weekend cont'd...

Saturday's adventure started off on a good foot.

We almost always eat breakfast here if we're going through Lewiston in the a.m. After a Hawaiian waffle sugar rush I was ready to hit the road.

In Moscow we stopped at the recycled building supply place to check out their inventory and started making all kinds of mental notes about what we would buy on our next trip.

We found some old wood frame with glass french doors I think we're going to use for our front door(s). We'd originally wanted a kind of barn door that would allow us to open up one whole end of the house. But that would be tricky to insulate against Idaho winters. So we decided these french door we found would work great. But we didn't buy them. Because we're broke.

But we did buy a two-way mirror for the bathroom. For $20!!! Whatta steal! We had this idea for a while and we were lucky to happen upon a good-sized mirror, already framed in.

For next time: corrugated tin for the kitchen (and maybe bathroom?), old windows (as a room divider, hung in columns---cheap: $5-$20/ea!), shower base/drain and 2"x2" redwood for the shower floor, possibly a toilet (still working on the R&D of a composting toilet)... We might need a trailer to haul it all home. Assuming we have the money to spend. But everything in the yard was really reasonably priced. Unlike what's-his-face with the used lumber here in town ($.40/board foot!!!).

Then we finished the mission: we returned my sister's car to CdA. Driving up through the small towns on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation I saw signs for a store called The Warpath and I decided that if I was a tribe I would name my casinos so they'd be offensive to white people--i.e. Broken Treaty Casino, Solts o' Genocide--but they'd still gamble there anyway and I'd always be letting them know that they owed me (the tribe) and it was only fair they drop some coins in my casino. Passive-aggressive, I guess, but yeah. Maybe it's obvious I wouldn't make a very good businesswoman.

Wildlife Alert: On the way there we saw a MOOSE!!! On Hwy 95 (almost exactly HERE) going across four lanes of traffic! I was driving and Keith was slow getting the camera out, so this is the best shot we got. Deal with it. (We also saw another moose on the way home, but no pic.)


We left CdA lickety-split and when we got back to Moscow we decided we were hungry so we went to Ted's Burgers. (I had a grilled cheese and onion rings. Yum.) My mom was flabbergasted because the kid behind the counter spelled her name correctly (Merry), but later she was whispering that it's probably the only way he knows how to spell Mary, because, you know Merry Christmas. She said that was the first time anyone had spelled her name correctly without asking. See, small miracles happen every day.

We also hit the People's Co-Op in Moscow which made me pine for The Good Food Store in Missoula. I bought $6 worth of TVP for ....well, all kinds of stuff: chili, spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes. I could have spent a lot of time and money in there. But I had very little of both. It's another place we'll be making a list for and then saving up to visit.

On the way home we took the shortcut through Julietta/Kendrick and it was a nice change of scenery. Beautiful farm land up there.


And we saw a lot of old barns we wanted to raid for wood for our tiny house. We dreamt about how we could go into the barn demolition and resale business.

When we got back home we saw that the fire over the hill from us was burning like crazy.

And it's still going. We've been watching planes and helicopters dump on it all day.

My dad some some Dept. of Lands guys in town this morning and they said it "doesn't look good," but they haven't lost any structures yet.

Cougars and now a fire?!? Dangerous neighborhood we moved into!

Other People's Vacation Pictures

I'll try not to bore you. There's plenty of pretty pictures anyway.

The soundtrack for today's post is Eddie Vedder-Society (from the Into the Wild soundtrack--excellent film). Open in a new window/tab, as per usual. Sample lyrics:

...
You think you have to want
more than you need
until you have it all you won't be free

Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
...

Now the place we went is not far from here, maybe 40 miles or so upriver. It's quiet and beautiful and we were alone and that's what we were looking for.

We drove up to the takeout where our friends would be getting off the river in a couple days, just up from Selway Falls, and let the dogs out to cool off.

Lazlo says, "This is fantastic!"

After some swimming and rock hounding and refreshing beverages we got in the truck to leave, only to be thwarted by nosy Ranger Rick who wanted to have a stop and chat while Lazlo was vomiting in the back seat (he drank too much river water! ooops).

We stopped at Selway Falls and Keith did boy things like trying to throw rocks across the gorge.

Selway Falls panorama

We went back to the spot where we'd unloaded our stuff to save our campsite and made camp. We had a nice shady spot with easy access to the river and at least 3 hammock-friendly trees (though some saplings may or may not have been sacrificed).

Highlights: naps in the hammocks; waking up to go put our feet in the river; Thursday night's dinner of campfire-roasted corn on the cob and sweet potatoes plus fresh zucchini break (thanks mom!), more naps, going to bed early, sleeping late, finishing my library book, Keith breaking his camp chair on the first evening (stress testing it on a rock--epic fail), Keith carrying Mia across Boyd Creek (we cut her some slack, being a Survivor and all), Keith making me a bouquet of wildflowers and driftwood...

Keith found a brand spankin' newly hatched dragonfly

tent security cam footage

For our first time camping in about 2 years, we were a little rusty but no major distasters. A good dry run for the next, longer trip (Labor Day weekend?)

We broke camp Saturday morning and headed home. We spent Saturday on the road, returning my sister's car to Coeur d'Alene so she can have it when she comes back from NY later this week. But we also stopped at a recycled building supply place in Moscow and found some great deals for tiny house construction---like glass/wood french doors, corrugated tin, windows, wood, toilets and sinks, lotsa misc. Definitely a place we'll be visiting again, with a list and some savings.

Bee back...

in a couple days. We're heading out to go camping in the morning. FINALLY (could have today been any longer???)

"Camping" is going to consist of: reading, maybe swimming, eating, reading, napping, reading, napping, eating, possibly a hike (although I'm not committing myself to that), sleeping, a cutthroat cribbage tournament, and then returning. All will be documented in photograph, as per usual.

That bee up there was in the garden this morning. In fact, the whole garden was buzzing and there were 2 and 3 bees in a lot of flowers. I'll have some fabulous garden pics to post when we get back, too.

Bona Fide Newpaper Girl

I've been working my little eyeballs to the max scrutinizing pages in InDesign for 10+ hours and now I'm back on the computer... WHY?

Because I just had to share photos of my new workspace. I actually remembered to take my camera and then remembered to use it.

It's a quiet office with a lot of plants and I could easily hit the huge plate glass window up front with a ... well, it's close.



A lot of elbow room, too, you can see. (Unlike my last desk where I shared a cube with 3+ other people.) It still needs some Aprilification and I've been thinking how I can listen to music, but with answering the phone, taking walk-in orders, and getting my pages laid out, I don't think I need anymore distractions just yet. So I'll save the music for my lunchtime walks (to fight/prevent Office Ass).

Keith helps keep me sane,
whether he knows it or not.

My first solo week a bit more stressful than I imagined but I'm confident I will soon be rocking the place. They're going to start throwing more graphic design work my way which is encouraging and scary at the same time. Of course there's no talk of a pay raise but I won't get into that because I don't want to get dooced. I'll just be content racking up hours for now. It's strange to be getting a paycheck again--after about 6 weeks without.

Our camping plans have changed---our friends have a solar equipment business and they made their first big sale so they're putting in a day later which means we're not going to see them. So we're going up Thursday a.m. and we'll come home Saturday a.m. Expect lotsa pics on the return. I'm so excited!

I found a new paint job for the Whatchamacallit!

(that's the new name for the $150 car we bought--notice it doesn't have the word poop or turd in it)

I totally want to paint our ugly brown car something.

Flat black would be easy and easy on the eyes.

(superchevy)

I was intrigued by the dia de los volvo paintjob Cephallus saw.


But then I saw this!

(via Matt Davis)

Of course it would have to be done by hand and I may not have that kind of time available, but maybe it's a wintertime project. After the Tiny House.

National Clean Out Your Pantry Day

We're either way ahead of the game, or way behind. No matter, we tend to play loose with holidays anyway. But we decided Sunday was Clean Out Your Pantry Day, regardless of when other people might think it is.

I didn't take any before pictures, but just take my word for it when I tell you it was filled with car parts, tons of "yard sale junk," old unusable jars, expired food, paint and paint supplies, tools, and copious amounts of spiderwebs. Also, some mouse poop.

But it only took a couple hours of Keith pre-organizing and the about 2 hours of the rest of us helping sort out what was Keep and what was Toss. We still have a lot of expired food to throw away. We had a contest to see what the oldest date we could find--- this was the winner:


There was a little discussion about how something AS OLD AS I AM survived so much packing and unpacking or if it was acquired somewhere along the way or what, but it clearly says, "79." We almost kept it for historical value, but decided to toss it. The runners up included mustard pickles, canned steelhead, and a wide variety of jellies from the early 90s. Keith and I have a personal policy of not eating anything older than 5 years.

So, the pantry after:

Everything top shelf center is getting tossed down the RV dump once we fashion a funnel to help with disposal. Not looking forward to that task. Good news is all the jars on the left (and what we have left after we dump expired food) should be plenty to can what we're going to harvest out of the garden this year. We'll need lids and rings, but we should have enough jars.

I also found some pretty neat older jars, so I decided to do a little photo essay of them. All you need to pull of something like this is a pump house and an empty field.

Last week my friend Melissa ordered 12 of my greeting cards, which was very exciting. My first big sale! W00t!

Never mind the messy wrapping, I had to catch the light!

This week at work is hectic because the newspaper is changing sizes again. Boring, tedious resizing. Late and early hours. Hey, what am I complaining about---more money to build our tiny house with!

On the Tiny House Front: we decided to go with lumber from the mill where my mom works. It's cheaper and there's little to no chance of sunstroke or snakebite. My dad's friend Dave is getting a unit of plywood from up north soon, so we're going to try to tack on a unit for ourselves to his load. We still have decide on the exact orientation of the house (to maximize the sun, especially during the winter) and then we'll start digging the holes for the footers. Keith says he wants to have it built by Labor Day. Sounds pretty ambitious to me! We might be able to acquire some barn wood from Keith's employer. It's definitely coming together.

But, this weekend----this weekend we're taking some much-needed KBAB time. We were planning on heading over to Missoula to see some friends but when we called to see if they'd be home we found out they're going to be on the Selway this weekend. So Keith and I are heading out Thursday night (with the dogs, of course) to camp for a couple days and then we'll meet up with them when they come off the river on Saturday. I think it's been over 2 years since we've been camping (I can't remember--that's how long ago it was) and it's been since before we moved to Portland that we've seen our friends. So we're really looking forward to this weekend. Keith is already sorting gear on the back patio.

On Sunday we're taking my sister's car up to Coeur d'Alene since she'll be home from NY on the 12th. At least an 8-hour roundtrip and we probably won't even get to stop and shop at any used building supply places, being Sunday and all. Good thing we're relaxing beforehand.

Salvage Yard Excursion

Today we went to see what was available at Donaldson's in the way of recycled wood.

Keith and dad looked at the wood. They talked about board feet blah blah blah. I was too busy looking at rusty things to be worried about what they were saying. I can't wrap my head around the math to figure board feet anyway.

me and my dad

Mr. Sexy measuring wood
with his new tape measure

It's U-Sort and it's crazy hot and there's bees everywhere and maybe rattlesnakes... and I don't know if it's any cheaper than wood from the mill (where my mom works and gets a discount). I definitely like the idea of recycling materials and the quality and aesthetics of this old wood is better---- but it's not up to me, necessarily. We have to get out the abacus and see what the better deal is.

Everything BUT the wood was more interesting to me. I let the men handle it while I snapped photos of:

Rural excitement of late:
1) Last night we were all sitting on the porch and one of the neighbor boys (10 yrs old maybe) from the end of the road rode a 4-wheeler up to the highway and back, like he sometimes does. But on the return trip he was looking over his shoulder for just a second and he plowed into the mailboxes across the street. The 4-wheeler went end over end, flew through the air and he landed up against the fence. Talk about scary!! We ran down to the site of the crash (about 20 yards from our house) and checked to see if he was still in one piece. He was so lucky he didn't get killed. He walked away with no broken bones, only some road rash and a banged up 4-wheeler. I can't believe his parents let him ride that thing alone. Apparently, they're not too bright. Understatement.
2) My dad and Keith told me this afternoon that a guy who lives about 1 block from here (not that we have blocks, but that distance) saw a COUGAR in his driveway late at night 2 days ago. A COUGAR!! Sleeping in a tent is not sounding all that attractive after hearing that. Laying in bed we can hear apples falling out of the tree, twigs snapping from the outside kitties (or maybe not!) walking around, geese flying into the field next to us... but I would mess my pants if I heard a cougar scream. Come to think of it, we've been hearing some weird sounds very much like these. I am so NOT joking. Time to reconsider our sleeping arrangements.

Fruits of our labor

Okay, mostly Keith's labor.

He thinned the carrots this morning. We planted some heirloom type variety or something---anyway they are all sorts of colors: orange, yellow, white, red, purple. I am a sucker for nature novelty (and I'm told I come by it honestly--that my dad's dad loved to plant anything offbeat or weird-colored) and actually I'm not all that fond of carrots, but I am excited about these. Keith said these little ones weren't too tasty (not that he picked them for eating, just to allow the others to grow larger) but we ate a larger one that was very sweet. (Sidenote: I found another siamese raspberry the other night!! but I didn't take any photos.)

nom nom nom

My sunflowers are coming up great--surprisingly. Keith counted 43 sprouts this morning!

sunflowers in the fore/
watermelon in the back

The squash families (watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini) were taking over more than their allotted corner of the garden so Keith chopped out a couple of the plants...we're still going to have more than we can handle once they start coming on.

The wood ash/garden lime treatment we've been putting around the squash and tomatoes have really helped keep the bugs down. Definitely recommend that if you're having pest trouble. Equal parts wood ash and garden lime, spread a circle of it around the base of each plant. You can also sprinkle it directly on the leaves of the plants, but it's pretty alkaline so be careful not to burn the plants. That's totally SWAG, as my dad says. Scientific Wild Ass Guess. Pretty much how we operate around here.

The raspberries are really overstaying their welcome. And I try to be grateful for all of the food that we get, but it's really hard to pick raspberries every other day and not get sick of it. Complainy Complainerton! The freezer is full of them and we have enough jam to last at least this year if not next year as well. We've been eating them on cereal. And I've been giving them away to friends, too... including Mia. She loves her some raspberries! What a funny dog. Sometimes if you're not looking she sneaks them out of the bucket. But usually I hand feed them to her.

Keith finished the larger shelf for the greenhouse and we moved all of the heirloom tomato plants in there as well as the herbs. Keith said the dill grew about 4" today! There was a really interesting and disgusting article in the local paper last week(end?) about a nearby maggot farm. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a maggot farm!! They sell them for bait, but also to raise to maturity and sell the bluebottle flies that they turn into because they are great for pollinating plants in greenhouses. Apparently bees do not always like the confines of a greenhouse, but flies do just fine. Good thing to keep in mind, I guess.

The other shelves will be a bit lower so the tomatoes will have room to grow. But several of the plants have blossoms already. Don't know how that will work out---if the plants are big enough to support fruit or what. Again, SWAG rules. Amateurs!

The butcher block wouldn't fit in the greenhouse so we posted it outside. We hauled it to Missoula five or so years ago and then back here to put in storage while we lived in Portland and now it's out in circulation again. It was on my great-grandfather's ranch in southern Idaho way back when. I think I rescued it from my grandma who wasn't sure anyone would want it? Maybe because it weighs 3 tons. Her dad was a cattle rancher and spent all but about 18 months of his life on the ranch. There's a newspaper article on the wall of my parents' house that says the family's brand, an "X," holds the state record for the brand remaining in the same family for the longest period of time. It was registered by my great-great-grandfather in 1896. Last time I asked my mom she said she thought it was still somewhere in the family---this is something I should track down, I think. Very interesting: I just found there is a resevoir named for him in southern Idaho: Adin Hall Resevoir. (My mom's middle name is the feminized version of his name--Adine--and so is mine.) This concludes Family History Minute.

another panorama of the garden

I'm almost finished with my work week---just Wednesday to go. And I found out today that I get to place classifieds FOR FREE. W00t. This means my bartering ad is definitely going in next week and Roxanne even encouraged me to put some graphics on it and make it bigger if we need to fill some space. Can do! We usually have to put some stock/"house" ads in for fillers, so instead I'll use mine. I am very excited about that. But she also told me that they are probably going to want me to start taking on some of the real estate guide layout work and that I should stick up for myself re: wages. She said she has worked there three years and is only making $.25/hour more than when she started. Which is, frankly, bullshit. I mean, this is not just a job that your average Joe off the street can do well---it takes a lot of organization and attention to detail and apparently the Powers That Be think they can get away with paying slave wages. What're they going to do if someone puts up a fight? It's not like there's exactly a plethora of uber-qualified people in this town---most of them already have jobs. Of course I didn't move here or take the job to get rich--that isnt' the point. But I do think if you're going to increase someone's work load and responsibility you should acknowledge that it means they're a good worker who deserves a little more pay. But tomorrow is Free Lunch Wednesday (the last Wednesday of every month the paper buys us lunch), so I will wait and air my grievances at a later date. Hey, it's free lunch.

One thing about Having A Job that I am not too terribly fond of: having to wear a watch again. But at least I don't have to wake up to alarm clock...Keith wakes me up if I'm not up by 7 a.m. Really, the only reason I need the watch is to make sure I come back from lunch on time. Wah wah wah.

Check out this psychedelic shirt!

On a semi-related note I found this really neat interactive design website ("public interactive art project") called Type Is Art. You choose different parts of characters to enlarge, rotate, etc. and you make a design out of it. The possibilities are endless. I would love to hand something like this (oversize) in our house. Or maybe even sell them---if that's legal/not prohibited by some smalltype I haven't seen.

This was my first attempt.
I can see how it could be addictive.

Thursday we're taking a trip to the edge of town. There's a place that sells used lumber and we're going to get some quotes on what we'll need for the tiny house. I think I've already said we changed plans a little and decided to make it all one level, but we also increased the size a little. Instead of 8'x12' we're going 12'x20'--which is quite a big jump. But still pretty tiny. There's just no way we could fit our bed inside a house that's only 8' wide at the outside. Yesterday Keith got home from work and put pencil to paper for about 3 hours and laid out a detailed plan of dimensions and what lumber/plywood we will need to get started. We're hoping to have it built (well, winterized and habitable but not necessarily finished) by this fall/winter. Nothing against my parents, but I don't think all 4 of us could live in their house all winter and not go berserk. So----that means we have to get serious about our house plans. Which we are---getting serious. We also decided to look for a wood stove for heat...and if we do it right we can hook it up so our water (in the tanks on the roof) are also heated by the wood stove. If we find a flat top stove we could do some cooking on top of it. Plus run pipes to the bathroom end of the house to heat it (like radiant heat floors, kinda, only extremely simplified). Needless to say, with harvesting the garden and preserving the food and house plans and Farmers Market shenanigans, we are going to be plenty busy for the rest of the summer. Time to get crackin!

Gone Done and Ate Up All My Profits

Yesterday I decided, oh-so-last-minute (this is something you should know about me), to sell my wares at the 55th Annual Kooskia Days instead of at the Farmers Market at Long Camp. Thinking higher traffic/exposure...

I called the woman in charge (Molly) yesterday afternoon to ask about getting a vendor space. She said she'd let me have one for half price ($20) since I didn't need electricity (and I sounded like a poor pitiful novice, too, I'm sure). She told me everyone would start setting up around 7 a.m. So, when we got a late start and didn't get to Kooskia (only 8 miles away) until about 7:30, I was worried. But Molly was nowhere to be found! And I didn't know where to set up my table. So we wandered around. One of our favorite pasttimes, wandering around.

Kooskia has a lot of character.
I need to go back for a photo safari.

Then we decided to get caffeinated. So we drove to Stites (pop. <250) to The Chatterbox.

But it was closed. Dammit, don't you people want my business on a Saturday morning?!

So we went back to Kooskia and I had a which was good (and delicious!) because I saw my friend Heidi working at the Sunset Mart. She's moved back to the area and she invited us to her wedding at The Branding Iron Saloon on August 9th! Par-tay!

So then we walked around Kooskia for a while more until we found Molly, prolly around 8:30 .

I ended up getting a spot between a saloon and a cafe.

And it was in the shade! Which was good because it was HOT.

Keith polished up a piece of angle iron from
my dad's scrap pile to use as a magnet display.
I also had a sign-up sheet for forming
a bartering network. No takers. So far.

the cards I had for sale

So I only sold 1 card and half a dozen magnets (not enough to cover my $20 vendor space fee), but I had a LOT of compliments and "interested persons," which was very encouraging. Seriously. Good advertising. Now I feel a little more confident about setting up a table at the Farmers Market, perhaps next weekend?

I also had a good view of the parade


and Keith even brough Lazlo for a while. He was a very very good dog. As per usual.

But by the time 1:30p.m. rolled around I was hungry and cranky and so we packed it up and went home. But we stopped for lunch at Jilinda's on the way home and I filled my belly with a grilled cheese and fries and spent any revenue I'd generated. Not so good at this business accounting. Oh well, it's not all about profit, right? I have to build my customer base.

I'm excited to go back to work next week which is WEIRD and kinda crazy. I haven't felt that way since I worked at The Poverello. I really miss that place sometimes, the community, the people. Checking out their latest newsletter, I saw quite a few faces I remembered. Time to get a card in the mail, I guess! One of the many I didn't sell---it's good to keep in touch with the people who really matter. And people I met and worked with at The Poverello were some of the most inspiring, caring, intelligent people I ever met. Homelessness is a real problem and although it might be easiest to blame the individuals for their situation, once you actually get to know people who are struggling on a daily basis and you realize that anyone of us could be in that situation in a heartbeat... well, it changes your outlook. And that's a good thing. I think about the people at "The Pov" pretty often and I will definitely make a point of going back to visit when we go to Missoula.