Spring is starting

Miner's Lettuce and Asparagus starting to come in strong in the raised beds. 

re-gluing table leg

Argh.  I like projects, but I'd like to not have to fix things until I have the rest of my stuff built.  Still, fixing this made me feel like I was following in my Grandpa's footsteps. 

the compost heater project

Well, I'd dug the hole a while ago, thinking I was going to build a firebox down there for an outdoor boiler system, but then the compost bug hit me again, and I decided to take a detour into this experiment. Here's a blurry photo of the hole, with some redwood branches criss-crossed on the bottom and old chicken wire over that, for bottom aeration.  

Again, the hole, now with a half a truckload of woodchips in it, and a very ornery twisting of 1inch diameter black poly water pipe that I found on my new property.  Believe me, organizing that into a coil was much more work than you imagine it.  

Then came the 3 truckloads of woodchips from the next property over, layered with two truckloads of horse manure from down by town, all capped with about 4 wheelbarrows of leaves/forest floor duff that I had gathered as fire prevention last autumn.  And each layer got gooey veg oil filter leavings as well as a bit of green leaves.   Ready to start cooking!

Then, we left for a bit, and so didn't start the experiment.  Getting back, I opened the water valves to have the water start flowing through.... and, I could hear a leak.   yay.  So, I had to dig out a bunch of that moist, smelly compost to find the leak, repair it and put it all back together.  I needed the exercise anyway!  It's all back together again, so we'll see how she does! 

Hot Tub Apple Time

Finally got around to oiling the hot tub - teak oil to the rescue!  I should do it every year.

And, in other news, we picked some apples at the neighbor's.  and a bag of persimmons. who's the boss?!?!

Telescope Storage Box

For some reason, I needed to build a carrying case for my friend's telescope, that he's storing at my house.  Turned out alright. 

and, while I was working, I broke the tripod plastic, and had to  make new oak ones. not bad, if I do say so myself.  

Roof is on the oven!

I think it looks pretty good!

The Front Cob Bench

The spot right at the front of the house, between the doors has finally gotten a cob bench.  It took a while, and has a lot of mass.  First, I put in a foundation row of urbanite, and mortared it together.  

Then filled that area in with 1 inch drain rock. 

Then we got busy cobbing. I put at least 2 truckloads of crappy, uneven urbanite in there, as it isn't a structural piece, and that saved us cob.

The cob went all the way up to the window sill. 

Then, I did a finish plaster with fine, sifted sand and local clay.  We had the blue tiles left over from the kitchen job, and they match nicely.  Looks like I'm wearing camouflage! 

Then the bench got a good soaking of linseed oil: 

and then got a first, big coating of wax.  I hope to do another one or two, but it's a bit stinky, and we have some guests coming, so I'll wait until next week.   Then, Melissa has plans to make some outdoor cushions. 

More Water on a Hot Day

Got that third water tank plumbed in to the main house line the other day. I was smart enough to put a shut off in front of the addition, so now I can isolate each of the tanks, or any two of them.  I also put in a wash out, there between the blue shut off and the red, so that when it's time to get the gunk out, I can just open that up and rinse it out. I could also hook in a hose or fire truck filler line if I wanted to drain all 3 super fast. 

and, just a reminder about how it gets warm, in the shade, some days.

Easter?

Finally followed the black chicken on her morning ramble, sure enough, she's been laying eggs off in the woods.  Here's me, at the nest.

Here's the batch of eggs that had been laid out at the base of that tree. 

new bit for solar oven

Finally upgraded the solar oven so that the lid stays open at the angle one wants. the two lower sticks are movable, with more holes in the main shaft. the top stick isn't movable.  Happy with it.

Timber Frame of Oven Roof is Up!

Here's various photos of work in progress of the making of the timber frame for the earth oven roof.  I only had to cut two small trees down for this. (the girts - the horizontal connectors) I had the other pieces left over from other projects.  

I took this one when I was thinking about how it takes about an hour to do each mortise (hole) and then realized that this work is the sort of stuff I've really set my life up to do, so I'd better not complain.  It is cool to work with hand tools. 

Made a batch of pegs from hazel. I use linseed oil to grease them, which then also preserves them and hardens up 

The finished frame!

Did I ever post a photo of the new plaster job? I'm happy with that too.  

Nice detail of knee brace.