back on track

had a productive day off work and put in this shelf for succulents and hop cuttings.

Just a few of the now happier cacti on the window shelf. Plus this will give us more room for starting tomatoes, chiles and onions next month.


And as I type this Becke is planting Thyme and Greek mini Basil in peat pellets.



Hounds tooth aloe...our newest addition from the farmer's market plant doctor


scrap wood for kindling from the neighbor's home construction. They are putting up boards on the roof today. Photos of that to come soon. We got a new camera today


here is my germination experiment pot. Started last week around Monday. Planted all kinds of corn, pinto and anasazi beans and three types of winter squash. So far everything but the buttercup is up. The corn looks awesome and the beans are taking off. Also planted a red onion and six or so garlic bulbs. Just mainly to get acquainted with these plants. We've never grown onions or garlic so just to get more comfortable. Also we have plans with a local farmer to go visit their homestead up in the mountains north of town. They said we would learn a lot and they even offered to give us some of their seed. very nice people.


here is the proposed site of the new part of the garden. Possibly just three sisters (corn, beans and squash) now that everything is thawed out (at least for now) we can start to clear, till and fertilize. Also need to fence off this area and another for drought tolerant stuff like sunflowers and our brightest brilliant quinoa. That will be on the other side of the road somewhere near the compost bin (should help the soil) But we'll just do depressed beds and mulch well so watering won't really be an issue unless there is severe drought.

this is the gate i need to install. It will help us because right now the only way into the back yard is through the bedroom. This is also at the side of the house we want to put up rain catchment system. Mainly we need some gutters and downspouts and then two or so barrels. They should only run us about fifty bucks a pop. They have a nice spigot on the bottom and a screen over the top to keep debris out. That would hook up easily to 1/2" drip irrigation on the three sisters garden but hopefully for all the irrigation. We'll see. It does need to happen soon though.

thawed out firewood...recently put into neat stacks.







logs ready to be bucked and stored until next year or just sold off as extra income.



bucked short for our wood stove, but I will buck logs at about 16" for sale. also more of that needs to be split as that is what poeple like and will fetch more green

homebrew set-up

from L to R:
-bottle tree drying clean empties
-cases of dry bottles
-two cases of the first batch...nicely carbonated and pretty strong in alc.
-In the carboy in the tall box is my dark ale in secondary fermentaion
and then the most recent IPA in the primary fermenter with a blow-off hose into a 1/2 gal. mason jar. been in there almost a week. should be ready to be racked into a 5 gal. carboy soon.


...also the dark ale should be ready for botteling in a week or two.

more to come soon, as seed starting season is just around the corner and this new camera is nice