The O-Zone

Ok, so I’m a bit behind on posting. I’m also practicing understatements today. So maybe I should do this by months….

August 2024

The storage part of our new garage building was completed.

We didn’t put any windows in this part of the garage as we wanted to be able to heat it in the event we want to use a corner as a cold storage space. That way we can regulate the temperatures with a bit more accuracy.

We have spent the ensuing months moving things from our old funky storage shed into the new storage space. This process was delayed because we have been waiting for the garage part to be insulated and sheet rock installed on the walls, and then everything could be put where it belongs rather than moving things back and forth. And as anybody who knows me, I was very patient about this process.

We had company in August and set up the new room.

More company of the four-legged variety came to visit us in August. One thing we didn’t see was a bear! This is weird. And everybody we talked to said they weren’t seeing any bears either.

Another very cool thing that happens around here in August is… Peaches!!!!! In another couple of years perhaps our peach tree will produce something. It still looks very wimpy.

And I did make a pie.

No pictures of the pie. The crust was somewhat of a disaster and so we ate the evidence very quickly.

We went for a walk by the river during one of the periods when we weren’t being invaded by contractors.

Other entertainment during August was experimenting with recipes and my gluten-free flour.

Yum. The raspberry danish in particular was highly addictive, and I made a couple of batches of this which I froze so they would last longer. These were too good, and high calories, so I have refrained from making more of them for now. But now that I think about it, maybe I should make some more of them.

So August was kind of quiet. The strawberry plants had taken a month off to do some growing, and the weeds had basically taken over the rest of the garden so we didn’t get much done with gardening. This next year will hopefully be a lot better, no contractors cluttering up our lives.

September

Strawberry plants are back in business!

September was mostly of boring. Mainly we harvested strawberries and wondered when the contractors would come back to finish working on our sidewalk, and completing the garage.

We had that for breakfast this morning too, but no tomatoes. Freshly harvested tomatoes are just amazingly wonderful.

And then September 25th happened. I had finished working and a few minutes later the power went off. This wasn’t super surprising as we had been having 40 mph winds all day and the power tends to go out. We figured it was some tree up in Sherman Pass which is where it usually has problems with high winds.

Good timing I thought! It didn’t interfere with me working and my use of the internet. I settled down on the couch and was snuggling with Mish per his demand, trying to help him with his quest for the perfect nap, when the sun sort of got dimmer. How odd, I thought, and I looked out the window to the south.

Dan asked me what wasn’t good as I sounded panicked, and I simply pointed out the window. He went outside to look, came back inside a moment later and said he was getting the travel cages for Oro and Mish, and told me to get some things packed up. The next hour was pretty frantic.

Fresh forest fire smoke is awful, just a terrible smell. And the humidity was extremely low outside. We had been under a red flag warning frequently the last few weeks. Every few minutes I would duck outside and take a new picture, in between trying to think of what to take with us and hoping we could get down the highway or if it was closed due to the fire. It looked like the highway may be an issue.

I tried to call 9-1-1 but because the only cell tower we can reach is in Canada, I reached the Canadian folks and told them about the fire and told them how high the winds were and how fast the fire was moving. They connected me to the Americans who told me they knew about the fire and crews were on their way.

We stopped at the post office to talk to the post master who is our next door neighbor. She told us that the highway was indeed closed to traffic so the only way to get out of here was to cross the river and then take a logging road over the mountains to get to a paved road which would bypass the roadblock, and allow us to get to Republic and hopefully find a motel room to spend the night.

That was one nasty rough road which seemed to be taking forever! Along the way we could see the fire from a different perspective.

The main issue was high winds that day. They drive the fire. Well, not the main issue. The main issue was probably the 15% humidity.

Where we were standing on the bluff above the river was obviously a deep spot in terms of water depth.

I tried to take a movie of this process, him hovering above the water and filling the bucket, but I was shaking too much and not thinking clearly. So the technical process of taking a movie was too much for me to accomplish, apparently. You know, click the video button and then click on the start button. Too hard.

After he left with his tea cup of water we decided to just head for town. A couple of hours later we got to Republic, a process that normally takes 45 minutes. That was a long drive! Oro and Mish couldn’t figure out what we had in mind, or if we had simply lost our minds. I kept telling them we weren’t moving even though I didn’t know if we were going to be moving if the fire destroyed everything.

We got no sleep. Dan would have but I kept waking him up. He deserves a medal or something. The next morning we called our neighbors to find out what had happened. They also got no sleep but they stayed and didn’t evacuate. It was a Level 3 evacuation in our neighborhood for weeks, and most of us stayed. They said the highway was open again but with a pilot car since they were working there, and trees were still coming down and the ground was still hot. The fire had come within 1/4 mile of our house before the winds turned a bit and it headed up into the mountains. And it had rained a bit overnight and the winds died down!!! That was really the saving grace.

We returned home to see how things looked. And shortly after we got things unpacked, critters restored to their normal homes, had some tea and tried to calm down (me mainly), and make a new list of things we actually should have taken with us when we evacuated, we saw a freaking jet plane!! There is literally NO place around here to land a jet plane. That was just other-worldly. So we went outside to look at it. It was flying low and making huge circles, and then it sort of disappeared. And another smaller two prop plane was doing the same thing.

This time I managed to get a movie.

Turn the sound up loud so you can sort of get a feel for what this was like. They were only a couple hundred feet above our house. This went on all afternoon. The jet had to return somewhere to get reloaded with retardant, as did the smaller plane which was dumping water, way more water at a time than the helicopter with his tea cup. The helicopter just went back and forth to the river.

What they were trying to do is keep the fire from crossing the border and getting into Canada. There are a lot of houses up there, way more than on this side of the border. And it worked.

There was one really bright spot in being home again.

We had to leave it in the fridge when we evacuated, and we were not sure what would happen to it, considering we had no electricity when we left. Fortunately the crews on the highway that we had seen earlier in the day had restored the power lines. So whipped cream was feasible after all.

The next few weeks we were not able to leave the house.There was still a Level 3 evacuation order, and we watched the crews with their many trucks, pulling trailers with heavy equipment, driving past our house in the morning, and then heading back down again when darkness fell. Day after day after day. It was a long few weeks.

The winds died down completely and never got back to high winds, and the fire crews were able to get things under control. And even more fortunately the winds didn’t turn around and bring the fire down the hill back towards us. Once it snowed in mid November, that put the fire out finally.

October

After waiting for the roadblock at the bottom of our road to finally be moved so that a concrete truck could drive up, our contractors showed up in the middle of the month and built a sidewalk.

Have to love the yellow tape. It was like living in a crime scene for a few days.

Another thing that happened with the power failure back on the Day, it fried the electronics in our gas range. This was a whole other problem to deal with. We had to order a new range, convert it to propane and then only to discover that the oven was non-functional so we had to order another range. We decided not to fool around with a gas range, and that electric would do this time.

It is so nice to be fully functional again. October was really sort of a blur and there aren’t many pictures taken. We were mostly just trying to deal with wondering if we would need to evacuate again, wondering if we should move which we really didn’t want to do as we actually love this house and we’ve spent so much time and energy and money in fixing it up, but if we did want to move where would it be. Very stressful all the way around, and for weeks.

November

Time to play with things I’d frozen during the summer.

We didn’t get much of a harvest from a lot of our berry plants, the strawberries being the exception. So this pie has strawberries, raspberries, black raspberries, red currants, black currants, and gooseberries. It was delicious!

Our first snowfall was on the 16th of November.

A lot of the snow that fell on the 16th had already melted away. And then it all went away. We’ve had a few little snow falls since then but then it warms up and all melts again. We got some last night but it won’t be there for long. This has been a weird winter so far. Nothing much else happened in November. We didn’t do anything except try to catch our breath from the last couple of months and worked on doing more exercises mostly.

December

Finally the contractors showed up again on the 11th. Yay!

We have a shelving unit to put together for the garage and then we can completely move stuff from the storage shed and get things organized. This feels like a major accomplishment to get to this point. The was the last of our projects that required contractors.

All we have left is our bedroom to repaint and the closet doors to replace. We will do that ourselves.

The rest of December will be devoted to those two little projects. We should start the new year off with nothing to do on the house. We will be able to concentrate on the garden. The weeds better watch out. We are going to be coming for them.

Happy New Year (almost) and Happy Winter Solstice!!! A most important thing as the days start getting longer.

So that’s done! My only sewing project for the year. Sewing is just not my thing.

It’s great when a plan comes together. On to the next project, one that involves paint.

The contractors are done with the building and the electrical installation, which were the only two components of the garage. Now we have to wait for two inspections, and the power company to hook up the power to the garage.

Also we need to put some gravel in front of the garage door to bring the driveway level up to the foundation. It will make driving in less bumpy. 🙂

Would you believe a sidewalk is what started this whole project? We really want one for winter snow and ice conditions as it is much easier to keep it free from both snow and nice than it is bare ground. Less hazardous to our health if we do things that will let us avoid falling.

So there are things yet to do but it’s stuff we can do, rather than contractors. Yay! Mishkin is going to be so happy not to have strangers lurking around and banging on his house since he can’t keep his servants from allowing interlopers. Badly trained humans.

Watched a baby hummingbird taking a bath in the bird bath this morning. Funny that the adults don’t do that, just the babies. They hang out on the side of the bath where the water escapes and making a tiny waterfall, and they flutter their wings to throw up a cloud of water drops. So cute!!

P.S. Barry LOVES reading about our garage. 😀

Finally started making the cushions for the window seat. It’s been occupying dreams for a while, and I have a plan, so now I get to see if the plan works.

Plan A

First I cut the foam into three pieces and I started working on the largest piece first. Smaller piece would have been easier to work with, but I love a challenge.

Then I pinned the hemline. This was lots of little pins.

Back to the project.

I decided to hand sew the hem, rather than using a sewing machine. Why? Well, it seamed (seemed) like a good idea at the time. 😀

I left the T-pins in place and removed the small pins as I went along, sewing around a 1/4 inch wide hem all the way around. A couple of hours later I was done.

The bottom piece which was hemmed previously was laid on top of project to see how it looked, what problems had occurred during the initial construction. T-pins keep everything in place as I went.

Unpinned everything again, and re-centered it, and pinned it up again, and decided on a different method for dealing with the corners. I haven’t done any more cutting because I may have use a different method altogether if I can make the corners lay flat on the bottom of the cushion.

And obviously the fabric isn’t a taut as it should be, so more re-pinning is going to be required.

We also got the new rug for the room, which I’ve been waiting for the last couple of months.

So my hare brained idea for the window seat seems to be working out ok, so far. I’m on Plan C now because I haven’t figured out how to deal with the excess of fabric at the corners. Will only get concerned when I get to Plan 9.

Picked another batch of strawberries today, most of which were destined for freezing. One batch will be dessert tonight. And I solved a problem of having run out of chocolate covered strawberries (again). This is an on-going problem.

I had set aside six of the largest for their highest and best use.

Finished a knitting project earlier this week, yet another bead knitted purselet.

If you squint just right you might be able to tell but chances are high it’s too artistic an interpretation. I had some pretty Garnet beads in a rectangle shape and some little round ones, plus larger Hematite beads just for extra bling with the Chrystal beads. These are so much fun to make.

We also got to eat some of the very first Black Raspberries (also called Black Caps) from our plants. Those will be producing a lot of fruit very soon and they make amazing jam.

The construction framing is done and the garage is dried in! Given the number of garage buildings we see in this county that are in this exact condition, technically we could be done. But we aren’t; we are probably setting a bad example.

Next week the electrician will be here and we’ll have power to the building. We have both interior and exterior lights and heaters for the electrician to install.

They won’t be back for a little while, having other jobs to do while we wait for a roofing component to arrive. All we have left in the yard are two piles of materials. One is metal roofing and one is concrete board siding. They could have done the metal roofing but one component was missing and of course it was the thing that goes on first. So, we wait for that to come in.

We need to get paint for the exterior, but there’s no hurry at the moment. Rats.

Yesterday I started working on finishing the window seat.

Both are water based and so there’s little in the way of odor and no noxious gases are being released.

Today I need to sand it and apply the second coat of varnish, and then decide if it needs to be sanded again and another coat of varnish. We need to get quarter-round molding for the side and back edges. We will be lining the interior of the box with aromatic cedar boards and that will finish this little project.

Today Dan also picked red currants.

There still aren’t enough currants to make jelly so I will just freeze these and add them to the harvest from next season. The plants still have a lot of growing to do and they are also putting on new stems which will produce a good amount of fruit.

Lots of strawberries to be picked tomorrow. No rest for the wicked, apparently.

Yesterday we had to go to Home Depot to get things needed to complete the garage construction, and we also stopped at our favorite orchard to pick up a box of pie cherries and raspberries since our own pie cherry tree didn’t set any fruit this year (being still a tiny baby tree), and our raspberry canes are doing who knows what but not setting any fruit. Maybe next year for those plants.

When we got home I cleaned just enough cherries to make this…

Today we worked on cleaning, pitting, and freezing the remaining cherries from the 20 pound box of the fruit. Since each cherry isn’t huge, this was a lot of work and it took us both more than two hours to finish the task.

I looked at the red currants and they need another day or possibly two to finish ripening.

The black currants were ready, however, such as the harvest is.

Next project was to make raspberry jam. Yesterday after we got home I put the raspberries we bought into a large mixing bowl and added 3/4 cup of sugar for each cup of fruit, and stuck in the refrigerator. This afternoon I put the mixture into a pan and started cooking it down, to reduce the volume and convert it into jam.

Once the raspberries and sugar cooked down I ladled the mixture into hot dried off jars, set the lid down on top and tightened down the ring.

Both jar lids have said peenk! I love that sound; it means everything worked as it was supposed to. So tomorrow I’ll label them and we’ll have some homemade jam.

In the meantime Dan is picking strawberries. Lots and lots of strawberries. I’ll be cleaning and freezing those this afternoon.

Today was definitely a red letter day.

The roofing trusses were delivered and installed in place, awaiting plywood sheathing and then the waterproof covering and the metal roofing on top of that. That will be a major step forward, as the garage will be dried in.

Since we’re not insulating the garage this point, it doesn’t really matter having air flow, but down the road we will definitely be finishing the inside of the garage. We will be finishing the inside of the storage space now as we may decide to use it for cold storage of root vegetables, next year. There will be a heater in both rooms of the garage.

Yesterday while we were waiting for the truss company to deliver these building components we were busy doing other things.

We picked strawberries and took care of some laundry.

So far I’m up to one week in April. There are at least two more harvests of this size already ripening on the plants, then they’ll take a little breath and do some growing, and then start producing again. We will definitely have enough berries in the freezer for strawberries once a week, year round!

The purple ones are vetch, highly prized by chickens. They love love love to eat vetch. I told Dan that definitely we could support a good sized herd of chickens and he said no chickens. Again…. I hear that a lot.

Today the contractors will put the plywood down on the trusses and install the waterproofing. That will protect the plywood from the rain which is coming.

Saturday we’ll go pick up the paint we need for the exterior of the building, and pay a visit to Smallwood Farms to get pie cherries and raspberries! I’ll freeze both for other desserts over the winter. Cherry cobbler, and a crisp, and a pie! Or maybe just pies. Depends on the request I get at the time which one I’ll make.

Still haven’t seen any fawns, but the meadow grasses are so high that it’s likely one or more of the many does we see wandering around out there are being followed by a wee deer.

The garage framing is done. It’s a simple building, four exterior walls and one interior wall separating the garage from the storage room, two personnel doors, two windows, and a garage door. Very simple.

These materials sat in the yard for over a week, waiting for the concrete to dry. Watching concrete drying is a very similar experience to watching paint dry. Late last week the guys came and removed the form materials and filled in the hole in which the garage foundation was built, preparing for construction to begin.

They also kind of smoothed out the yard. Alas it remains a mess which we’ll have to fix next spring. Oh well.

Bright and early Monday morning they arrived again and began working. In very short order the first three walls were up!

The gray pipe in the wall on the right side of picture is for the electrical service to come into the building. A panel will go above the pipe and then the building will be wired for outlets, lights and switches. That won’t be done until the roofing has been completed and doors and windows are all installed. The doors and windows have arrived and are sitting at the building supply company waiting to be delivered.

These are the two doors, one into the storage room and one into the garage. An interior wall will be built on Tuesday to separate the two spaces.

Tuesday they finished up construction in short order and by the middle of the day they were gone. Wednesday the roof trusses will be delivered and the truss company let us know they have three deliveries in this area so we will either be first, last, or in the middle. There’s really nothing as refreshing as clear and concise communication showing a high degree of organization with some companies.

The Aspen tree obscures the front porch. There will be a sidewalk on this side of the garage and then it will run across the front of our house to the porch.

Next year we will replace this tree and might fence the front yard with tall fencing similar to the garden fence. That will make it possible to plant flowers and other bushes and also perhaps to set up our bird feeders for year-round. It will keep the deer out of the yard as they pretty much adore any flowers planted in this area. It might also discourage the bears and skunks from having parties on our front porch.

While all this building has been happening, or paint was drying, we were also doing other things, mainly strawberry related. June 18th was a pretty good harvest!

Since this harvest we’ve had a couple of other larger harvests, most of which have been cleaned and frozen for the coming winter. The ones that didn’t get frozen were dessert on those days.

My goal is to be able to have strawberries and shortcake once a week through the winter and into the spring, until June when the new berries are ripe. It’s a good goal! I’m up to three weeks into February so far.

Who knew! Our first strawberries were ready to be picked!! And it was only the middle of June.

And the flour I ran out of also arrived today, in time to make a cake for the strawberries to sit on. So exciting. We’ll have a regular amount of strawberries from now until the middle of October if last year was any indication of how long we can expect the harvest to last. A lot of that depends on frost, how hard and how early. This is the banana belt for this area and we are very optimistic.

Pretty soon the bulk of the strawberries will get ripe and I’ll freeze the bulk of them so we can enjoy them for months over the winter.

Today we need to find the floating row covers. The Robins haven’t figured it out yet, that there are strawberries. This is just a matter of time and the Robins will be even happier than we were to see them.

Soon the Red Currants will be ripe. The Gooseberries take considerably longer and we won’t get to pick those until late July. There aren’t enough Josta Berries or Black Currants to get excited about this year, though the plants look great. Our Red Raspberry plants look pretty pathetic. Not sure what’s going on with them. The Black Raspberry plants look awesome and are blooming like crazy so we’ll have lots of those to play with in August.

So what else happened yesterday. Oh yeah.

This.

It took hours of hard work. Mishkin found the truck very interesting and spent a lot of time staring at it out the windows. This is surprising as normally anything like that sends him scampering for our bedroom and zipping under the covers where he looks worried until he figures it is safe to come out or I go roust him out.

Today our marching orders are to water down the concrete when it gets to be hot in the middle of the day. My understanding is this will make the garage grow. I could be confused about that.