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...

It snowed a bit last night. When I was backing up the trailor to unload the new Iron Remover I ran over a bog that I had inadvertantly made myself. Last summer we graveled part of the road to the house and installed a culvert to drain a wet spot on one side of the road. Unfortunatly I didn't put a culvert on the south side to drain the water away and lo and behold made a beautiful truck trap. Tried the waiting till it freezes trick, but it just didn't get cold enough. So, some shovel work, gravel and a couple of boards ( and some swearing ) later and I got out. Now have plans to put in a culvert and make a new gravel road to the basement ( South ) side of the house. Continuing the packaging rant. And thanks for the suggestions, keep 'em comeing. Here's one I like and tried the other day. When purchasing something like a mouse just take it out of the packaging and leave all the packaging crap at the store. It's not reducing the amount of crap but it gets the message ...

OK rant starts here. I have been doing some thinking lately about sustainable living and how that fits into my life personally and dare I say it - globaly. The straw that broke the proverbial camels back of my personal indifference, although it was probably more like powerlessness. Or perhaps procrastination coupled with lazyness. Anyway here's the packaging from a mouse we bought the other day: And this is what came in the package. The goods. What is the point of so much packaging Who decided that this is a good idea How much of this crap ends up in landfills Why should I care What am I willing to do about it I am spending some time thinking about these questions. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. More ranting to follow. In a loving non-threatening way of course..

We stopped by a friend of mine's today and during our socializing I mentioned that I had always wanted to get an original Cowichan wool sweater. Especially now that the Chinese have started mass producing look a likes. So my friend reached into his closet and came out with a wool sweater that his Mom had knitted for him but it was too big for him and she had made him another one. He selected the loon pattern. He gave it to me and said he was glad it was going to a good home. Which it its. It is something that I will treasure. I wore it home and used it when I went out to do the chucks. And measure the new tire garden. There was a bitter North Easter blowing and I was warm as toast. With my Elmer Fudd hat pulled over my ears. Even the Mizzes , who has glycol for blood put on a pair of wool gloves for the yard expedition. I am starting to get the stuff, sawdust, pex conduit and another 150 tires together for the new expanded "retired" garden on the West side of the house.

Winter that is. I got back from the Coast yesterday after a run that started at 3 am. It was the quickest run yet. No traffic in the Fraser Canyon so that part went fast. Leaving at that time of the morning I was able to get home by 1:30 pm. I was glad to have my road lights installed as there was plenty of deer on the side hills as I went by. Wreckage. I think that the major snow falls are over. Now that its melted it shows where all the crap was that was buried in the snow. Or knocked over by the snow plowing guy. Me. The gravel we put down last summer made a huge difference in the Road. And where we didn't put it, like around the house, it's still a sea of mud. Not much I can do with that before we do the foundation around the house. Then I can dig out the yard add drain rock and build a proper road around the place. One of the problems is that I have natural springs all over the place and one is right in the middle of the front yard. Or backyard - depending on whose telling...

It didn't take to long, like zero minutes before Xena and her friend Ewe were renewing their friendship. I think they both missed going outdoors when ever they wanted. Ewe has been in and out like a YoYo since we got home. I was pleasantly surprised to see the road and the ditch clear and hard. That is untill we got near the house. We never put any gravel on that part of the place last year and now I remember why I had wanted to. I don't want to put any down around the house untill I dig it up to waterproof the basement. We got home to free range chickens. They had managed to work a pop hole loose and were merrily cleaning up the new grass that is starting to show where the snow has melted. And it is melting, slowely. It's -7c today, that's around 20 I beleive for those of you South of the Border. And snowing lightly. I noticed the tops of the tire garden showing through the snow. I will have to take a tromp out to them to see what the temperature is getting t...

Living in the City can wear a girl out. All that shopping and making buying decisions can be just plain exhausting. Time for a little nap and think about tomorrows adventures. And what treasures we found today. In the "English Foods" department of a local safeway store we found this. Mushy Peas. One of my favorites. I am not sure why the English would make this stuff just for bachelors but I guess the old adage about bachelors eating out of cans could apply. We also found this. Spotted Dick. Not sure what it is. Or what it tastes like. So far I haven't got any takers. But every one around here, except me and Xena are on the healthy diet and excercise plan and eshew any desserts with sugar in them. Off to visit some customers today and then probably tomorrow or so hooking up the trailor, a half ton of rocks and taking highway 97 back to Endako. Seems like we've been gone forever and I am sure it's not just Xena who is missing here Buddy, Ewe.

One of the things I like to do when I am at the Coast is go to the T & T market . T & T is a huge oriental food store. Like a Hong Kong Safeway. My daughter Sara and I went there yesterday after her work to get some inspiration for supper. As we were checking out I noticed this gotta have impulse buy: We haven't found a volunteer tester yet. Don't know what the problem is. Maybe the mouth watering? Certainly not the kissing. Brown rice and stirfried Shitakes , red pepper, snow peas, onions and water chestnuts. Our secret ingredient was peanut butter powder. Its dehydrated peanuts with the fat taken out. Wonderful. Of course none of this stuff made the 100 Mile Diet list.

But it's Close. I am now the proud parent of terrabytes. Is that something that eats the earth. Well no. It's a thousand gigabytes and I now have four of them in our new computer. Well two terrabytes inside and two in an external NAS storage. We were due for a new machine and we took advantage of a trip to the Coast to build one form parts. More power - less cost. Could never imagine that I would need or could use 4T of storage. When I started out mainframes didn't have that much storage. The first computer I bought I had a big dilema over getting a 50 gig or 100 gig hardrive. I opted for the 50 gig as it was feared that the 100 gig unit would lead to sloppy computing. BTW my pinky finger is sticking through the port for the glycol cooling hose. Can you imagine, a computer with a radiator! We haven't been at the Coast for over a year now. It sure takes some getting used to if your from the sticks like Endako. Construction is every where. I counted 14 cranes on ...

O.K. it's official. If it's wet you will need a 4X4 to make it the last 100 feet up our driveway. My dreams of an all weather driveway have been squashed. It's the part that didn't get enough gravel on it last fall. The rest of the roadway is holding up really well. It's a sure sign that spring is on the way with the advent of the "Winter booted blue breasted short tail snow bird" A.K.A. My Sweetie Pie. Wondering what all the commotion is while I crawl under the trailor to splice some new LED tail lights in place. I long for a dry, heated garage. I will have one. I will not have to lay in the mud in order to crawl under vehicles for repairs that never seem to be required on a dry day - or one that is above -20. My friend Audrey has remarked that plumbling repairs around here are only carried out when the temperature falls to -30. She could be right.

As part of our business we joined the Microsoft Empower for ISV's program. As part of that we got a subscription to the MSDN developers network. It provides the latest Microsoft software for Independent Software Vendors ( that's us). It's a huge help for us as purchasing the software otherwise would cost thousands more than we could afford. Microsoft also offers networking and advice on how to grow our business. I had been waiting for several weeks for some notification that we had been accepted. When I droppped by my brother Tiny's place on the way back from getting new tires at Vanderhoof he mentioned that some one had dropped off a package for us to his house. I guess they didn't want to try and make it up our driveway. One of the benefits of living in a small community - the delivery people know who is related to who.. Here's Uwe trying out the software..er box..Five seconds after I opened it. "Jeez, Dad, forget that stuff --have you tried the box ou...

Can't you just hear Xena's dream: "... OK if I snap my eyes open suddenly the ginormous bone I am dreaming about will be right there.." We picked this bone up at a local feed store where we buy our chicken feed. We are going to get another beef cut up as the going rate for one on the hoof now is under $300 bucks. They are just not selling up here. A farmer the other day offered me a herd of 200 for walk away prices. It is almost like the large feed lots are trying to kill the local meat producers. We notice that even with beef being so cheap here it hasn't come down any at the local Super Value. The next time we get some beef butchered I will save some of the big bones and smoke them in our smoker for Xena. (And her yet to be introduced friend Tommy, my friend, RT's new dog.) Speaking of Cheese Heads: We bought about 10 lbs of cheese on our last trip to Burns Lake and after doing some research ( much of it contradictory ) on freezing cheese decided to give it...