CHECKING IN

Since it has been a while since I posted, I thought I would do a quick check in. The fruit harvest was spectacular this year. we started going to the Saturday market. We didn't get rich, but it was fun, and we sold quite a bit of things.

I had forgotten this was in the unposted stuff, 

It is getting close to spring, the Asian Pears are in bloom, during a huge storm of course. The rest of the fruit trees are leafing out. Janice has planted corn, beans, and Squash, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Mellons. Most growing like gangbusters.

 Old Technology That is New to Us

Janice and I found some old technology that is new to us called Electro culture. apparently, it was part of experiments that Nichola Tesla was involved in during the early 1900's. a very simple explanation, you take a wooden stick and wrap a spiral of copper wire from top to the bottom, then you bury the bottom of the stick on the north side of the plant. This is supposed to enhance the natural electromagnetic force of the earth and put extra growth and production into the plant.

Janice placed one of the first sticks we completed into the ground next to her Red Chevron Rose that was looking badly. 

Wow, what a difference in just three days. I will try to add photos she took, which shows the amazing difference in such a short time.

I got so interested that I have already dug through my junk pile and found stuff that I am in the midst of putting together to make a machine for winding the spirals onto the sticks. We are going to try different sized sticks with different sized copper wire. I am thinking small ones made with 1/2 inch dowels from the hardware store and longer ones made from Filbert staffs. 

This photo shows an old windshield wiper motor, yellow by the hammer.

This photo shows a large sprocket that I had to make a fixture to turn a center with a smaller hole to fit the shaft in the chuck. This was done on a small Grizzly Mill and Lathe combination.

This photo shows a chuck unit from an old CNC machine I purchased. I have never used this unit as a CNC, and thought it would work good for this purpose.

This piece was some iron left over from the rear bumper I had built for the last truck I had that was crushed by the carport. I always try to save iron or steel that can be reused for other purposes.

This photo shows the wiper motor bolted up to the iron from the bumper. The wiper motor came from before 1992 when I left the Coast Auto Body shop.

These two pictures show the chuck and wiper motor bolted to the iron and me installing the drive chain.

Me installing the drive chain.

This is the unit completely assembled. I will try for more photos when I am testing the unit.

Presently we have currently made at least two Electro-Culture rods. We placed a long Filbert shaft after being barked with a draw knife, that I had spiraled with #12 copper, I think starting length was about six feet or so. I screwed the start to the bottom of the shaft, spiraled the copper about 1 inch part to the top where I added a screw where the wire turned up to a roughly 4-inch antenna. This Electro Culture rod we placed on the north side of a Walnut we purchased year before last, that has really been struggling.

Janice and I have done a little more research on Electro Culture since watching the first couple videos. Apparently according to some videos we have watched you don't have to have the wooden core. I would have thought it would assist in grounding the rod. But hey this is all totally new to me.

Just a quick side note we had placed an Electro culture rod by a red Chevron Rose Janice has had for a long time, it was doing poorly prior to placement of the Electro-culture rod. It had improved to the point that a deer passing through the place at night found all of the new growth, most just about gone.

DIFFICULT WINTER

Well this was definitely a winter to remember! We have lived in this home for going on 23 years and this  year we had more snow than we have seen here in all of the years added together. I was so very proud of both of our sons who came down and over to assist us in these troubled times. Both of them are men of great character.

Janice had let Sadie, our German Shepard out to potty before bed, and said Sadie went down the ramp and looked in the carport like something was there. Janice came and told me, so I got the flashlight and walked down to have a look. while down looking in the carport, I could hear a lot of cracking and crunching, then one really big crack. I turned and got Janice and Sadie back into the house. I told Janice that I thought we were going to loose the carport, and no sooner had we sat down than CRASH. The carport collapsed onto both of our vehicles.

This was the first look at the front of where the carport should have been.

This was the starting to dig out phase which took most of the first day.

This is the first look from the back side, you an see the carport resting on the jeep and the Truck.

Our tractor really got a work out moving all of the snow and roof parts around.

In this picture it appears as though the truck took most of the damage, it just looks like it from this picture.

Starting to make progress.

The snow is finally off the entire roof, now to start taking the roof off the vehicles a piece at a time.

Coming apart in pieces.

Making Progress!

This is an area at the from of the carport that got something shoved through the wall into a kitchen cupboard.

This is inside the kitchen cupboard where the hole was poked through.

This picture shows on spot that some of the support structure broke through the house into the master bed room.

This is inside the Master bedroom where part of the carport came through the wall

The Jeep dose not look too bad.....

Until you get closer.

or unless you look from the rear

The truck on the other hand really does not look good from any angle!

Not too bad from the back if you don't look for a cab

Left side definitely seen better days!

Hey, a little body putty, some paint no one will ever notice.

More to come at a later time!

WILD NEIGHBORHOOD

I was thinking that over the years we have included some very good times, but really nothing of our surrounding area. To state it simply, we live up one of the Coastal mountains, at roughly the 1500-foot elevation. By road it is 4.5 miles, according to Google Earth, the ocean is roughly two miles straight line distance. we have several neighbors of the human variety, and many of the wildlife variety. I was given copies of a couple pictures taken, and this is really just a guess, 500 yards from our house. the location of these neighbors is across a log narrow 10 acre piece that starts just behind us, it is 300 feet wide (I think) by how ever long. we hear the Cougars in that 10 acre piece a lot, but they hang mostly over by Frog Lake, roughly another 400 yards.

The above picture was taken 8-13-21 at 9:29.40 PM. this is a mother wearing the collar of a trouble animal. The reason the /cougars live here is due to an abundance of deer, the cougar's favorite food.

We also have Bear, Elk, Foxes (usually Grey) Bob Cats, Racoons, Opossum, Squirls, chipmunks, and a immanent other wild creatures. I lost a great Picture showing one cat climbing a tree about halfway to the first branch, actually I think the third predominant tree to the left side of the frame I believe was the tree.

This photo was takin by Janice , at any rate just some of the Elk on Grizzly Mountain, we have seen them as high as Frog lake and just up the road from us. we used to have deer come through our yard all of the time, in fact when we moved in we had two does raise twins here on our property, then the Bucks moved in. I was sitting by the sliding door looking out over the deck, and low and behold there were nine Bucks down on my driveway. I decided I would slip out the other slider (at that time we had two sliding doors) , any way I opened the other slider as quietly as I could and low and behold there were seven more bucks on the upper driveway. A total of sixteen buck deer from spikes to four by fours, and it was not even season. however they hung around for several years, and I was able to bag a good share. 

The above picture was taken during the next year, in this picture only the two yearlings are visible, but to be sure Momma is still around. Its funny really when we first moved into this place going on 23 years ago. we were having phone trouble and I was waiting out by the phone box for the repairman. when he arrived he just blabbered making no sense for several minutes. when he was finally able to speak he said excitedly Cougar, Cougar, I just saw a Cougar at the corner of your driveway. Strange that was the last time I saw that particular repairman. We had Goats for years, Babies every year, we have now switched to cows, well a cow and a steer she birthed. we have never had any bad thing happen with Cats and bears as neighbors, just saying!!!!

Oh, I forgot the Banded Tail Pigeons and the wild Turkeys!

LATE UPDATE

 I am finally getting around to updating our blog. I have been in the process of splitting my wood and metal shops up into two locations as to make working easier. I have a very long way to go as can be seen by the picture of the inside of my metal shop. I still have lots of stuff to move from one shop to the other including two roll away tool boxes.

One of the projects we completed was to get and install a hand pump on a well we had drilled some years ago. the well had water in it but not enough for an electric pump system. installing the pump was easy, and we in fact had to use it recently as our main well was out of commission for a couple days.

Another project that I am just starting on is replacing the deck on my cement mixer. The plywood has been rotting out so I picked up some expanded steel and angle iron. I will add bracing of the angle iron and then cut the expanded steel for the deck. I also need to change the set up of the engine drive system, that will take some thought.

I recently built a couple of grates for some drain boxes I put is when we first moved into this house. OK I am slow getting around to stuff, but the grates turned out well, probably because of the assistance of Jon, our youngest son.

We currently have some baby chicks and young Turkey poults in the stall in the barn. They are growing quickly, they were separated but when they started to fly over the barrier we had separating them, we removed the barrier and they seem to be happy campers. believe it or not there are three broad breasted bronze Turkey poults and thirteen chicks in that picture

Our cattle were enjoying the day in the sun so I had to take a picture. our cow is a registered dexter (standing up), an Irish breed, the red steer came with the cow when we bought her and the black steer was born the following year, Eddie the cow had already been bred.

QUICK NOTE

 Just a quick note to tell folks that I Really plan on some updates, very soon.

UPDATE FOR MAY 27, 2020 PROGRESS

We have made some progress on projects lately. got a new package of bees and got them into the hive. We checked on them yesterday and did not see the queen but we did see new larvae. I also went a round to the neighbors and assisted him in capturing a swarm of bees that landed in a tree on his property. we used another neighbors 32 foot extension ladder and with a lot of luck and the bravery of the neighbor got most of the bees. yeasterday he again went up into the tree to retrieve the rest of the bees. I have to admit that if it were up to me to go up that ladder, the bees would still be in the tree.

We, with the help of our eldest son made more progress on the new greenhouse. see new pictures at the bottom of the associated post.

Also we have been using electric fence to allow the cattle to graze more of our property, saves feed, and I don't have to weed eat.

Janice has been getting our garden going, working like a mad woman, and doing a great job.

Last but not least we had the metal building people come back and install a roll up door in the bottom end of the cows barn, I will try to get new pictures of that up soon. Eden the cow is making great headway getting used to Janice handling her, the little guy not so much, you can stand close just don't try to touch him.