Movin' out

So, you may be wondering how we deal with some day-to-day necessities around here. I briefly referenced our "kitchen" when talking about the palapa. It's a two burner camp stove on a table, made out of 10 foot 2 x 4s and sawhorses. Now that we're in the shop, we've moved the cooking area inside, where we have easy access to our food and the utensils can be spread out, instead of being bunched into the dish drainer or a box. Dish washing remains an outdoor activity, until we get water brought down to the shop and a sink hooked up.

Tres models the shower

Since Tres actually has to go to work and be around other people every day (and being excessively stinky or dirty - both of which come about in short order when you're essentially camping on a sand dune in 90 degree weather every day - didn't seem wise when starting a new job), creating some sort of a shower was a priority for us. Luckily, we have someone very well acquainted with showers in the family and, between his expertise and Tres' creativity, we came up with this: a 55 gallon food-grade drum filled with water (it once held kiwi-strawberry syrup and your shower still smells slightly sweet) mounted on a wood frame that is attached to the back of the pump house. There is a shower head mounted on the bottom (it's the small white thing above Tres' head in the photo) and a tarp tied on one side, to block the neighbors' view. Showering outside is a new (to me) and pretty spectacular thing. The water, despite the sun's best attempts, tends to be pretty chilly, so it's most enjoyable in the heat of the day and done relatively quickly. We've only had a few surprises thus far, low-flying planes (there is a small airstrip directly behind us) doing repeated touch-and-gos during certain people's showers (coincidence?) and once, just as I was getting ready to go in, the realization that people often ride their horses on the otherwise quiet and undeveloped land behind our house.

And last, but certainly not least, one of the amenities for which I'm most grateful:



I should add that we've been living pretty high on the hog these past few days, as we now have a fridge hooked up in the shop. Is there greater luxury than being able to buy food days in advance and successfully store leftovers?

You're the inspiration

I realize I'm about a week late to the party on this one, but I totally want to be this girl when I grow up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18food-t.html

Starting a new life

Before we could consider being out here full time (without making ourselves crazy running out to the store/some unsuspecting person's hose every time we needed water), we needed to get our water running. Ok, no problem, we needed to dig a well. Well, to get anything up here to do that, we needed something vehicles could negotiate. Enter: the driveway.

our brand new driveway

Now that we had a driveway, the well driller could get up here and drill and he did. And it only cost twice as much as we'd estimated (as they had to dig twice as deep). Ouch.

As you can likely tell from the above photo, water doesn't simply flow out of a well. A pump is necessary and, for a pump to work, you need electricity. Amazingly, despite the relative closeness of our neighbors, there was no electricity anywhere near our property. So, we had our very own poles put in along the driveway. While they have elicited reactions from a number of visitors, we actually don't find them particularly unsightly. I find it pretty enjoyable to easily trace my electricity to its source (plus the new lines are all shiny). To house aforementioned pump (protect it from freezing, etc.), one requires an (aptly named) pump house. My father-in-law graciously took on this task, constructing most of it in Portland and then driving it out here in the bed of his pickup. It is, in my opinion quite lovely, not to mention sturdy. It also came in handy for him later, as you will hear in future posts.

one pole and the pump house (I will take and add better
photos of both once I get our camera fixed - oops.)

With the well dug, electricity hooked up, the pump installed and protected, and a spigot attached, we had water!

wrapped spigot head, well head, and hole

Next up was the palapa. I got to help a little on this one, holding the 4 x 6s straight, while Tres filled the sand in around them. He and his dad did the rest, building the walls with plywood and wrapping the tarp over top quite ingeniously (it gets pretty windy from time to time and we didn't want it blowing off or ripping). The palapa made itself immediately useful - providing much-needed shade, a protected storage and cooking area, and a windscreen.

palapa posts

completed palapa

This has gotten a bit longer than I'd anticipated, so I'll finish for now and continue next week with moving out here and building the shop. Happy weekend!

Feels like the first time

Inspired to get started on some summer food preservation, we headed to the farmer's market last weekend and bought 13 pounds of Rainier cherries (that's two of the above bags) to dry. While I halved and pitted the fruit, Tres built a super sweet outdoor drying rack, with some wood leftover from building the shop. Even though the work was fairly tedious (probably worth investing in a cherry pitter, if I'm planning to preserve them on a regular basis), I couldn't help but admire the beauty in each cherry as I sliced it, such beautiful colors and so perfectly ripe and juicy. Is there much better than summer fruit?

sliced and pitted


on the rack


the drying rack and its engineer


after two days in the sun