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!