The Streagle clan in Idaho has been busy. Along with our continuous house efforts we have had a few domestic moments as well. Let me recap. Apologies for the iPhone picture quality - it is in an industrial case that gets abused. Lots of lint and pocket fuzz over the camera window!
Karren has been hard at it with her new obsession, canning! We now have our kitchen cabinets lined along the top with tomatoes, jellies, pickles, preserves, and applesauce. And not just one type of each, but several varieties. My favorite is the winesap applesauce. Magnificent!
Don't you just love the wall paper. All things in good time...
Speaking of the house renovation, we finally got the energy (and good weather) to finish the roof on the mud room. This had been hanging over my head like Damocles' sword. It took much of Saturday and Sunday but it is done! It always seems like any day that includes a visit to Lowe's gets shortchanged. I call the big box stores the "black hole of time" or "SLowe's." We got more Black Jack roof cement, Brown latex caulk, soffit vents, a gold-plated hole saw ($45!!!), and a roof vent. I stripped the roof Friday afternoon when I finally got done with being lazy. This is what lives under cedar shake shingles:
There was a disturbance in the yellowjacket force that afternoon as I killed the last remnants living atop our domicile. Good riddance! I went through 3 cans of bee killer but survived unscathed. Take my advice and DON"T GET CEDAR/WOOD SHINGLES! They are breeding grounds for insects and attract all kinds of funk.
I tried to take a picture of Karren on the roof but I waited until it was too dark. By the way, she did all the prep work and much of the actual shingling too! She was on the roof attaching the new sheathing while I cut on the ground. Here's a look at the roof we did. Doesn't look like much but small roofs are full of cuts, ergo a pain in the $%&#.
This little mud room is slowly detaching itself from the house and had a wide open crack along the house/wall intersection. After resheathing the roof we decided that we would leave the structure in situ, based on the fact that it appears it has not moved much in the past year since we moved in. If it collapses, it will not be a huge loss - it's just a mud room. Kinda cool actually, the way the whole thing is whacked. The door is a trapezoid, the roof is out of square, and the interior looks normal - just beat up.
We also made an investment in our emergency preparations for our country estate: a generator! I had been shopping for the right genset for the last few months and one day in Costco, there it was! Love at first light.. er, bite! This baby is perfect for us. I expect to lose power often during severe storms. Heck, we lose power here for no obvious reason frequently. Rocky mountain power is, well, a bit rocky.
A diesel generator. Runs quiet(er) than a gas model, has a much longer life, and will run for exteded periods without strain. This is not just a luxury when you consider we have no water pressure without electricity to run the well pump. This will also power our food preservation and will run my 240 volt tools in the garage. And it will do it for half the fuel of a gas model. The Chinese are an amazing bunch. I really like the design of this unit: It has a digital control meter, an oil pump and filter, sound absorbing baffles that really work, and a lift hook for our chain hoist.
End of generator rant.
The wood shed is just about full of split firewood for the winter. We have already burned about one rack (1/4 cord) of wood in the stove and still have more in the yard to collect, but here is the look of our shed now:
That's ten rows of wood y'all! I think this much combined with what we have to take down in the yard will get us through. Notice the gas powered splitter and the road maintenance fashion apparel. Gotta love the survival ethic out here. It just gets into your psyche somehow.
Yes, we like the fall in Idaho. We miss the autumn colors of Virginia but we are not without our own beautiful scenery. Just wish the snow on Old Tom had stuck around a while for this shot of our driveway view.
So tell all the folks at home we miss 'em, but not enough to spend the dough to fly home yet. Gotta get our survival gear together first!
See you next time!
Karren and Tim
4 comments:
What a beautiful life! There is a lot to be said for simplicity and survival preparation. It kind of puts things into perspective about life and God's blessings. The view leaving the homestead is fantastic, a view that will make you want to come home.
We send our love,
Dickie and Shawn
Great stuff, Tim! I really like the homestead you and Karren are building together. Sounds like you are enjoying your work with IDT. How does Dr. Streagle feel about her higher ed gig?
Mmmm....
Nice generator! Diesel good!
Jim
Splendid. Ain't that the way, heh. Just the right dedication and enough of interest to pull something like that through. Roofing as is important as it could get, so yeah. Nice one!
Byron @ The Roofing Company
Post a Comment