[summer garden]

Today it occurred to me that it's time to start thinking about next years garden. Last year we were able to eat a few things out of our garden, but I'll admit that I was a little disappointed with the results. We had salads for a few weeks during the spring, then they started to bolt. We were also able to get a few tomatoes, but that crop got hit by a blight. I had at least five or six varieties, but I only ended up getting a few tomatoes from each plant. My corn was pretty puny, and the raccoons ended up getting into it so I only got a couple ears. My prize pumpkin ended up getting shared with the deer. The only thing I ended up getting any quantity of was the spaghetti squash. Last year we also picked up two small blueberry bushes. They still excite me. This year I am hoping that they will provide us with a little more than a handfull of berries, but I think it takes a couple years for them to become established.

So what am I going to try this year? I'm thinking...
-tomatoes -peppers - winter squash - sunflowers for Casey - lettuce - another blueberry bush or two - cucumbers - beans - melons - carrots - potatoes - flowers - garlic -

I guess from my writing above it sounds like the garden was a failure, but I am looking at last year as conditioning the ground for the garden this year. it was kind of an experimental year to find out what I have to contend with. I am pretty sure that Virgil had a garden there, albeit quite a few years ago. Hopefully now that I have broken the ground and gotten rid of most of the weeds and grass that I had to contend with last year I'll be able to do a little better job at my weeding. I am also Hopeful that the ground this year will be a little less compacted too, so that the roots can get down a little further into the earth for that good ol' nutrition and water.

[low-cost multipurpose minibuilding made with earthbags]

Low-cost Multipurpose Minibuilding Made with Earthbags

The article above is a pretty cool and interesting way of using economic materials that would be otherwise thrown away. It also reminds me of Bilbo Baggins house. It would be the kind of building that I would consider for a garden shed. Even better yet would be a micro-retreat space.

[animal house]

It seems that all of the animals in the neighborhood want to live in our house. Of course being in the country and living in such an old house I would expect to have the occasional mouse infestation. But that isn't even the beginning

Let me start counting what I know has lived in our house... We had a Raccoon family living in the attic above our Kitchen. In 2008 when I started living in the house part time and before any of the remodeling was done I heard banging in the kitchen. there was what appeared to be a growing stain in the corner over the cabinets. I peeled away the paper to see how bad the damage was and guess what, there was already a small hole there behind the paper. only a few days after removing the paper I realized that the hole was quickly getting larger. One night I heard some general banging above the kitchen and walked in just to see a small black hand remove itself from the hole in my ceiling. I don't mind raccoons, but I don't want them living in my attic. That's just no good. I sealed the hole temporarily with the cover of a mildewed encyclopedia that was still left in the house. Later that spring some men from St. Johns Builders came up and did a lot of work on the house including installing a new ceiling in the kitchen since the plaster lathe was so bowed. That summer the gutters on the house were also replaced and those workers graciously blocked the vent that the raccoons had used to enter that attic over the kitchen.

Next, I noticed that we had groundhogs living under the crawl space under the dining room (formerly our living room) Nate dispatched of a couple groundhogs that summer as well. I still have the hole to fill in the foundation, but I haven't noticed any more activity recently.

Last winter we had mice running around our house and they got into our lazy susan pantry, so that needed to be cleaned and sanitized. I used GoodStuff and steel wool to block any cracks and crevices that they may have used, and we haven't had any more problems since that.

About 2-3 months ago when my Jeep was out of commission mice entered and chewed on the crumbs that were on the floor, ate a shirt I had left in there and left lots of black rice everywhere. I set a living trap for them and caught a chipmunk instead. Unfortunately the chipmunk was too strong for that trap and partially was able to remove himself but then got stuck. I thought that he was dead but after I removed him, he started breathing again, and I let him loose next to a pine tree. Later when I checked on him before the dogs got let out, he was gone. I haven't used that live trap in the garage again because I'm afraid of that happening again, so we still have mice in our garage.

Two nights ago I heard some scratching in our walls and investigated to find mice in our crawl space under our kitchen and porch. I used the live trap in the crawl space and successfully caught and released three cute little brown and white field mice. I let them go next to Larry's garage (jk, jk) I let them go in the back corner of the camps property, at least a half mile from any building.

Lastly, the whole reason for me writing all this.... we have a Cardinal that insists that he fly into all the windows on both floors of our house. He REALLY REALLY likes the kitchen window though. I've decided that it must be because Virgil had a feeder that actually attached to that window, and was a concave shape that actually allowed the birds to sit inside the house and eat their food while you watched. I have installed a hanging feeder in another location, but he doesn't seem interested in it at all. *chirp* BANG *chirp* BANG *chirp* BANG *chirp* BANG

[haiti]

I'm really considering going down to Haiti to volunteer. For some unknown reason I've felt pulled (called maybe) to learning about what has happened. There have been quite a few major natural disasters in the last decade that people have taken note of. Hurricanes, Wildfires, Tornados etc... But the Earthquake in Haiti keeps pulling me in.



I think that I have nailed down why. I am trained help. I also speak French . Unless some special provisions have been made to let people volunteer their services without needing a Passport I won't be leaving any time soon. My passport from my year abroad in France has been expired for at least 4 years, and I don't quite know where it's been put so I can't renew it as easily either.

There is quite a lot of work that needs to be done down there. I may or may not end up going down to help, But I'll keep you posted. Pray for Haiti, and keep praying for New Orleans, September 11th families, victims of the Tsunamis, and everyone that is helping with all of these and any other disaster that I did not mention.

[the monsoon shower]

We've been having some water pressure issues in our house since last summer. It started with our toilet not flushing; We have a highly efficient dual flush toilet to conserve our water usage, more on that later. Slowly our water pressure started dropping off while doing dishes, or taking a shower. It has gotten so bad that it was taking so long to fill the dogs water bucket that I knew something had to be bad.

Being one to try and save out landlord (Mowana) some money I decided to try and tinker with the plumbing (since I installed some of it) and see where our water pressure was dropping off. No matter which shutoffs I tried it didn't make any difference in how high or low our water pressure was. The only thing that I noticed is that given a long enough period of time the water pressure would build up and when we turned on the water at a faucet, we'd have good pressure for about ten seconds until the water went down to a trickle.

We called the water softener/well guys and they came out to have a look. Guess what... the pipes leading in from the pressure tank to the first filter in the water softner system were clogged with iron. I don't mean just a lot of buildup in the pipe, I mean enough iron in the pipe so that when you look at it (3/4 inch pipe mind you) there is literally a toothpick sized hole for water to be passing through.

It took a couple of hours for our well guy to cut up our pipes, clean out the ones that couldn't be removed and replace the ones that he cut.

Needless to say, that night when I was taking my shower after cleaning the barn and working with the goats we had great water pressure and plenty of hot water. Casey apparently heard me start the shower and thought that a water pipe had burst in the bathroom. Later she said that she thought that it sounded like a monsoon in our bathroom. I don't think the water pressure in the house has ever been so good.

[lets try this again]

I've got a computer that works with more consistent internet access. I have no specific plans of things to write about, just life.

I do find some interesting things on the internet that I'll probably share. There are a lot of things that I'd like to try, and things that i think are just simply cool. You don't need to check back every day, because it isn't likely that I'll have things on here that often.