Garden Update

We have kind of three garden areas in the new house.  There are lots of perennials planted in the retaining wall, many of the plants I still don't know what they are.  We also have the original garden (OG), a 15'X100' area planted by the orginal homeowners that has rhubard, raspberries, and strawberries.  And then we have our big garden space that we fenced in.  Here are some photos of the retaining wall garden.  If anyone knows what some of these flowers are, please comment!

Here's a photo of the whole garden.  You can see that it's overgrown, but I want to figure out what everything is before I start changing things.

Pretty yellow flower growing out of another plant.

The peonies are almost ready to bloom!

A different yellow flower growing amongst other things-are they weeds?  Should I be pulling them out?

Bleeding Hearts!

These aren't in the retaining wall, but they're spreading like crazy!

Next let me give you a photo tour of the OG!  Here's what the previous owners had already planted!

I think this is some kind of iris.  There are a ton of irises all around the property.

Crazy big rhubarb!

So many strawberries!  This winter I want to make it look like an E and make rows for easier picking.

Raspberries!

And here is the garden that Jason and I built!  We still have a lot to do in it, but we've got a good start!

Tomatoes and Peppers in the raised Hugelkultur bed

Peppers and dill!

There's a butterfly drinking from the bird bath.  The solar fountain didn't survive the move.  :(

One of a bajillion hops plants!

Potato bed-the left side is red potatoes and the left are ozettes, a potato native to the Pacific Northwest!

Our row of 4 apple trees-Spizenburg, Cox Orange Pippen, Ashmead Kernal, and Arkansas Black

Our row of stone fruit-Craig Crimson Cherry, Red Globe Peach, Chinese Apricot, and Early Italian Plum

A friend gave us some golden raspberries, hopefully a few will survive.  These look really sad!

This will be an herb spiral soon

Blackberries

Blueberries

Our hugelkultur bed

Well, those are our gardens so far this spring.  We still need more vegetable gardens and to sheet mulch the grass away, but we're slowly getting there!

Loving Life

I am so happy that we moved to Kettle Falls!  We live in a beautiful place.  Everywhere I drive, I need to force myself to look at the road and not the mountains or rivers or lakes all around.  I love our house.  It's really starting to feel like a home.  We still have some renovating and decorating to finish, but it's getting there.  I love my kitchen, with my refrigerator that can fit a large pizza box and my gas range with electric oven and the fact that it's open so I can see Jason in the living room while I am cooking or look out the windows at the gardens and the mountains beyond.  I love our garden!  I can't wait until our trees and berries mature and start producing like mad!  I love the possibilities and the fact that we won't be able to finish putting in everything we want in the garden this year, it leaves more surprises for next year!  And I really love the community that we are building here.  I have met some really great people and already I feel like I know more people here than I did with four years in San Diego.  We're building a community, a home, and a life here and I couldn't be more happy!

I love our home!

Giving Up the Hot Tub

Neither Jason nor I ever really wanted a hot tub.  When we would go to a hotel with one, we might go in it.  I enjoy using my Aunt Polly's hot tub when I visit Minnesota, but we never would have bought one for ourselves. 

When we bought our house, it came with a hot tub.  There were some issues because we closed on our house in February and although we put antifreeze in the tub, there was ice in the tub and pipes in February.  When we filled it and turned it one, one of the diverter valves burst and sent geysers of water spurting up.  There is one hot tub repair place in Colville and they didn't have the part to fix it.  We called places in Spokane and they didn't have one.  Finally we ordered one from Seattle, it was on back order, and a week later it arrived.  While waiting for the part, we put a board and bricks to keep the geyser flow contained.  After fixing the diverter valve, we started taking stock of our new hot tub.  About half of the jets had either fallen out or didn't work.  The plastic from the jets was deteriorating and there were always little bits of plastic suspended in the water.  We bought a pool skimmer but some of the pieces were too small to catch.  Yet in the winter, even without the jets, nothing warmed me up faster than sitting in the hot tub.  I loved sitting in the hot tub and reading a book before bed.  We decided to wait to decide what to do about the tub.  Then last week I got into the tub and it was warm-not hot.  It was only 96 degrees.  I changed the filter and I checked the pipes and I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  I called our local hot tub place in Colville and they gave me their technician's phone number and despite leaving numerous messages, he never called us back.  I called Spokane repair places and they would charge $80 just to come up and give an estimate. 

The Hot Tub in question

All the parts that need to be replaced (I don't know why the photo is upside down)

That helped make the decision for me.  We had never really wanted a hot tub and I didn't want anything causing so much stress, so we gave the hot tub to one of Jason's co-workers in return for 2 cords of wood to burn this winter.  Now that it's warm out, I don't really miss it.  And if I want to warm up come winter, we always have a bathtub.

On Spring and Broken Lawnmowers

I got back from an amazing trip to Sitka and a fun visit with Sarah in Kettle Falls and felt overwhelmed at the tasks that needed to get done at our homestead.  While I was in Alaska Spring sprang in Kettle Falls.  All the trees leafed out.  The daffodils gave way to colorful tulips and the grass grew about 6 inches.

Daffodils!  They were my wedding flower!  I'm so happy they're here in our garden!

Tulips mean spring, right?

Now since about March I told Jason that we should get a lawnmower and he kept insisting that we should just call our lawn area "The Meadow" and let the grass grow.  Even though we fenced in a 100' X 50' area for our garden, there is still a LOT of lawn left.  I have never really had a lawn before and felt strongly that we should have some area that would be called lawn and would not have tall plants on it.  So I started looking at lawn mowers.  I really believe in limiting fossil fuel consumption so my first thought was to buy a reel mower-powered just by my legs and arms.  We ended up buying THIS one and with a little help from my friend Sarah I used it to mow our lawn.  Now I thought that I was in decent shape, but pushing this lawn mower is a lot of hard work.  It also fell out of allignment pretty quickly (our lawn isn't flat) and not all of the blades would cut, which meant that I had to cut each row 2 or 3 times to get all of the grass cut.  It tooke me 3 days, working about 4 hours each day, to get the lawn mowed.  I thought that the next time would be easier because I wouldn't let the grass get so tall.  So a few days after finishing I took the lawn mower out again.  On my first pass I ran over a rock and bent one of the blades. It was barely working after that I got frustrated and decided to quit. 

A few days later Jason and I decided to rent a lawnmower from our local rental place in Colville.  At $10/hour, it would help us figure out what we liked and/or wanted.  And in the intervening days our grass was once again about 6 inches tall.  I got the lawnmower home and started mowing.  It was self propelled and I was LOVING it!  It cut the grass short; it wasn't hard to push; and, I didn't have to stop every 5 miunutes to catch my breath.  About 10 minutes into mowing, the machine just stopped.  I checked the grass bag and it was stuffed full.  I emptied the bag into our compost bin, turned the mower over to clean it out, and decided to leave off the bag and just let the grass collect where it was cut.  When I started the mower up again, it almost immediately turned off.  Without the bag, the grass didn't have anywhere to go and it was just getting caught in the machinery.  I cleaned up the bottom of the the mower again and reattached the bag.  Every 5-10 minutes I had to stop to empty the bag.  It was annoying but I was trying to think of all the good nitrogen for the compost.  About 1/3 done with the lawn, the mower died and refused to start again.  I called the rental company and tried to troubleshoot over the phone.  In the end when I brought the mower back, they told me that the grass had clogged the machinery and would need to be cleaned out.  After breaking two lawnmowers, I decided that maybe Jason is right, maybe we will just have a meadow and not a lawn. 

Can you see where the lawnmower quit working?

Another edge where the lawnmower stopped working

So I guess this is our "meadow," with the garden in the background.

Does anyone know how to turn bluegrass into something low growing that wouldn't need to be mowed?  Next year we plan on having chicken tractors, maybe I can plant some sort of low growing plant after the chickens have scratched up all the grass.  Any ideas? 

Hot Springs, Otters, and Whales

Yesterday we went out in a skiff (a Boston Whaler) to go find some hot springs. There were 7 of us-Camilla, her husband Captain Caven, their daughter Ivy, their friends Owen and Cassie, and Sarah and me. The ride was about an hour and again we had beautiful weather! The sun was shining, the sky was a deep blue and the clouds were fluffy. We packed the boat full with picnic supplies and all the accoutrements the baby needed and packed in like sardines, we took off. There were a bunch of sea otters floating on their backs, seeming to wave at us as we passed. Caven and Owen saw a whale spouting in the distance but it must have dove deep because when we sailed closer, we couldn't find it.

After about an hour of smooth seas, we got to the hot springs. There was only one other boat on the beach, so we were really lucky. There were little sheds over two different pools. There were people in the pools when we got there so we decided to make lunch before soaking.

True to their Wisconsin roots, we had a yummy lunch of beer and brats. I had a fair number of IPAs and enjoyed sitting on the beach, enjoying the sun. There were a pair of bald eagles who had a nest nearby. We watched them flying and gliding all around. They were pretty noisy. I had never heard the sounds of bald eagle calls before.

After lunch the other group got into their boat and left so we had the pools to ourselves. Ivy was pretty good, sitting in her bouncy chair while we all soaked in the steaming, slightly sulfur tinged water. We immersed ourselves until we were heated to our cores. Then we went on a short hike down the beach. It was fairly rocky and tough going for Camilla holding the baby, so Sarah, Camilla, and I sat on the rocks and chatted while the others hiked.

The ride back to Sitka was a little more choppy. I felt like I was on a trotting horse and wished there was a good way to post to avoid the jarring impacts and we sailed through the waves. This time all of us saw a humpback whale as it spouted and enjoyed the mountains all around. By the time we got home and ate some dinner, I was wiped out. I collapsed happily into bed. It was a great time!

Vacation in Sitka

I wrote my first long post using the blogger app, then had to change my privacy settings to allow photos, and when I came back to the app, the whole post was gone. Ugh! Instead if typing a lot, I'll just say I'm having a great time with great friends in a beautiful place. I'll sayi it with photos!

Reflections on Rural Living

Before moving to Kettle Falls to start our dream of Happy Bear Farm, the smallest place I had lived was the Twin Cities (well, I lived in St. Paul) which have a population of a little more than 3 million people.  I have now lived here for 7 months and it is DEFINITELY different.

First of all I think that Jason and I are both a LOT healthier.  Since I am not working (and now that we are in our house with a working kitchen), I have been cooking basically all of our meals.  The restaurants that are in town (the good ones anyways) are only open Wednesday-Saturday so we don't really have many eating out options.  Because I am making all of our meals, we are sticking to our modified paleo diet.  We eat meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.  I call it modified because we occasionally have rice and I eat goat cheese.  Jason and I feel a lot healthier and I am back to my San Diego weight (I gained about 10 pounds when we first moved here because we didn't have a good kitchen in the first apartment we had and we ate a lot of processed food).  I love the magazine Cook's Illustrated and have been cooking 2-3 times a week using their recipes.  So our food is healthy and delicious!

Another thing that I've noticed is that Jason and I are big fodder for gossip amongst our neighbors and their interest is apparent and sometimes in our face.  For example I think that at least 4 of our neighbors has asked us how much we paid for the house.  When we were busy with contractors going in and out of the house, it wasn't unusual for a neighbor to stop by and ask what work we were doing and ask for a tour.  Now that it has warmed up and we are working in the garden, cars noticeably slow down on the dirt road and look at the garden we're putting in and some stop to see what we're planting.  I am not used to being so interesting.  They are very nice about it, it's just different.

Days can go by when I don't leave the house.  It's about a 15 minute drive into Kettle Falls and the only reasons that I ever go there are to go to work (if I get a sub job), go to the library, or go to Meyers Falls Market (the natural food store, which is great but really small and lacking in a lot of our regular food stuffs).  Once a week (at least) I drive into Colville (about a 25 minute drive) to go to the bigger grocery store Super One.  They're like a small Safeway or Cub Foods (about a third the size), but they have a small organic section.  We're slowly making friends but they're generally busy people and we don't see them that often.  Last week I left the house twice-once for grocery shopping and other errands and the other time for a fruit planting workshop.  I used to rarely be home.  I like our house.  I like making it into a home.  It's just different.

Finally Sundays are a different time here.  In general this community is fairly religious but no one has been preachy or proselytizing.   On a normal day we see 5-6 cars go down our dirt road, but on Sundays we see at least 20.  People going to church, people going to see family, people coming to visit, etc.  Also very few businesses are open on Sundays.  There is one hardware store (out of 6 in the area) that is open and Super One is open.  I think that's it.  Nothing else is open.  During the week, most businesses close at 5 or 6pm.  But most of them at 7am.  I have been called by people at 7:15am to ask my opinion about something.  This is considered "no big deal."  Most days I am up by 7:15am, but in my city life I NEVER would have called someone this early.

I like living here.  I love our house, our garden, and our dreams for it.  We're starting to meet people and hang out regularly with them.  I have found a political outlet by chairing a subcommittee in our local Slow Food chapter to organize for I-522 to label GMOs in Washington.  Things are good here, it's just different.