here you can see where I gather the concrete chunks for the foundation. We used to pick carefully through here and find the good sized flat ones, but now we're just looking for fill for under the floor... so it's easier. I bet I've done a dozen loads from this spot. It's a horse ranch between our place and town, so it's an easy stop before coming home.

Doesn't seem like a big deal, but...

This little faucet that I finally got hooked into my veg oil barrel will make a big difference. I had a plastic on on there before, and had always had trouble keeping the hose connected. Turns out oil is a little slippery. huh.

Anyway, it doesn't really deserve a picture here, but there's actually always stuff like this I'm doing around the place; a bit of improvement every day.

Hardwood Cutting board

My buddy Mike said that he really only uses a cutting board for limes for beers... and doesn't like to haul out his big one just for that. So a while back when I was out in the woods collecting firewood, I sliced a chunk off this big old, dead, downed, madrone log. Some tablesawing, some routering, a bunch of sanding, and a little oil; a drinkers cutting board. (It's about 5" x 3") I will report back as to how well it holds up.

Melissa starts Gardening

Time to get the potatoes in! I had dug these first two tiers of the upper garden, and intend to do about two more, but since we've got the seed potatoes, and it's time, Melissa went to work. I'll have to get the deer fence up around this area in about two or three weeks.



Melissa also decided she'd try a batch of seeds; all sorts of stuff, from peppers to echinachea (sp?) flowers. We actually had to keep the seeds in a container of moss in the fridge for a month beforehand. We'll see how that works out. Here she's sitting on the edge of the 'cold box', which I set up last spring to have a little head-start green-house type thing. This year it has gopher fence under it.

Making Sawdust.

Well, it's been a couple weeks on this project, and I'm not done yet, but I'd better get some photos up about the millwork I'm doing.

Down below the garden (the lowest, west-est part of our property) there's a pile of old growth redwood tree tops that were possibly left after the logging done around here 100 years ago. This isn't the best picture, but it's hard down in the woods to get good light.

I set up my mill, and my rain tarp, and started making beams for the house timber frame

Here you can see how gigantic these logs are as I'm working on finding the good parts of these old, sometimes rotten logs.

The mill holds a lot of weight. Here I'm cranking up the bed of the mill to find the spot the chainsaw can cut through the log as it glides along the rail

The beams you can see in this picture are about 10" x 10", but they aren't perfect...so I'm not done yet. One thing I can say though, is that I do know how to make sawdust.

Little Generator House.


I spent a day (afternoon of one and morning of the next) building a little generator shed up by our well. It's actually on the other side of the road, on my neighbor's property, and we share the water rights to the well.

I wanted to have a shed up there because my neighbors have 2 gas generators and only use one occassionally... and I have to drag our gas generator up there when I want to fill the water tank. (we fill it about every 6 weeks or so- I only let it get down to 3500 gal).



I figure I can talk the neighbors into putting one of their gens into this shed, which not only protects the generator, but the well head, and the electronics that go along with the well. The above picture is from the road, looking east.





The above is looking west, at the side with the door. Yes, I used pieces of an old car tire as hinges for the door.



Here it is with the top and door open. With the generator sitting on the white part, we should be able to just walk up, start it up, and flip the pump switch... I'm probably going to figure out a way for an extended exhaust pipe/muffler to go off into the woods, so it can be run fully closed. (it ain't air tight or nothing)

Got the Lister Generator up on the 'stand' Again

Here you can see the 700 lb cast iron diesel generator now sitting on it's platform again, after a long trip, and then time in the trailer and other spots. Notice how I've added 3 9 foot long railroad ties to the base of this platform... and the thing still jumps around a bit.

That's the rain barrel and fuel cans in the background. In the way back you can see a few smaller logs Melissa peeled a couple weeks ago.

Rain, sunshine.... Mushrooms

Chanterelles, actually. With this sporadic rain, then sunshine, it's perfect mushroom weather, so I'm doing checks in all the regular spots. I found two fresh chanterelles and brought them in for dinner.

Fried them up in a little butter and put them on pasta with onions and zuchini. I love finding free food in the woods.

Filling in the foundation

Using all that gravel, we're bringing the subfloor up to level, leaving room for the clay floor and radiant heating system. So as to not waste urbanite and especially so as to not run out of gravel too soon, we're burying the urbanite chunks we didn't use on the wall to take up space.







We're also throwing down the old mortar bags just to keep them out of the trash. Maybe with their little left over powder they'll help preserve the gravel better. whatever.

Yep. More Gravel.

Another 22 tons delivered yesterday. Drainage, we will have.