Mouse problems. killed the fan

So, I have a fan to blow the hot air away from the back of the fridge (it's complicated)

and I noticed the fridge seemed to be not as cold as it should be... I go and check the fan, and find that a mouse has gotten himself caught in the fan, stopping it, and it seems, burning out the motor of this $110 fan. Great.  rodents. 

Strawberry problems

Great. now there's this.   Some sort of disease that messes with the genetics?? oy. 

These are the first strawberries out of my 'store bought' section.  Searching around, it seems it's something called phyllody or at least it's connected to that. I'm going to have to go out and destroy those plants, and hope it doesn't get into the others, or worse, get into the wild strawberries up here.  Apparently bacteria transmitted by bugs crawling around.  if it's not one thing it's another. 

Apple Tree Problems

In an attempt to get feedback and be able to show people my tree, I wanted to post these photos of my 4-kinds-of-apple-grafted tree that has been doing well, but seems sick to me this spring.  It seems like it might be a nutrient problem, but I don't know. 

The tree has been in place for maybe 7 or 8 years, and in good years, even as its a small tree, we've gotten 20 some apples off it at harvest.   

This is most of the tree, taken first week of May.  It had good blossoms on it, which come out first, but now it seems like there's no leaving, or very little. 

Close up of blossoms and leaves - the leaves seem healthy... 

 Here's another apple the same age (years in the ground) about 15 yards away from the sick one. much more green going on. 

I was worried it might be crown rot, as I did have one apple die of that, but checking out the crown, it seems just fine, and here's a picture of the apricot just 8 feet away... so I don't think it's bad draining soil.

it just seems sick and pathetic.  I have given it the same sort of soil amendments I always have, which I believe are nitrogen heavy and maybe somewhat acidic, but good organic material. 

Paths and Patios

When Bridget was here, she enlisted her kids to help spread out redwood duff on our muddy path; works so well I had to take a picture in the fog!

The next step of the patio was to spread out all the flagstones and figure out how much we had.

Yes, that does mean I lift and move them multiple times.

bought this teapot at good will a while back. it's horrible. it's super heavy, so black inside you can't tell when it's full so you spill when filling it, and then pouring it out, the lid falls off into your cup.  After eons of tea drinking, one would think it would be hard to make a bad teapot.

The dog at the ocean. I just found a bunch of photos that I hadn't realized weren't uploaded. 

Water and Pests

Took this picture of the neighbor's pond, as full as its going to be this year... bummer.  Next summer, I'm thinking I'll get a couple trucks of sand and make a beach.

I bought a new gopher trap (cinch trap) for $20.  Not really sure it was worth it.  on the left, it's set, on the right, it has failed and the gopher has buried the trigger and everything and not set it off.  I have now gotten 2 with this thing, out of maybe 15 settings -in about 3 weeks of owning it.  hm. I have also shot one in the head with a pellet gun, which given the amount of time I'm actually 'hunting' make me much more effective than the trap.  we'll see.  

I set the camera phone down on the tabletop that has a bug living in it.  I'm working on drilling holes in the side so I can add poison, but how annoying.  Turn your volume up and lean in to hear the little guy.

Poison in the Spring

the poison oak is looking so fresh and lovely as it reaches out to try and brush you.

Things in various levels of completion

It's not been too exciting around here lately, but some of the projects have moved a bit to a point where a photo might be interesting.  A new batch of flagstones - and a new move to flagstone rather than urbanite(concrete) has got this 2-pick-up-truck-load pile sitting and waiting to be put down:

We're back in the chicken game, with me having caught the one 'wild' chicken who was living in the woods and another generous gift from our neighbors of 2 more chickens had me building a new, stronger coop.  The plastic is to help keep off the rain, and not a permanent feature. It's built, by the way, entirely from one pallet that our extra solar panel came on: 

Other excitement has been around the fact that it finally started raining, and I am now close to having 15,000 gallons of rain water stored.  Here's the inside of the top 2 5k ones... they're hooked together (see below) and almost to the top.

I just created a siphon from one to the other, and it has kept up the balance between the one that gets fed from the roof and the separate one. I will plumb them together later.  

Then I discovered mice are trying to move in to the solar circuit box. Great. 

Worse than mice in the electronics, I discovered a leak in the roof.  We had water coming in *next* to a skylight.  Luckily, the roof warranty still had 6 weeks left of it's 5 year contract (!) and I got the roofers back up here. This is his knife, as he was checking the seal you can see below the knife. They just took 10 minutes to make a change.  It better hold. 

Taking Shape, fermenting

The first car port bent is coming together! finally, we're starting to see some progress on this project.  I started checking the notches and fitting together the pieces in place. 

This is the north side - the shorter side - which is closest to the tank so the gutter will run into the water tank.  Now to start lifting it up! 

In the meantime, I'm continuing my sourdough adventure.  I accidentally bought white flour the last time, so we're transitioning the goop/starter from whole wheat.  Seems to work fine, but I'm going to have a whole bunch of extra this weekend.  

Putting things in Place

Gave myself a holiday present this week - I sewed my shoes back together.  They have leather uppers and the seams had come undone (not the first time for one of them) and so I finally got to sit down and sew them up. Once again, love the dental floss solution!

And, the tank got moved!  It's hard to show the proper perspective of where a 10 foot wide 8 foot tall thing is sitting on a hillside... 

 But here it is moments before the last move, where it will sit on that "pad" I dug out a while back.   The whole last 2 days of moving actually went very well.  Of course, going downhill is the way to go. 

Another product improvement thought

So, we have a Dirt Devil upright 'cyclonic breeze' I think it's called.  The link to it is here.   It's actually a really nice little machine. It's powerful, light, and has a lot of little features.  The best is how it comes apart so easily to clean, with the canister thing and easy access to the filter -a  key part to keep clean in any vacuum device.  What I find is I need to take off the rotating brushes regularly (which could be easier,btw) and cut off the long hairs that have wrapped around it.  What the builders of this thing should have done is make a shallow, thin groove along the length of the drum, so that one could easily slip a knife under the wrapped hair and cut them all with one quick swipe. 

cool winter days

I love it when the cold box in the kitchen wall becomes another refrigerator for us, filled with autumn goodies