If you haven’t experienced outdoor movie night at our house, here’s what it’s like. (Oh and there’s fabulous food and drink, of course.)
Prime time for this right now. The weather is great.
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Outdoor movie night
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013Closets
Friday, August 9th, 2013I’m finally back home…for good now. And I jumped back into construction full steam this week. (I have the sore shoulders and bruised shins to prove it.)
Today we designed and began to build my closet. That was exciting. Closets are one of the things that I’ve missed most in the past couple years.
Other than that, we’re mostly working on drywall now. Lots and lots of sanding, hence the sore shoulders.
In other news, the hedgerow and outdoor tomatoes have both outgrown their mini-hoop covering and have been set free. With all the rain we’ve gotten, everything is green and thriving, and the wildlife should have plenty to eat without getting into my garden. Still, we’re keeping an eye on everything!
The lovely sound of rain
Friday, July 5th, 2013The monsoons are in full force here, and we have had rain three times this week already. It is glorious. There really is no nicer time of year here. The clouds build over the day, and by evening or sometimes night, the sky erupts in a show of lightning fireworks and then opens up with rain.
The plants are all much happier with natural rain than piped in water, and things are growing like mad. The pumpkins are making pumpkins, and melons should be fruiting soon. With the slightly cooler temperatures, I’m hopeful for the tomatoes as well. (The plants are very healthy but no fruit setting in the heat.)
We have a busy summer this year. Yesterday was the annual Rodeo July 4 parade, which was a good one this year.
Next week, I’m heading off to a two-week summer writing institute. Then I have several trips from coast-to-coast for some really enjoyable work projects.
Between all that, we’re continuing work on the house. Some dry wall is going up, and we’re finishing the framing of some detail work (closets – yay!, the bar in the kitchen, etc.).
A dusting of snow
Thursday, February 21st, 2013We had a bit of snow last night. Most of it burned off by noon, though it’s still cold. It’s been a cold winter here, relatively speaking (lots of nights in the teens).
These are the garden beds, hoops blanketed with snow.
Gardenwise, my lettuce has been doing great, and broccoli is ready to eat. And all my starts (still inside) are progressing nicely.
We just got back from an organic farming conference in New Mexico. We learned a lot about cover crop, no till farming, recommended varieties for our area, year-round growing, and soil health.
We also recently finished our annual soup making sprint (fundraiser for our local fire and rescue). This year we made cauliflower cheese, garlic potato, potato leek, and cheddar beer. Yum!
Battens
Friday, December 14th, 2012After yesterday’s post, I went to do a little work on our dictionary and learned something new. Battens are long strips of wood or metal used to fasten something down, so yesterday battening our hatches was exactly what we did.
Last night, we got about 1/2 inch of rain, and there is snow in the canyon. The wind is blowing something fierce.
December 13
Thursday, December 13th, 2012For the gardening record, today was the day I finally brought in the last of the green tomatoes.
Just enough for a pint or so of green tomato salsa.
We spent most of the morning here battening down the hatches in preparation for a big storm that is approaching. The winds are blowing fiercely, and ominous clouds are amassing on the horizon.
Changing seasons
Monday, November 19th, 2012I am remiss in not writing (here at least) lately, but I have had a crazy travel schedule and am also (reluctantly) doing NaNoWriMo again this month.
While I’ve been not writing, the seasons have changed. Last week, we had temperatures of 25 or so at night. That, of course, meant the end of beans and melons. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are still hanging in there, as are the greens, which I hope will continue into the winter.
A couple weeks ago, we got a surprise gift of some strawberry plants from our friend Jerry. I didn’t know you could plant them in the fall, but apparently you can, so I put two of the new beds to that use. Perhaps we’ll have strawberries in the spring.
The frost last week meant it was time to dig up my sweet potatoes. I’d heard from someone that they don’t grow if you don’t have very loose soil, so I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be much to dig up. But look at this!
Almost 10 pounds. Very exciting. We will definitely grow these again next year.
And we are making progress on the doors for Virga. I’ll save that for another post.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Eat well, and enjoy your time with loved ones.
What we’re working on today
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012This morning, we planted rye in a new bed back in squashville and then mulched. Hopefully, next spring, we’ll have a big bed of garbanzos or soy beans or something else nice here.
Also, Brad is working on finishing the trench to get final electrical into Virga.
The nights and morning are getting quite cool here now, but the days are still sunny and quite warm
Flash flood
Friday, August 24th, 2012We’ve continued to have good rains here. Yesterday, we had a hard rain here in the early afternoon. We were planning to go to Douglas in the evening and saw some amazing thunderstorms on the way down.
Then we reached this.
I think this is what a flash flood looks like. This is a place between us and Douglas. I’d never seen water in this wash before this. There was another place that had a newly formed lake several acres big where a road used to be. Fortunately, it wasn’t the road we were driving on.
This week
Saturday, July 28th, 2012We finished the adobe wall in the back room. I think it came out great.
We also finally finished the last bit of stucco around the outside doors, and Brad dug lots of trenching and water into the house and sewer lines out. We have started prepping the big walls that will get adobe and will start on those next week.
The weather here has been lovely; monsoons are in full force with big storms rolling through almost every day. We don’t always get the rain here, but have had several long showers. The sprinklers on the outside garden beds have been off for a couple weeks, and as you can see, everything is thriving.
