Tag Archives: Family

House update: Floor staining

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Starting near the beginning of October and lasting for a couple weeks, we worked on staining our concrete slab. We knew that it was going to be a whole heck of a lot easier to do the floors before any of the interior walls went up, and we had a run of really mild temperatures, so we decided to git ‘er done.

It took so long because we had no experience with acid staining concrete, and we did it in sections in order to test our procedures. So in some of the pictures below you might see areas that are already stained in the background.

The first step was to clean out the cut lines.

Flower Girl was very helpful in this since she liked to scrape out the cracks and vacuum up the mess.

Once the cracks were cleaned out, it was time to wash the floors.

Scrub, scrub, scrub

Brother and sis-in-law came to help and to learn the process. We really appreciated their help!

It felt really weird to run the hose in the house to rinse off the degreaser/cleaner (and later the stain). But with one person on the hose controlling the flow, and the other people using the squeegee and push brooms, we were able to keep the puddling to a minimum.

The next step was to make sure all the water was cleaned up. The easiest way to get all the water was to sweep and squeegee out the majority, then use the shop vacs for the remainder.

Once the floors were dry, it was time to apply the acid stain with a weed sprayer.

This was the easy part!

Once the stain had sat and developed for 8 hours, we neutralized it with ammonia water and then had to rinse all of that out the doors.

We had to run the big generator in order to run all three shop vacuums at once.

And then it was time to wait. Once the stain was neutralized and rinsed, we had to wait for it to thoroughly and completely dry before applying the sealer. Since we were testing procedures as we went, we needed to wait each time we did a section to get some sealer on it to see what the final result would look like. That’s why it took so long to get everything done.

But finally, we did get it all stained and sealed.

Applying the sealer

Before the seal

And that’s when we ran into problems. For whatever reason, when we applied the sealer in some areas, it turned a milky white when it dried.

After much trial and error and frustration, we discovered that a stiff scrubbing pad, water, and a LOT of plain old elbow grease would strip the sealer off the floor. So for two days we scrubbed those floors. We had to be careful since too much scrubbing would eventually strip the stain off the floor as well.

This job was too much like playing Cinderella.

But eventually we got the problem spots scrubbed off and once again waited a few days for everything to dry completely. Then applied the sealer, doing some experimenting in order to avoid the previous issues.

And just like that, our floors are finished! Of course now, one month and some more building later, and they are completely covered in dust and dirt. But that will sweep and mop up. We might have to touch up a couple areas, but for now, it feels good to have yet one more project done!

House update: Septic Phase 2

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Finally, I feel like we’re making progress! In fact, I have so much to share, I’m putting it in several blog posts to keep it all straight. 😁

So, last I left off, we we’re just starting on our leach field. I naively stated that “by the end of the week” we hoped to have a completed system.

Ha!

It wasn’t that was hit any unexpected problems. It was more that the problems we did face we’re harder to overcome than we expected. Namely, we had no dirt with which to backfill the leach lines. It was mostly just rocks. So, we had to purchase and haul in dirt. Again.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First thing we had to do was dig the trench for the sewer pipe from the already buried septic tank, down the hill to where the leach lines were going to go.

Blessedly, Pops was on hand to dig once more.

My mom came to help, too!

We only ran into one huge Boulder which we just couldn’t budge with the small excavator we rented. But, a friend had a jackhammer that worked to get the boulder out of the way.

Our excavation crew. We are blessed with great friends who come to help us out.

Completed pipe from the septic tank down to the distribution box.

While we were working on the pipe, Pops was digging the trenches for the leach chambers. So once we got the pipe laid, it was time to bring down the chambers and start laying those.

We chose this system because the trenches only need to be 3 feet deep and no gravel is needed. And it’s very easy to put together. And handle. And transport. Etc, etc, etc.

Pajii finds a bit of shade inside a septic chamber 🤣

Leveling the ground in preparation for another chamber.

Making sure the previous chamber is level.

Prepping the ground for yet another chamber.

Once the chamber is in place, dirt is shoveled in on the sides to hold it in place. That’s where we ran into issues. We had trouble finding enough rock-free dirt to cover the chambers.

Digging the third and final trench.

Sometimes, the big tools had to come out to make the chambers level.

Pajii once again inside one of the septic chambers. 🤣

Each leach line was 80 feet long.

We got all three lines laid and partially buried, then had our inspection. Which we passed, no problem!

Here you see the leach field in relation to the house. What you can’t tell is just how steep that hill is.

Now it was time to backfill.

But again, how to get the backfill material from the trailer to the pipe when you’re dealing with steep, rocky terrain?

Buckets. Lots and lots (and lots and lots) of buckets full of sand.

If I never have to move sand by bucket again, I’ll be happy. 😉

Once we had a good layer of sand on top of the chamber, we could then push the native dirt (full of rocks) back over the top.

Goofball!

The hubby and I got real good at handling the mini-ex.

Aaaaand we’re done!

And that’s it. A completed septic system. It felt so good to know that we have another huge portion of our build completely done.

So now we have a fully functional septic system. But of course, nothing is hooked up to it. We have dumped the trailer sewer tanks in there a couple times since it’s been done, and that’s been great. Not having to go into town to empty those is a blessing indeed.

But let me tell you, that first toilet flush in our new house is going to be magical.

Once we finished the septic system, we turned our focus to the inside of the house. Primarily, the floors. But that is another post. I want to get this one sent off into cyber space and get back to working on the house rather than writing about it.

Wild places

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Rocks and trees, slides and swings, bugs and critters: our homestead playspaces are not soft places.

The other day as I was fixing up our slide for the kids, it hit me that many of today’s parents would take one look at it and shoo their children to something more safe. Maybe the sandbox.

Surrounded by rocks, no soft edges in sight.

Eventually, the terraces will be cleaned up and built up and beautified, but the rocks will still be there. The “danger” will still be there.

Our swings are attached to one of the very few suitable trees near the house, but they are not in an ideal location.

Our property is a wild place.

And it got me thinking. We are not a bubble wrap homestead. Or property is a wild place.

A place where kids can roam. Explore. Be free.

There are trees to climb, rocks to scale, bugs to find, and dirt to get into every nook and cranny.

And I love that about living in the country.

Kids learn to navigate the physical world with confidence when they are allowed to do so. Climbing high in trees, balancing on top of huge boulders, helps them learn balance and coordination. They learn what their body can, and can’t, do.

Sure, every once in a while, there’s bumps, bruises, and scrapes. There may even be a broken bone or two in our future. But bruises and scrapes and even broken bones heal. And you know what the truth is? Accidents and injuries happen even if you live in a bubble wrap world. Flower Girl broke her leg just by falling off the couch. And Princess Girl badly sprained her ankle just by walking down the stairs.

And so, we let our children run and play and explore and they are happy and healthy.

Homestead update: not a lot of progress in the last two months

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So, last I wrote about the house, we were still waiting on contractors to come finish the siding and roof. Our house sat with only 1½ walls for 4 months till the new contractors finally fit us into their schedule. They finally started and I jumped in to help on a particularly windy day. In the process of helping, I learned how to do it.

So when some unavoidable delays happened again, we decided to take matters into our own hands.

Brushing off the dirt from the panels

And there were were, a family of rock stars who put the preliminary insulation, and siding up on 1½ of our walls, all by ourselves.

But then…

Before the contractors could come back and start on the roof, there was some trim work that needed to be done. And we REALLY wanted that roof. So, we continued working sun up to sun down in a push to get ready for the contractors.

With the help of some good friends

This picture makes me so happy. I love that my girl is old enough to be a huge help, but also to really remember this awesome adventure we get to have as a family.

We got the trim all on and it was time for the roof.

But first…

Yep, that’s a fire pit. INSIDE our house. How many of you can say you’ve done that?

And then the day finally came that the roof started going on!

Oh Happy day!

Pajii got to help!

Finally! The roof was on, but there was still a bit of trim work to do before we no longer had the equipment. So once again, my brother and sis-in-law jumped in to help out.

And then it was done, done!

We still have to cut in the doors and windows, but at least it’s “dried in”.

So the exterior structure of our house was done. And so was I!

This is what happens when you hurt your knee but don’t really take the time to slow down and heal. It keeps getting worse until it’s so bad you can’t walk on it any more!

So, I was laid up for about a week, waiting for my knee to heal well enough that I could get back to work.

But in the meantime, we had one more job to do with that equipment.

Putting in our cistern tank.

But let me back up…

Last summer, we needed to rent a large excavator to widen our garage pad. We also dug the hole and trench for our cistern system (say that three times fast!). A cistern is a fancy way of saying a water tank. This one is specifically a holding tank that we will fill with our well water and use as the water for our house. Being off grid, this is the best system.

But in order to get the tank in the hole, we needed to prep the hole and run the line for the water.

Remember the part I said the hole and trench were dug last year?

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. And this picture is after Pajii had cleared all the big rocks out! But that entire trench had to be bedded in sand for the pipe to lay on. And how do you get dirt up a 175 foot long trench that is 3+ feet deep and only 2 feet wide?

With buckets. Lots and lots (and lots and lots) of buckets full of sand! In fact, that’s how I hurt my knee, all the way back at the beginning of June. Carrying those heavy buckets (each one weighs roughly 40lbs when full!)

And where were we getting the sand for most of the job?

From our own sand pit, of course. We bedded and covered nearly a hundred feet of pipe on a very steep hillside by “mining” sand from our property. A lot of extra work, but it was free, and we had the time (we were still waiting for the contractors at the point.)

So fast forward several weeks. The contractors came and went and we had abandoned the trench prep in lieu of working on the house (because, priorities), I had begun to heal from my knee injury, and we were looking forward to finishing the cistern and starting the next phase of the journey.

But that was not God’s plan. My Dad’s health took a drastic turn for the worse and it became apparent that he should no longer be living alone, and therefore, his house on the other end of town needed to be sold. So, very reminiscent of when we dropped everything and moved to Oregon in 2014 to care for Hub’s ailing mom, we dropped nearly everything to care for my ailing dad and get his house ready to sell.

That was at the end of June. It took two months, but I’m happy to say, PopPop is now settled in here with us (in his own trailer), his house is in escrow, and we only have one more load to bring home from his house.

But in the midst of all that, we needed to finish the cistern. And we needed to do it quick. We had already put in so much work to it, that to leave it at the mercy of the elements was just stupid. So, while we still had the equipment we used for the siding on the house, we put in the cistern. Then we had to bring in load after load of DG (saving us the time and effort of shoveling it from our own property). But, how do you get the DG from the trailer on the road, down 15+ feet to the hole that the cistern is in?

That’s right, some of our roofing and siding scraps. The sand just slid right in. Quite ingenious, if I do say so myself.

And so easy, a 5 year old could do it.

Then it was another while before we could get it finished. That entailed hooking up the supply pipes, etc to the tank.

Hubs is inside the tank, putting holes in it!

Starting to fill in the hole to cover the tank

And that brings us up pretty much to the present. Here’s an updated picture of the dianthus bush I planted.

The dianthus has not done too well in our hot summer, but the alyssum, petunias, zinnias, and marigolds that I planted around it have just about taken over!

And we’ve got another broody hen who has been sitting on golf balls for 5 days. I put 9 fertile eggs under her this evening. This will be hen #6 that we’ve tried to get to set till the eggs hatch. It has been misadventure after misadventure. But I’ve learned a lot and have great hopes that this clutch of eggs will be the one!

We did have two chicks hatch from our very first broody hen of the season.

I’m not sure why only two of the 7 eggs survived. Of those other 5 eggs, one chick was half hatched, three were fully formed as far as I could tell but had died before hatching, and one had gone rotten from the beginning of the brood. But I was totally excited to get two of our very own, completely home grown chicks! Too bad they both turned out to be boys. 🙄😒

And now, for the truly, truly up-to-date update:

We’ve started working on the Septic System: Phase 2! By the end of the week, we should have a complete septic system. Hallelujah!

Using a friend’s transit level to lay out the septic field.

The middle one of the three required leach lines marked out.

And today, we started cutting the trenches. But that’s another post for another time. Right now, I am t-i-r-e-d. And we still have at least another two hard days of work till we can call for inspection.

Nighty night. Don’t work too hard!

House update: septic system, phase 1

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We are STILL waiting on the contractor to come and finish siding and roofing the house. So in the meantime, we’ve been working on the septic system. I posted last time about how I was trying to find the strength and willpower to get started on that project. Well, I am happy to report that phase 1 is just about finished!

Phase 1 = hooking up the sewer system from the house to the septic tank.

Phase 2 = the sewer system from the septic tank to the leach field. We haven’t even started this phase yet. It requires renting an excavator, etc.

But we are feeling accomplished at the progress we have made. Especially since we’ve been doing all the backfill, etc by hand. No machines. It takes a while, but it doesn’t cost money.

Ok, well, technically we’ve had to buy DG (decomposed granite, which is a type of sand) to surround the septic tank, but other than that, it’s been free. In fact, we got some other fill dirt for just the price of gas to go get it.

We did get some help on the septic trench. My nephew and his wife came to town and we put them to work!

Actually, they wanted to help. And now whenever we get to use our toilet, we’ll be able to thank them for helping. 😁

We have a sand pit on the property that we were initially mining sand from to bed the septic pipe in.

And it was working just fine, but it was a very slow process as we could only get small amounts of sand at a time. But it allowed us to start the process. And as we all know, starting is half the battle.

My helper

Test fitting

Raising strong a woman

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More sand, and another strong woman in the making

Not too long after the above pictures were taken, we decided we needed to move along a bit (or a lot) faster, so we decided to purchase sand to bed the pipe and surround the tank in.

Love, love, love Pajii’s dump trailer!

Gluing the pipe! It’s always an exciting time when you get to play- uh, I mean work, with glue!

I’d never worked with this particular type of sewer pipe before. It has a rubber gasket instead of using glue. It makes getting the pipes together a bit tricky. But ingenuity wins every time.

Once we got the pipe laid and inspected, and just before we started covering it, we took some measurements. This is very important if we ever have to dig that thing back up for any reason.

We passed the inspection with flying colors, and it was time for backfill!

But first…we had to clean out all the rocks and debris that had fallen in the pit over the winter. Oh, actually, we did that before the inspection. Forgot. Anyway, here we are cleaning up the pit.

Including this big rock. Waaay too big to get it out by hand.

Again, ingenuity to the rescue. We were able to use this system to get enough sand under it that we could roll it away from the tank and bury it.

Then it was sand, sand, sand.

And finally regular dirt on top.

And yes, that’s Princess Girl on crutches. She sprained her ankle. 😞

Filled in trench, which will eventually get another 1-2 feet of fill when we bring in dirt to raise the ground level up to slab level.

And an almost covered septic tank. We actually did even more after this picture was taken. It is now almost even with the top all the way around.

Right now as I write this post, I am down in town waiting for the trailer to be loaded with free fill dirt. I met a guy through Craiglist. He had good quality fill dirt he needed hauled away, and we have need of dirt we don’t have to pay for. Win-win.

We decided that we wanted to pay for only what we have to (because despite the saying, dirt ain’t cheap!), so we devised a system where we put the purchased DG sand in the first foot or so up against the tank, then outside of that, we put either our native soil, or this other fill dirt that is not as high a quality.

I’d say by the end of the week, the septic tank will be completely covered. Yay! That means we can finally bring in the needed dirt to raise the ground level all around the house up to what it’s supposed to be.

And that is just one step closer to done.

House update: nothing really to report

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You know that saying, “Use it or lose it”?

Yeah, I think I lost it.

After a whole winter of sitting on my butt, one hour, just one hour of shoveling kicked that butt.

Last summer/fall I did great. I could work, work, work all day, and get up and do it again the next day. Sure, it was hard and I was tired, but I could do it. I was actually amazed at my stamina.

But a few months of sitting around just…waiting, and I am so out of shape!

In my defense, the dirt I was shoveling was wet clay. You ever tried shoveling wet clay?

Let’s just say there are extra challenges!

I’ll tell you what I was working on in just a sec, but first, a picture of the progress on our house. Our should I say LACK of progress?

Yep, looks exactly like it did the last time I posted about it. We are still waiting on contractors. But I won’t go into all that. Because I’m trying to keep a Christian attitude. 😒

So, what was I working on today? As tempting as it was to work on Pajii’s garden boxes some more, I decided to finally start finishing one of our half finished projects: our septic system.

We dug the septic line trench from the house to the septic tank last fall when we had the backhoe, but were not able to get the pipe laid before winter came.

So all winter long the trench has sat there, slowly filling in with dirt and rocks. I’ve been avoiding getting back in that trench this spring because, dirt work. I would much rather be building walls, etc inside the house. But, well, I can’t right now. So, since we have a couple days of good weather, I decided to stop being an avoider.

And since I really didn’t want to do it, I told myself I only had to work on it for one hour.

One hour and I only cleaned up 10 feet of trench. And my body obviously thinks I put it through torture.

Yeah, this is going to be a fun spring while I whoop myself back into shape!

On the bright side, here’s the cuteness I got to spend time with while I shoveled.

This girl loves to play in the dirt. And the messier the better.

So tomorrow, I challenge myself to spend two hours on that trench, ’cause there’s only another 30 feet to go!

Oy.

Healthier Hot Chocolate (Only 3 ingredients!)

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There’s nothing like playing hard in the snow, then coming inside to a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

It snowed again last night, the most snow we’ve had all winter.

The girls and I took the opportunity to get in some good old fashioned snow play.

When we came in for some hot chocolate, I realized we were dangerously low on our home made hot chocolate mix. But it was no big deal, because with only three ingredients, this hot chocolate mix goes together in a jiffy.

You read that right: three ingredients. This version is so much healthier than any store-bought hot chocolate I’ve found. And depending on what sweetener you use, you can make it even healthier. I’ve seen many other hot chocolate recipes what use more ingredients, and you certainly can add in flavorings of your choice, but we prefer to keep it simple. You can also omit the dried milk and add the cocoa and sweetener to whatever milk you normally drink. I like to have the milk in the mix, however, mainly because we don’t have a microwave, so heating milk on the stove means dirtying a dish. And we avoid that at all costs. Especially in the winter when our water system in the trailer is a bit more labor intensive. But also, I like to make up a big batch of this and have it on hand to drink, no matter how much milk is in the fridge.

Ok, I’ve talked long enough. Here’s the recipe.

Homemade Healthier Hot Chocolate

One serving:

  • 1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar/sweetener
  • of your choice
  • 1/4 cup (heaping) dry milk

Put all ingredients in a mug and mix them together, add 6-8oz hot water, stir till all ingredients are dissolved.

One quart of MIX:

  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup sugar/sweetener of your choice
  • 2½ cups dry milk

Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Then pour into a quart size container, label and place in the pantry/cupboard ,etc for later use. To use, place 3-4 large spoonfuls of hot chocolate mix into a mug, add 6-8oz hot water, stir till dissolved.

Notes:

  • Add more or less mix and/or water to achieve desired taste.
  • Mixing all the ingredients together before adding the hot water helps the cocoa not form so many clumps.
  • Feel free to use whatever sweetener you prefer. You may need to play with the ratios a bit, though. We typically use raw cane sugar, but we’ve also used coconut sugar and pure maple syrup. If you prefer to use a liquid sweetener, you’ll need to put that in at the same time as the hot water.

Homestead Update: still waiting, but being productive

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I didn’t realize it had been so long since I last did an update on the house progress until I posted about Pajii’s new garden beds and saw the half-sided house in the background.

So yeah, this picture was taken on January 26th. We haven’t seen our contractor since that day. Our house sits there, half sided, getting snowed on. We finally gave up on being able to get ahold of him and have found a new contactor to finish the job. They will start as soon as they can fit us into their schedule.

In the mean time, we’ve been keeping pretty busy around the homestead with other projects that needed doing.

We were blessed with unseasonably warm and dry weather for most of January and February.

Picnic lunch in the February sunshine

School outside in February?

We decided to take a Saturday and finish the concrete patio outside our completed well shed (I’m putting together a post on that, I promise). The existing concrete was leftovers from when we poured our house footers. We were hoping we’d have enough left over from the house slab pour, but the calculations on that were perfect. Not short, but no leftovers either. So we had to go buy bags of concrete to finish the well shed slab job.

Prepping the 4’x7′ section

IT’S ALIVE!!! This concrete mixer was my dad’s and has been sitting on this piece of land, completely unprotected, for at least 12 years. And it still worked!

Concrete work is dirty work.

We mixed 3 bags of concrete at a time in the mixer, then poured it into a bucket to schlep it into place.

It was actually really easy to move the concrete around such a small area with the bucket.

You can see the chicken wire we put down as an added strengthener. Every so often, we’d reach down and pull the wire up so it was floating in the slab rather than pressed down to the ground.

While Hubs mixed up another batch of concrete in the mixer, Pajii and I would scree the freshly poured stuff so it stayed level with our existing slab and the forms we built out of 2×4’s.

The finished slab. It makes getting into the well shed so much easier!

Another project we worked on was some driveway maintenance. We had put in a culvert last fall and it needed a bit of upkeep.

Adding and compacting more dirt over top of the culvert.

Hubby cleaning out some collected sediment inside the culvert.

There were a few gardening type things to do as well. Since I don’t plan to start a garden this year for myself, it was great to get some dirt under my fingernails, so to speak.

Spreading pine needles collected from our church’s landscaping. This area will eventually be our fenced in garden with raised beds, but right now it is a parking area. We thought it best to use decomposable material rather than gravel to combat the mud in this area. Besides, the pine needles were free and we were saving our church some money since they didn’t have to haul it all to the dump.

I had some flower bulbs I needed to get in the ground. So I made a couple new areas for flowers along the pathway going from the upper level down to the house pad.

This area eventually became a perennial flower bed. Once the spring bulbs come up, we’ll plant some more summer type perennials in this bed, too.

And, since I had gone a little crazy buying flower bulbs last fall, we had plenty left over to plant in other places as well, such as around our cherry trees.

Oh, and we finally finished the stairway that leads from the upper level down to the house pad.

These stairs are made from railroad ties that have been sitting on this property for over a decade.

And, if you’ll remember the panels that blew off the side of the hill?

We finally got them back up to the pad. All 29 of them.

Even Flower Girl was able to help once the panels were at the top of the hill. The panels are heavy for a 5 year old, but she’s strong and has a will to help.

This girl, even with a gimpy knee, was amazing in getting all those panels back to the top.

So even though we haven’t been able to work on the house, we have not been idle this winter. January and February we’re filled with a lot of time outside.

And then March blew in and winter finally settled in.

So, we’re back to being stuck inside and working on other projects.

But Spring is just around the corner. And our new contractor said it shouldn’t take much more than a week to finish the siding and roofing once they get started. Rest assured we’ll be shouting from the mountainside when that blessed event finally happens.

In the meantime, keep warm and busy friends.

Garden beds

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In February, we had a run of really nice weather and it got us itching for spring. Pajii in particular is really missing being able to garden. His garden up in Oregon, though small, was prolific and beautiful.

Pajii’s garden in Oregon – 2014

So, since we couldn’t work on the house (still waiting on our contractor to finish the walls and roof), and we had such nice weather, I decided to knock together some raised garden beds for Pajii to work in come spring.

I decided to use our wood left overs from the concrete forms for the house foundation.

This is only some of the wood we reclaimed from our forms for the foundation.

I measured and cut and organized and got all the pieces sized and ready to assemble.

A lot of the 3/4″ scrap plywood was 8 or 16 inches wide. This made it easy to figure out how tall I wanted the beds to be.

I started by attaching my side panels to the corner 2×4 posts which I cut to be twice the height of the panel. Since I wanted to use as much of the smaller wood scraps as possible and leave larger pieces for future projects, I had to make a couple 16″ panels out of two 8″ panels as you can see in the following pictures.

Attaching a panel to the corner post

I used 1⅝” deck screws to attach the 3/4” plywood to the 2×4 posts.

Joining two 8″ panels together to make a 16″ panel.

One side ready for assembly

Once I had all four sides ready for assembly, I started screwing them together.

Clamps are your friend when working solo.

One box almost finished.

This box is almost finished. Just needs some strengthening 2×4’s around the top edge.

One of the boxes we made a trapezoid (an isosceles trapezoid to be precise 😉) to work in with the shape of the garden a bit better. You can see in the pic below where Princess Girl is helping me put on the strengthening rim boards around the top of the box. I used 3″ deck screws too attach these boards to the corner posts.

Finally got some human help. 😁

We also attached the plywood to the rim boards with 1⅝” deck screws.

Princess Girl gets some more screw gun practice.

Pajii and the Princess with a finished box.

Time to move.

Once we got the boxes put into place, Flower Girl’s chicken, Leilani, had to come check them out.

All 4 boxes in position.

We made 4 boxes total. Three of them are 3ft by 6ft and the fourth one is a trapezoid that is 5ft x 3ft x 2ft, if that makes sense. All of the boxes are 16 inches tall with 32 inch corner posts. The corner posts are taller in order to easily attach clear plastic to make a cold frame in early spring, or more likely, netting to keep the squirrels and other pests out.

I really like how these boxes turned out. I love that everything used to make them, including the screws, is reclaimed materials that were used to make the foundation of our house.

We have not filled them with soil yet since winter returned just a couple of days after we finished them. Soon, though, we’ll go get some soil and not too long after that, Pajii will be able to keep busy growing us some fresh veggies. I can’t wait!

Homestead Update: Happy New Year

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Happy New Year!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated. Sorry about that. I kept hoping for the “big reveal” on our house, but, well, things keep happening to keep it from being done. And by done I mean dried in (meaning the siding and roof is on.)

So I guess for now, here’s our “big reveal”. We have the frame of a house!

We hired a contractor to put the structure up for us. He started the week after Thanksgiving and did pretty well getting to this point. But then his wife had a stroke, he had some equipment trouble, we’ve had some weather related delays, and the holidays rolled around, so there the frame sits.

One of those weather delays was a bad windstorm. It blew about 30 of our siding panels and some of our rolls of insulation off the house pad into the ravine. And then it promptly snowed. We were able to get them all stacked together with rocks on them so they don’t blow any more, but they are still down there. Hubs and I have been sick with bronchitis since before Christmas and haven’t been able to do much.

Lately though, I’ve been feeling a bit better and have been able to do a bit of work around the place. I cleaned out the chickens nest boxes and today I’m hoping to get our flocks rearranged. We have two roosters (technically I think they are both still cockerels) in one small flock and I want to get then separated before the younger, bigger one starts challenging the older, smaller one.

Besides, I want all the hens to be in with the correct rooster for when we start our breeding program. Nigel (pictured below with “Lizzie” two months ago) is our man man. He will be our breeding rooster, but right now, he’s the non dominant male in a flock of 12.

I am planning on moving Fritz (our frizzle Cochin bantam rooster) and a couple of his girls up to the upper coop and bringing a few of those girls down for Nigel. And I want to do that now while their egg laying is already disrupted by the winter.

Although, they have started picking up a bit!

We were only getting 4-6 eggs a day out of 30 hens for about 2 months. Our older flock went through their first molt and thus stopped laying. And the younger flock just hit maturity when the light faded for the winter (hens need approximately 14 or more hours of daylight to lay optimally.)

But we are past the solstice so the days are only getting longer now, the older flock is past their molt, and the younger flock is moving into their prime laying time (they lay the most eggs their first year of laying.) So now we are getting roughly 10 eggs a day. And it’s only gonna get better from here.

Lately we have been having some beautiful weather. While the rest of the country freezes, we’ve been wearing t-shirts and having picnics.

And doing crafts outdoors.

And going for walks in the hills above our house.

The weather is supposed to turn chilly and rainy, possibly with snow, this weekend.

And I heard from our contractor again today, and there’s been more unavoidable delays. So sometime in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later, we will have a roof and sides put on our house. But for now, it’s still pretty cool to walk out our trailer door and see that frame rising toward the sky.

And once it is “dried in”, we get to go to town finishing off the interior. That’s going to be a blast! And honestly that’s really the only thing on our resolution list for this year. Get. The. House. Finished!

For now, I’ll leave you with one more picture of our frame until we have more to report.