Saturday 29 September 2012

This week at the Rescue

Hi everyone, Mandi here.

Last summer, I discovered that the mysterious PGER sign on the fence down the road from where we were living was the Prince George Equine and Animal Rescue (http://www.pgequinerescue.com/).  Nicola, the woman who runs the rescue, was holding a fundraiser garage sale, and while I was there browsing I asked if I could volunteer.  She said "Yes, of course!", and I got my orientation that day.  I've been going as often as I can ever since (usually once a week) and I can say that the rescue is my 'happy place'.  It doesn't matter what else is going on in my life; I don't worry or stress about anything while I'm there.  Nic is very good with us volunteers; she's never asked me to do something I truly can't handle, but there are often days when I am doing something new or working with a new horse.

This week was my first chance to head back after a long break this summer.  There is a photographer who donates her time to the rescue, and she will be coming this week to take some photos for a fundraising calendar.  As such, it was bath time.  Nic asked me to bathe Shaw (his registered name is Qar Shawinago Bay) to get him cleaned up for this photo shoot.  Shaw is very sweet, and although he didn't like getting a bath, he was more or less well behaved.  The part that bothered him the most was when water dripped off his belly and on to the tops of his back feet - he'd lift his foot until it touched his stomach, and if he was getting upset he'd then give a little kick (which got him in trouble, and he would put his foot down politely afterwards).  It took me about two hours to bathe him, but afterwards he was looking very handsome indeed:

What a dapper looking fellow!

As soon as I released him in the field, he started trotting down to the back fence, no doubt in an effort to warm up (even though I was using warm water, he was starting to shiver a bit by the time I squeegeed him off).  He'll have forgiven me by the time I see him next week, I'm sure - and an apple or two will definitely encourage this forgiveness!

Thursday 27 September 2012

Weekend work party

Hi all, Mandi here.

This past weekend, my parents came up for a work party. We got quite a bit done! Jordan was on night shift all weekend, but he woke up early on Sunday and did some work with Dad. Here's what we did:

Saturday:
Mom raked up all the grass that Jordan and I had started raking two weeks ago. We dumped it in the peacock bay of the pole shed, and I'll use it as mulch for the garden next year.

Dad and I sneaking pictures of Mom while she rakes. Zim was our faithful companion all weekend.
Dad and I moved the fridge and the stove out of the trailer and in to the longhouse. We then used the router to cut hand-holds into the bottom of the kitchen drawers. The drawers were hard to pull out, but I didn't want to add handles as I like the simple look of the drawers. They're now a bit easier to pull out (though the bottom of the drawer fronts are very close to the top of the cabinet doors underneath - I can grab the hand-holds but Jordan still has trouble, owing to his larger hands).

Look at that fancy hand-hold!
Dad and I then went in to town to grab stuff for supper. When we got back, we ate. Jordan left for work, and we installed the outer vent for the dryer exhaust. I was able to crawl under the house and attach the duct hose to the existing dryer hose, but we were about three feet short of connecting it to the outer vent.
New vent hose!  Little did I know that I'd be removing it the next day...
Dad brought the quad up to the house... I'm not sure why.
We then installed the hot water tank. This involved draining and removing the old tank, moving the new one from the kitchen to the bathroom, re-jigging some of the pipes, soldering everything together, discovering there was no dip tube included with the tank, connecting the flexible hoses to the marked inlet/outlet threads, filling it, fixing the leak in the solder (twice - darn propane torch, it wasn't hot enough for the job), and discovering another leak in the hose connection to the cold water inlet at the top of the tank.
Molly curled up in the tank pan - of course, Mander (our other cat) had a fit as I was trying to take a picture, so Molly had to turn to see what was happening... and then she had to go investigate.  Oh well, she was comfy for a few minutes, anyway...
Dad soldering.
At this point, it was 10:30 at night, so we decided that we could live without hot water until the next day (darn it, now we can't do dishes, shucks). The neighbours treated us to some impromptu fireworks (thanks guys!) and we headed to bed.

Sunday:
Mom, Dad and I headed in to town for breakfast and to stop at the hardware store for more supplies. At the store, we were able to discover that hot water tanks are now intended to be installed with the cold water running into the bottom, near the drain valve, not into the top as the manufacturer had insinuated. The irony of this situation is that the old tank was installed with the cold water inlet at the bottom, and we had cut the pipe to install it at the top of the tank instead. Oh well, we picked up another six feet of copper pipe at the store, along with some more corners and attachments and a better torch, and called it good.

When we got home, Dad cut some 2x4s to create a base for a post to hold up the sagging roof while Mom and I fired up the quad for Mom to start cutting grass. This involved changing a flat tire on the brusher (which we are pulling behind the quad to cut the grass; we don't have a riding mower yet) before we could get started. The combination of the quad and the brusher woke up Jordan (oops!) so he worked with Dad to re-jig the hot water tank while I connected an insulated dryer hose under the house.
Mom chugging along on the quad, pulling the brusher - when she was done for the day, she hopped off and said "I want one!"  Her lines are very straight - she'd make a good farmer! :)
My crawlspace get-up.  There's lots of mould under there, hence the respirator.  I ended up quickly ditching the headlamp in favour of the troublelight, as I was working laying on my stomach and the headlamp was blocking part of my field of vision.  I usually have a bandana around my head as well.
The new, insulated dryer hose.  We can now safely use the dryer this winter.  Before, it was simply venting under the house, which was pushing the mould up into the house through the floor when it was running.  AND, they installed chicken wire to hold up the insulation, but they neglected to cut a hold for the end of the vent through the floor, so that was a fire waiting to happen.
Dad then jacked up the back corner of the roof and got an approximate measurement for us to work with to shore it up for the winter.
"Yup, I think that is straight..."
We stopped for supper (roast, with garden mashed potatoes and garden steamed carrots) and dessert (apple crisp baked by one of Mom's coworkers, Doreen; incidentally, she was also the woman who made our wedding cake, which was just as delicious as the apple crisp) and then Jordan left for work again. While Mom continued with the grass, Dad and I got to work installing two vents on the roof to improve air circulation; we are hoping that these two vents, another two vents, and some soffits will decrease the ice on the roof that they have apparently experienced in the past. (I installed one of the additional vents yesterday afternoon; that will be a future post.)


Back to work, Mom!  She can now work the mower better than I can, and even showed me a trick to two to keep it from clogging.  She's clever, that Mom :)
One of our new vents.  The ridge in the middle is the peak of the roof.

Dad also figured out how to level the top of the 'furnace' (we have a propane fireplace for heat). Every time the cats jumped from the furnace to the nearby windowsill or vice versa, it would rock and make a loud "BANG!" which is not the most pleasant sound at 3 am when I'm trying to sleep. Dad is one of those people who rarely hesitate to say "Well, let's take it apart and see how it works!" So while we were attempting to shore it up with pennies, one fell into the body of the furnace and when we took the top off to fish the penny out, Dad noticed two screws, one on each side of the fireplace. We fiddled with those for a few minutes, and viola! no more banging noise.

We packed everything up at around 9 pm and tucked ourselves in to bed by 10:30.

Monday morning, it was back to work for me and back home for Mom and Dad. I really enjoyed the visit with them, even if it was very short, and we got a lot of work done around the farm. They are, of course, welcome back any time (and I promise I won't work them as hard next time!).

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Cellar Adventures (and the Great Potato Harvest of 2012)

UPDATE: It turns out that potatoes do fruit! They're the true seeds of the potato; planting 'seed' potatoes is actually akin to planting a root. Here's a bit of info: http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2004/7-2-2004/tomatopotato.html I've learned something new today; now I can go back to bed :P

Hey, it's Mandi.

This past weekend, I decided that the garden should be harvested. However, if I was going to start pulling stuff out of the ground, I'd need somewhere to put it, and the roof of the doorway to the root cellar caved in a few weeks ago. So, again, out comes the measuring tape and the saw, and it becomes another project weekend :)

The root cellar is built into a hill and surrounded by trees (mostly spruce, I think). The top of the cellar and the entryway are therefore covered in fallen leaves and spruce needles. This had built up over many years, and was about a foot thick on the entryway roof. Of course, this soaks up any water and starts to compost, causing the wood underneath to rot. The entryway is built out of 2x4s and 1/4 inch plywood; this is not meant to be terribly load-bearing in the first place, and as it rotted it just gave way. As well, the walls of the entryway have started to warp and bulge - I get the impression that they'll be breaking during spring thaw.

I finally managed to get outside around three, after doing some housework, making a quick trip in to town, and starting supper (a double batch of chicken and wild rice soup in the large slowcooker Jordan's Grandpa got us for Christmas last year.) Of course, in order to do any work in the root cellar, I needed an extra light source, as the sunlight just doesn't penetrate that thicket of trees and the cellar door faces west-ish. I found a trouble light in the cellar, plugged in to an extension cord from the trailer (the closest building). 'Fabulous!' I thought. So, I headed in to the trailer to try and determine which breaker will power that outlet. Well, first I had to determine which position the switch had to be in to turn on the trouble light. During this, I discovered that the old light doesn't work. Okay, I brought our new one. I plugged that in to one of the indoor sockets and got it working. Okay, haul it back outside, plug it in to a different extension cord so I can monitor the light through the window as I play with the breakers. Well, I hit every darn breaker and that light didn't turn on. So I turned on all the breakers and plugged the light directly in to the outlet. Okay, it turns on; the extension cord is toast. Ugh! By this point, I am getting frustrated - a 5-minute breaker check has turned into a 45-minute ordeal. So I hang the light so I can see it from inside, and head back in to turn the breakers off one a time to isolate the outdoor breaker. Okay, got it. Now I have light! On the bright side, during this ridiculous fool's errand, I determined that both the old fridge and the slightly newer stove in the trailer both work. Awesome, we can pull them out of the trailer, put them in the longhouse, and have extra appliances to use in the summer to store pop (or beer) and to cook outside so we don't heat up the house.

Anyway, back to the point of this story: the entryway roof needed to be replaced.
The north side of the roof
The south side, after excavation
The debris that had fallen into the entryway.  The wall on the left is nearing collapse as well.
So I excavated it, and got a good look at the damage. As I excavated the remains of the roof, I could tell that this was not the first collapse; there was another piece of plywood laid over a previous hole. Wonderful (yes, I'm breaking out the sarcasm; the lack of maintenance is just baffling).
The North side - you can see the piece of plywood over the previous hole on the left
Next, I measured and cut new plywood (yes, again, 1/4 inch stuff I found in the shop - I'm hoping it only has to last two years before we can build a new entryway, and possibly whole a new cellar too). By this point, it was 7 pm, so I stopped for the night; it was now too dark to see in the thicket.

In the morning (around noonish) I pulled the old plywood off. This was not terribly hard, as the 2x4s were in various states of rotting as well - occasionally I would pull out a nail and I'd get a chunk of 2x4 with it.
Look, rot!  I shouldn't have been surprised.
Then I put on the new plywood as best I could - the front 2x4s weren't too rotten so the nails could actually grab some real wood, but it was pointless to put nails in any of the rear or top supports. As such, the peak of the new roof wasn't quite perfect.
At the top left, you can see where the peak isn't quite perfect, due to the warped 2x4s underneath.
Luckily, as I was messing around with the darn light the day before, I noticed a chunk of firewood that had a right angle cut out of it. 'Perfect!' I thought, 'That will make a great roof cap!' I was able to find three of these logs, and they'll do an alright job to shield the peak from the worst of the water (and they add a little character too!).
Ta-da!
The inside of the cellar could use some work too - there's a weird fungus or something growing in one of the back corners, and mice and squirrels have gotten in. This prompted me to decide to store everything in buckets with tight-fitting lids. So I grabbed some spare buckets and washed them with dish soap - now they're ready to hold our magnificent harvest!
Inside the cellar.  The tube is one of two ventilation tubes; this one has rolled burlap sack shoved in the end, I assume it is to act as a 'screen' to keep critters out.  I found another sack in the debris between the doors, presumably from the other vent pipe near the door.  Weird, anyway.
After all of this, it was time to have a sandwich and start on the garden.

I harvested the cabbages first, as we'd already had two frosts and I wanted to grab them before they got seriously damaged.

Then, I moved on to the potatoes. I started with the bucket potatoes, and got about a pound (I think - the weights are all rough estimates, and could be totally off) from four plants.
Bucket-grown Seiglinde potatoes
After that, I started Row A. By the time I was three plants deep, I was convinced that these were also Seiglindes. They grow a bit odd - the new potatoes don't really cluster under the plant, but rather they spread out. I ended up digging holes about two feet wide by one foot deep in an effort to get all the potatoes - they had even grown under the paths! All in all, the eight plants gave me about four or five pounds - not bad!
Row A suspected-Seiglindes

Finally, I moved on to Row B. The strange thing about these potatoes is they 'fruited'. They were growing little tomato-looking thingys from where the flowers had been.

I cut one open; it was quite hard, but didn't really look like a tomato inside. And why would a potato plant be sprouting a tomato anyway?!! I'm baffled.

Then I started digging up the plants. These potatoes were much easier to pick - they all grew right under the plant. By the time I finished the 11 or so plants, I had about three to four pounds. Again, respectable.
Row B - type undetermined.

So, all in all, we got about ten pound of potatoes from just over 20 plants. They were all planted late, so I'm not surprised. And ten pounds is better than nothing!!
Left to right: Bucket, Row A, Row B
After tucking the potatoes in the cellar, I headed inside to clean, chop and blanche the cabbage for freezing.
Mmmmmmm cabbage :)
I had decided to make Lazy Man's Cabbage Rolls for dinner Monday night, so I would be blanching two heads, and simply chopping the two others. A batch of cabbage only needs to be water-blanched for a minute and a half (it's three and a half minutes to steam blanche), so it didn't take long to blanche the two heads in four batches of half a cabbage each. These will be thawed and used for a future batch of Lazy Man's Cabbage Rolls. (And yes, this meal is just how it sounds: cabbage, hamburger, bacon, rice, and tomato soup all mixed together. It's one of the meals that I ate quite a bit growing up, and I still enjoy it.) Of course, our garden cabbage is a lot sweeter that then cabbage at the store (I find, anyway), so the meal was delicious (if a bit bland; I'm a terrible cook).
Frozen cabbage
And that was my weekend! Luckily for me, the weather was beautiful both days, getting into the 20's each afternoon with just a few clouds on Sunday. I'm am hoping to get similar weather this coming weekend, as my parents will be coming up and I have a few projects in mind (of course!). One of these days I'll need to harvest the carrots, the lonely green onion, and the chives. I also have two strawberries on a plant in the greenhouse that have magically ripened - those will be breakfast part two tomorrow :)

Saturday 15 September 2012

Dinner


Hi folks, Mandi here.

When Jordan is working dayshift, I often cook supper so it's ready when he gets home, which is usually quite late.  Many of you will know that I greatly dislike cooking; for this reason, I prefer to cook simple comfort food.  Thursday was Jordan's first shift for this rotation, and it was decided we'd have something we both grew up with: hamburger gravy.  This meal would also provide the perfect opportunity to check on the potatoes in the garden and the buckets.

At the beginning of June, I had planted a container garden, which is simply planting in buckets or other containers instead of the ground.  I knew we wanted potatoes, and that I'd had some success container planting them the year before, so I went to the local nursery/garden centre, Art Knapp's, and picked out the only heirloom potato they had: Seiglinde.


(Heirloom means that they haven't been cross-bred or genetically modified, and that you can harvest the seeds for planting in the future.)

Thus I knew what potatoes we had in the buckets.  But there were two rows of potatoes in the garden that were mysteries.  Row A, as we'll call them, had been planted before we looked at the house in mid-June, and were a decent size at that point.  Row B had been planted in late June, sometime between doing the inspections and getting possession.  When we got possession on July 5, they had sprouted and were about 8" tall.  We could tell that they were different types of potatoes, as the leaves looked different, but we had no information other than that.

So Thursday night, I eagerly grabbed a spade (the potato fork needs a new handle, which I'll be grabbing from town today) and headed to the garden to see what I could find under those potato plants.

I decided to harvest one plant from the buckets, two from Row B, and one from Row A.  This is what I got:

Clockwise from top left: bucket, Row A, Row B.  The Row B potatoes include the two seed potatoes (the two big ones) - this weren't eaten as they were a bit soft.

As I cleaned them, I was quite pleased with the Seiglindes.  They were beautifully coloured, with the skin being about the same colour as the flesh, and as the tag promised, they were firm and shallow-eyed.


As I cleaned the Row A potatoes, I was surprised to discover that these looked like the Seiglindes as well!  Awesome :)


Row B was a different type of potato.  They had a rough, darker skin, similar to the skin on Russet potatoes.


And when I cut them open, some had purple inside!!


All the potatoes went in to the same pot.  They boiled well, and were easy to mash with butter and milk.  And the verdict is: they tasted delicious!  Much better than any of the yellow-fleshed potatoes we often pay about $1/lb for at the grocery store.  I will definitely be planting more of the Seiglinde potatoes (even if I have to buy the 'seeds' from Art Knapp's again - I think we'll be eating all of these!!).

We got frost last night, so I'll definitely be harvesting the potatoes on Sunday (after I fix the root cellar today).  I'll keep you updated once the harvest is finished.  :)  And for the curious: today's dinner will be slow cooker chicken and rice soup, with carrots from the garden.

Monday 10 September 2012

A creek, a pup, and some shelves


Last Wednesday, while Jordan was at work, Zim and I went searching for the creek.  As Jordan mentioned, we found it, and Zim fell in.  It's actually quite underwhelming, and it has a beaver dam.  Here's what it looks like:
The low part of the creek, under the log that has fallen across it.  This part is maybe 6 inches deep.

The beaver dam

The pool above the dam; this is where Zim fell in.  It's narrow, but there's a deep spot in the middle that required Zim to swim.

He hears something...
Also, here's the pole shed, in all its' half-stained glory (as Jordan ran out of stain before he could finish it).  The wall under the roof has been stained, so it's about 5/8ths done.

Apologies for the bad photo, it was getting into the evening and the tree's shadow  was getting in the way.

 This past weekend, we puppysat for one of my coworkers.  Doodle is their pup, and he's a real cutie.  

Zim and Doodle, sitting still for a moment
He and Zim had a great time running around chasing each other.  I'll admit, I contemplated keeping Doodle, but it would break his humans' hearts, so I reluctantly let him head back to his own home.  This has intensified Jordan's desire for another dog, and has worn down my resistance (as I was hoping to wait until spring).  So stay tuned for a possible addition to our home!

On Saturday, I also built a shelving unit for our second bedroom.  The house is only about 800 square feet, and the kitchen is a bit short on ideal cupboard space, so we had left most of our canned food and random stuff packed in boxes.  I was getting really frustrated with the state of this second bedroom and that fact that I had no idea what food we had still packed.  When we moved in, there was lumber left in the barn: some very, very rough 2x4s and quite a few very nice 1x4s.  So I decided that we needed a shelf, and instead of buying one, I'd make it.
The bedroom before building commenced; I had moved the desk and the freezer and cleared a space for the shelf.  This was taken from along the north wall of the room, facing west.

Facing east

Look, it's a shelf!

This is everything that had been boxed and spread around the room.  I feel much better about the room now.
So that's what we've been up to for the past week.  It's been fairly busy, which is to be expected as we settle in and get ready for winter.  Next weekend I'm hoping to harvest the garden; this may or may not include improving the root cellar and fixing the hole in its roof.

Jordan is back on days off, so he'll be working on some stuff over the next few days (I think finishing the pole shed and clearing out some more grass/brush that has sprung up due to previous neglect; both of these require the weather's cooperation, which may or may not be forthcoming).  Luckily, there's not too much that needs to be done in the house, but this makes rainy days extra-frustrating.  But the weather will do whatever it's going to do; no point worrying overmuch about it.

Gotta run, supper's ready!
Mandi

Friday 7 September 2012

Look, it's Pictures!

I told you, pictures were coming. Enjoy the pictures. I SAID ENJOY!!
Me at work
The delapitated mostly red pole shed
The angriest wife

Thursday 6 September 2012

Another Glorious Weekend at Lone Pine

Well folks, Jordan here. 'Twas another fun four days (I work four on four off) on the farm. Projects were started, and left unfinished. The wife and dog discovered the creek on our property, which the dog promptly fell into. I spent far to much money on painting supplies and a video game (that's right, I play video games....deal with it). It's alright though, the old run-down pole shed is now a mostly red run-down pole shed, and the fencing around the barn is mostly prepped for paint. There would have been before and after pictures but I was all gung-ho to start painting and neglected to take any. My hope is that you will be content with after pictures, because really, it's all your getting, and as a wise man once said a few sentences ago....deal with it. In other news, insects are stupid, especially the ones that can fly and have stingers. They are stupid because they insist on flying around your head when you're up ladders with both hands full (one beer, one paintbrush, just like our ancestors use to do back in the caves)...that is all.


This is Jordan, signing off