Posts from the ‘Yard and Garden’ category

Snippets from Thursday

Work deadline met.

A good meeting had.

End of Thursday!

A bit of Fall color.

The woods is coloring up also.

A very serious Auggie!

Bear in the yard and there is nothing wrong with my camera…the forest service started several burns for forest health…on Monday. It remains to be seen how this will affect people and critter health.

It is VERY smoky.

Blech!

I’m all for forest health, but I have a wonder about the timing…what do I know???

***Update: I don’t know much! This morning’s paper reports that the smoke is from California fires and came this way on the unusual southwesterly air flow of last week. However, the air flow is back to our west-northwest normal and NOAA says things should clear today.

An Auggie tail…

The front part of Auggie…under the chair…

Snippets from Thursday.

A stellar weekend

Saturday started with a quick trip to Bigfork Farmer’s market (see Instagram for the goods).

Later, I went across the road and kept my neighbors company while they put together a yard for their chickens. I carried one post and helped stain the posts and rails but my involvement was mostly yacking as Melanie and Jesse do this stuff together and work very well together and they just like a bit of diverseness in conversation as they are working. We were also accompanied by their sweet cattle dog, Brewster and gray Norwegian Forest cat, Oscar and the clucking of the chickens that were confined to the chicken house.

It was a good time – I learned a LOT about fencing and came home with 2 zucchinis fresh from their garden! (also on Instagram …and if you click a photo it enlarges and you can see any title or description I’ve added.)

Yesterday my next door neighbors came over and brought their wood splitter. We split the wood that has been drying for 3 years and made a hefty dent in adding to my winter firewood supply.

The work area post splitting. I’m going to spread the bark on the ground and some of the trees cut for future years can sit on that bark to dry and stay a bit off the damp ground.

The red square is the wood that was left from last year. Everything else is from our splitting spree of yesterday. I don’t get any prizes for my stacking job and am just fortunate that I was stacking against a wall!

The weather has stayed beautiful – low 70’s during the day and 40’s overnight. Bear, Auggie and I think this is perfect for being outside…

…or relaxing inside.

A stellar weekend!

Out in the yard

Yesterday it rained most of the day and late afternoon it turned into a deluge.

Not Auggie’s favorite kind of day…

…but it washed the air and today was crystal clear and cool with a high of 62F which is MY favorite kind of day!

We were all outside as much as possible.

Auggie’s current favorite prey are grasshoppers.

There are plenty in the yard to keep him busy.

Bear watched the show from a nice spot in the shade.

Happy Day

It has cooled. We’ve had some rain. It is suddenly very pleasant outside.

Late afternoon on Thursday…

All of us outside.

Exploring.

Chasing bugs, butterflies and grasshoppers.

Airborne!

Happy Day.

Tales of the chimney

The first winter I was in this house, I had a chimney fire. It was not much fun, but the good news is that Doug Heil, of Heil Brothers was the person I called. He was at my home the next day and replaced my damaged chimney, inspected everything including my wood supply and that was the start of a most excellent business-friendship.

We speak once a year when he comes to clean and inspect all.

Since that first visit, it has been a quick clean, “all is well” and then I hear about his family and I share my stuff and it is what life in a smallish town is made of!

We missed last year as I did not use the woodstove the winter that Bear had his surgeries. I had phoned the office last July to say why I didn’t need a clean, but instead of Doug’s wife Sandy, I spoke to an employee so did not get a chance to catch up with either of them.

It had been in the back of my mind to call earlier this year. I closed the damper and doors on the woodstove…early May…thinking not only the bats of past years, but the yellow jackets of the recent year.

Then, last week, on the way to the dump…there is the Heil Bros truck parked by the side of the road. I pulled over. It was Doug. We chatted, etc. and the upshot is that he was here on Friday to clean the Chimney.

The cleaning was fairly non-eventful.

Doug did note that there were a number of Yellow Jackets (DEAD!) in my stove.

We discussed the bane of the yellow jacket thing and I told him about my traps this year. I also told him there was a nest on the house and that I’d had a ladder set for the last week, but kept putting off dispatching the nest.

He said: “Oh, I’ll spray it, I do it all the time”. He sprayed it and did not get stung and the nest fell to the ground.

I was SO relieved! I absolutely HATE dealing with the nests. I told him about my nest spraying “outfit”.

I just wanted to hug the man.

He said that my spray was the best he’d used. It is a foam spray from the local hardware and my personal favorite as it goes a good 20 feet with a significant amount of foam which seems to render anything in its path…DEAD!

I told him where I got it and then gave him one of the 3 cans I had in my arsenal as a THANK YOU!

As we were “settling-up”, Doug said that I should start a fire in the stove. The recent driving rains had soaked the chimney, the stovepipe and the stove. He said a fire would dry things out vs some rust happening.

So…a fire…in late June…with the windows open and me in shorts.

Bear stayed away from the heat.

Tales of the Chimney: Summer 2014.

First weekend of Summer

I had big plans for the weekend.

After a very rainy week – and actually the last few weekends have been rainy – and with Wild Thing in shape to de-Winterize, load, etc… my weekend plans included getting her situated for at least some short outings, mowing the lawn, blowing pine needles off the roof of house and garage and some general yard pick up.

The plans went awry.

Between a medication, summer light and nighttime wildlife (skunk!) causing serious sleep disruption…my get up and go, got up and went. I had some energy first thing but by late morning…pfft…out of gas.

I’m not a “just push through it” kind of person as well as I know when I try to do things when I’m not 100%, I often end up hurting the equipment or me and/or botching the job, so I came inside, made a batch of herbal iced tea and wiled away the weekend streaming tv, reading and puttering just a little in the kitchen when I felt like it.

Actually, it felt pretty good to have a low, slow, quiet weekend.

Bear and Auggie enjoyed cool mornings… walk and a treat…

I don’t think the treat was shared.

To the left (north) of the front porch is the cat hidey-nap spot that was a favorite with Bob…

And now with Auggie.

I can find him there most afternoons.

Bear prefers the cool house and his gecko.

Chutney was on my cooking list. I added strawberries to the small amount of rhubarb I had for a strawberry-rhubarb chutney.

Dump all in a pan and cook down to desired consistency.

The house smelled wonderful…

And a beautiful jar of chutney was the result.

I love a little on a spicy, sausage pizza. Also good on grilled salmon or chicken. Or coconut-curry rice. Good stuff!

I did get Wild Thing de-Winterized and a tank of chlorinated water is in her. I’ll drain, rinse and refill during the week as there is time. The grass…well, it has been long before…all will get done. Just not this first weekend of Summer