He's My Big Cat Daddy

Sunday, Ed and I took the dog for her usual walk..down the tractor road, through the pasture, and back up by the barn. As we walked by the creek, right by where the garden had been, Ed noticed some animal prints in the sand. Really big animal prints. From a really big animal.

In a state of I-can't-believe-it, I made a plaster cast of the prints. The internet says most mountain lions have prints that are 3-31/2" wide. These are almost 5". He must be finding lots to eat because he's a big boy.

Mittens couldn't believe it either. It was like a cat Holy Grail! We all decided to go walking on the buddy system, and never at night!

Monday, Ed got up on the roof, filled the lines with water, bled out the air, and pressurized the lines. Perfect....until...we heard a horrible whoosh. Luckily it was only the temporary plug at the end of the lines that blew. All the important stuff was tight and leak free.

Can It!

This winter has been a doozy. We've had to step back and assess winter weather damage, and move the garden away from the creek. Ed had a nasty and lingering head cold, and was finishing plumbing in bitter temperatures. Spring will be a welcome sight this year!

We now have the garden completely moved up near the house and have the fence installed. We cut a chicken-door through the fence from the original hen yard. The girls have discovered how to go through with no problem and are busy destroying the grass in the new area. I did have to enclose the blueberry bushes so they wouldn't dig around those, since they have very shallow roots. I figure they'll have it all gone in about 8 weeks, just in time to re-enclose my little feathered rototillers in their summer pen and plant spring vegetables in the new garden. They can stay in the summer condo until the growing season is over, then tour the garden in the winter and clean up for the next spring.

In spite of being pulled off for this project and that chore, Ed has finally finished the water supply lines! He pressure tested it on Tuesday without a hitch. Unfortunately the sleet we had on Tuesday prevented him from getting up on the roof to fill ...whatever it is he fills... with water for the final test.

He spent the rest of Tuesday installing can lights in the ceiling. Here's a little building hint for non-builders like myself. I was the one going to the store to buy can lights. They had some in kits, but not enough kits to do all our lights, so for the rest of them, I just bought all the various components, making sure they all matched. Ed installed the component lights first. Parts were missing, bent..whatever. The ones in the kits, which is what he did this weekend, were much easier. They were all the same, all the stuff was there. So my rule for building the house will be..... buy the kits, the price works out to the same, and if they don't have enough kits, order them and wait. It's worth it in irritation factor. Who knew?

Once he gets the water test done and the rest of the electrical in, we can call for an inspection and start..drumroll please... insulation and sheetrock!

You Can't Fool Mother Nature

Mother Nature is a demanding mom, and has a way of hijacking the plane of intentions. Take a look at the picture at the last posting that shows the corner of the garden fence and the edge of the creek. It shows about 3' between the post and the edge. Well, that's down to about 18" now. We decided that it would be better to relocate the entire garden up near the house rather than lose fence posts, wire fencing and the blueberry plants to the creek. So instead of building this week, Ed spent all three days on the tractor pulling posts, rolling wire and digging up trees with the backhoe. The good news.... the weather was spectacularly beautiful all week.

He dug up two apple trees, two cherry trees, a guava bush, a mimosa tree and twelve blueberry bushes, brought them all up here to the house, redug holes I had marked out on the ground, and replanted all the plants. As far as I can tell, there were no casualties. Alot of dirt fell off one of the apple trees, but I'm hoping it was dormant enough to not notice. Bare root, right? Time will tell.

In the pasture garden, the posts were set four feet into the ground, and strung with eight foot wire to keep the elk out. So far...we haven't had elk in the front yard..only deer, so we won't have to put the monster fence up. We also filled every fence post hole with sand down in the pasture so no elk would step in one, sink up to their chest and snap a leg..that would just be too ugly to even think about.

Ed went back to work this morning (to rest up) and I spent most of the day shaking dirt out of sod strips (chickens love that grass), and moving benches in place. It's amazing what you can move around with leverage and a hand truck. That cedar bench and log ends weigh a ton!

I still have to break up sod for the strawberry patch and the raspberries.You can see those marked out in white. It'll probably take me another week..maybe two.. to get those in, depending on you-know-who...Mother Nature.

Alllll Aboard the Pineapple Express!

If it's not one thing, it's another. Remember that 27" of snow for Christmas? It managed to work it's way down to about 12", but was stubbornly lingering about. We were expecting things to warm up a bit and for some rain to come through starting this week. Tuesday night as Ed was getting ready for his early flight back to work Wednesday morning, the phone rings.. a recorded message:

"This is the Wahkiakum County Sheriffs Office with an emergency weather alert. Heavy rain accompanied by a high tide will create a flooding event beginning early Wednesday morning, continuing through Friday..." ...and on it went.

Our house sits up on a hill and is safe from rising water, but the creek at the base of our pasture can be a bit..um..active. Our elk-fenced garden is down there and the field is annually shrinking. I'll post some photos in a minute, but first a word from our sponsor.

Remember the building project? Well it's still going, just a little slower. Travel interruptions, holidays and plain cold weather have taken their toll. In spite of those things, Ed keeps plugging away every day he's home.

Plumbing is still the project. He's putting in pipe for the water heater and washing machine. Wahoo! Modern conveniences. I really hate taking laundry down to the creek..it's so hard to find just the right rock!

Obviously, the waste pipe is all black, but see that white tube stuff? Well that's the water supply pipe. Pipe isn't pipe anymore, it's super duper flexible plastic tubing. Who knew? We went through 100' of it like it was nothing.

Ed hands me this piece of tubing and a brass T thingie on the end, and he says "Next time you're in town, I need 100' more of the tubing and one of these Ts, 3/4"x3/4"."

"OK!" I nod like I know what I'm doing, and put the thing in my purse. I have a flash thought of when you're at the airport and the TSA guy asks you if any strangers gave you a package to transport. But I do, in fact know which place is the plumbing supply place, and I have all the pieces to wave at them, so I'm good to go....if I could go.

Which brings us back to the Pineapple Express. If the jet stream is going to bring in a storm from Hawai'i , the least it could do is smell like plumeria. Ed got up Wednesday morning at 0245 to drive to the airport and he says, "That storm's not too bad. There is still snow everywhere." I'm thinking, "Man, we dodged a bullet there!" Silly woman. By the time I got up at 0730, the foot deep remaining snow that covered every surface not scraped by machines was GONE. Melted. The creek was running like an elephant on steroids and it was full to the top. But wait, there's more! The real rain wasn't due until Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning, with high tide at 10:00 am (this morning). I woke up this morning expecting serious disaster. It was bad enough, but it's livable. The creek here in the first picture has about a 12' high bank. I haven't gotten in the car yet to see how the neighbors lower down fared, or where the road is blocked.

When we put the garden fence up, the corner was about 40' from the edge of the creek..maybe more. We've been here three years, and we've had the 50 year flood, the 100 year flood, and now the 1000 year flood. That elk fencing was expensive and a lot of hard work. I'll guess we wind up moving, or at least adjusting the garden. I don't think the blueberry bushes are going to be very happy. Raspberries are much more laid back.

Ed, the barn picture is for you, since you're back at work. Sorry it's blurry. The barn is safe and secure. This was at 0730, and the water was starting to recede.

All told, we got about 8" of rain in 24 hours, plus melted a foot of snow. That'll keep things a little damp.

So tomorrow, assuming the road is clear, I'll drive into town to get some of that white water supply line stuff, and a couple of those brass T thingies.

Gimme Shelter

Enough with the snow already!
Remember that parody about the 12 days of Christmas? Well that's how I am feeling about the snow. Thank God I don't live someplace like Minnesota.
The first 6" of snow was a treat.. very beautiful, and a welcome sight.
The next 3" made me a little concerned about an elderly neighbor, so I went to check on her and used the only clear day (December 19th) to do another grocery run before the real storm hit.
At 18" I thought my 4x4 Jeep would just go out the garage and through the snow. Wrong. A neighbor came down, beat the snow down along the driveway a bit and backed my jeep into the garage so I would only have to go forward, as that is easier than going backward.
My 4x4 John Deere Gator also doesn't clear 18" of snow, and once I got it stuck, it took two hours to dig it free so I could back it the 5' I made forward , back into the barn.
Saturday afternoon Ed was supposed to fly home as per usual. Both Alaska Air and Southwest Air apparently felt that Portland Airport was a no-go , and cancelled all their flights, leaving thousands of holiday travellers stranded. After Ed waited all day at the airport, hoping for a make-up flight, Sunday was also a no-go.
Monday morning, with 4" more, I thought I'd better keep that driveway clear, so I tried to drive the jeep back and forth, like my neighbor did, to clear it. I don't back up well under normal circumstances, and I failed to factor that into the equation. After re-evaluating the situation, I thought I'd just park the jeep out near the road instead.Trees were breaking and falling everywhere, and it sounded like cannonfire. After watching several tree limbs drop like soldiers at Gettysburg, I reconsidered, and backed up (!) far enough to clear most of the trees, and left the rest to luck.
Ten more inches of snow for Christmas.
By Christmas day, I'd gone past the point of reasonableness, and called Ed in tears, which is not my norm. He managed to get some emergency time off, and thank goodness, the airlines were finally flying again.
Friday morning Ed flew home with my daughter and granddaughter. Thank goodness, because I wouldn't have been able to get out of the driveway. It started to rain Friday night.
Now, four days later, the snow is down by about half, the driveway is marginally passable, and it's supposed to rain quite a bit in the next week. I can hardly wait.
Ed spent his entire days off using the tractor to clear snow out of the driveway. He goes back to work tomorrow morning...if I let him leave. We learned several things:
1. 4x4 isn't the end all and be all of traction.
2. We need different tires on the truck and the jeep.
3. I need to learn to drive the tractor, even if it's scary.
4. I'm not as independent as I thought I was.
5. Snow is really pretty on postcards, or from inside the ski lodge.
It goes without saying that Ed didn't get as much done as he would have liked on the building project. He is still working on rough plumbing.

There's Snow Business

Ed has been working on the plumbing for the last two weeks. I've decided that being a plumber is an underappreciated job, and for several reasons.

1. We all need it, but nobody wants to admit it.

2. It's really boring work.

3. It doesn't photograph well.

Ed was getting pretty frustrated because the waste lines had to go into the ceiling of the garage area (or under the floor of the apartment, depending on perspective). Cue in Paul Simon's "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor". Well it's not like the garage is empty. There are piles of lumber, tools, tool buckets, firewood, loose coils of extension cords, not to mention a freezer and a 71 Boss 302 Mustang silently waiting to be restored. Try setting a ladder over that! A stack of can lights, the bedroom ceiling fan, a wall heater..on and on. Now drop the temperature to about 30 F just to add icing (sorry couldn't stop myself) to the irritation cake. Finally, he had to stop. We cleared out some stuff, and things went much more smoothly.

Finally he was to the point that he had to know where the drain line for the bathtub was going to go, so off to town for a tub. We were pretty sure we wanted a porcelain over cast iron tub, but we thought we'd look at all of them. The fiberglass is much less expensive. The deciding factor was weight. Can Big Ed haul a six gazillion pound cast iron tub up 15' in the air and through a window by himself using only a rope? The answer? Well of course he can! I'm a believer. But why should he? We got the fiberglass tub.

He finished up the rough plumbing for the kitchen and bath sinks, bath/shower, toilet and washing machine. It's all hooked up to the septic lines, and that's a very good thing.

This last weekend, we had snow. Don't you roll your eyes at me in that tone of voice! It's as much snow as two people raised in the desert ever need to see. It was darned cold..(stop that!) and we found out that the plastic water supply pipe doesn't flex well when cold, so we brought it into the house to warm up. Not exactly a decorator item for the living room, but whatever..Did I mention the door to the pumphouse blew open and we had forgotten to turn the heater on for the winter? We caught the pipes just in time.

Tuesday morning we got up and it was 16 F. That's about as cold as it ever needs to get. We were expecting more snow during the week, so Ed finished up the door, and installed it. He also put a sheet of plywood over the front window opening to keep most of the snow out. Once we get the plumbing and wiring done and inspected, we can get sheetrock delivered and put that window in.

We've had about 7" of snow in two days, which for us is a lot. 7" of rain here is no big deal, but snow...well that's another ball game ..a snowball game.

I've taken this same shot off the balcony during the summer, fall, and early winter. So I took one of the snow in the pasture. In the spring, I'll take the last of the series and call it art!

OK..ok, just two more cause I'm goofy about the snow..

That's it. Thanks for not laughing out loud.

A Wasted Day

Sunday Ed worked all day installing the kitchen waste line, only to finish with that little nagging feeling....better check the book. Sure enough, he made a mistake. He'll have to cut some of it out and re-do it.

We still haven't had any serious rain, so Monday morning Ed finished the house wrap on the second floor. He taped the wrap around the windows and down the seams, and by afternoon the rain had begun.. not the 3"-per-day-wash-away-the-neighbors rain, but wet enough.

The whole time he's working..up the ladder, down the ladder, hammer tacks in for the wrap, pieces of wrap flapping in the wind, using the skilsaw, whatever, he has company. Momma and the twins are chomping on the grass between the chicken coop and the garage. We make a point to not friendly up the deer because they need to be wary of people. As close to coddling them as we get is to teach the dog not to chase them. She started grooming one of the twins up one side and down the other, always aware but unconcerned with the entire construction process.

By Tuesday morning we'd had an inch of rain. We drove into town to get more ABS fittings and other supplies. He re-did the kitchen waste plumbing, and installed the vent pipe as well.

Meanwhile I've been turned loose with a paintbrush, always a risky endeavor. I painted the door frame to match the exterior trim, and stained the other side of the front door. A couple coats of spar varnish, and it should be good to go!