Holes in Things

So, someone keeps biting holes in my veg oil containers.  the dog? raccoons? 

It's not like it's just sitting around. I have it up on a tower...

And then I discovered that this PVC pipe just unglued itself.   I suspect that there was some amount of tension on the pipe further down the hill, and for whatever reason, it just came undone.   The sad part is that it means we lost 5000 gallons of stored rainwater when it failed. Bummer.  It will probably not rain another 4 inches yet this year to replace that.   

I've easily let another 10,000 gallons go off into the woods because these tanks were full early in the season.  It'd have been nice if this pipe had failed earlier in the rainy season, if it was going to fail. 

Cooked and Frozen

Miner's Lettuce, formerly two baskets full, scalded and vacuum-sealed.  

Spinach replacement for next fall.

Volunteers

The local lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata, miner's lettuce, 

seems to really like our terraced garden with raised beds and containers. 

This year's Greenhouse

all the regular stuff getting going: tomatoes, peppers, squashes, pumpkins... 

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.