Diary 2/28/13

Oregon Coast (Bandon in background, I think)

I am back with more information about Terence.  It turns out that he was a slave.  He was most likely black as he was from Africa, and I don't think there were many white slaves from Africa.  Turns out that he was so clever, his owner freed him at which point he took his master's name, Terence, which was traditional even in the southern U.S.  I do know that the Romans liked to name their children or sons, specifically, "one", "two", three", thus Terence could have been the tertiary son of someone.  Anyway, Terence, the ex-slave, went on to be a playwright, as my sister said, the Noel Coward of Roman times.  The famous sayings are lines from his plays which were in general about common relationships and will just bet that themes and plots of those plays have been rehashed many times.  Learning something everyday...

Diary 2/27/13

I wanted to use the saying"time heals all wounds" in the book I am writing, but I wanted to be sure it was period correct, so I looked it up thinking Shakespeare, I bet it is from Shakespeare. Well, I was surprised to find that the first one who said it was Terence. Now I need to look up who Terence was, but I have the feeling he was a Roman orator and politician? More on that later. He actually said, "Time removes distress, " but that was a Latin translation.  Publius Terentius Afer lived around 190 to 159 BC era.  He is also said some other famous statements such as, "While there is life, there is hope."  "Charity begins at home."   "Moderation in all things."  "There is nothing so easy but that becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly." What a guy Terence was!

Diary 2/26/13

MAN vs.STUMP.  Man wins!

Diary 2/25/13

Working on taxes. As a self-employed farmer there can be alot of receipts and market records to go through. Not as many parts each year.  Whizzing through it.  Hope I'm not missing something.  Gotta love primroses.  They are so brave.  Give them even a bit of nice weather and off they go~

Diary 2/24/13

yesterday

today

More questions than answers on tiling. Need to experiment with cutting ans see what edges look like.  May have to revert to original design. "Rome wasn't built in a day", shower stall wasn't built in a year! Trying to chill out and wait for a little more help before diving in.  I will get the rest of the supplies tomorrow and then start making decisions, again. What a difference a day makes outdoors!

Diary 2/22/13

We bought the tile!  It was not hard to find tiles that we liked, but I was set on the size I wanted supposedly to make the math easier.  Basically a marble looking light beige for most of the shower interior with a row of the darker greenish with some golden browns accent tiles running through them  for one vertical line on each wall.  As it works out, the darker tiles will be the ones we cut and so a narrower line in the middle of all the light colored tiles will look interesting.  I am not too particular as I figure we are probably the ones who will see it and not that many others.  Now to collect the rest of the supplies and the tile cutter from a neighbor.  I will draw some level lines on the concrete board today and figure out where to start.  Mixing the mortar is a little intimidating, but I will figure it out eventually.  Again, any mistakes are part of the uniqueness of DIY, right?

Christmas present

My Amaryllis finally bloomed.  It was a Christmas present that took awhile to get to me and then took awhile to plant.  So, for President's Day, it bloomed, kinda tall and lanky as the sun wasn't that great in that spot, but gloriously red, nonetheless.I am also the proud mother of some peas.  The first germinated seeds of 2013.  I planted another succession, but just short little rows, not full beds, mind you. Here I go!

Kitty paws

 My cat is a Maine Coon Cat. He has a distinctive black "M'" on his forehead. He has moved on from rodent management to retirement.  He is purely ornamental.  When it is very cold or snowy, his coat is gorgeous.  When it is hot and dry, he has a hard time staying up with fur maintenance.  This time of year, he is a good looking guy.  I especially love his furry toes.  I am sure the hairs have a purpose,; it may have something to do with being quiet or maybe protection in the snow and cold. Whatever the reason,they sure are cute.

Diary 2/19/13

Planting apple trees in the garden area.  I guess that makes it official, we will not be growing row crops there!  We put in 4 Honeycrisp and have a Red Delicious and Golden Delicious to plant. We had to fence them immediately so some young whippersnapper buck deer doesn't take a young apple tree on. I am going to put in some new strawberries in the greenhouse, too.  They have been so easy in there, and so much fun to have. Who doesn't like fresh strawberries? I know, I know, "I thought you were taking time off from the garden?" Well, yes, but still want to grow things we really want, not just a variety of produce to fill 30 bags. 

Diary 2/18/13

cilantro

turnips

red lettuce

What a nice weekend with some socializing, some hard work, and pleasant weather.  Now President's Day and more hard work!  I have planted a few things in the lower greenhouse.  I have spinach, carrots, radishes, peas, and cilantro coming up.  Way ahead of all that though, are the volunteers that are showing up since I watered the beds.  I absolutely LOVE volunteers.  There are a million , well not really, turnips, some more cilantro, red lettuce and Napa cabbage.  Such a deal.  So, for someone who isn't going to commercially farm this year...I am off to a dubiously plentiful start!

Diary 2/16/13

Plumbing still life

The plumbing took almost all day, but it was well worth the trouble of no water to have several problems fixed while the well was off and the pipes were drained.  No disasters, just a struggle to reach down in ditches, cutting, gluing, and repairing four places in our water delivery system of pipes. Old valves are replaced with some new fangled ones that will not give us as much trouble in the future.

Diary 2/15/13

What a beautiful day!  I saw 65 on the thermometer.  We usually have these teaser days that we call tee shirt weather in February at some point.  Then the spring rain season interrupts with lots more rainy systems coming through. March can see every kind of weather possible.  Well, this week is kinda the same here with snow due in a few days. Meanwhile, fixing a leak at our well head, a couple leaks in the yard, and a irrigation line that hasn't worked for a year.  Hope the moon sign had something to do with water so that all the fixes are successful. Garden Dog said the sun was just what his old bones needed!

Diary 2/13/13

Maybe it doesn't look like a big deal or much progress, but it definitely was.  Our friend, Will, and my son helped get to this point by the end of the day.  Ready for tile, with new plumbing, shower head, ABS, and vent.  The vase is my color inspiration, nothing too extraordinary there.  I have a chance to get some tile as seen behind the vase for free, so I am going to take advantage of the fact that they match my color scheme exactly! Now to find that special accent tile with some pale green and a plant theme I think...

Diary 2/11/13

This and that day.  Raking leaves up for the chicken yard. The chickens stir them into their poop and other deteriorating bedding and voila, I have some great stuff to add to beds I will be growing vegetables in later.  Have put in a large gate so we can bring the tractor to haul it off.  Previously it was a bucket and wheel barrow job.  We'll see how it all works.  With less area to prep, I should have plenty of humus to add.  I will start on it soon, but I still have time as the days are short and temperatures not waking the soil up yet. Relaxing evening writing and thinking about tile patterns...

Diary 2/10/13

Made the hard part of progress on the bathroom project today.  It is always scary getting into the walls of 22 year old wet places...it can be rotten and even termite inviting.  We were lucky to find only a bit of dark wood that we replaced as it was a bit pithy from some previous leak we had fixed.  When you are that far down in demolition, you might as well do it right.  So the bathtub, jacuzzi, that we rarely ever used is being replaced by a safer shower stall that I have committed to tile.  I am excited to tile, gulp, so I approach with no personal knowledge, some observation of tiling when our friends did our kitchen (thank you Barney and Earl), and enthusiasm to do something "us" ...Stay tuned on that.

Diary 2/9/13

What a day!  In the cool of the morning we started on the long awaited bathroom remodel.  We have a tub and we want a shower.  Of course like any such projects, there are prerequisites, and this project has plenty of them.  I am happy to report that so far, there are no plumbing mishaps, no old leaks in the floor with rotten this and that which need replacing, so that was good news.  The bad news is there is no way to do some of the things I was thinking of, and I have resolved to compromise and maybe even tiling the interior of the shower that I was loath to do.  I know we can make it very pretty, just want it EASY to clean! So wish me luck for tomorrow's demolition!  In the afternoon we moved to a new area to get more logs for the shop building project, taking down a tree with a crooked top that was left from a previous thinning.  It was obvious that it was too close to the building site as are a couple other trees.  Still have to find a straight tree or two to make the long ridge pole and taller uprights for the middle of the structure.

Diary 2/8/13

Still cutting danger trees and cleaning up around the edges.  Feels great to have some old clogged areas full of blackberries, fencing, and misc. cleared for easy access and less debris by our home that would burn. Forest fires, wildfires, are the natural enemy here.  Some people in some other parts of our country have to deal with tornadoes, some hurricanes.  We have fires.

Dairy 2/6/13

It was a wash day for me.  I don't mind doing laundry.  My downfall is putting the clean clothes in the drawers or closet.  I tend to let them pile up and work out of the piles.  Ah well.  Just glad I didn't have to use this model to get the laundry done.  When I first moved to Oregon, I had one of these, not this one, but very nearly the same.  I had long hair and had to do an emergency shut-off more than once when my braid got caught in the wringer.  These machines, though work intensive, did a pretty good job at agitating the dirt out.  The clothes were very dry by the time you ran them through the wringer.  Life was slower when these were the washers of choice and such a time-saving improvement over hand washing.

Diary 2/4/13

Cleaning up around some old animal sheds that we have not used for years. Moved things that have been in place for over 30 years.  Fell a couple trees that have problems probably as result of a huge storm here in 1962.  It was the lowest barometric reading on this coast ever.  You can see where the trees are crooked and take a guess at what happened.  In one area, some big tree came down and swiped the rest as it came down, leaving da,mge that is still visible from way back then. Collecting logs to trim into beams for upcoming shop building. They are stacked for drying and easy pickup by the excavator. Any tops or weird places are firewood.  I'm tired!

Diary 1/3/13

It is Superbowl Sunday, a strange event in American culture.  With all the discussion of brain damage that we knew existed in boxing , but ignored in football, I guess we haven't gotten too far from the entertainment Romans enjoyed watching gladiators. It is traditional to drink beer, eat barbecue potato chips, fried chicken parts, and watch this game and the entertaining commercials that cost as much as curing a disease might, as if it were truly important to our lives.  So while I wait for some past gladiators to toss the sacred coin which may be very important to see who goes first, Alicia Keyes makes me cry singing our national anthem.

Diary 2/1/13

A couple "old gents" of the forest.  I just realized I have a relationship with these stumps that were probably between 200 and 300 years old when they were cut down 60 years ago.  I know where they are in the woods, always the same, staking their claim of their same old place on the forest floor.