Another new addition

The family keeps growing.  It is springtime so I suppose it makes sense.  In this case less so as I understand that it is better to plant trees in the Fall, but, this little Dwarf Sweet Cherry tree should be OK.  We will try to make sure it is.

New Dwarf Cherry
In the background is the older Cherry

We are now up to 2 cherry trees, 5 apples, 1 peach, and 2 plums!  Those are the trees outside in the ground.  In pots so that they can live indoors in the winter are an orange (great marmalade), a fig (first year in the pot), and a banana and an avocado that we don't expect fruit from.  They are just living here.
The new cherry is in the spot where the fig was and didn't do so well.  The cherry should do just fine there.

The busy time of Year

Warm weather, new growth, and good fortune, all add up to lots to do.  Our neighbor had some trees taken down that were over the power lines.  With the weather these days, any trees that can fall onto things you don't want smashed are a real threat.  The trees also threatened her home.  The sad thing was that one of the trees was a big, old and beautiful Spruce.
The up side to all of this is that the crews doing the tree work gladly agreed to give me all the wood and all the chips.  The wood, most of it, will be heating the house next winter, and possibly the one after that.  The guys used their big machines to stack it all in the upper drive where I can still get around it but where I can get at it and work it in the shade (bonus).  The spruce may become spars for some small boats to be built in the future!
The chips are being used in a few different ways.  We are using them to line walkways in the garden.

Well trodden path to the chicken coop now
covered in wood chips

 They will help reduce the amount of weeds that come up, and increase the amount of moisture in the garden.  It is impressive how the chips can be dry on the top layer and very moist just below.  It is forecast to be a hot and dry summer, and it seems that we might be due this unpleasantness.  The other measure we are putting in place to deal with the moisture issue is using the chips to create a swale.  In this case a swale is a small ditch where runoff will travel and hopefully stay for a while.  The ditch is filled with the chips, which are porous enough to let the water flow but will help to keep the ground from eroding.

The main garden now has paths covered in wood chips
and the swale borders it's uphill side to hold moisture and prevent erosion
from runoff.

We also have chips around the base of the fruit trees.  Even if the season is not as bad as forecast, these chips look nice, reduce the amount of weed pulling, and will relieve some of the pressure to water.  They also smell great!  The perfume of a dead, ground up evergreen.
Momma sneaky snake just shed her skin and is looking really great.  We saw junior yesterday.  These are the garter snakes that are here each year.  It took us a minute to get used to them but now they are like family, and have even become a bit complacent about us being around them.

Momma snake warming up in the sun on a cloudy day.
The dog is sleeping next to her just off camera frame.

Two new additions to the place and family this year are plum trees.  They are young but someday we might have some sweet tasting fruit and a lovely tall tree.

Kind of spindly now but give her a few years
and we may have a nice tree to sit under and plums!

The arbor for the grape has turned out to be a great visual improvement and hopefully a practical one for the grape.

The grape arbor in the distance.  this makes for a
nice place for morning breakfast.

I have really been enjoying the "sunrise deck" that I put up.  Each morning I take my cup of coffee up there and set it aside while I to a bit of meditation.  It is a really great way to start the day.

sunrise deck from the cafe table on the porch

sunrise deck from the peach/plum tree terrace
That's the grape arbor on the right.

I now have the summer to get the wood cut, split and stacked.  It is really a lot of wood and that makes me feel two ways at once.  The first is that I feel comfort in knowing that the little house will be toasty warm this winter.  The second way is that I have a bit of time ahead having to hear the drone of that chainsaw and smell it's fumes.  I may try and move logs a piece at a time with in range of the electric chainsaw, which isn't so unpleasant to use.

It's a busy time of year.

Lots of little plants have sprung up from the seeds we planted.  Now the thing is to keep them alive!  

Tree house?

At the highest point of the property, and the most western point I have built a deck/platform, ten feet by ten feet.  Upon it I have put a tent.  It is a place I go in the morning to watch the sun rise up over the trees and to enjoy the view of our place.

The view from the deck that I am calling "sunrise deck"

The hens tend to come and gather under and around the platform while I am up there.  They scratch for bugs.  The deck is higher than the top of the house and is surrounded by trees, so much so that it feels like a tree house.  The front of the platform is about three and a half feet off the ground and the back is a foot off.  It's a pretty steep section of land.
The deck is made from the doug fir boards I scavenged a while back and I still have some left.  The posts are all pressure treated and on rock footing.
I am looking forward to spending a night in the tent but haven't gotten to yet.  So far the platform is a great place for a bit of morning meditation, and coffee!
I have found that the more I improve our place, the less inclined I am to leave it to travel, which is a bit of a conundrum being that I have and enjoy a few things that are just for traveling.

We added two trees this year, so far, two plum trees.  I give them 2 years until we get fruit.

A shower with a view!

During the summer months, when the weather is right, we are using the bath house, not only for the occasional evening hot tub, or the morning coffee at the table, but also for our daily showers.  We use solar shower bags hung in the bath house via a rope and pulley attached at the peak of the ceiling and let gravity to it's thing.  We have 2 shower bags now, a 2.5 gallon and a 3.5 gallon.  Each is enough for a shower, plus a bit more.  The larger is nice when you want to just enjoy it all a bit more, languishing in the warm water.  We also use these to rinse off before and after the hot tub.  We put the entire bag in the hot tub to warm it up if the sun isn't strong or we are refilling a bag.  The bags warm up pretty fast this way.

The bath house.
New colored glass windows and table
arrangement.

The view from the bath house is pretty great with lots of sky and trees because the bath house is about the height of the roof of the main house.  In this picture you can see the hot tub with it's lid on, the door with the stained glass window set in it and the new table and bench arrangement in front of the just added colored glass window border.  You can also see the solar shower bag hanging at the top of the frame.  It is all really simple and yet quite lovely to experience.  It makes bath time fun!

garden bench

From the pine tree that we took down a few years ago, I have made a bench to sit on in the garden.

The new woodshed for fire wood

 The new wood shed for milled wood

Both sheds are made from reclaimed wood and nails.

Asparagus!

Asparagus season has ended for us here already.  It was great while it lasted but now the plants are tall ferny things that lean over from their own weight and give something nice to look at in that corner of the garden.  We added about 6 new asparagus plants this year and at least 2 of them have sprouted.

The first strawberries have begun to blush and we may even get some soon if the new young chipmunk I was doesn't get to them first.

The potatoes we planted have all come up and look very healthy.  We put some more in the lower garden yesterday.

This year we have found a bit of return plants coming up on their own.  We have kale, tomato, sunchokes of course, ground cherry, squash, sunflowers, and of course all the standards, mustard, red mustard, lamb's quarter, dandelion, and more I am sure we will discover later.

The hens are all doing well.  A few of them are fond of the Sunchokes so we cut them up and feed them to them.  I never knew that chickens really like apples.

I don't think the fig tree really made it thru the winter the way we wrapped it.  There are a few small green buds on it in one place and we are thinking of letting it get thru the summer to get it's self a bit stronger and then transplant it into a pot and take it inside for the winter.  It may do better that way and we could put another cherry tree in it's spot.

We added a grape vine and two blueberry bushes to the family.  They seem to be doing ok so far.  The other 2 grape vines have little tiny grapes on them.  Very exciting.

This summer I hope to build a new and improved woodshed for our fire wood, one that actually looks nice as well as being functional.  Right now I am working on a woodshed in the work yard for all the milled wood that I have.

Lots of little garter snakes out right now.  They are kind of funny, some skittish others more social.  The dog likes to entertain herself by chasing them.

I've been using the SolarShower for bathing in the bath house in the afternoons, after the water has been heated by the sun and after I have worked all day getting dirty.  It is a very refreshing and comfortable thing to have the whole of the bath house to bath in and no furnace running to heat the water.

It's the best time of year right now.  This is the time that if you were given the chance to go somewhere, this is where you'd pick to go.  No need to head to the beach or anywhere else really.  We love it here at this time.

1 year and counting!

We have had the girls, six hens, for just over a year now and they are doing well and laying.  We generally get 5 or 6 eggs a day and have even been able to share with some neighbors.
The girls are totally free range, during daylight hours, which means that we sometimes have to go looking for them.  Unfortunately that means that they sometimes try to cross the road.  I find myself asking them "Why do you chickens have to cross the road, especially when you have miles of woods to explore in the opposite direction?"  I usually only get a puzzled look from them, but interpret it to mean "Because it's there!"
They are an adventuresome and mischievous bunch.  We have fenced in the kitchen garden so that the won't eat all the young plants there and if they feel we haven't given them there evening rations soon enough, they will fly over the fence and help themselves to what is supposed to be our future food.  But mostly they are good hens.

They like to sit under a bamboo and bathe in the dust.