10/14, Thurs. Uhaul

Steven has been ripping 2" by 4"s into 2" by 2"s and framing in the inside of the uhaul.

You can see the camper stove/oven on the left, which he will be building in after the walls are done. We used to use it in the cabin before we got the full-size propane stove/oven. You can see one of my dish towels still attached to the oven handle!

"Gotcha!"

"Knew you were just an ankle-biter!"

"Dunno what our people are going to sit on. These chairs are ours!"

The moron twins once again keep Steven entertained while he works on the uhaul!

Wednesday? I dunno...

"I call this yoga pose 'meditating on the pounce'!

Does it make my hips look fat?"

"For the last time, petting the kitten is more important than anything you think you need to be doing on the computer!"

I cut the last of the celery today. We got a LOT of celery this year. Homegrown celery is WAY better than grocery-store celery!

Bowl on the bottom left is the leaves off the celery plants, bowl in back is the chopped celery, bowl on bottom right is seed heads, which I'll dry and then put the seeds in an envelope to plant next year.

Celery leaves spread to dry. When they're dry I'll crumble them into a jar, then use them in soups, stews, and casseroles. They can also be "whizzed" in a blender to make a coarse powder, and mixed with salt to make "celery salt"

More rose hips drying.
I look foward to enjoying cups of rose hip tea this winter.

This is a woodpecker on an Aspen tree in our front yard.

Fall is on it's way out. The leaves have all fallen.

I pulled the beets. A friend gave me some Heirloom beet seed this year so I planted a small patch of it, just for fun.

Me, digging potatoes.

And there's the potatoes, spread in the house to cure before I put them in the root cellar.

Tues? Wed.?

I picked all the squash and took it inside, then pulled the vines.

There's a chipmunk watching us work in the garden! That building is our old Turkey house and run. Now it's within the bigger, new garden fence and we use it to store the tiller and other garden stuff.

"Hey, dog! Wanna arm wrestle?"

I dug the rutabagas. Here I'm setting some in the wheel barrel, and in the background by the shovel you can see where I'm digging them.

"Hmmm....doesn't taste like chicken, THAT'S for sure! Blech!"

"Pbbbtttttt!"
The moron twins hang around the uhaul while Steven is working in it.

"Go ahead, bite the paw! When I holler "meow" and pretend to be in pain, you'll be in trouble! Nyah, nyah!"

Sun? Mon?

We made a water/trash/mail run.

We've had enough rain water stored up that we've been able to use it for baths, laundry, and dishes, which cuts down a lot on how much water we have to haul.

Not only have we gotten a lot of rain, but we don't need it for the garden this time of year, so it's available for other things.

While I was working in the garden Steven came out to help. He cut this rhubarb plant to the ground. We'll mulch it with compost for the winter. We have 5 rhubarb plants now.

We started with the piece of root we dug up from our place at Columbia Falls when we moved up here, then cut off sections to start new plants over the years.

These are bolite mushrooms that Steven picked in the woods. We have about half of a jar full now. He sliced them and let them dry.

The tomatoes I brought inside a week or two ago have been ripening. Not enough at one time to make a big batch of anything, and soon we'll be turning off the fridge for the winter, which means no freezer, so I didn't freeze tomatoes. I dried them instead.

The dehydrator on the left is full of onions, the one on the right is full of tomatoes.

Now the tomatoes slices are done drying and they're ready to be put in a jar.

I left some of the Calendula flowers to go to seed.

In this picture I'm collecting the seed to bring inside and dry.

Oct. 8, 2010 Friday

This morning after breakfast Steven took the grandsons outside and showed them how to make a fire with the "bow drill" method, which is a fancy way of saying 'rubbing two sticks together'.

The kitten made herself scarce with all the commotion of young children around, so Anna took a catnap for her!

This afternoon the boys wanted to shoot bows with Grandpa!

He also got a hold of Anna before I did!

David (red shirt) and Jonathan (blue shirt) shoot their bows.

Jonathan watched to see where his arrow hits.

Amy. this is the longbow Steven made last winter. He gave it to Amy for her birthday.

Kevin helps Andrew shoot his bow.

Jonathan, Andrew, and David play with straps that Tristan and Emily hung from the floor of Tristan's treehouse.

David and Jonathan balance on stumps

The grandsons admired what we'd done in the uhaul, then post on the ramp!

They headed home shortly after this picture.

Oct. 7, 2010 Thurs.

Amy and Kevin and their kids came up this day. They got here around 1:00. Steven took them up onto State forest land and they cut some birch poles to use for staves to make Long Bows. I had just gotten out the crate of lego blocks, so Jonathan asked if he could stay here with me. Baby Anna stayed too, while the others were gone. It started raining while they were up there, but quit shortly after they returned to the cabin.

Steven started the grill and we had hamburgers and pork & beans and canned peaches.

Starting with Baby Anna and working left and around the table...there's Andrew, age 4, sitting like he usually does at the table! Next is Jonathan (age 8), David (age 6), and Kevin (age I'm-not-telling!)

Amy, Steven, and I were on chairs about where I took this picture from.

The redneck "high chair" I made for Anna. I hooked the baby swing to the overhead beam, then set it on this stool to balance it at the right height for the table.

The boys slept on a double mattress in the middle of the living room floor. Jonathan and David piled up all the pillows under them! Amy, Kevin, and baby Anna slept on the futon, made down into a bed.

Ingenuity

Gregg and Kathleen needed a place for their goat to be warm this winter. They created this amazing shelter using the steel "cage" they already used for a place were Pinky would be safe from predators. Gregg built a roof on it and then they stacked bales of hay around it! The pen to the right is the dog kennel.

I'd say Pinky will be cozy in there!

This is the back side. They covered the straw with tarps to keep it dry and in good shape!