The O-Zone

This week we started the actual construction of the walls.  Digging dirt is such hard work.  Dan kept telling me the entire time that smart people don’t use shovels and pry bars.  I’m not sure what that means 🙂

So far the walls are standing up, fairly straight, and well braced.

Today I’ve been watching to see when the sun will actually start hitting the greenhouse.  At 10am it’s still fairly well shaded.

There are four windows, on the east and west walls, two on each wall. The east wall also has a door.

We have heat sensitive brackets for the windows which will open and close the windows based on the temperatures inside the greenhouse.  The door has screen as well, so we will be able to give some extra ventilation to the greenhouse.

View from the west wall of the greenhouse. Mount Baldy still has snow on top.

I’ve showed the tomato plants the view from their new home, and much frond waving ensued.  I’m sure they were saying “Yay!”

So the plan for today is to get the center ridge beam built and installed.  And then tomorrow we’ll build the rafters and get them all braced against future snow loads for the coming winter.  And then we build the raised beds, and then we can move the dirt.  That dirt pile hasn’t gotten the least bit smaller as of yet.  And then we have to cover the building with plastic and get it all tacked down.  And then we can actually move the tomato plants, peppers, melons, herbs, and cucumbers into their new home.

No wonder the pepper plants weren’t as excited by the news as were the tomato plants.

Still seems like a lot of work.

By the front door, the Bleeding Heart plant is in full take over the garden space mode. Such a pretty plant, though, so we don't mind too much. We are going to try to restrain it a bit this year.

And now some levity.

"No, no! I won't join the circus!! I'm an indoor cat."

Mishkin hates my exercise ball.  Whenever I try to make him stand on top of it, he just has a fit, and refuses to touch it with his back feet.  And he makes faces, too.  No tricks for him!

Tuesday this week a truck showed up with a bunch of building materials on top of the flat bed.

Using the little forklift hitching a ride on the back of the truck, unloading all this stuff is pretty easy.

It doesn’t look like all that much stuff, really, but hand carrying it and moving it around would not have been very much fun.

The driver had to move the truck around a bit in order to give himself enough room to swing the long boards around and not hit the garage, or trees, or truck. It was interesting to watch how deftly he drove that little machine.

A bunch of work laying on the grass.

The first pile of covered boards is 2×10 cedar, a variety of lengths.  They will be used to make the raised beds in the greenhouse.  The middle pile is 6×6 treated lumber which will be foundation of the greenhouse.  The farthest pile is also treated lumber 2×6 boards, which will make the framework of the greenhouse.  Behind the tree are other materials, mostly half inch welded wire mesh which will go on the bottom of the raised beds in the greenhouse, and around the exterior of the garden fence.

Today the excavator showed up to haul topsoil down the hill from our upper 20 acres.

First, though, he used the backhoe to smooth out and level the place where we will build the greenhouse.

And then he started making trips up and down the hill, hauling one cubic yard of dirt each trip.

That's a big pile of dirt.

Really good topsoil, though, perfect consistency and a lot of organic material in the dirt.  It’s so close to the greenhouse that it should be fairly easy to move it once we have the raised beds in place.

The raised beds will be attached to both the foundation boards and the walls of of the greenhouse, and once they are full of dirt it should make the structure too heavy to be moved by high winds.

So now, all we have to do is put this all together.  A lot of work.

He came back last evening, and we knew he was there because a riot erupted in the parrot’s room.  The sun was low in the western sky but it was still about half an hour until sunset.

Not as big as I thought he was the first time, only about 2.5 feet tall at the shoulder and around 250-300 pounds. A full grown bear, no babies in evidence, so probably a male.

See the grass sticking out of his mouth? And he's looking up at me.

I must have made some noise.  I had gone outside around the house to take his picture.   When he looked up at me, I snapped one more picture and turned around to go back into the house.  I discovered Dan had come outside with me (I didn’t know he was there), and Dan clapped his hands.  The bear skedaddled around the back of the garden.

And the bird entertainment was over for the evening.

Evidently they paid attention the other day when I pointed out the Bear Channel was live.  Mish has been watching the Bird Channel, Chipmunk Channel, and Deer Channel from the living room windows.  So much entertainment for our critters.

Yesterday I decided to stop fighting with my knitting graph and do something else with the project.  So I cast on 18 stitches.

Handspun Qiviut single plied with a silk thread, on size 1 needles. The yarn will fuzz up later when the finished project is washed and blocked.

I’ve thought about this project for so many years, it’s exciting to actually get started with the knitting part of things.  I’ll alternate between knitting and spinning.  I have 400 yards spun so far, and want to see how far it will take me on the pattern.

The first three teeth of the bottom border of the shawl are done. I have to create 37 or 40 teeth for the bottom border.

It all depends on whether or not I figure out the graph, how many teeth I have to knit.  The way I have it graphed now, I will need 40 teeth.  But I should be able to get it down to 37.  Theoretically.  I’ve only redone the exterior of the graph a dozen times, and it was making me very cranky yesterday.  Feeling better now that I have some knitting done 🙂

Baby tomato and pepper plants under their grow light.

We have five varieties of tomatoes and five varieties of peppers.  I’ve thinned the peat pots down to one plant each.  The tomato plants are too leggy but they are getting some good leaves so maybe it’s good enough.   Now they just need a home to live in.  In a couple of weeks we’ll plant the melon seeds.  The cucumber seeds can go directly in the raised beds in the greenhouse.    We will plant some herbs directly.  I think.  I might want to start those in pots.  Rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, parsley are all I’m planning on planting in the greenhouse.

Woke up to snow on the ground this morning, but it’s already melted and warmed up to 37F.  Later this week it’s supposed to get really warm, to make up for all the cool weather.

Yesterday our first hummingbird of the season arrived, tanked up for a couple of hours, and then flew off to parts unknown.

The yard got white (albeit briefly), when the heavy rain turned to huge spring snowflakes.

This was just the sort of weather we were dreading might coincide with the arrival of the hummingbirds.  The snowfall lasted for a few hours, and then the sun came out, sorta, and all the snow went poof, at least at our elevation.  Across the valley from us the hills are all white again.

So Mishkin decided it was all just too much and he went into bug-in-a-rug mode.

Curled up, and hiding from the world.

"Why were you taking a picture, with a flash no less, and disturbing my nap?"

Well, what can I say?  I didn’t have a rug to hide under.

Banana bread made using my traditional recipe, and Einkorn flour. First time making it with this flour, so we're looking forward to having some once it cools off enough for slicing.

Nothing else happening.  We have planted potatoes and onions in the garden, and have started tomato and pepper plants.  And we have ordered the lumber and other materials with which to build a greenhouse.  As soon as the weight restrictions for trucks are off the local roads, we’ll get our materials.  Maybe next week.  And then the fun begins.

A male Varied Thrush in the bush in front of our sunroom where the hummingbirds like to hang out.

This is at least three weeks earlier than we’ve ever seen this species. And he looks confused, seeing almost two feet of snow on the ground and nary a thing to eat. Maybe he’s just resting, heading to Alaska. Hopefully he can glean some suet scraps under the suet tree, which is a stopping off point for these guys in the spring.

We shoveled the sidewalks again, and Dan plowed the driveway.  The driveway is getting really narrow, still wide enough for our Forester to get in and out but our neighbor’s Suburban would be in danger of getting into one of the snowbanks on either side of road.

The light this morning makes the world like it is in black and white.

Having black and white and gray Chickadees all over the bushes next to the windows does nothing to dispel this impression.  Soon the fog and high overcast should clear and we will have a splendid late winter day.

It’s absolutely mind blowing to think the hummingbirds will be here in about six weeks.

Another inch has fallen, and if we get any more, like is promised by the weather forecasters, then we might have to plow the driveway.  At the least we will need to shovel the sidewalk.

Teeny tiny flakes. This is coming out of the far north.

A good day to stay inside, read a good book and play in the kitchen.  The satellite weather picture has this long finger of clouds which starts in the Aleutian Islands and comes right down, and over the top of our mountains.

Lentil Sloppy Joes

This is a new favorite of ours.  It will simmer in the small crock pot until this evening.  Dan found this recipe online and I modified it a bit to suit our tastes.  It’s just so delicious it’s hard to believe since it’s one of the simplest things to fix.

Gluten free hamburger buns.

I have modified this recipe a bit, too.  The black flecks in the rolls are from Chia seeds which I’m using in place of eggs, to make it vegan.  I also took out the gelatin called for in the recipe.  These are soft and delicious, a perfect accompaniment for the lentil dish, or veggies burgers for that matter.

Apricot/Peach Crunch.

I liberated some frozen peaches and apricots from the freezer, and made a crunch topping with rolled oats, brown sugar, brown rice flour, cinnamon, and margarine.

The house smells really good, and it is nice to watch the snow falling while we’re so cozy inside.

Obviously I was feeling silly.

It was still delicious 🙂