Category: Home Fires

It has been smokin’ hot the last two days…finally.  The locals have been calling this month Junuary as it has been much cooler than normal.

Yesterday working in the yard I was amazed to see how dry it is already, even after cloudy and drizzly days all last week.  The forest floor is VERY crunchy.  I expect the fire chief will be putting us into morning shift any day now, where no power equipment can be used after 12PM.   I still have two fallen trees to buck up for firewood, so I better get to them in the next day or two or they will sit there until October.

The weather is not the only hot thing.  The ongoing gong show we call the USA has been getting hotter too.  Watching MSNBC the other day Kelly and I both had the exact same thought.  Do you?

We’ve been looking suspiciously at a tree beside the driveway for a couple years now, wondering about the wisdom of leaving it there. It is weeping sap all the way up the trunk and has a worrisome lean toward the house.

We decided to remove it and at the same times take down six others to made more room for a couple of fruit trees we are planting. The fallers came today and made fairly quick work of the task.

The return of the sun means it is once again time to work in the yard. We got a reasonable amount done this weekend. The roof is cleaned and de-mossed. I finished installing the overflow on the cistern and sent in my rebate claim so I can get some of the cost repaid. Burnt the weeds in Muriel’s drive, weeded some of her beds, and got the mower running again. I even managed to cut my own grass, first trim of the year.

I was taking some composting down to the garden yesterday and as I walked along I saw a tree laying down in the the woods behind the shelter.  “Funny”, I thought, “I don’t remember that tree there.  It is about 100 feet back in the trees and the leaves are just starting to bud out, so it is possible that I just noticed it now with the forest still in its winter thin state.

After investigating I find nope, it’s a new thing.  An 80′ Grand fir blew over in the night and took a second one down with it.  Not normally much of an issue for us.  Trees do periodically fall.  This is the second large one to fall in four years.  First one fell just a month after we bought the house and actually landed on the house.  Luckily this one is far away from any buildings.  Not that there was no damage though.  It managed to take out about 50′ of garden fence.

Finished the cistern today, just in time for a half inch of rain if the forecast is correct.  Tomorrow I think we are headed to town, since rainy days are lousy work days.  May as well shop!

Did a little more work on the rainwater cistern this week. Removed a couple trees and levelled the spot it sits on and finished putting facia boards on the shelter. Friday my gutter parts are supposed to arrive so I can finish the project this coming weekend, or I hope so. Sad to have missed the rain this week but you have to think in the long term.

Still trying to decide on the irrigation side of this project. The water is for the garden. I don’t have much elevation change for this to be an effective gravity system and there is no power run down here to run a pump. We are pretty sure we want drip irrigation, so I need to figure a way to get water at low flow and longer times to the drip lines. Thinking about either trenching power ($$$) or maybe a small elevated tank that would act as a water tower. I’m pretty sure I’m not interested in a solar solution. My experience at LaRonge tells me it is more expensive than believed and far less reliable.

Thinking long term again I currently favour trenching power as there are good reasons to have electricity by the garden anyway. We talked about a possible route that would also serve a future shop building that seems to make sense to me. Probably going to be a few thousand though, so might need an interim solution for a while, which could be a simple as running out the garden hoses from the house one more year. If we miss the winter rains I might have to do that anyway.

Along the big stuff vein, the maple leaves are falling.