Home on the Hill

My Sweetie Pie took pity on my constantly running nose and scratchy eyes whenever I work in the shop. I am alergic to wood dust and probably a few other things, Like cat dander, altho that isn't a problem in the shop. She bought me a nifty dust mask set up that has a battery powered filter that forces cool clean air over the faceplate. No dust, No sniffles. Wish I would have had a few of these when we ground all the logs down when we moved in. ...And If I wear my holster with laser sighted drill - well the effect is just overwhelming. The space alien invaders have been staying away in droves. A suspicious helicopter overflew the place yesterday just above the tree line. Right over the retired Garden. When I looked out the kitchen window it appeared lower than my veranda. Honest guys it really is just veggies I am growing. She also got me a replacement for the dilapidated and shredded earphones I wear when I am working with the skidsteers. This one is from Lee Valley and ...

Don't know what this guy is but it's big. About an inch and a quarter long. With an ant like head. Come on you entomologists out there. What is it. Is it from this planet? Looks very ant like to me. But giant size. A pan 'o gold. Well, green gold. O.K. it's just dandelion greens with a sprinkling of some other tender things. Local beef, local greens. The Garlic wasn't local - yet. And the red and brown rice wasn't local. Now that's something I will miss when the meltdown happens. Anyway, I bought a handpowerd potato ricer at the second hand shop the other day. No one even knew what it was. I remembered it from my youth. It was one of my Dad's favorite ways of serving potatoes - riced with home made butter ( which I detested at the time ) and salt and pepper. Well the rubber hits the garden today. Hopefully I can get the rest of the tire tops done. If anyone is interested let me know and I can post some drawings or pictures of how the...

Yesterday the eastern hill side was green. Today it is tinged yellow with dandelions. A euphoric explosion of yellow. And with any luck some spring table greens. I am drawn to a french method of sauteing them with garlic, butter and bacon - but were out of bacon. Quite nice. It is still mostly overcast and not to warm. Well-it's 15C. But with a strong West wind it seems cooler. Next on the spring flower parade will be the white and black chamomiles. Chamomile tea anyone? Very warm in the tires. I still have a day or so of cutting tires and then I can finish planting and installing the rest of the drip irrigation systems. Just got back from a Funeral. My first girlfriends Mom died. I haven't seen her in about forty years. She is quite a bit older than I remembered. And married to an old guy. Jeez how does that happen. Good thing we don't get old all at once. That would be quite a shock. This is a picture of our outside cat Boose.(Carrier = "cat") She has take...

Things I have learned this week. That I will admit to.. 1) Begonias taste good Ok this one was a complete surprise. Jo-Ann busted me taking a taste of a Begonia. Who would have thought. A local green house fellow introduced me to some edible plants. Like Begonias. They taste just like Sorel. I have to try it in a salad. Soon as the lettuce gets up. Last year we were eating lettuce by May 29th. Think we will be a little later this year. 2) Always pressure test an irrigation system before burying it. Well Duh. I was using a lot of barbed hose connectors that had to be secured to the poly with stainless steel clamps. Just where do the clamps go, how tight to make them. When I turned on the water I blew three of the tops clean off. Nice little geysers. Looks like at least one of the "T" connectors blew apart under a tire. I will have to take the soil out off the tire to fix that one. Or two. Maybe three. Also learned that CPVC, schedule 40 threaded pipe fitti...

Well not really. The septic tank at the second house on the property, Grandma's, hasn't been used in several years to it wasn't to bad at all. It was an old wooden septic tank and had deteriorated to a large hole in the ground. So it was time to replace it with a modern septic ball. We are trying to get the place habitable. Now it needs some water leaks fixed, a new porch roof and decking and some handrails and it will be a great place for visitors to stay. It has the best view of the place as it is a couple of hundred feet higher than the main house. The Tire gaden project progresses. With some last minute snags. When I went to turn on the main feed the underground valve stem broke so I had to jury-rig a hose connection to the distribution panel. Which is simply a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood that will house the water filter, sink, and taps. I will have to dig down four feet and replace the valve. Excavator work. I will go looking for a more " Skookum " unit i...

I found another place in the yard that I can't park in for a while. Fortunatly Tom was here with the excavator so he pulled me out. Then when he was scrapping the mess down he almost got stuck. Jeez I don't have anything that could pull the excavator out. Must be a spring right between the two sheds. Now that reminds me. A fellow got stuck in the field the auction was in and when I went to pull him out with my Toyota people were giving him a hard time. Little dinky Toyota pulling out the big F350. I guess I better go get my camera..etc. Well the guy was appreciative when I did pull him out with no problem. this is the view of the back side of the "Red Shed". It used to be red anyway. Minus the shed roof over the combine and it will form the New Tire Garden Greenhouse, chicken shed and garden tool shed. Theres a sink you might notice in the picture. It is going over to the new Tire Garden. Nice to have running water and power at the garden. Well the " s...

But worth it. Naturally the expanded re-tired garden is taking a bit longer than I expected. We are adding power and 365 day water to the new chicken run/green house that I will pull over to the head of the garden once the City gets the old thresher from along side the "Red Shed". We've donated it to the local museum and they are building a shed for it. Apparently it has been on the property for as long as any of the locals can remember. We have been collecting windows and will be able to completely glass in what will be the South facing side. We plan on using that for a greenhouse and winter chicken run. Apparently plants just love chicken breath. Who knew. There was a frost this morning but the plants we have in the tires are happy as clams. We have managed to reclaim a lot of the topsoil that was ( erroneously ) scrapped off to make a normal type garden. After sitting for a year we have turned it over a couple of times and use it to fill the bottom tire of the two...

Our tire garden worked so well last year that we are expanding it this year. We are going to be installing 52 units. The soil will be in the bottom two tires and a reflector on top. Total tires required = 156. We ran 1/2" poly under each tire and stubed a piece up the centre of the tire. I used a "T" connector to do this and fastend it to a piece of 1/2" rebar . The rebar does double duty - holding up the poly and forming a tent for the plastic or horticultural cloth that covers the top. Its 12 degrees C outside and 25 degrees in a covered tire unit. That should get the soil warmed up in a jiffy. We only managed to get 10 tires up today but we have the method down pat now so we should make better progress tomorrow. I will have to get more soil as I don't think that I will have enough. Besides I will want to vary the mix for different vegetables. Spuds like sandier soil. I am dealing with some fairly clay soil so it could probably use a few bags of perlite. Any w...

So what could happen if someone set fire to a brush pile and then didn't bother sticking around to see if the the blaze was going to stay contained? And just say that it dried out and we had a wind. A neighbour set fire to an old poplar stack. Didn't think it was necessary to monitor it. Imagine my surprise, shock and dismay when we came home to see this on our driveway: That wasn't Ghost busters I was calling.. Fortunately, some other neighbours were driving by and gave me a hand with putting it out. The one who set the fire was 300 kilometres away. It was touch and go in places but fortunately he had a couple of "Piss Cans" and there was a creek nearby that we could use to fill them up. And fill them up, and fill them up..repeat 'til the fire was out. It's an Ibuprophen day today. I checked again at midnight last night and there were still hot spots glowing that I found when I turned out my headlamp. Me and my trusty smoke finder, Xena the wonder dog, g...