posting more than once a month!
accomplishing things!
hot damn!

right when i got home from work today, i planted a plum tree. minutes later, i changed the oil in the car (sadly, it’s been put off for a while). then, as a triumphant finish, i put the license plate on the car (that’s been sitting in the glove box for a few weeks now).

now we have, as far as trees (and actually in the ground!):

• 6 in 1 espalier apple tree
• 3 in 1 cherry tree
• dwarf pear
• dwarf plum
• one very old and rotting away fig (the only thing left from when we bought the house)
• 2 japanese lilac trees street side

the apple tree f’ing blew my mind. 6 different apples, from ONE tree? the branches grow horizontally, three per side? an absolute trip! there was a bit of a numbness when rebecca told me of them, as my brain was having a difficult time processing this amazing… almost too amazing information. it’s good i was told about the espalier tree before seeing one, ’cause i’d have made a damn fool of myself (i’m good at that), by yelling “HOLY SHIT! LOOK! HOLY SHIT! LOOK! HOLY SHIT! LOOK!” over and over, as if aliens were landing a spaceship in my front yard. i suppose in retrospect the concept of grafted and trained branches shouldn’t be so wild and on the edge of utter disbelief, but wow is it ever craaaaazy man!

the espalier apple is between the windows on the garage… the cherry in the back corner… 4 raised veggie beds that rebecca built (soil-less gardening!)…

temporarily bordered future play area… we’ve got 2 cubic yards of chipped cedar waiting, and need to procure a play structure suitable for the size.

plum and pear trees. not sure which is which.

chicken coop…. about 90% done. needs a bit of trim, two more drip rails, and UV protection (same thing we did the deck with)

the run is 4′ tall, 13′ wide and 3′ deep. it still needs the roof section (currently has a sheet of OSB sitting on it), and a bit of trim.
overall, the coop about 8′ to the peak of the roof.

finally, the driveway. sad as it may be, this is the best it’s looked since we got the house! it’s a bit tight, but once poured it’ll be fine to get a car up it and to the carriage house. at the chimney, the driveway is a bit under 7′ wide, the rest is about 8.5′ wide. pretty reasonable, i suppose. the section that’s currently soil is 64′ long… going to bring in 2″ of 3/4″ gravel that’ll be the underlayment (yes, that’s a word) for the poured concrete that’ll eventually go in. for now, the gravel will be a hell of a lot better than dirt…

the carriage house is green. not the color, the… ahh… movement? dunno what it actually is… guess “movement” works well, as the garage is also moving, along with self composting. yes, it’s returning to earth… the entire back wall has studs that are completely rotted and literally composting: a mound of what used to be 2×4 stud and shiplap siding is actually warm to the touch and looks like soil! lovely.
i’ve got grand plans to renovate the poor carriage house. ok, not exactly “grand”… but plans none the less. i suppose “renovate” might be pushing it, too. basically, i’ve got plans.
4×4 pressure treated skid foundation, as the poured foundation’s footings are crap and the floor is only 2″ thick (and broken). the floor can be drop/framed in with 2×4 PT, wide side down, 12″ on center, 3/4″ CDX subfloor, commercial linoleum tile (cheap). keep the side walls, double sill on top of the 4×4 skid. new rear wall. new front wall. gable roof. walls and roof 24″ on center, 2×4… a 10.5′ span doesn’t need much. a random commercial single glaze fixed skylight (they run about $24, used), larger multi-lite side windows (sometimes free, if’n ya keep your eyes open), an exterior entry door and real carriage doors. exterior walls sheathed with some exterior “t&g” plywood, stained, cleared or painted (don’t really know or care). interior walls sheathed in OSB. bare rafter ceiling (no sense in worrying about insulation).
best part about all of that: all up to code, and a skid foundation non-living space without plumbing… isn’t a permanent building. can’t be taxed on it : )

now that it’s monday, i’m sitting in the office (in a dreadfully boring meeting), mildly sore, and anxious to get back home and dig more holes.
one thing i think might be beneficial in the future, though: keeping my blood sugar up, because damn if in retrospect I don’t seem to get awfully testy. I feel pretty crappy because i yelled at (or at least got snappy with) rebecca yesterday, for stuff that seems silly now.
it’s kinda hard to show that ya actually enjoy working alongside someone when you’re cranky…
On that note: sorry! actually really love doing this stuff with you! i’m sure it must take a lot of the fun out of it when i’m not pleasant to work with… so i’ll try to keep hydrated, nurished and therefore more relaxed and show that i’m actually appreciating the time we spend together working

since the ground here in portland is crap, we fixed it….. with crap.

took delivery of 4 cubic yards of rotted steer manure (yummy), and 2-ish cubic yards of cedar wood chips on saturday.

41 trips from the street (where the crap was dumped), up the paved driveway, across 64 feet of very bumpy/rutted dirt driveway into the back yard, with a wheelbarrow.  laid about 1 1/2″ of the manure on the entire back yard.   while rebecca raked the manure evenly across the yard, i cursed the damned wheelbarrow because it’s 4″ too short for me to walk comfortably.

to mix the crap into the crappy yard, i had to rent a gas powered tiller. again. have i mentioned i don’t have a truck? tillers aren’t lite. at all. got the 5.5hp, 28″ wide honda tiller into the trunk of my car after pulling the tines off one side, by hefting it in. lift with my legs? yeah, right. can’t lift something like that with your legs.  the only method is to dead lift the awkwardly shaped, handle-less, far heavier on one side hunk of equipment in one quick motion using your lower back.  but… aren’t those the muscles so often and easily injured? yeah. those are the ones.
so after lifting the fucking heavy thing into the trunk, i loaded the lumber i purchased at the same time onto the roof… then went home where i unloaded it all, again hefting the heavy tiller out of the trunk.  this was on Saturday night.

took myself a nice hot-ish bath, after loading/unloading… which was after a good 4-ish hours of shoveling and pushing of the wheelbarrow.  as i slept, spasms would contract one side of my back (or the other, totally random), waking me up much like a calf cramp… ala “sleeping soundly, then BAM! MY LEG! A FUCKING RABID ALLIGATOR MUST  HAVE CRAWLED INTO BED AND TAKEN A CHUNK OUT OF MY LEG! OH DEAR GOD THE PAIN!”  but instead of the calf, it was my lower back, so not nearly as bad.  or it was worse… one or the other.  luckily a bone in my right foot is screwed up and falling apart, so that pain kinda took my mind of the searing back pain from time to time. it’s nice to have options, really. get tired of the back, can focus on the foot… and vice verse.

sunday morning comes (much too quickly), and i’m awakened by a bright eyed, energetic little girl that wants a book read to her.  as i try to focus on the book (tough to do when your eyes aren’t open yet), i realize that today’s work will be much longer and much harder than yesterdays… and with body parts that are already done for.  we dress and stroll (only somewhat painfully) down the street to the local stumptown coffee for a bit of caffeine and a bagel.

un-nourished but at least not starving, i begin hauling manure to the back yard again. this time with added soreness and a sometimes spasming back thrown in for fun!  after a good couple hours, a neighbor showed pity upon me and brought over a much larger wheelbarrow… one that’s only 3″ too short to walk comfortably with.  who the hell do they make these things for? at 5′ 11″, i’m not especially tall.  anyway, this one had a much larger barrel… bucket… whatever the load part is called.  sped things up a bit, despite being twice as heavy.

once the manure was evenly dispersed through the yard, the power equipment could be started up. unfortunately, this is the damned tiller… which does a good job of kicking your ass. the first few passes through the yard were great… pulls hard, stops pulling and digs so you gotta throw some weight on it, pulls hard again, grabs a root and lurches to the side. such fun when you’re feeling like you’ve been hit by a train already.

tilled and mixed in well, the ground being much less clay-like, we could compact it a bit.  a 55 gallon drum was filled 1/4 with water, tipped on it’s side and rolled about.  roll, rake. roll, rake. roll. rake. over and over, until the yard is flat and graded decently well.

yard done, i figured the rutted and horribly bumpy driveway could use tilled and evened out in preparation for gravel (ugh, gravel is heavy too).  the tiller cuts great, then hits a rock and jumps all over the friggin’ place while my limp and sore body holds on.  throwing it around was no longer being done with only mild effort… it just wasn’t being done. the tiller was now throwing me around.  a few passes up and down the 64 feet of drive, cutting back off-camber embankments and ruts, and it was looking a little better.  what’s great when your back is sore? shoveling! shoveled and raked until the drive looked half way level-ish, before deciding the day is done.

hose off the tiller, lift it back into the trunk (this time with assistance!), and off to dinner with the kids.

as i write this, my back is utterly destroyed feeling. it’ll be sore for a couple days. it seems entirely pathetic that i’m so sore and so falling apart.  mid 30s, and some parts of my body feel 30 years older.

so as to not have a post with the majority being a complaint:

• coffee/bagel with the wee one was cool.
• dinner with the kids was cool.
• the weather was absolutely amazing! mid 80s on saturday, high 70s today, no rain!
• the yard is level and ready for the ground cover to be planted.
• the driveway is ~3/4 ready for gravel.
• only one tree left to plant.

ok, it wasn’t too bad…  during the week, while i was at work! stuck in an office with a window that’s directly beside a steam outlet… so i didn’t even get to see the sun people were talking about.  oh, then once the weekend got here: so did the rain.

the chicken coop is taking way, way too long to complete… long enough that i should be ashamed.  i’m not, but i should be.  in any case it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s at least coming out pretty cool.

this weekend marks the first time the weather in portland has seriously pissed me off. sun and spotty clouds most of the week… then saturday comes and it: rains, hails, sleets, snows, hails… sun comes out for 3 minutes… repeat. this had the oh-so-convenient effect of turning our clay-like soil into… well… clay. sticky, slippery, mucky clay. you could actually watch the backhoe sinking as the ground turned to quicksand, err, quickclay.

on the plus side…

more pictures to come once i get a chance to get the camera outside while it’s still light out. after the usual work day in the office, i came home and we went to home depot not once… no… but twice. by the time we got home, the sun had set, it was time for dinner, and the chance to get anything productive underway had gone. maybe tomorrow…