Everywhere there's lots of piggies, living piggy lives

So, this just happened. . .

Apparently, when Tres went over to return the neigbors' tractor, she came running to the door and he couldn't resist bringing her over to say hi. She is ridiculously cute and really curious - god knows what she ate off of the floor while she was exploring. The cats, needless to say, were not impressed (regrettably, I was not quick enough to get one of him nose-to-nose with the pig; it was amazing).

While a far away OPEC we richly endow....

We got a blast of late winter weather this weekend. Low around 10F. I hope it will be the last of the really cold weather for the year. I fertilized the garden area this weekend. I had intended to do it earlier, but I've been waiting for my fertilizer to show up at one of the local feed stores. It took a month to come, but every week they told me it would be there next week. I got the impression that I was irritating the employees, but what can you do. I applied 450# of soybean meal (7-2-1) to the garden for nitrogen, and a 50# sack of ammonium phosphate (11-52-0) for phosphorus. The garden area is about 1/5 acre, so this amounts to 185#/acre nitrogen, 175#/acre phosphorus. There is already plenty of potassium. I considered a lot of choices when choosing my fertilizer scheme. First you've got the all chemical option, which is cheap, easy to apply and readily available. However, the nutrients are quickly leached from the soil, which is bad for the environment. I don't have an easy way to apply extra fertilizer using my drip irrigation, so I definitely want something that would be slower-release than the normal nitrogen fertilizer. Manure or compost are good, but bulky. Given what the soybean meal cost, and the hassle with the feed store, I think next year I'll use manure The seed meal and manure are organic fertilizers. Ironically, these organic fertilizers are made more affordable by non-organic agriculture. The soybeans are cheap because of pesticides, GMOs and chemical fertilizer, and the manure is plentiful because of the same soybeans, antibiotics and etc. The organic options for a good phosphate source are more limited. You've got rock phosphate, which is bulky and of questionable availability (both in stores and in the soil), and bone meal. I read that bone meal isn't available in the soil at alkaline pH, so I decided this year to use chemical fertilizer. Maybe next year I'll try something else. If peak oil isn't your doom of choice, perhaps you'll consider peak phosphate.

He spreads the burning sand with water...

Spring is coming on and the weather is slowly warming. I think it will be nice not to have to deal with the seemingly never-ending winter/spring drizzle that is typical west of the Cascades.  I spent some time this weekend setting up drip irrigation system for my garden. This was a bit of a dry run... (ba dum duh)... I haven't fertilized the garden area yet, so I can't set up the whole system right now. But I wanted to see how it would work, and if there were any problems. I was a little concerned about the efficacy of the drip tape I purchased on the loamy sand soil of our garden site. I wanted to know if the water would spread laterally enough to germinate seeds. Albert at the local irrigation store hooked me up with my drip supplies. I bought Toro 15mil drip tape, 12" emitter spacing, .32gph. I could potentially use this for more than one year, but we'll see how much abuse it takes over the season. A 8" spacing would probably be better on the sandy soil, as would a higher flow rate, but I think this will work. In the picture below you can see the hydrant, and below that I've got a Y-splitter (so I can run  a hose as well as my drip irrigation); a 20 psi pressure reducer, a 150 mesh filter, and a hose.

From the hose we go to a blue low-pressure 2" distribution hose (also called a lay-flat). Then we go into 1/4" 'spaghetti tubing', which barbs into the drip tape. It was pretty cheap to set-up, as drip irrigation goes.

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

I've only been promising this update for two months, so I'm thrilled to be finally posting some news on the house-front.  Tres and I signed for our construction loan last week, which means (aside from getting that much closer to "grown-up" status), we will be starting official site prep this week, with construction to follow shortly.  Whew!


This all began with the premise that (after extensive searching), we would be happier building our own house than buying something pre-existing.  Finding this amazing property clinched the deal and we were off.  But what to do?  We visited a local builder, but the plans weren't exciting and frankly not terribly affordable.  We searched online plans, but nothing really stuck out and how do you possibly narrow down the choices in any meaningful way?  There was just too much to know where to begin.  We visited some pre-fab options and they were beautiful, but again not really financially reasonable.  A friend had a friend who was an architect, we met over beer, and click!  It was perfect, we shared the same vision, and we knew we'd get just what we wanted.  Now, right at this moment, reality should have smacked us in the face.  We are certainly not wealthy, not even well-off.  We were fortunate to have saved and been bequeathed a little money by our respective grandparents, but this was the only reason we could afford any sort of house, it was NOT going to get us anything fancy. . .

And so that's where we found ourselves by early September.  Through our savings, with pre-building costs still accruing, and plans for a beautiful, modern, perfect one-of-a-kind dream house we could not afford.  Now, just to be clear, our plans weren't extravagant - I'm not talking McMansion here - but neither were they reasonable for us.  There was a lot of heartache, second-guessing, guilt, and regret, but eventually, we realized we needed to make a choice.  Ultimately, we love this property; we're proud of the work we've done (relatively insignificant though it may be) and we're eager for the possibilities that this land offers.  We had to cancel the dream house.  It was hard for us, but we are not without hope.  We've had to go in a very different direction -  hiring a builder in our price range means we have very little say on personalization (the plan, materials, etc. are pretty much set, with very slight variations on a limited number of items) - but it also means we get to keep our property AND we get a house.  We won't be featured in Dwell, but it will keep us warm and dry; it will be a place where we can raise our children (sorry if that's a shocker for any of you, but it's definitely on the horizon), where we all continue to grow and learn and change and love.  It will be a home.

The time to hesitate is through...

After the garden area was cleared, we had several large piles of sagebrush. I've been waiting for a nice calm day to dispose of them. It is amazing how fast and hot the sagebrush burns. It makes me happy that there isn't a lot of it near where the house will be. I also took the opportunity yesterday to fulfill my neighborly duty and burn the tumbleweeds that have accumulated along the fence line all winter. The brush provides habitat for small creatures, but it is a fire risk, and we don't need more tumbleweed around, so it has to go.

 The chickens were free-ranging yesterday, and one found an exciting new roosting location. Chicken; it's what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

She's (and he's) so cold

Funny story.  When Tres and I got back from a day trip down to Ontario, OR (for work) on Tuesday, the stove was no longer running. Upon closer inspection, lack of fuel was not the issue. Ok, not so much funny as surprising and then decidedly unfortunate. The stove was mysteriously broken, conveniently, right as we started our first cycle of freezing weather in over a month.  Whoopee. Poor Tres spent a good hour taking the stove apart and running through all of the potential troubleshooting steps, to determine that we likely had a broken auger motor (the thing that spins the auger, basically a big drill, which lets down the pellets into the stove). At that point, it was too late to do anything but cover the bed in extra blankets, bundle ourselves up, and hunker down for the night (not surprisingly, the cats were suddenly very interested in snuggling).


In the morning, we awoke to our breath frosting and spent a chilly day waiting to hear back from the stove store. It's a sad day when the warmest enclosed space around is your portable toilet. Mercifully, the stove store had the part we needed in stock, so once the proprietor got back from her appointment and straightened things out with the warranty people, we were the proud owners of a new auger motor. Tres reversed his earlier handiwork and we had a fire going again that evening.  Chalk it all up to another adventure in shop living.

happy to have a fire again

Doted on like seeds planted in rows

I like the bulk section at WinCo, because I can get a 50# sack of flour for ~$15. In the springtime, however, the bulk section can do double duty as a garden seed source. Most people don't think about the fact that many foods will reproduce themselves if you just put them in the ground. And when you buy them as 'food', they are less than 1/10th the price, and no shipping is involved. Here is a list of things you can buy at the store and use for seed: Pretty much all legumes (lentils, common beans, adzuki beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, pease peas, etc); Most bulbs and tubers (garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, horseradish) most cereals and pseudocereals (wheat, millet, quinoa), and some others (poppy, flax, sunflower). If you want to go a little more nuts, you can save seeds from fruit or vegetables (melons, squash, tomato, apples etc), or you can grow seed from roots and bulbs (carrots, onions, turnips, radish, and so on). There are a few things to be aware of when engaging in this activity. 1) Some roots are treated with sprout inhibitors, so you're better off buying organic roots. 2) Many of the fruits and vegetables are from hybrid or highly heterotic plants, so they won't produce true-to-type (not true of most of the cereals, legumes, garlic or potatoes). 3) You should test for germination of the seed before using it by wrapping the seed in a damp cloth and leaving it in a warm place.