Taking a Break....

Not much progress on our house over the last few days. I've been struggling with a sore shoulder for around six weeks. It all started the day I thought I should build scaffolding out of strawbales. I heaved the bales up over my head. Gee, that sort of hurt--I thought to myself. Then, I thought it would be a good idea to pitch batting practice to Kylie for an hour.

I've hurt since that day. My deltoid muscle has been in spasm since then--with tendinitis. This muscle and tendon attaches to the rotator cuff, and I don't really feel like having surgery on that. Looks like I'll never be a major league pitcher.

I finally gave in and went to the doctor yesterday, and the good doctor said: "Do you want to sacrifice your shoulder for the house?".

So now I'm on a powerful NSAID and I got a hot water bottle to apply to my sore shoulder. I have to do shoulder exercises. I found this is easily done from the lazy boy, with my other hand holding the remote control to the TV.

Now it is off to work for five days. Hopefully, I won't have to wrestle any patients and do further damage to the shoulder. And when I come back next week, I have a friend from Minnesota who is coming out to help me (hopefully) stack the bales and make walls. Finally!

In Goes The Garden...

Kylie and Joni have been working on the eight garden beds today:

Here they are planting carrots on a sheet of toilet paper (non-perfumed):

For this bed, Joni is trying the "square foot gardening" technique. She is trying to get the most amount of produce possible for the size of the bed:

We have potatoes planted in this bed. Nothing sprouting yet...

Tomatoes, peppers and broccoli:

This is our strawberry bed. We have had exactly one strawberry thus far!

More tomatoes...

This is Kylie's peace garden. She is planting various items here. She says that she is planting this garden solely for the wild critters we have running around here. They are welcome to eat anything from this patch:

Our neighbors say that our garden is gonna be eaten by the deer and the jackrabbits (and other critters). We have asked them (the wildlife) not to do this. The wild critters are welcome to everything else on the property. I have also pee'd around the periphery of the garden, as a reminder...

Do you think that will work? Stay tuned...

Beware Dogs Bearing Gifts...

Angel (our dog) is the first one to get up in our household. A lucky dog, we just open the door and let her take her morning constitutional. She likes to sniff around the property. Check this. Find that.

The other morning she ventured out and brought back this present for us. She left it on the front step as a gift for Joni when she opened the door after the dog's morning romp.
It was like the horses head scene in the Godfather!

The spinal cord is still attached to the skull. The ligaments still hold it together. All the flesh is gone. Decomposed and picked over.

So we have a mystery! CSI Concow once again! First, the dead snake. Now this skull. What do you think it is?

I haven't researched it yet. We aren't sure where Angel found the skull. I'm kind of hoping it is a black tailed deer who met his end of life from the tooth and claw of a mountain lion.

David Mallet: The Garden Song

I get a few e-mails from folks regarding this website (and my other one). I always love hearing from folks. One friend wrote to tell me that David Mallet wrote "The Garden Song". He went on to state that his vote would be for Mr. Mallet.

I don't have any audio on this computer from which I write this. So I will have to wait until I get home to see if this YouTube video is any good. Here is David Mallet singing "The Garden Song".

What do you think?

Singing with Arlo Guthrie...

We've been working on getting our garden beds ready to plant. Hauling dirt the old fashioned way:
We have eight beds ready to go:

It is hard not to sing "Inch by Inch, Row by Row--Gonna Make This Garden Grow" while working in the garden. Of course this is best sung with a nasally twang the way Arlo Guthrie sings it. Just click on Arlo Guthrie and listen to him sing (from 1987). Or if you prefer, hear John Denver sing it for Kermit.

Ok, who did you like better? Arlo Guthrie or John Denver?

The Stem Wall is Done! Well, almost...

So what is the exciting thing about this photo? Let me tell you. I finally have built the rock wall to the height that we want it to be. All we need do now is level the thing off with mortar, and we will be able to start stacking bales! Yahoo!!

This is the front of the house. We are making very slow progress...

Things should start going a bit quicker (for those who have been following this experiment for some time now...). Never, ever write these things down. Never, ever say how long you think it will take to complete a project. But to not follow my own advice...we hope to have walls up and completed by the middle of May (if the weather holds out).

And the whole thing we hope to have done (are these things ever really done?) by August 1. Then again, a friend of mine once told me: "If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans..."

More Mud Work...

We had a herd of kids drop by the house today. They thought it was fun to help build a house out of mud...

Happy Easter (Bunnies)!!

We got two bunnies today! Jazmine hold Tobi:

Kylie with Dutch:

Kylie holding Tobi:

We now have two mice (Nellie and Puzzle), one cat (Rocky), one dog (Angel) and two new bunnies (Tobi and Dutch; I wanted to name them Hunter and Abbey, but was over-ruled by the youngsters of the household).

Next we will get chickens and a goat!

Dirt!!

Left the hospital last night and drove the 160 some odd miles home (I was away for ten days). I'm home for 24 hours--and then back to the hospital for a couple more days. In the meantime, we had a dump truck deliver some good dirt to us for our gardens. We have set up eight raised beds from the extra rain soaked strawbales that we can't use.

The dirt is part compost, part worm castings and good ole Sacramento River Valley dirt. The earth up here is more suitable to building clay houses than for gardening. Hence the need for some good dirt. We need to build up the soil if we expect to eat any vegetables this year.

Grandpa Klungtvedt told me (just before he died) that I was the last hope in the family to become a Farmer. When he told me that (I was 12)...I was nearly appalled. Me? A Farmer? Heck, I wanted to live in the city and do city things.

But now I am on my way! This is for you Grandpa Klungtvedt!!

The above photo is the dumptruck load of dirt remaining that we need to heave (with the wheelbarrow) Beetle Bailey style into the garden beds. Of course, it is raining today (after being sunny the whole ten days I was gone), so I won't get any work done. It is a rest day--since I've been doing a whole lot of working for monetary wages lately.

Why am I working so much extra? Well, the unit needed somebody to fill in as a Social Worker for a few weeks. The work is easy; I'm horribly over paid to do it. But with this economy, it is hard to turn down extra work.

Teewinot...

I've spent way too much time working at the hospital lately. I've been away from the Solar Homestead 16 of the last 18 days. Too much. My days are filled with work. When that is done I usually go to the library, then a walk. I grab a bite to eat (sometimes in a restaurant, sometimes something warmed up in my room). Then I quietly sneak into my office and plunk away at the computer for a while.

Then it is back to my Monastic Dorm. I read. Alot.

This week I read Jack Turner's Teewinot: a year in the Teton range. This is the first book I've read by this Philosopher and pioneer of rock climbing. Jack Turner has had a life many of us dream of. Half academic. Half adventurer. This book is based on his adventuring.

It is a fun read. He borrows the idea from Ed Abbey's Desert Solitaire of condensing some thirty years of Teton living into a mythic year in the Tetons. It seems that nearly all the chapters begin with a description of 1. how cold it is and 2. what type of snow is falling.

We need more books like this though. Some gems stand out. His discussion of creating a culture whereby we let large predators live is very worth reading (and for someone to build on his ideas). By large predators, he means animals that can eat humans. Here in North America that is reduced to mountain lions and grizzlies.

Jack Turner was first and foremost a rock climber. His chapter about all the rock climbers he has known (guides with the company he works for) who have died is not put downable. As are the descriptions of how they died. He does this with tact and reverence.

His style is beautiful and simple. His descriptions are elegant and poignant. This is a good read. Worth picking up. I look forward to exploring more of his work.