House flood

Bamboo floor is gone from living room. So sad to haul it outside. Pipe broke on November 18, still living in a hotel. This was not tied to the cold weather snap.
No longer have the main water line under a cement slab. Lots of dry wall and patches to be had.
Yesterday, the plumber hooked up one toilet and a frost free hose bib. No other fixtures are in place. New pex line to kitchen sink mean delicious tasting water straight from the faucet. Also means we need to be super careful when we drill or put nails in the wall. No hitting the water lines.
Snowball effect has now includes:
No electricity in the back half of our house. Electrician cannot locate short. Will our house need to be rewired?!
One less linoleum bathroom floor, hello rosette hex tiles.
No more old tiles surrounding tub, hello shower! Shall we change the window? Use glass block tile instead of this window? Trade out last aluminum window in half bath with the newer window and trim? Can we do that?
No more bamboo floor in kitchen. Where can we find Spanish tiles?
Fixed gradient for kitchen sink to drain correctly.
Goodbye stainless steel sink, hello Rebuilding Center. Heavy cast iron sink. Can the current counter hold it? It's so heavy I can't lift it by myself. Let's install a food disposal.
No more knee knocker vanity in bathroom. New pedestal stink and faucet. Where will we store our cleaning supplies?
No more drop-in sink in half bathroom.

August garden

Gardening this past Spring and Summer have provided lessons learned and lessons relearned.

We must fence the garden and the berry/apple tree area. Chickens help themselves to tomatoes, Swiss chard, disturb the root systems, peck strawberries, peck baby squash, and eat our blueberries before we get to them. Deer are eating the fruit trees, blueberry plants, and Iris' rose plant.

We must plant tomatoes farther apart. Ack. No wonder the chickens are getting more tomatoes than we are. I can't even find where one tomato starts and the next begins. Harvesting tomatoes require small fingers for they are wedged in between stems and branches.

We need to tie the tomatoes and/or build decent trellis for tomatoes. They have so many heavy green fruit that they collapse before they ripen. Metal tomato cages are ugly.

Hook up drip irrigation system. Oh, how easy watering could be!

It's time to plant again! Carrots, onions, cover crops. Cut back borage. Is it the right time? It's ugly.

How do we preserve the artichokes? I want them to come back next Spring.

Till soil along cyclone fence for cover crops. Daikon radish and Austrian peas are coming in the mail. Alfalfa for goats is going in the field. I can weed no longer. Let nitrogen fixing plants come and help. Thanks Nichols Nursery!

Be not afraid of machinery. The plow will not kill our soil, nor will it compact too badly. It's a little BCS. If only I could use it.

Berry harvest

1st harvest of berries today.
Thanks N for setting up the irrigation! We have berries because of you . Please bring home Vanilla ice cream.

Garden

Harvested a bite for dinner.
Happy Solstice!

Why do I bother?

Made these: http://ohsheglows.com/2011/07/13/our-perfect-veggie-burger/ with some substitutions (real bread crumbs, no black beans), home grown garlic and onions.
This is the response:

Awesome Vitamix!

Made this Peach Mango Smoothie with our new Vitamix 6300. It's the best!~V

Early Summer Salmon

This is a tough time of year to catch a 20  lb. Chinook Salmon, but we were lucky this past Sunday. Thank you Pacific Ocean, thank you C., thank you Chinook Salmon, for nourishing our family. ~N

Harvesting kale and baby carrots from our garden

First crop of carrots are successful. I planted them on April 1as a tribute to my grandma Lela Mae Weaver. She was born on April 1, 1911. She was the first person that I knew who had a garden and as she was a hard worker, I wanted to plant something that difficult to grow. Her strawberries inspired me to want to grow berries when I grew up. I miss her and wished I had her grape vines, cherry and pear trees.
I can't believe the carrot seed germinated. I worried that I was harboring a bed of weeds. Part of the carrots that I thin are wild carrots, but when I find a bright orange baby, it makes me so happy and proud that I could grow them. Kind of silly, but baby carrots are sweet and worth the work.
The Kale seeds were an impromptu planting. I had an ugly clod bed that threatened to grow buttercup, yellow dock, and thistle if I didn't put some other seeds beside sunflowers and celeriac in. I have had the seeds since Trillium's seed school sold them to me in 2011. They germinated, survived the weeds, slugs, and Willow the goat who escaped and ate the tops off all of the sunflowers and half the strawberry greens. Yesterday, I harvested them for lunch.
Allergies are bugging me.
Planted watermelons yesterday thanks a friend's help & motivation. Same friend who encouraged eating raw kale with balsamic vinegar and shared baby strawberries. Noah hooked up irrigation to bamboo and berries. Yay!

Caramels

Caramel!