Pears and Electrons

 

The pear trees appear to be quite happy with the mild winter we had this year. Most of the trees are full of little baby pears. We think these are Bartletts Pears. Some of the trees have blossoms but no sign of pears. These we think are Comice Pears and have a later harvest season.

 

They'll grow straight out like this for awhile until they get heavier and pull themselves down.    We may try to grow some in wine bottles next year and make pear cider to fill them with :)

 

Anubis has been my little buddy while I'm working on the electrical. As usual we had a bit of a cold spell at the end of May and Anubis appreciated the fire's warmth. 

 

 Of course by afternoon the sun was out and Anubis found some warm stones to lay on.

 

 Joel and I were taking a break to supervise the guys that we hired to break down all the orchard prunings into firewood and kindling. The grass was quite high, literally up to my neck which is 5'+. The house is there in the background, see the little white specks?

 

In the center of this photo is Mario's truck and the crew dealing with the prunings. Gives you an idea how tall the grass is!

 

Mario and his guys made quick work of it all and we ended up with more than half a cord of firewood. 

 

One of a few Horseradish in the garden. I want to learn how to harvest and propagate them this year. 

 

Oh My! We took all the ceiling fans down and found this: Band-Aids used as tape. At least Jack labeled them. Yikes.

 

Me being silly. The headlamp has been one of my most valuable tools in the attic. Oh yeah, that and kneepads, ouch!

 

 This was a bit of a trouble spot. The 2x4 cross beam at the top of the photo is the support for the light over the kitchen sink. The light can was particularly heavily plastered and needed to come out. Laying flat on my belly I used the sawsall at arm's length to cut through the nails on each side of the crossbeam. The pointed roofing nails above my head made things really adventurous.

  

After removing the crossbeam we chiseled out the old can and replaced it with a modern can, re-plastered around it and wired it up!

 

One of the junction boxes that was part of the original construction of the house. Good stuff in it's time, really terrible 70 years later.

 

New bright and shiny junction box. This one powers lights in one half of the main house.

  

When I get a bit cramped up in the attic I take a minute and lay out on the rat-run.

  

At the end of the day, progress! Functional light switches in the kitchen!

Solar Eclipse 2012

 

Our eclipse weekend started with a day of electrical work. Things are coming along. Here's the switches by the back door, one for the new porch light and one for the 3-way switch in the mudroom.

 

There are a lot of new wires above the mudroom. One fine day this will be insulated and sheetrocked :)

 

 We had several families come out and camp the night before which was a real treat. 

 

Joel and Tenzin by the light of the campfire.

 

The next morning we went for a little hike and worked on a few projects.

 

Anubis had his own project in the sun.

 

Too cute to not include this one. He's clearly loving being on the farm.

 

 I spent the afternoon working on a few things. The front wall of the compost bin is now attached such that we can remove it for turning compost. The results of our hand-weeding through the garden resulted in quite a lot materials for the compost :)

 

Onions growing in the garden.

 

 The strawberry patch is going to turn out a lot of fruit this year!

 

 These grapes are growing near the firewood shelters that need to come down. We'll have to find some way to save the grape vines. 

 

 Ah the eclipse! Someone brought a sextant which provided an interesting view of the sun.

 

 I took this with my phone thru the lens of the eclipse glasses we were using, it really does it no justice. Seeing the ring of fire was amazing.

 

During the eclipse, you can see the sickle-shaped shadows on the ground.

 

The turnout was really good and everyone had a great time.

 

More eclipse patterns

 

 Tenzin and Cyrus were totally oblivious to the solar spectacle going on and opted for digging activities.

 

After the eclipse was totally over a large group of us went for a hike in the forest. Such a great ending to a great weekend!

Mother's Day Camping

 

Mother's Day! We opted to camp on the farm with the kids and had great weather and a beautiful sunset.

 

The kids love a good campfire.

 

Eventually all 3 of our babies passed out in the tent :)

 

The campsite, in the circle at the end of the road.

 

This was the first time we spent the night at the farm. Waking up to all the bird sounds and fresh air was a real treat. We look forward to someday waking up here all the time :)

 

Jula was up early and enjoyed another campfire in the crisp morning air.

 

Nicole and I took stock of what's already growing in the garden. Turns out to be quite a bit!

 

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), good for all sorts of stuff

 

The pup loves the garden.

 

We've been calling the space between the house and the garden the "front yard" even though there's 3 acres of pasture just beyond that :)

Camping here was really nice and shaded through most of the day.

In the afternoon I build a compost bin from some pallets that were hanging around. The middle divider is independent of the rest of the bin so we can right-size the active compost compartment.

The trailer has finally found a better (level) resting place and the kids love playing in it. 

 

Jula is always making new friends :)

Chicken Coop Day

  

This is Michael Mancuso, happychickens@hotmail.com. He makes chicken coops out of reclaimed fence materials that would normally go to the chipper. The main frame is new redwood but all the siding is old fencing. Rad. The roof is reused corrugated metal which is a bit harder to come by. The hardware is all new. 

 

For now, this coop will live at the place we're renting since the chicks need a lot of daily oversight right now.  The box hanging off the right side is the "egg box". It has two nesting boxes and a neat little door on the side to get at the eggs. The box to the left of the ramp is a flower box. There's also a small shelf on the left side.

 

The view from our back door. The kids are stoked and Jula's so ready to collect her first egg.

 

The chicks are a bit overdue for new digs. I think they would have liked to move outside last week but things didnt line up until today. The brooder worked out pretty well.

  

 We had a few things to prep before hand but the kids could barely wait. 

 

They were both excited to pose with the coop, can you tell? :)

 

After they got used to being in the coop a bit Jula was able to let them out, which is to say, one flew out and the rest caught on that that was one way to get out of the coop. Jula followed them around for the better part of an hour while they harvested bugs and grass from our yard.

Getting them back into the coop this evening was something else though. They've never walked up a ramp much less lived in a box outside. They were not too hip to the idea of walking up the ramp or going into or staying in their new coop. Getting the first 5 in was easy one at a time but the 6th, an Australorp decided to make a break for it. When I cornered her she hopped thru an obscure gap in our fence and into the neighbors yard, So with little else to do I scaled the fence, re-cornered her, put her over the fence into our yard, re-climbed the fence and then re-re-cornered her to get her back into the coop. :)