Winter and a new greenhouse on the Farm

It's 9 degrees F and supposed to drop below 0 overnight. The ground is frozen hard, but unlike the past two years, no blanket of snow, no roofs to shovel, no broken snowblower(s). The garlic is planted, (some in wine barrels to protect it from those frigging pocket gophers), SeedSavers catalog has already come, and Steve has already circled a few varieties to try next year.

Earlier this fall, friends gave us 8 sheets of clear corrugated plastic roofing and 12 16' 2x4s. That gave me the idea of a pole "barn" greenhouse. We have never built anything like this before. At 2465 ft., our growing season tends to be shorter than we'd like, and gee it would be great to get tomatoes before September! Plus, a greenhouse would be nice for peppers, eggplant, and other tropical veggies that dislike our overnight lows in the summertime.

I drew up plans making it 8'x8', with a shed roof. The north posts are 10' high, and the south posts are 6', having dug four 2' deep postholes. (Actually, we hired a friend's 21 year old son to do the digging honors since both of us have joint problems rearing ugly symptoms). Once the 4"x4" treated posts were set in cement, we put down treated 2x4s for footers. A trip to Home Depot in the Grey Ghost netted the rest of the roofing, a new Ryobi drill driver and jigsaw, 2x2s and 2x3s for the doors, and hardware. That's all we bought since we had a bunch of 2x6s left over from moving the decks when we deconstructed the house to move it here. So we used mostly recycled 2x6s for the framing and building a catwalk to get up and reach that tall back wall. Our next door neighbor loaned us scaffolding when we found that we couldn't finish the outside of it safely. Thanks Neil!
Because the greenhouse has such a sturdy frame, we can furnish the inside with shelves all the way up the back wall and a table in the front. Two huge windstorms tested the structure, and it has proven rock solid.

Now we have all winter to plan our nursery!

Lovely springtime!

Birds galore on the farm with goldfinch, bluebirds, swallows, quail, pheasant, geese, owls, mourning doves, house finches, wrens, nuthatches, flickers, downy woodpeckers, and those stupid eurasian sparrows and starlings. They are deafening with their courting in the early morning.
















Last year's cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and bushbeans look really good about now, so have a look and think about whomping up a batch of chow mein. Somehow, an entire cabbage disappeared into the gopher's realm. Damn gophers. The misty sunset here is from a couple of weeks ago, where we are almost snow free. This year, it started snowing after Thanksgiving, and we had almost six feet by Christmas. Our backs were killing us from shoveling roofs over and over. Steve's arms ached from the vibration of the snow throwers. We have two, since one or the other is always in the shop.

It's spring finally. Although we had a really tough winter with tons of snow, we didn't lose any trees, buildings, or worse through it all. We saw some of our neighbors weren't so lucky. At least two pole barns collapsed under weight of snow, and a few little sheds here and there as well. Over 200 buildings collapsed in Spokane County, and even more over in Coeurd'Alene. We could see the strain on the barn from the inside--the huge 8x12 beams were sagging and doors were stuck shut. But now the the huge berms are almost gone, and the Americaunas finished molting and are laying huge weird eggs!

Steve is outside planting an apple and a cherry tree to replace ones that didn't look so good last year. The garlic has sprouted, and the strawberries are coming up. So are the tulips we planted between the raspberry bushes last fall. He planted potatoes yesterday, and decided to enlarge two areas to plant more. We went down into the pasture and started tilling and getting the rocks and sod out of a new area for corn and squash. Our soil is really nice and smells great. I splurged and bought four of the those half oak wine barrels for my kitchen garden. One for the horseradish, one for basil, rosemary, and cilantro, and two for flowers and such. A friend said these would hold up well for decades of container planting. They should, they weren't cheap!

The eggs in the incubator should pip next weekend. We'll buy some little girls to add to the brooder box with them. Steve wants to get some "meat birds" or Cornish chicks so we're not just eating skinny little cockerels like last year.

Four Mound 2005 Photos

Life at home without a house. "The Slab" looking north shows a squall brewing for the Indian Reservation.

Party time on the 4th of July with a lovely barbecue and picnic with friends.

Sheena and I haul water for the umteenth time.

Canning Kitchen and tent--home for almost four months.

Gains and Losses

In all this blitz of activity, we noticed our beloved chow, Sheena, stopped eating her dog food and lost weight. Once we had one free minute, we took her to the vet again. She had seemed a little puny in August, and the vet thought she had skin trouble or "hot spots" getting a bit infected, which was normal for the hot season, so we shaved her fluffy red fur off and forgot about it. Normally her fur grew back quickly, but after a month, it hadn't grown at all, and I put tee shirts on her to keep her warm at night. I was writing and submitting a quarter million grant, taking care of mom, unpacking and sorting our stuff, and the vet called and told us Sheena's blood test has revealed a terrible cancer in her liver. A huge mass had grown, and we took her to a specialist for surgery on the same day I bundled and submitted the grant, and we didn't know it then but my mom had been bitten by a hobo spider. Sheena died on the OR table, mom's leg swelled up and turned black, and the grant went in on time. I've never felt such a loss as losing my beautiful dog. Something in me just shut down. Steve and I couldn't stop crying, and mom was in terrible pain. She wouldn't let me take her to the emergency room, she just wanted to wait for Dad to come get her. She is very stubborn and too big to move without cooperation. I gave her some hydrocodone, and she was able to sleep through the night. Dad showed up the next day, and I told him something weird was up with mom's leg, and our dog had died. The doctor diagnosed mom's leg as a hobo spider bite, and she underwent "wound care" for two years to heal that awful injury. We think our hide a bed must have been the source of the spider, since I vacuumed the house after removing the carpets. All the furniture had been in the garage all summer, so the spider must have been in it somewhere. We never saw it, and neither did she. She can't remember being bitten either, but apparently the venom numbs the bite site and one doesn't feel it. I'm going to skip the ensuing winter and move on to spring. Suffice it to say we got a horrible flu during the holidays, rescued a Chow, (Griz) from the pound in Bonners Ferry, and managed to survive a very cold snap without losing the water.