Home on the Hill

Do you remember how much fun it was when you were a kid to fly a kite. My Brother in law Grant and my sister dropped by for a surprise visit and he brought a couple of kites. The wind here really picks up just before a storm so we had to give them a try in the Western pasture. They really took off. Grant had one that looked like a dragon and I had a box kite. Just took me back to being a kid. Or letting the kid that's here have a say. This next one is just after the storm that went through. God makes some nice sky. We shipped a new software version yesterday. So now I will have some time to spend doing some outside stuff. Todays agenda is seeing if I can get the skidsteer moving. It has a dead battery, and I suspect, a bad starter. And plant some Wysteria in some tires at the South end of the house. We are going to let it grow up the house. Should be real pretty in about 10 or twelve years. If it grows. We don't know if it will grow here but the weather is changin...

Coming back from feeding the chickens the other day we noticed about a dozen giant puff balls growing in the rich soil between the two pole barns. These are past their prime but still a great example of how big they can get. One of these was the biggest I have ever seen. Too bad we got to them too late - if we sliced and diced them we would be in mushroom soup for the season. Oh well, we will spread them around and see what happens. I threw this one up in the air and it came down, splat. I know it doesn't look very appetizing, and it isn't. We were a week too late. Speaking of mushroom clouds, here is a pic of some weird clouds we saw over Fraser Lake, just after a thunder shower moved over. We've shipped a Beta program to a customer and so far only three bugs. All of them not critical. I will fix them in the next couple of days and then, hopefully, be able to take the rest of the summer off so I can get going on a multitude of yard and equipment projects.

We went to the top of the property behind Grandma's yesterday and took some videos of the place. While we were there I picked a bunch of wild strawberries. They cover the place, all around the garden and sheds and generally everywhere. The problem is they are very small, usually less than a quarter of an inch. They taste wonderfully sweet. But it would take a while to get enough to put on top of your cereal tho. While checking out the egg factory we noticed that the chickens have started to get computerized. We have left them some reading material in the form of somewhat dated encyclopedias which they have been working through. I think they are a little behind modern computer programing lanquages because we discovered punch cards. Here's a picture of one with some cryptic chicken scratch coding notes on it. We're thinking of moving our old p90 test computer out to the barn and bring them into the 1998 era. We suspect they have been experimenting with "barcodin...

Graeme and I did some ATV'ing while he and Terry were here. Xena usually likes to ride with me, but this time she is way more interested in what Graeme is doing.

While the kids were here last week Kevin did me a big favour and moved all those tires over to the new garden. That was the short version of the video Jo-Ann made. I thought Kev might like the long version, so it's here . I did get a start on laying the tires out .... making a plan .... ... and drilling drain holes.

The company is gone now. We had some decent weather, but today it is raining. I don't think we have had a day in the last two weeks that hasn't rained at some point. I'm back working on a software release and haven't had a lot of time to play in the yard. I started the new tire garden, and it quickly became evident that I need another hundred tires. And a few truckloads of barkmulch to put between them to keep the weeds out. This is a picture of my buddy Graeme on a sabatical from the Coast. He was fascinated with the giant puffballs and we barbequed a few slices up for mushroom and steak. Well, actually that picture is below. The one above is some weird houseguest that showed up..

On the way to the Chicken barn, Xena pointed out the giant mushrooms growing in the ground between the barns. They are from the Puffball familly and are great eating. We sliced them up like a slice of bread drizzeled olive oil on them and barbequed them. We have one chicken that grows giant eggs. I suspect it's the one that has no feathers around her backside! Sara and Kevin are here and we're having lots of fun. Today we have the smoker running and smoking a 20 lb brisket. We did a test run yesterday with some porkchops. Yum.

(go to Jo-Ann's blog to find out what Walter is saying at the end) Walter, the farmer whose cows are pastured here, came up the other day with a fencing crew. And a tractor mounted fence post pounder. In about three hours they had installed a 300 foot cut-off fence between the Main House and Grandma's. It's a well built one and the cows won't be able to get through this one in a hurry. And it makes rounding up the cattle easier, just open the gate and put them in. Easier than driving them all over a quarter section. Meanwhile I was busy repairing the fencing along the West and North Sides. So most of the house perimiter fencing is intact. The only problem now is a single, bottom wire on the East side and the cut off fence ensures the cows can't get through that. None the less, I don't want to encourage bad habits so when I get a moment, a dry one, I'll patch that up. The yearlings have taken to walking over the cattle guard 'tho. It is filled with dirt ...

The other day, right in the middle of a rainstorm, we noticed that there were cows on the wrong side of the fence. After chasing them out and spending several hours in the downpour fence-mending (with some swearing thrown in for good measure), here they were back this morning. I guess the sight of all that luscious grass is just too much to resist. The problem was with the fence line around the house. It encloses an area of about 20 acres or so. Last winter's heavy snowfall has wreaked havoc with the fence lines in the area. Fences around here are four wire fences. Three wires just don't cut it with the red Angus heifers and bulls. Some farmers are considering just putting up new wire as opposed to patching the old. In our case, I am just going to fix up the fence. I have a fence stretcher that makes the job a lot easier. I really don't have time right now as I am writing code like a monkey on a coffee overload getting ready for a customer at the Coast, but cows wander...

We took Sunday off to catch up on some house chores. One of the things we did was install a drip irrigation system in our tire garden. Makes watering pretty easy. Well, automatic, once Jo-Ann figures out how to make the timer work. Instead of buying commercial sprinklers, which are a small fortune for the 1/4 " stuff I just made a ring of 1/4" tubing at each tire and supported it with nails. I then punched holes in the tubing and Voila! sprinklers. The lettuce loves it. Speaking of which, has anyone tried just cutting the lettuce and leaving the roots in the ground? The lettuce just keeps growing. That's a new one on me. I haven't tried the new crop but it seems to be growing pretty fast so it shouldn't be too long. We are starting to get creative with our eggs. Storage really. The 10 Chickens are laying eight or nine eggs a day. And that adds up. We really can't eat that many, so we are experimenting with different ways to use them up. One of t...

We've been getting up at 5 am to go painting a log cabin on Francois lake. Jeez, I must be getting old. I seem to be creakier at the end of a day than I can remember. We don't have time to do it really, but I made a committment to do it before I had a software deadline. So were taking a break from coding to get this done. Of course, my estimate of how long it would take, was about half right. Setting up scaffolding to work Thirty feet up takes time.. Ah well another couple of days then back into the office.

Woo Hoo! Lettuce has got to salad stage. The first run anyway. The second planting is on its way. Was great to have a salad last night with greens from the garden. The radishes will all be gone this week, but we have another crop coming along. It will be interesting to see how many crops we can get before it gets to cold. It's given us some impetus to get a green house going that we can keep heated in the winter..

The new garden is pure clay. I made some test clayballs and left them in the sun. They are rock hard. So I have to add some material to free up the clay. First thing is getting some sand into the garden. We had a couple of truck loads delivered. We're now contemplating getting topsoil and cow poop into it. After I spread the sand out we tried to roto-tiller it but have decided we need a bigger roto-tiller. Ever noticed, in a project, how one thing leads to another. I was using the skidsteer to spread the sand, and wasn't paying attention to well and knocked down about four fence posts. Of course this broke the fence wires. Not a good thing when theres a 100 yearlings running around inspecting a fence that was battered by the snowfall. So we had to repair the fence and well we were at it fix up the front fence that had some broken strands. Apparently a lot of the local farmers are contemplating replacing whole fence lines as it might be easeier than repairing them. Les...

We changed the plastic that was on the tires to horticultural cloth. It doesn't get as warm as the plastic, as it lets air circulate, and water through. We still have to take the covers off when we water - which is every day now. The second radish (road rash) crop is up, with the first rapidly dissapearing. Today we are waiting for a couple of truck loads of sand to spread over the clay to start getting the "big garden" going. If we can get it planted by June we should be ok. I might still use the tire method in the garden. Just use one tire, right on the garden soil, and keep it covered while the cuttings start. The tires really help keep the heat in. We will use row covers for the cabbages and turnips. On a 'nother topic. I think my dog may have a drinking problem. She's starting to think the world revolves around her and the other day we found her in a stupor among the tires:

Haven't been getting out of the house much lately. I have been working on getting a new software release and getting a web site up and running. But I had to take a few minutes and update this blog before it just stays static. We were looking out of the office window the other day and Jo-Ann remarked how she had never noticed the lakes in the distance before. Well , they hadn't existed before. The Endako river has swollen with flood waters so much it is creating lakes along it's run. Here's a picture of the lake along side Savory Road. We're a little concerned about the powerline that runs across the lake. It's the main power feed for our little community. Just to be prepared we are stockpiling gas for the generator. And considering property values now that we're almost lakefront property. I had a radish, fresh from the "re-tired" garden yesterday. Not bad, considering last year we hadn't even planted by mid June. We had only done half a ...

So the chickens wouldn't disappear when they tried it. Yesterday was culvert day. I had been collecting used culverts and yesterday Tom showed up and we commenced to "diggin". All the low spots on the road, from the house to the first hill from Savory road got a culvert. We also installed a conduit under the road next to the house so that I can get power and water without having to string extension cords and hoses over the road. My former City workers will notice I haven't lost "the stance"....

Progress so far from perfection. Managed to burn out my trusty old skill saw. Well I got my money's worth out of it. It must have lasted over twenty years. Off to the local Irly Bird and bought a new one complete with laser. Now it looks like a Star Wars episode in the shop when I'm whacking wood. We're waiting for a Call from the Home Deport in Prince George. They have some plastic for some of the tire gardens on back order. Today I will have to move some plastic from one that hasn't sprouted to the Squash garden. It's leaves are pushing the top of the green house plastic that we just rubber banded to the top of the tires.

OK, I know, how do their little legs work the clutch. Well the basic idea is that you use movable runs to get the chickens to dig up the dirt, eat the weeds and crap all over the place. Works wonders for preparing the outside garden, and gives the chickens some real live food and fresh air. Works wonders. It's synergystic . It's permaculture . Honest, a guy, Andy Lee wrote a book about it. Here's some pictures of some fancy house and run combined. I got it for Christmas and have been plotting poultry power ever since.We spent a day building the "A" frame "tractor" part and will install the doors today if the paint dries. Today I am building the movable coop, where the chickens nest at night and, hopefully, lay there little globes of goodness. The eggs, not the other stuff. And then I need to make some runs so that they can get from the Chicken Chalet to the Tractor without being a meal for Mr. Hawk and Eagle. And of course the occasional coyote or fox...

Well you can check out Jo-Ann's blog for the answer to that one. Let's just say it's been more fun around here than a doggie house full of.. Finally I have a pot to piss in. I picked it up at the local second hand ( note: not antique ) store. It now rests, ready for action, on the stairs with the some of our other found treasures. I brought the Boler home from where it was wintering over at Toms. So Xena and I had to try it out last night. Camping out in the yard. She was camping in it when she was just a wee puppy and she hadn't forgot about it. She just jumped in took over a chunk of the bed and asked me to turn the heat on a bit. It was a bit nippy when we went to bed. The Northern Lights were out and there was frost on the Tire covers this morning. I had got out of bed when the sun came up and was running around in my long johns and rubber boots, feeding the birds. I didn't want to wake up Jo-Ann but little did I know she was looking out the window wondering if...

Well hopefully. We made some mini green houses for the tire garden. We cut up plastic panel into 20 inch sizes riveted them together so they fit around the tires. As the plants grow we lift the plastic up to keep the green house effect happening. The corrugated plastic is covered with green house plastic that is bunjeed with cut up truck tire inner tube that we got for the asking from the tire store in Vanderhoof. At night I put styrofoam panels that are hinged with ductape over the tops to keep the heat in. Later when it warms up we will replace the green house plastic " shower caps" with white horticultural fabric that will let the air in, keep the bugs out and keep the thing a little cooler. It was +10 the other day and +30 inside the mini green houses. Today it was bright and sunny and the temperature went to +40. Have to work on some ventilation for sunny days. Last night it froze but the temperature inside was +8. Well we'll see how the plants like this one. This p...