An Introduction

My sister brought her boyfriend, also named Keith!, home to meet the family and she thought it'd be fun to hit one of the town bars. He's from a small town, too, so I hope his expectations weren't too high. One of the only open tables was right near the karaoke table (manned by a small with a Super Mullet and a Hawaiian Tropic shirt), which was unfortunate and entertaining at the same time.

A few rounds in, a Native man at the table behind us handed us some smoked fish and demanded that we try it. We hid it in an empty glass, but he was very persistent and eventually he slapped down about a quarter of a smoked fish in front of Amanda's Keith and said, "Welcome to Nez Perce Territory." The Keiths were brave and tried and said it was actually pretty good. Although Amanda and Keith said they guy got body slammed over the fish just before closing time.
After a late breakfast, Saturday consisted of:



In Tiny House News: the lumber, plywood, and windows were delivered Friday morning.
I had a lunch meeting in Grangeville with the owner of the newspaper and by the time I got back the concrete truck was just getting ready to leave.

I'd never done anything with concrete before, and I hope I never have to again. It was hard work! (See a developing pattern: hard work? then me complaining about hard work?)

We'll let the concrete set up over the weekend and Keith will start building on Monday. It's going to be VERY HARD to go to work for 3 days knowing Keith is starting without me. I am really looking forward to us building the house together, even though it will be...hard work.

We are now officially underway

Concrete was scheduled to come today.
The rain this morning put a kink in our plans and we had to reschedule it for tomorrow.
It all worked out for the best, though, because we would have been really pressed for time to get everything done by 1:00pm.

So I didn't take many photos of the actual work we did today because I was...working! And it was good, honest, hard work. Post hole digging is the best form of aerobics out there, I tell ya. And Keith and dad had already drilled the holes yesterday, with a rented auger. I was just pulling some loose dirt out of the bottoms of the holes. I would NOT make it in the olden days. Or being Amish.

Keith, dad, and neighbor Frank
on a break

We placed all of the posts in the holes and made them plumb and square with each other at the right measurements. Much harder than it sounds.

9 posts in about 4 hours

Concrete truck will be here tomorrow at 1pm. After the concrete sets we'll cut the posts down to the right height and we'll be able to start building from there.

Also, we're going to finish getting the fire pit ready tomorrow.

We're going to make an inner form so there will be a doughnut shape around the fire pit. Too bad it won't be ready for my sister's visit tomorrow. She's the infamous pyromaniac in our family.

The weather was great for being and working outdoors today (after the rain stopped), so I tried to capture some of it.

we have apples, too
and we're doing nothing with them
hydrangea
the color is dependent on the pH of the soil
(and some other things)
the birch tree is losing its leaves
pano at the bridge
over the Clearwater River
going into town

Updated floorplan

1 square = 1 foot
yes, really

A little rearranging due to structural additions, nothing big.

Keith's digging the holes for the footers today.
Cement truck comes tomorrow.

We should be putting nails in wood this weekend!

Stake Out

We spent the morning on grapes...tedious, boring, delicious, grapes.
We went from this (times several)
to this
and it took all afternoon to finish.

I helped clean the grapes, but mom did all the work of making the juice (1/2 c. of sugar + 1 c. grapes + boiling water in a jar + water bath canner = grape juice?!) and ended up with SEVENTY quarts. Holy grape juice, Batman. And that was just from a fruit box and the canner full---our cousins took 4 or 5 times that much! Just think of all the wine we could have. I imagine that's a little more labor intensive.

While mom and I were making juice, Keith and dad were readying the walkway off the back patio for new concrete next week (when we have the concrete delivered for the Tiny House, mom and dad will get a new walkway).

FINALLY, we were ready to stake out the foundation for the Tiny House.
But, first there were some last minute calculations made on the floor of the garage.
Keith says this is a tax write-off.

(Actually I just wanted to post this photo because...
look at those baby blues!
Click on it for a larger size.)

More consulting. We're very thorough.
Notice the textbook in Keith's lap.

We now have 9 stakes where Keith will drill (while I'm at work this week) 9 holes for footers. We're going to sink 5"x5" beams in each hole (12" across and 3' deep) and then fill around the beams with concrete. Then cut all the beams off at level and build rim joists on those.

Keith's been calculating, re-calculating, and re-re-calculating and it's finally underway! VERY exciting! So he'll rent an auger and drill the holes this week, we'll get the concrete delivered, hopefully, on Thursday or Friday, and then we can start building. The windows should be here early this week.

It's finally happening.

Busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest

I think fall is busier than spring when it comes to the garden. Or maybe I'm just being short-sighted. It sure seems like we're busier. I am grateful for all the food we're harvesting...but sheeeeesh. I barely got my nap in today!

We pulled all the plants in the garden today and fed a lot of it to the goats.

some plants landed on one of the goats--oops

After consulting The Joy of Gardening, we figured out what to do with the dry beans. They'll sit on a makeshift table in the garage until they're dry. Then you stomp on them in a burlap bag to separate the pods from the beans---sounds fun! Bean Stomp Party!

bean-o-rama

The carrots were surprisingly plentiful. Keith thinned them out a few months ago, picking every 3rd one, but the conventional wisdom is to leave them in the ground until after the first frost---seals in the sweetness? (I don't know, that's what mom and dad say and since we're the amateurs we're deferring to them.)

Most of them were GINORMOUS and deformed (whatever you do, don't Google "deformed" ...just don't. I was looking for a synonym and I am scarred for life.) contorted.

not even the biggest one

this is how we wash the carrots

Also: grapes.
We called some relatives to glean the vines and mom picked enough to make a batch of grape juice.

We salvaged 4 more tomatoes and then loaded up the mule with the plants to give to the neighbor goats. The goats are getting fat!! They must love this time of year.

Then we made a house for the outside kitties out of scrap plywood and carpet. It's not winning any design awards, that's for sure. But it should help them stay warm in this freezing weather. We've been taming Carl, slowly, and dad's been chumming her with canned cat food. Everyone but Keith's been table to pet her, too. Hope she likes her new house!

Zen and the Art of Wood Filler

The doors we bought for the Tiny House had lock hardware that we won't be using, so we I am filling them with...filler. Harder than it sounds. The stuff is the consistency of peanut butter and just as I was getting it allllllmost perfect, it would pull away in whichever direction I was dragging the knife. I'm not complaining---it's a good exercise in meditation, let's say. Wax on, wax off.

Also, the glass I ordered is mysteriously larger than the existing openings of the doors ("mysteriously" because we can't place the blame definitively), but Keith's taking care of that.

Circular saw + jig saw + mad fraction skillz = problem solved.

Tomorrow we're doing one more round of wood filler and then we'll start sanding. Then painting. Then we'll put the windows in. Pretty exciting.

This is what passes for excitement around here. Get used to it.

The garden wasn't a total loss. We got another huge basket full of tomatoes, some broccoli, and some cauliflower. Also, quite a few spaghetti squashes (squashi?).

[We ended up tossing the broccoli because as I was cleaning it I found more than half a dozen broccoli worms (EWWWW!) in as many pieces of broccoli and I decided it wasn't worth it. My mom concurred. They are so damn hard to see---and I DO NOT want to eat one of those buggers by mistake. They gave me the heebie jeebies!]

As per usual, we had plenty of supervision from the animal family members.

Mia snuck a green tomato and ate most of it. She really likes veggies.

I felt sorry for her this afternoon because the temperature was dropping (as if it ever really warmed up in the first place), so I put her jack-o-lantern sweatshirt on her again. I can't help it---she's so cute.

looking emo

Also, because I didn't get a shot of them the other day, here's the new compost bins that Keith and I built.

We did a 3-in-1 where compost can go in either end bay and cover materials (grass clippings, wood chips, leaves, etc.) go in the middle one. Shhh....let's not talk about where the poop goes.

These compost bins caused a fight rational discussion or two before they actually got built--I was advocating for them to be closer to the garden, since that's where the compost, you know, goes. But Keith didn't want them over by the Tiny House (between it and the garden, where the original one is). And I didn't think they'd get enough sunshine in this location, but I am coming around on that. Anyway, here's where they're going to stay.

The death of the garden

Fall has been sneaking up on us. Football season is underway (homecoming is Friday). We've watched the leaves slowly turn and start to fall. We've started sleeping inside my parents' house because two blankets and two pit bulls is just not enough to keep warm in a tent.

This morning we woke up to frost all over the garden. The plants looked wilted and there were small ice crystals on everything.



While I'm sad about the potential loss of some of our crops, I think I am most sad about my sunflowers. I planted them late and didn't even know if they'd reach full height. Just in the last couple of weeks the tallest kind (I planted regular and dwarf varieties) sprouted heads and they were just starting to open up.
Then BAM--frost.
Don't they look pathetic? Utterly defeated by the cold weather.

So this afternoon we'll head out to the garden to see what we can salvage. Hopefully some spaghetti squash and the cauliflower. The carrots will be fine. The eggplant had just started to blossom--it's probably a goner.

I guess this is a result of being such amateurs. Another lesson learned:PAY ATTENTION TO THE WEATHER. It's supposed to stay cold for the next few days...

We hope to break ground on the Tiny House early next week. We have a little bit of building supply wrangling left to do and a whole lot of work ahead of us. The cold doesn't motivate me to be working outside, but the thought of a warm toasty Tiny House later this winter sure does.

I wonder...

if I will continue to miss Portland so much come this winter, when I know it's raining cats and dogs there. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, missing it, missing the ability to walk downtown aimlessly, missing the different places to eat, missing my time alone with Keith.

why people are so surprised to hear our house will be about 200 sq. ft. Like, flabbergasted. I'm excited we're going to be living in a place no bigger than we need. It's going to be a challenge, no doubt. But I want to people to reconsider the prevailing notion that 2 people need a 1,000+ sq. ft. dwelling.

why my request list from the library sits and sits and sits and I don't have any books to read and then 20 books come in all at once. They should know I have a problem returning books on time. I don't need this! I just want to read my books! I really feel incomplete if I don't have SOMETHING to read. And Infinite Jest is dwindling quickly! Here I go requesting another book, hoping it comes soon---all by itself.

how I can get a small town to get onboard with a comprehensive recycling plan without being seen as a pinko commie (already bordering on that, apparently. See: tiny house). I walked into the post office today to see a man tossing his junk mail into the trash can they have set up by the door. Uh, that could be recycled!

how much longer we can sleep out in the tent. Cold. And new barking dogs next door.

TCB

First item on the agenda...
Confidential to my hatemail cyberstalker--"Anonymous" asshat in Arizona (Don, is it?) leaving lurid, threatening comments: Find something more constructive to do with your time than leave nasty comments on my boring blog. I mean, seriously, are you an adult? And you spend your free time harassing strangers? Wow.

The biggest annoyance is now I have to moderate comments. Crimeny.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway...

Been working on the front doors, now that we have the glass for them. Filling in holes with wood putty, breaking out mullions.
Transplanted some boysenberries from the neighbors--- I found someone on the bartering network who wanted to trade berries for wine, but it turns out we didn't pick enough this year (they're spoken for--for making syrup). I told her I'd take a raincheck--next year, hopefully!
Built more compost bins--3-in-1, in fact.
Mia supervised.
Lazlo was on Squirrel Patrol.
Tried out the fire pit and it performed like a champ.
Back to work tomorrow. Keith's going up to his old job to start taking apart a barn. We're getting the barn wood in exchange for his labor. And Thursday and Friday (my days off) I'll go up and help him figure out how to take down 20' high beams. Should be interesting.

Right now we're on schedule to break ground around October 11.

How to make a fire pit

Step 1: Your husband will do most of the manual labor while you're at work, including removing all the bark and digging the hole.
Step 2: Gather river rock and sand. This part is especially easy if you live near a river.
Step 3: Line the hole with rocks and sand.
Easy peasy.