The O-Zone

The cool part, and leak proofing part, is a membrane which is applied to the entire interior of the shower, and is in overlapping pieces like roofing tiles so that water is directed to the drain even if it were to get underneath the tiles themselves.

The mortar needs to dry out before the next layer can go on.

The cubby hole in the wall also needs to have two more pieces of concrete board installed to get to the proper depth for the tiles. It will be a little shallower than before but the shampoo containers will fit nicely and it will look better with minimal grout lines.

The mortar is all dry this morning, so the next layer can go on without further delay.  Yay!  A shower is sounding really good right about now.  Really really good.

Somehow missed seeing this moon set picture yesterday on the camera, of the moon sitting on top of Mount Baldy.  It disappeared moments later.

Just so pretty outside this morning at -8F thought I’d share. You’ll have to imagine how the air feels, yourself.

Still really dark outside, so I used a tripod this morning. It was too cold to have any grandiose ideas about holding a camera still long enough without it.

It got even prettier as sunrise approached.

The last full moon before the Winter Solstice.

Easy to see why they were calling this one a super moon. It looks larger than normal.

What a difference a day makes.

Two pieces of concrete board are yet to be installed in the cubby hole with the shampoo containers will live, have yet to be installed. They are cut and waiting for a next step.

Today we have concrete board on the walls, and the base sub-floor system including the curb have been cut for size and put in place. Just now the thinset mortar is being mixed, so there is concrete dust in the air in the bathroom.  I have no desire to even look at the moment.  We’ll clean up afterwards.

Moving right along 🙂

Apparently we need our heads examined as here it is December and we’re starting a remodeling project.

Replacing the shower with new tile on the floor and walls.

Yesterday was the dust and destruction part of the process.  Our poor cat just can’t understand why it is we keep allowing people into the house who immediately begin to tear things apart and make loud, rude noises.  He does his level best to keep them out and protect the place from intruders but then we won’t let him shred them apart with his claws that he keeps nice and sharp.  It’s all just a mystery.

I told Mish that ‘man’ was coming back today, and got a patented cat look that said, “You’re talking to me but I don’t know what you said so it must not be important.”

Cold here today.  -6F so far seems to be the lowest temperature.  Might warm up to a balmy +4F.  Great weather for remodeling!

Timing is everything. We had discussed turning the cages upside down, to protect them from being crushed by the snow, but then things sort of interfered with that project.

No footprints in the snow on the garden path, not even any snowshoe hares.

The garden is sleeping and getting the annual covering blanket of snow. So far the past week we’ve gotten about five inches of snow, an inch here, an inch there. It adds up.

It’s amazing how heavy snow it. Should have remember how heavy it is on the end of the snow shovel, but just didn’t think of that in time.

The cages definitely needed to be turned upside down. Unfortunately when we tried to do that yesterday, we discovered the framework has frozen solid to the ground, and it would break them to try to force them loose. So we’ll just hope that the snow load doesn’t crush the wire cages. Even if it does, we should be able to straighten it out somewhat. Rats.

Kind of amazing how little snow made it through the wire. The flakes just stuck to the wire instead, and then built up on top of the stuck flakes.

The strawberry bed in particular may be in trouble. Those plants rely on the insulation supplied by a blanket of snow to protect them from the super cold temperatures of mid winter. We may lose all these plants.

Whenever the weather warms up, there will be plenty of water for whoever wants the first spring bath.

Just  plain cute.  And very fat.  I stuffed the kitten quite full.  Obviously has been eating well.

Finished a new knitting project, a fuzzy kitten. Mishkin was curious as to what that little thing might be but not really enough to put forth any energy.

“You’re short.”

Big cat, little cat.

Fuzziness abounds with this little guy.  Green eyes, pink nose, red lace collar.

I made the collar out of some super fine handspun cashmere yarn which I dyed using black cherry Koolaid.  It turned out this really nice dark red.  After I dyed the cashmere yarn, I started knitting a lace edging using size 0000 needles, just to see how the yarn would look, and didn’t really have a plan of what to use it for and so this worked out perfect.  I can consider the lace edging knitting project done, and I still have almost all of the little ball of yarn left for something else.  Giving the kitten to a friend for her young daughter’s stocking.

Now that I’ve gotten knitting cats and dogs out of my system for the moment, I can go back to knitting my lace shawl project. 🙂 Only 10 more edge pattern repeats and then I can cast on the body of the shawl.  The edge is just so boring!!  I keep letting myself get distracted.

We were up really early on Friday, and by the time the sun started to come up, we were pretty much awake, and enjoying a particularly gorgeous sunrise that lasted for quite some time.   Normally they are over in a couple of minutes, but not this one.

It started out with just some pink in the sky to the southwest.

Then it spread to the west.

The snow clouds were closing in on us fast, and the closer they got, the more intense the colors became.

And the clouds farther north became pink, with what was going to be left of the clear skies peeking through.

The whole sky was pink at the last, and the fog in the valley below us was picking up and reflecting the color of the sky.

Then it started snowing, the first real serious snowfall of the year.  We were looking forward to a nice relaxing day, playing with the birds and our cat.  On Thursday, Dan had filled the wood rack on the porch because we knew this storm was coming, so we didn’t even have outside chores to do.

Then at 2pm he had a TIA (a mini-stroke) affecting pretty much the whole left side of his body.  And all thoughts of a nice relaxing day went poof.

It takes about 40 minutes for an ambulance to get up to us, assuming they could with the road conditions being what they were, and about 45 minutes for me to drive to the hospital in good road conditions.  So we got into the Forester, and I drove to the emergency room is absolutely horrible driving conditions.  The only thing that would have been worse is freezing rain, and I think it was doing that at the very end of the drive into town.  I’m pretty sure the 45 minute drive (I was pushing it), took at least 3 hours!  Or it felt that way anyway.  We passed two car wrecks on our way into town, no doubt people who didn’t have winter tires on, and/or simply can’t drive on super slick roads.  It did slow me down a little bit.  We have really good snow tires, I was driving a Subaru, and I was in a hurry.

So at the emergency room with Dan hooked up to all sorts of machines, they ran pretty much every test they could think of, and one Dan wouldn’t let them do (MRI).  And his symptoms kept improving.  Ultimately we left against their advice because we’d had all the fun we could take, and came back home, thinking that a good night sleep would be the best thing to do.  The roads were super slick coming home, but it didn’t take hours to get there.  The day was definitely improving!  Fixed something hot and quick for dinner, and got the fire going in the wood stove, fed the cat (he thought that was obviously something we should have done first), and then went to bed by 9pm.  Exhausted.

I woke up at 1am Saturday morning, and no way was I going to be able to go back to sleep.  We both got up a couple of hours later because I was keeping Dan awake.  More improvements to the numbness lessening in his left hand during the day on Saturday – yay!

Saturday evening we were watching some Buffy’s on DVD, and I asked Dan if we were going to make it until 8pm.  He said no.  So I asked him if we were going to make it until 7pm.  He said no.  I said good!  And we slept 10 hours.

So we’ll go see the normal clinic we go to in Colville this next week (hopefully Wednesday since we have an eye doctor appointment that day, and I don’t want to drive over the pass twice in one week, but will if we need to), and see what they think about all the bazillion test results.

The emergency room doctors couldn’t see any reason why he had had a TIA, which is quite concerning.  It could be one of those “shit happens” things.  I keep telling Dan we need to take up drinking alcohol, smoking, and using drugs, as this clean living stuff doesn’t seem to be very beneficial.

This morning his left hand is feeling somewhat better, and hopefully in a day or two it will be back to full functionality.

This is Togo before he pulled himself together. Sort of resembles me before I’ve had some caffeine.

Post caffeine, and making the acquaintance of Mishkin. Togo always needs to keep in mind their relative size difference and always remember that the cat is really that much bigger than he is.

I asked Togo if he wanted to use the computer, and he said he was an abacus kind of dog.

Togo plays chess, too. What intellect! Unfortunately, the pieces were a bit too heavy for him, and after just a few opening moves he was done for the day.

Togo asked Mish if he could share the chair for some quality nap time after all that chess and mathematics.

Mish giving Togo the silent treatment.

So, Togo investigated the orange growing in the sun room. He was impressed by the size and color of the largest orange, and thinks it should be ready to eat by Christmas! Wow, he’s a horticulturist, too.

Terry and Togo having a tête-à-tête in the kitchen. I’m not sure what they were discussing but it looked like they were in total agreement.

Santa Mice and Togo discussing their travel plans for the holiday season. The mice plan on working; Togo plans on some playing in the snow (if available), playing with toys, eating, and sleeping. He has a full schedule, no time available for work!

Togo hitting the road, heading home and hoping to get past the mountains before the snow falls. Have a safe trip!

It started snowing this morning, and we have many days in a row with one to three inches accumulation forecast – promises, promises….

To quote one of my favorite characters in Star Wars.

Santa Mouse enjoying a snack of cheese and crackers, and hot chocolate.

I was seduced to the dark side by yarnharlot.  She’s a good,  err bad, influence 🙂  As soon as I saw Santa Mouse on her blog I had to make one.

Can I only make just one?  The jury is out on that at the moment.  I’ve figured out a way to give him a red coat, and fluffy brim on his hood.

No snow here yet.  Mount Baldy has some on top of it so the termination dust writing is on the wall.

The only problem with growing a bunch of stuff, is having to take care of all of it.

So many leaves.

The first thing that needed to be done was  to take care of the swiss chard leaves. I had two kitchen garbage bags full of leaves. It was a daunting amount of leaves.

Clean and ready to begin processing.

First thing to do was to wash them all. The leaves end up taking several baths, hot (very hot), and a couple of cold baths. The plan is to freeze the leaves so they are ready to just pop into any dish I want to use them in, like tofu scrambles 🙂

We put all the stems out behind the greenhouse for the deer to discover. And discover them, they did.

The stems do not take kindly to freezing. The texture is horrible, so they need to be removed from the leaves completely prior to freezing.

Lots of greenery to work on.  Chard leaves and parsley leaves and stems in a bouquet.

After all the leaves have all had their stems removed, I piled the leaves on to cookie sheets, and I had three hefty piles of leaves.

The parsley I picked I put into a large bowl with water to wait its turn.  It sat behind the cookie sheets for a few days.

These are all eating tomatoes, not the roma tomatoes for making into sauce.

Ooooo, pretty tomatoes…. wait, focus. Must do chard first. But… they are so pretty spread out on the table in the sunroom.

This was kind of an intimidating amount of tomatoes to deal with at one time. It would have been smarter to make them into sauce in smaller groups, as they ripened. But we picked them and made them into salsa instead.

Even the green ones are pretty – Christmas.  No wait. Focus!

The chard smells good as it is cooking.

Ok, back on track. Grab a handful of chard leaves, 10-12 of them, and put the leaves into boiling water in batches, and set the timer. 2.5 minutes later pull them out of the hot water and put them into cold water.

I cooked all the leaves on each cookie sheet, and made layers of the towels so I didn’t have towels all over the kitchen.  I just covered the island with several layers of towels.

Spread the cooled chard leaves on towels and let them dry off as much as possible. The less water on the leaves, the less frost it makes in the freezer bag. Then pile the driest chard leaves, eight of them at a time, on a cutting board and cut them into strips, and put the strips on a piece of parchment paper, which is then folded over to make a package.

Another thing that, if I had kept up with it as it was growing, would have yielded more packages of chard leaves in the freezer. Oh well, it was an overly busy year.

All the packages are put into a ziplock freezer bag, and I removed as much air as possible, and then into the freezer it goes. I made one freezer bag for each cookie sheet.  So three ziplock baggies for this year.  Yay! that’s done.

Next thing I did was to remove the stems from the parsley, and washed the leaves off in cold water, and spread them out on a towel to dry. Then I put batches of the parsley leaves into a narrow container, added some canola oil, and use my immersion blender to puree it. I put the mixture into ice cube trays and froze them for about 36 hours, and then put the cubes into another freezer bag. And now, whenever I want to make some gravy or something else that needs fresh parsley, I’ll just take a cube out of the freezer and add it the dish.

I only use this attachment once a year, and have to figure out how it works each time. Well worth having though, it speeds this process up incredibly.

Next it was time to do tomatoes. I put the attachment that peels and seeds the tomatoes on my Kitchen Aide blender. First step, wash the tomatoes off and remove the stems and leaves. Then all I had to do is cut them into small enough pieces to go down the hatch.

This is a very messy process, and we had to clean the cabinet faces and counter top when I was done.

The peels and seeds and core comes out one end and the juice and pulp comes out the other, and I collected it in a large measuring container and put it into a pan to get hot. I ended up filling every large pan I had with tomato juice and pulp.  Dan put the pulp out where we put the chard stems and the deer had a feast.

A steady stream of steam comes out of the top of the canner for 10 minutes before I can put the weight on top and actually start the canning process. All in all, it takes about an hour from putting the hot jars into the canner until it is cooled enough to remove them to a towel.

And then just do the normal canning routine, only this time I have to use a pressure canner which, for some reason, I find intimidating. Each jar is filled with hot tomato sauce, add salt and lemon juice, and put on a lid, and into the pressure canner it goes.

Making room for the finished jars in the pantry is really the fun part.

So far I’ve canned 16 pint jars, and 5 quart jars of tomato sauce from the Roma tomatoes, and I have at least another 2 quarts worth of Big Beef eating tomatoes to process. And that will definitely be enough tomato sauce to last us the year.

Once all the tomatoes are done (hopefully today), I will freeze the Walla Walla onions as they don’t keep well, and then I will make pickled beets, and figure out what I want to do with the peppers. I think I’ll chop those up and freeze them, actually. That’s the easiest thing to do.

And then I’ll be done with all the garden produce. The carrots and potatoes don’t need any special treatment, just store them away for fresh eating as we want them.

And then I can start back on my knitting project, which hasn’t had a stitch added for weeks.

Saturday was an historic day. We got to meet a long time friend of mine for the first time, which sounds strange in a way. We met online at my most favorite website, and have been friends pretty much ever since. Nick visited Washington State over the weekend, from Sydney.

Since it was too far from Seattle to where we live for either one of us to go during such a short time frame, we met in the middle at one of our favorite State Parks. We planned our picnic for months.

It was raining so hard, the camera insisted on using a flash, which obscured the gorgeous greenery surrounding the covered picnic table. Nick’s wife, Linda, knitted his scarf. Beautiful! Love the colors. All my favorites.

We had black bean chili, with salsa and grated cheese; homemade bread; scones and a bunch of different jams; and hot black tea.

And the weather was perfect! Or something approximating perfect. Just keep thinking that….

From the top of the pass, looking down and across, you can barely see the top of the peaks through the fog and rainfall.

Looking uphill from the same spot on the road. See the track in the snow? Rocks were falling as the warmer temperatures, to above freezing, and heavy rain dislodged rocks, sending them skittering across the road. Some of the rocks were really big, and they always seemed to fall on corners. That added an extra level of adrenaline into driving through drenching rainfall. It was a long two hours to get out of the mountains.

Fortunately the snow plows had been somewhat active during the morning, cleaning the middle of the road, but leaving the sides and pullouts through the North Cascades National Park way too deep to attempt to stop and take pictures of the heavy snow falling on our way over to the west side of the Cascade Mountains.

On our way back, they had cleaned more of the road, and the heavy rains which fell during the day had melted the sides, so only six inches or snow remained in the pullouts, and we could take pictures.

We also planned a hike during the picnic but the rain was pretty heavy and the drive back was promising to be very hard (it was), so we didn’t venture too far into the old growth forest in the park, a temperate rain forest which was living up to part of its name.

It was a lovely day, even with bad driving conditions for all of us, and hopefully Nick and his wife will come back this way again someday and visit our place, and stay long enough to do some exploring.

Seeing snow did have a meritorious effect, which I will explain.

I never did post pictures of our greenhouse once all the plants got big and started producing. We’ve been picking swiss chard, tomatoes and peppers for a couple of months. It’s so neat to just walk out to the greenhouse and pick something for immediate cooking.

Big Beef tomato plants. They were slow in ripening, and we let the plants set too many fruit, which means they didn’t get as big as they could have. Lovely taste, however.

Chianti Rose tomato plant there at the end. Didn’t produce much at all, so we won’t be trying this variety again. We don’t think it likes the greenhouse.

Ilander pepper, such a pretty color. This variety produced really well and will definitely be planted again next spring.

Two of the Monica roma tomato plants. This variety produced really well, and we’ll plant it again. We planted six of them this year, and that may be enough to provide us with tomato sauce all year.

Jalapeno and anaheim pepper plants. I’ve been picking these for a couple of months, using them in salsa, and tofu scrambles.

I’ve been picking the roma tomatoes, as well, for salsa. We’re kind of addicted to this stuff.

Such a cheerful place to walk into, surrounded by green and growing plants.

The weather forecast for tonight was freezing temperatures (just barely), and tomorrow night is a killing frost. While the greenhouse can protect our plants near freezing, or even a bit below, 26F will be too far below that threshold. So, it is time to pick things.

And the drive through the snow in the mountains made us think. “Ruh row, winter really *IS* going to be here sooner than we think.”  Time to wrap up the garden!!

So on Sunday we went down to the garden and harvested all the remaining root crops. We dug up 120 pounds of potatoes, 15 pounds of carrots, and 4 pounds of beets, the keeping white onions (not the sweet Walla Walla onions which I picked a while ago), plus all the swiss chard which barely fit into two plastic kitchen garbage bags.

The Polaris Ranger proved its usefulness again, hauling up the root crops. Otherwise we would have been trudging up the hill, and I wouldn’t have felt anywhere near this cheerful.  We have two bins of Gold Rush potatoes (a russet type), five bins of German Butterballs; two bins of carrots (different varieties); and a partial bin of beets.

Then we went into the greenhouse and harvested all the ripe tomatoes, peppers, and parsley.

The green tomatoes will ripen over the next couple of weeks, and then I’ll finish processing them into sauce.

Today I have a lot of work to do, blanching and freezing all the swiss chard leaves, and blending the parsley leaves with oil to put into ice cube trays for adding to dishes over the winter. I also need to sort through all the tomatoes and lay them out on the dining room table, and then I have to make tomato sauce out of them.

A few weeks ago we harvested the apples from our two trees. We got 35 pounds of apples, and I made an old-fashioned Apple Brown Betty. Delicious!

The carrots have been put into plastic bags and are stored in the bottom of the refrigerator for eating fresh or roasting over the winter. They should last until January, at least.

The beets were small this year, and I’m going to make pickled beets with all of those. They are in the fridge until I can get to them. They’ll keep a bit, so no hurry on that project.

The potatoes are drying on a tarp in the garage, and we’ll turn them over this morning to dry the other side. Then we’ll have to move all of them into plastic bins and store them in the pantry this afternoon as they can’t take freezing temperatures. They will last all winter, depending on how fast we eat them. The new variety we planted, German Butterballs, produced really well, and they are supposed to be good for both baking and cooking for mashed potatoes, and roasting. Can’t wait to make something with them.

So, thanks snowfall, for getting us off our duffs and inspiring us (or freaking us out, depending on your interpretation), into bringing in the harvest. See that? I thanked the weather gods, so they aren’t going to do anything nasty to us like snow this coming weekend, right? Right?