Who Has the Time?

Now that summer is HERE, I know I don't hardly have the time to keep up on a FRACTION of the blogs I like to read, so how can I expect that anyone is reading mine? But, for the handful of you who still find the time, here's . . . not much (but it's all that time allows)!

Yesterday, Tom spent the day with one of our dear friends working on a 3-sided storage shed. I stopped by last night around 8:00 PM, and they had just finished.


Yesterday morning, there was nothing here but the four corner bases. They built the ENTIRE thing ALL . . . IN . . . ONE . . . DAY. Nothing was pre-made. Impressive, huh? 'Course, I told Tom that HIS problem is now that I've seen just how fast he can do a project like this, it should hardly be ANYTHING for him to pound together my greenhouse! ;)


The bugs (blackflies & mosquitoes) are HORRIFIC this year. I think we all anticipated (i.e. desperately hoped for) a "good" bug year since it was such a cool, late spring, but NO SUCH LUCK. I'm heading out soon here to work in the chicken yard and then the field garden, and I'll either be dousing myself with 100% DEET or covering myself in unbearably hot, non-breathable bug netting. What a choice - between the lesser of two evils.

Tom, meanwhile, is having what should be a typical Sunday: puttering around on odd jobs. He's already fixed the side door entrance light and the piece of gutter that fell off the roof. And pounded together a couple sections of crop covers for the field garden (to keep birds, chipmunks, etc. from eating the good stuff).

And now, I'm off, too. I got the pepper plants in yesterday. Today will be the broccoli & red cabbage & tomatoes (thanks, Mom, for starting all of these from seed!!). Tomorrow, maybe, I'll get to the onion sets & the potatoes. I'll get a couple of hours in on outside chores, and then I think we'll head to the lake 2 miles down the road. Fresh fish for dinner??

Blog Entry 01-26-09

Happy Monday!

I’m experiencing a different-than-usual start to the work week, but it certainly isn’t an unpleasant one. Once again, I am sitting on the couch in the sunroom, feet propped up in front of the roaring fire, coffee by my side, and the Aladdin oil lamp glowing over my left shoulder.

Tom had an early start today. The job he’s working on is 2 ½ hours away, drive-time. He’s much closer as-the-crow-flies . . . but there are no from-here-to-there roads accessible in the wintertime. He’s meeting the electrician at 10:00 this morning to get the wiring done. So far, there’s been electricity up there but only one temporary outlet and no wiring in the walls. And, until the wiring in the walls is done, Tom can’t get the insulation put up. And, no insulation means a cold work environment. On Friday, he finally got the stove and chimney completely installed so now he does have heat. (Temporary wood stove – one of our “extras” – but permanent stovepipe & chimney.) And, since the temperature here is somewhere around -15 degrees F this morning, that means it will be closer to -30 F up there . . . a GOOD day to have the stove in, to be sure!

We’ve had Tanner with us for about a week or so now - the dog of one of our dear friends who travels a LOT for work. Right now, his (the friend’s) schedule is, basically, 2 weeks gone and then 10 days home. So, Tanner is spending the bulk of his time with friends and family. Fortunately, he’s a very easy “extra” dog to have around (particularly given the fact that he is the size of a small horse), save his caustic toots. Seriously, he could peel wallpaper off with one expulsion of “out-gassing”. On the up side, he hasn’t been too bad this time!

We both decided to take the bulk of Saturday off, but Mother Nature and Murphy’s Law never seem terribly supportive of attempts like that. I’ve talked a bit about the night visits from the fox who is living down our driveway. He’s taken 3 hens to date (of the hens-who-sleep-outside-in-the-trees) . . . at least, that’s how many I know he’s taken. The actual number may be more. Anyway, when I went out to do chores on Saturday, I opened up the chicken house to let everyone out and then grabbed their outside water tub. As I turned towards the tree I use to bang it against to knock the remaining frozen . . . [battery power lost here].

Snow on the Pumpkin

Well, it was no big surprise that we didn't get the "big weather" that was predicted, but it does finally look like late fall outside. We woke to the first-of-the-year dusting of snow this morning and 26° temps. Tom dug those holes for me yesterday (for the mums and hostas, etc.) . . . just in time!

My oldest girlfriend (since we were five years old!!) and her hubby brought their perfect little peanut up yesterday for the first visit to her old stomping grounds and their 20 acres. I didn't get any pictures taken of the visit (wonder what happened there?!), but this is the Apple Upside Down Cake I made for dessert. It looks wonderful, but . . . it was raw in the middle when I brought it to the table to cut! Blech! How embawwassing! Fortunately, the outer half was fine, so I just served pieces cut sideways from the outside-in. Maybe it should have been called Apple Outside-In Cake? Anyway, I want to try it again (right away) to have an accurate feel on how long it SHOULD be baked (obviously, much longer than the 35 minutes the recipe said)!

On their way out to visit us, our friends stopped by my folks' first, and you can see a couple of pictures over at Mama Pea's blog. He's a sweet, sweet little boy, though, and looks EXACTLY like his father. His mother claims that the only physical attribute that he has of hers are detached earlobes!

In other news . . . the bamboo floor that Tom (with the help of another guy) installed looks GREAT! It's at the home of our massage therapist, and so I got a chance to see it Saturday night after a massage. We're so impressed with this sustainable product that we're thinking of getting some ourselves (none of the rooms have finished floors upstairs here in the house).

And, finally, Tom's brother and one of Tom's college buddies are coming up next weekend to help make some progress on the garage! We know we suffered a lot of heat-loss due to the lack of proper insulation out there last winter, and Tom's determined to avoid that same problem this year. And, while the actual insulating is a relatively simple process, it can't be done until the electrical wiring is complete. So, as I understand it, that's the plan for the visit: electrical wiring and then insulating.

Okay, I've got to run. Tom's going into town this afternoon to work on the film festival with his business partner, and I've got to get some mail together to send with him as well as some eggs to deliver . . . .

Snow's Coming

Well, the first storm of the year is predicted for this weekend, so it's time for us all to get out and finish up those last-minute chores . . . of which there are always TOO MANY! For me, that means putting my cold on the proverbial back burner and bundling up to finish putting the batch of perennials (that I got for free last month) into the ground so that there's some slight hope of preserving them and enjoying them year after year to come. That's what I'll be doing as soon as I publish this post . . . until the rain comes (before the snow).

Tom subcontracted out his Trapper Cabin Handyman Services to a fellow Mr. Fixit yesterday and helped install a new, large livingroom window. One of the big bonuses of doing this-and-that work is that we often get to take home the "discards" from the job. In this case, it was a nice 4' x 5' tempered-glass window that will go into the greenhouse (that I still hope we'll get built yet this fall). So, you can't beat that: getting paid for a job + taking home free materials!

Today Tom's off installing a new kitchen sink (and ripping out the old one) and fixing a hot water heater. This weekend, he's helping another guy (or the other guy is helping him?) install a new bamboo floor. It's at the home of our massage therapist, so I hope to post some pictures from that job later on.

As you can see from the blog title photo, all the leaves are gone. Once the killing frost hits (it STILL hasn't - which is UNBELIEVABLE!), the grass will brown up, and Bleak November will be here.

The loggers seem to have kicked things into overdrive and hauled 3 or 4 loads out yesterday. I suppose they're trying to beat the weather. Oddly enough, there's something almost comforting about the rumble the big rigs make as they climb the hill out of the cut and up towards the trapper cabin and then carefully idle down the curves of our narrow driveway out to the road. I'm sure that (mental) connection exists because logging was SUCH a founding aspect of this part of the country.

We're supposed to finally be meeting our "nephew" this weekend (the son of my oldest girlfriend and her superhubby), but with our colds that may not happen! :( He was the one who was so sick with heart problems when he was born, and they still have to be super careful about germs around him. But, with seemingly EVERYONE being sick right now, that might be an impossible proposition! Anyway, the decision will lay within the parents, and we'll just sit tight until then. But, if we DO visit, you can be assured that pics will follow! :)

Last Saturday, we had an early 50th celebration for one of our dear friends. (Incidentally, that's also where I was introduced to the cold germs, thanks very much!) He doesn't turn the big 5-0 until November 1st, but he's been doing bunches of traveling lately and will be gone for the special day. This isn't the most complimentary picture of such a good looking guy, but he WAS illustrating the imminent "death" of turning 1/2 a century old! ;)


The gal who hosted the intimate gathering suggested this Guinness cake (I'd offered to make it). She'd just had it at another birthday party and coerced the baker into sharing the recipe. And, let me tell you, it is TO DIE FOR! I've been looking for that "ideal" chocolate cake for years since "chocolate cake with white frosting" is what Tom wants every year for HIS birthday. And, I've never found that perfect cake . . . until now. I don't know what makes it so moist (the Guinness?), and it's just barely sweet . . . not too sweet as most chocolate cake recipes are. The frosting is heavy & creamy (from cream cheese) - and the frosting it supposed to imitate the foam on a pint of Guinness. Anyway, this one is THE new chocolate cake recipe around here!



And, to be fair to the Birthday Boy, here is a MUCH more complimentary picture of him (far left) with us and the rest of The Usual Suspects taken . . . when? . . . 2005, I think? (And, no, J in the front isn't really that short . . . !)

Mama's Advice

My mama made a good point in an e-mail to me this morning:

"You've got to make time for short blog updates (what went on each day) so people get some idea of ALL you do and have to deal with on a daily basis. (Processing gallons of green beans, making tons of pickles, bailing out the kitchen after sink drain disconnects, septic tank backed up, and probably many, many things I don't know about.) If you save it all up for when you have time to write everything out all together, you'll never get to the Herculean task or will have forgotten a lot of it by then. When your blog entries are spaced so far apart, folks out there think, "Ho-hum, nothing must be happening in their lives!'"

So, yes, I did a 6 1/2 hour marathon of pickling the other day - getting 9 pints and 10 quarts of dill pickles put up. Unfortunately, the last quart of pickles split open just as I was lifting it out of the canner! On the up side, it happened at the end and not at the beginning (a coup in itself)!

Sunday night and yesterday I processed green & wax beans and now have 3 months worth of veggies in the freezer for wintertime consumption.

Yesterday, while in the middle of blanching the beans, I went underneath the kitchen sink for something, and THANK GOODNESS I did! The drain pipe had come disconnected, and, had it not been for the fact that the garbage can was almost centered perfectly underneath, there would have been GALLONS of water soaked up by the sheetrocked wall instead of the little bit that had splashed out of the garbage can.

Then, after Tom came home from a TIRING day of moving 2,304 (not that he counted or anything) paving stones to the patio area he's currently working on in town, he fixed the sink. After smashing his head on the bottom of the cabinet while trying to get back up, he wisely decided to take a nice, hot bath. After taking his nice, hot bath and feeling MUCH more content, he came downstairs to talk to me . . . at which point I heard bubbling in the downstairs toilet (NOT good)! "Stop the tub from draining," I hollered to Tom as I ran past him to slam the off button on the washing machine!

Long story short, the septic tank backed up. Again. Fast forward past us taking the lids off the tank last night, doing our "business" outside these past 12+ hours, and my call to the septic guys . . . and they are my new best friends - already having come and gone this morning. The good news is that the drain field is NOT clogged, as we'd feared. The bad news is that they can't figure out why the septic tank is not draining properly. Hmmmm.

Oh, and did I mention that I can barely feel my fingers as I type? It's 55 degrees in the house right now. Fifty-five. That's cold. I have a turtleneck and polarfleece jacket on. And I'm frozen. And I'm drinking coffee. And my nose is numb. But, off I go to take a hot shower . . . in the 55 degree bathroom. Niiiiiiice.

"Yippee Ti Yi Yay . . . ."

"I'm on my way . . . . back in the saddle again!"

Ahhhh, technology. That said, I know I wouldn't miss what I didn't know about. So, is it better that I KNOW about the technology of the Internet and computers . . . or would I have been better off without it all in the first place? And, that's a dilemma for another day, I guess. Point is, as of 10:45 PM last Thursday night, we're back online!

Now, the first order of business is to welcome the newest little baby to Minnesota via his parents who are home from Uganda (their home-away-from-home) for the birth and the four weeks following! At a healthy 8 lbs. 7 oz., OAB arrived on Saturday, I heard from his proud ex-pat grandpa in England this AM (see, we're so wide-spread now that we DO need that thing called Technology)! We can't wait to meet this little bundle of love!! (This stunning photo was taken by the papa - an incredible photographer.)



Meanwhile, the other bean (the aforementioned bean's cousin!) we're expecting with much anticipation is still in utero, due mid-month. But, both mama and baby (and daddy, let's not forget him!) are completely healthy and ready-to-go, so we are on "Baby Watch"! With their respective parents (brother and sister) having married their respective spouses just 2 weeks apart in our hometown, it will be exciting to see these little ones grow up together! August 2008 - a good baby month! (This photo of the ravishing mommy was taken by this bean's proud papa!)

Baby news aside, onto This Is Our Life!

I am, quite literally, in a state of disbelief that it is August. Now, were it the beginning of June, I could (almost) handle that. On the up side, I am looking forward to the cooler temps that September always brings. And, really, we have not had the hot, hot summer that we had last year, but I can no longer tolerate ANY heat (since my early menopause - sorry for the TMI, fellas).

And, then there are the bugs. Due to the long, wet spring, we have been INundated with nasty little biters this summer. I'd hoped the cool weather precipitating the hatch would keep the mosquito numbers down, but it was an "Alaskan Bug Season" this year. From the beginning of June until the end of July you simply COULD NOT GO OUTSIDE unless you had bathed in 100% DEET bug-dope (sticky, slimy, and smelly . . . not to mention fairly toxic) or covered yourself (in those hot temps) head-to-toe in non-breathable netting. The last two months have just NOT been conducive to enjoying The Great Outdoors. Fortunately, there are 10 months left to each year when outside activity IS possible. It's just a shame that - in the (very) limited growing season - we have to make so many uncomfortable adjustments just to get out in it.

You'll notice a new August picture that I've posted above. No, Maisy hasn't morphed into a much bigger dog: that's Tanner who we were babysitting for 8 days at the end of last month. Although the picture doesn't adequately show it, he's really a small horse and proverbial "bull in the china shop" . . . but, fortunately, also a complete lover. :) And, true to that description, he made the bottom half of the front door's screen his own personal dog door one day when he decided that he wanted to be on the side of it that we were on. On the up side, we and our dogs like / use it so much that, with a few modifications, we're going to make it a permanent addition! So, no harm, no foul!

As I've mentioned before, Tom has been gone SO much now with his new job(s): painting for a friend's very successful LLC and developing Trapper Cabin Handyman Services. The former finds him working 65 miles from home (although he's only 36 miles away today!), and there's no sense in him driving all that way (home again) at night only to turn around in fewer than 12 hours to do it all again. So, we're using our little cabin just outside of town a lot more, and it's nice to have that option. Unfortunately, it would be nice to see my husband once in a while! Although our time was limited due to a run into town for the entire evening Saturday, we did get a few things done this weekend.

That huge spruce tree that we felled back in May has finally become many linear feet of good, solid lumber, thanks to help from my dad and Tom's use (more skilled each time) of our portable sawmill.

I think I mentioned that the crack in the tree was so massive that we thought sure it would be hollow. But, much to our surprise, it was solid as can be. So, rather than become firewood, it has provided some good slabwood (to become snap-cracklin' kindling this winter); some beautiful, wide 1/2" thick panels which will become cabinets in the kitchen; an extra, solid 10' (12'?) 6 x 6; and these two 10" x 10" x 12' lunkers for our front yard gateway.

Tom got them stained (grey) on Saturday, and the upright supports will get stained the same red as the house and garage fascia*. Yesterday, we got them on their supports and perfectly placed. And, yes, they are H-E-A-V-Y!!! Tom came away with a bloody foot (as usual, he was wearing just his Tevas), and I came away with VERY swollen and sore forearms (where the butt ends of the timbers rested as I lifted them for Tom to adjust the supports underneath). * In the first picture, you can see that Tom got the staining done on the garage fascia. The garage, itself, will still be painted a lighter grey to match the house. Maybe NEXT summer?! Yikes.

Another notable aspect of these pictures is our MASSIVELY OVERGROWN yard! It looks like it should belong to an abandoned residence! Good grief! I've used the lawn mower ONCE this summer . . . and only for about 1 hour (that's all the heat and bugs would allow). Now that the bugs are beginning to abate, though, I really hope to get out to make a difference.

A month (or two?!) ago, I spent a good wad of money on many well-researched flower and ground cover seeds for the area between this gateway and the house. Perennials, all of them. We hope to have ground cover in the area closest to the house where the trees / shrubs / evergreens are planted along the two slate walkways. Then, alongside the gravel path (soon to come - the gravel was delivered) that will join the gateway and the slate walkway will be taller wild flowers. I'm trying to figure out how to produce that organized chaos of an English garden without it looking like a care-less mess. Any ideas?

Okay, that's all for now. My hat goes off to those of you who are doing a bang-up job of updating your blogs regularly. I'd love to say our lack of Internet was the only thing that prompted this latest dearth (SUCH a good word, that is!) of posts, but we all know that ain't the truth. ;) I just have to get my MIS under control (Multiple Irons [In The Fire] Syndrome).

The First Day of the Rest of My Summer

Things have . . . life has . . . been too staggeringly and debilitatingly frantic for us these last few weeks. But, with today comes the first day of the rest of my summer. I think.

Seriously, I don't think we've EVER been so busy as this last little stretch of time. One would think that we must have been . . . and maybe we never remember those times for what they were . . . but I just don't remember such an awful, disheveled time.

Since Tom quit at the Rez, an unexpected and undesired side-effect has occurred: he's never home. It feels like a year since he was working that 8:00 - 5:00 job (it's only been 8 weeks as of today!), but the fact was that he was home in the evenings and on the weekends. Now, the light-out-late evenings lend more hours for working any one of his many new jobs as do the weekends.

The most prominent job has been his new Mr. Fixit company, Trapper Cabin Handyman Services (check out the website which I'll have up soon: www.trappercabinhandyman.com). The motto is "Lotsa jobs may be too big, but there's no job too small!" :) (He is a one-man show, remember!) So far, he's had three jobs: two private and one that he had to bid on (and won, obviously!).

The first job was cutting and installing 3 windows in a (basically) windowless log cabin. Then he replaced the front door which was no small feat due to the complete LACK of "square-ness" in the cabin.

(This first picture, both of these are courtesy of the home owner, is a bit terrifying: where he once had a perfectly sound log wall, he'll soon have a gaping hole!)

The second shot is of Tom routering out the logs so he can install the window frame. (Keep in mind that many of the locations Trapper Cabin Handyman is called to don't have electricity - such as this one. That means he has to lug the "portable" [that's relative when it weighs somewhere around 75 pounds] generator to each site.)

The 2nd job was some miscellaneous yard clean up / organization followed by re-roofing a potting shed and re-siding and roofing a small greenhouse. He's still working on that job.

Today took him down to the job he bid on in the county south of us. The work site is about a 2 hour drive, door-to-door. There's a new development on a tiny lake there, and each of the building sites needs to be marked by signs that the developer had made. Tom's mounting the signs and putting them in the ground (which is difficult since the ground is pretty much nothing but ledgerock in that area). There are 33 sites, if memory serves. There were also 3 large signs that needed to be put up at main intersections. My dad went down to help him one day last week with the largest of the signs. Does that mean that Tom's business is big enough to sub-contract work out now?! (Ha ha.)

Anyway, with a job like that - so far away from home - and him having to drive the big one-ton pickup due to everything he has to haul, there's just no sense in him coming home at nights. There is one spec home built on that new development, so he stayed down there last week. There was cold water, a microwave, and roof over his head - but no bed nor heat. So, you can imagine that sleep was limited. Because of that, we've almost decided that it's worth it for him to come all the way home in between . . . or, at the very least, to our cabin just east of town at night. A bad night of sleep has an amazingly large effect on a person's day!

So, besides the handyman business, I had Trapper Cabin Tommy hoppin' to get ready for his first art festival over the July 4th weekend! And, while people oohed and aahed over Trapper Cabin Woodworks, Tom has pretty much vowed that that was his first and LAST art festival. Not that he won't make more items to sell in the future, but he's NOT a happy camper at those things: being "ON" all day, every day for three days straight; smiling at every single person who passes your table; chit-chatting with strangers to pass the time; trying to tout your own crafts without sounding boastful . . . you get the idea. It is exhausting. I have impressive blisters on both feet from the weekend that are just now beginning to dry and peel off. (Aren't you glad I shared that?) But, Tom did sell one of his beautiful tables for $125. Can't beat that with a stick . . . especially considering all the materials (except the glue, screws, and varnish) were 100% free! (Think we remembered to take a picture of it before it sold? Nope!)

And, finally, Tom's THIRD job has been painting for a friend who owns one of the most respected painting businesses in the county. Unfortunately, the development they've been working at is 65 miles down the shore! So, the little Yaris has been racking up the miles: 2,400 already in only 30 days! (We GOTTA get that in for an oil change!)

And then there's the computer consulting business that Tom's trying to get going plus the alternative energy (mostly solar) sub-contracting that he and my dad are doing.

So, are you beginning to understand, now, why Tom is never home?! This weekend was kind of the breaking point for us, and - while we know that this period of "establishing" ourselves in whatever jobs are going to bring the most money / happiness will not last forever - we also realized that we have to take a good look at prioritizing things. I've not been home this past week, either, and I wasn't "home" mentally the weeks before, prepping for the art festival. Meaning, the house is a DISASTER (I know I've said that before, but I REALLY mean it now), and we haven't had a healthy, home-cooked meal since I-don't-know-when (thank you, frozen pizzas and Subway). Neither of us are happy about that, and Tom - who never asks for ANYTHING - said this weekend, "I want my wife back." And, I, too, MISS being a wife - a homemaker - a proper (i.e. spending enough time to do the job[s] right) farmer. I've been doing my own part to try to bring money in lately, but, as I said, we've got to sit down and prioritize. All we've been doing is putting out the proverbial fires. Running around doing "just enough" to avert major disasters. But, in the midst of all those attempts, of course there are failures. I've lost a duckling, a gosling, one chick, and two turkey poults in the last couple of weeks . . . and an itty-bitty bunny. But, those are stories for later. (Be glad I've gotten THIS far!)