A modge podge of updates

First up:

Ah, our Garden Shed, retirement home of f-RAT (feLION Rodent Annihilation Team). Built by LR Contracting. I have always coveted the Sheds on the covers of the gardening magazines. Lonnie and his crew did an outstanding job. I just absolutely love this building. To the left of the building is a pile of fencing. In front is all our garden accents and f-RAT training equipment: stairs to scale, tiles to crawl through on one's feLION elbows. We also see that I've got a little blue board insulation that I have yet to cover up and put in the catnip bed. 

So, The Husband has been taking down the f-Rat pen from the Gibsonburg Farm and moving it up here. He's got one more load of fencing to bring up. This is pretty amazing as the pen is 60 x 130 and he's been bringing it all up in the Prius. The Prius is quite cavernous in addition to being able to put $6 worth of gas in it and go 80 or more miles. It's looking like four Prius loads brought all that up here. 

This weekend (remember our weekends are not on THE weekend i.e. Saturday and Sunday) The Husband will be finished taking down the pen in Ohio and bringing it home. WHICH MEANS, that we'll be done with that project and we will be putting together the frame for the EOS and getting the tractor out to drill some holes for the mount and getting all the mount lumber and hardware ordered. While the tractor is out, we'll be covering up the blue board and getting the Garden Shed and surrounding area ready for the f-RAT training ground and garden. Next, will be getting the mount all built and sunk and digging the 50 feet of trench for the loop and then we'll call in Roger.

The EOS is much needed as I officially declared the heating season over around May 12th. I've had a couple of tepid showers and one WHOO-HOO THAT'S COLD! shower and it is going to be WHOO-HOO THAT'S COLD! showers until the EOS is up and running. 

And then we have this:

Reference this post towards the bottom. You're looking for NEWSFLASH.

My first clue, exposed fabric with the underlying stone, that we may have yet another problem with another contractor's work.

My second clue, an exposed pipe that The Husband stuck his nose to, gave a whiff and then reeled back so fast he nearly broke the sound barrier. Note the cut on the right. (You should be able to click the pic for an enlargement.)

I'm going to stop here for now. 

In keeping with our Green theme

Last, but definitely not least, we have the feLION Green Report:

I will interpret this for you, "We, the Naylor-Kohler Exceptional feLIONs, exuberantly support green issues." There you have it and yes, that would be little bits of green catnip in the fur and all over the floor, hence, the word, exuberant.

Support Green and all it's tints and shades

Yes, my fingers are blue but blue and yellow make green so we'll go with it.

Because it's nice to be nice.

And now an Artist's perspective, warning, and sort of parable:

I am painfully aware that I live in a society and time that doesn't necessarily see the value of Art or Artists. The Husband was actually one of those members of society. Pause for shocked gasps of horror and a brief moment of disbelief. True story: BB (before Bheki) he actually said, to an Artist's face, that he didn't think any public funds should go to support the Arts. And look at what happened to him (the warning part). He now has his very own Artist, slopping paint everywhere, to support. Luckily, this provides for him a tour guide that sees and points out that which goes unnoticed by someone, well, normal, for lack of a better word. Now, The Husband, admittedly has had his mind blown wide open and lives in a richer, more colorful world. You're certainly welcome and I need another tube of Magenta.

In the magical, colorful, fun, and exciting cloud that my right brain prefers to hang out in, a color plus white is a tint and a color plus black is a shade. Value refers to lights and darks. Little color theory for you there. Anyway, as an Artist, I love all colors and their tints and shades.

It has come to my attention that there is a "Dirty Secret of Off-Grid Living" and there are dark green and light green individuals.

I thought the above article and it's comments were interesting and that the atmosphere was supportive regardless of whether someone was dark green or light green which does this Artist's heart good. I like to see human beings being nice, supportive of each other, and thinking/working together. And, Artistically speaking,  a successful painting has various colors and their tints and shades and balanced values. Something to consider on-canvas as well as off-canvas and off-grid.

Another kind of Green

Gardening! I have been wanting to garden forever. One would think that someone who grew up in the country would have a lot of gardens and gardening experience under her belt. Especially, someone who grew her own hay. Not so. Shocking but true. This is my third garden ever. I'm off to a late start which eliminated the need for grow lights back when we were still having shorter day light hours. So, here's what I've got so far.

A shelf in the Garden Level next to the sliding patio door on the South side of the cabin.

The seeds require warm water. Note the water bottles on the lower shelf of the masonry heater. This keeps the water warm enough without cutting into my limited hot water supply especially now that I'm  firing the Garden Level heater only once a day as it seems Spring is really here and temperatures are warming up to where it's almost time to quit firing the heaters all together.

Of course, I get feLION assistance with ALL of my endeavors.

Here's flat number one at one week old. I'm starting another flat this week and trying the whole succession planting thing so we don't have 3000 pounds of veggies all at once. I'm particularly excited at the variety of plants in this flat as I had a bit of a problem in my very first garden. I was doing time in the city and had a tiny little, hand dug garden. I accidentally spilled an entire packet of cucumber seeds. I almost didn't plant cucumbers for this garden because what followed traumatized me. It was the monster cucumber patch that nearly took over Columbus, Ohio. I was hauling grocery sacks of cucumbers around and giving them away to everyone. The vines took over the lot and were headed for all the surrounding neighbors. Fall couldn't come quick enough. So far the three cucumber seeds that I planted this time are behaving themselves. 

I have more seeds that I will direct sow after the threat of frost which is May 30th here in the UP.

Overall, I'm pleased so far. Now I need to prepare the raised beds. Yes, and install the solar thermal hot water system. 

OMG! THAT'S UGLY!

Pause for The Husband to recover from my outburst. We'll talk amongst ourselves while his heart rate returns to normal: You'd think he'd be use to my sensitive aesthetic sense and it's resultant outbursts by now. He's been dealing with airplanes flying at each other for almost 25 years and my gasps of horror at something ugly are what freaks him out. Sigh. I don't understand it. Anyway, I think he's okay now.

We are NOT doing that. That's for dang sure. Here's what I'm talking about:

Click on pic to see all those guy wires.

Sudden, loud gasp of horror on the inhale....and OMG! LOOK AT ALL THOSE F'ING WIRES! THAT'S UGLY! THEY COVER HOW MANY FOOTBALL FIELDS? WE ARE NOT DOING THAT! DID YOU KNOW IT LOOKED LIKE THAT?! I MIGHT HAVE TO HURT YOU RIGHT NOW! on the exhale.

Oh, I can't even stand to look at that picture. Hang on please while I scroll so I can write.

Okay. So this turbine is in Ohio on the way home from The Husband's work to the Gibsonburg Farm (which will be officially on the market with an agent and all within the next couple of weeks). Now, the turbine itself is lovely. It is a Bergey XL1. Mike had the opportunity to stop and stand near it and hear it. Barely hear it that is. The wind was blowing at 13 mph and he could barely hear it. He did get to talk to the owner who said it does get louder when the wind picks up. I find it promising though that it's quiet at some point that it's turning. It's been in service for 5 (five) years. You'll notice that the tower towards the top is shinier than the rest of the tower. That's because one of the wires snapped and the tower twisted. That was the only time in 5 years the turbine was taken out of service. Being familiar with this area of Ohio and knowing that our site here at the cabin is at least as windy as that area of Ohio, Mike asked the owner how much power it is generating. And here is the classic answer we get whenever we ask a question so specific, "I don't know." The owner did know that the electric bill is half what it used to be and that it spins more in the Winter than in the Summer. Now we know this is a grid-tied application too.

So, again, not a lot of technical information that we can use for a well-informed decision making process but we know the Bergey XL1 is pretty quiet at 13 mph, and that there's at least this one that's been trouble free for five years now, and that when the time comes, we will not be getting that tower and all those wires.

Quickie update and (more) off topic stuff

While the weather has still been mild, we're rapidly approaching mid-May and this is usually when we have evening temps in the 40's. This is too warm to fire the downstairs heater at all. We all know what that means: YIKES! COLD showers for Bheki. So, it's time for Bheki and The Husband to move their butts and get the solar hot water system project started AND finished AND working. Either The Husband will work on his "Honey Do Dammit" List and Roger will be out to get the frame or whatever you call the thing that the tubes sit in (I'm not sure because honestly something else shinier had my attention when The Husband was talking to me) assembled OR The Husband will ditch his multi-volume, encyclopedic "Honey Do Dammit" list and assemble it. He mentioned something about WANTING to assemble it but he's been very busy disrupting electronic communications and whatever else I've blocked from my awareness so he hasn't locked in his final answer yet. Once the frame is together, we'll finalize the location and game plan for "planting" it in the ground. So that's the Hot Water Dept. update.

I never came out and directly said this but ALL other projects have been placed on the back burner indefinitely. Yes, the wind turbine. Oh. I know. Let's all pause in the air of disappointment for a moment here.

Okay, moving right along. NEWSFLASH: More from the "You've got to be f'ing kidding me department." I'm getting ready to get the tractor out and do some more cleaning so I was looking at the septic system drain field. I've never been impressed with the finish grading and there's all these rocks laying around at the one end where I was going to work on blending the grade into the surrounding area. Why yes, it's that bad that even I can do better. Then I noticed something. At first I thought, "more shit laying around from the previous owners to clean up." Wait a minute. That's fabric. Oh crap. (Look at all those puns.) What the f...A PIPE! COLORFUL METAPHOR! COLORFUL METAPHOR! There's a drain field pipe and it's COLORFUL METAPHOR! gouged. Sarcasm approaching. And yet, more impressive work. Disgusted sigh. So, now that's on my "More stupid shit to deal with list." (That pun is actually kind of funny. I just love words.)

And now for some kind of exciting, albeit, off topic news:

OH SQUEAL OF UTTER DELIGHT! I'm just one of the many contributors in this recently released book. I'm on Page 127 and 162. Page 162 is kind of my secret so my secret is out now. Just a little excited so let me read it to you: "I can treat anything in my life as art, including time." That was from page 162. The interesting thing is I feel all, "Oh, my writing in print; big, long sniff to take in the smell of my copy of the book (as apposed to sniffing my iPad); my name in print with oh, my writing, oh cool, I like it." Now I really, really want to write my own book so I can have my name on the cover and have all the words be mine and read it and sniff it.

I just realized that we talked of septic system issues and sniffing books in the same blog post. Hmm?

EOS is here

Wow, not sure what is going on but somehow the calendar went from my last post to two weeks later. Roger came out as scheduled back on the 9th. We talked about location, location, location, the run into the cabin, and the mounting system.

Clean, shiny Bob's (http://www.bobssheetmetal.biz) truck with the goods in the back.

Hot water in a box(es-6 to be exact) kit. Stashed in the barn.

Ooooo.

Oh. Glass. Yikes.