crawlspace horror - part 2

jambaloney here!


it is STILL frigging winter!

** update - it is 2 weeks later and we are seeing brown - i can't believe this post lingered that long - but we HAVE been busy - my bad!!**

we have been busy with fundraising and i have been working part time so i haven't been back under the crawlspace recently, but here is what i did a few weeks ago - (only 5 more of these babies  to go)!!

i did crawlspace part 1 - and outlined the footers i made ... here is a completed one!

just need to seal the ends...

end cut - this stuff is like breathing radiation, but it DOES keep the pt lumber sealed!

oh ya - here is the sewer pipe, duct-taped to the gray water pipe, sitting on a rock...

sewer pipe sitting on a crap of railway tie..

rusty iron bar keeping gray water pipe from sagging.... YES i wil get back to fix this stuff!

here they are taped together - notice bike stuff?? haven't ridden since i have been here - THAT will change!!!

so here is a bottle jack on a temporary footer in the first spot i wanted to support.. right in the middle of the kitchen..

here are the shovels i used to flatten the ground in the crawl space..

i jacked up the railway tie and then put my footer on the flattened ground and jacked that up - sorry - no pic on that - it was cramped and i spaced that step... you want to put the jack in the final spot to compress the ground where the final support will live BEFORE you put it in place... otherwise it will just sag again.. this is a 4 ton jack - plenty strong enough!

here is the jack back in the temporary place and the permanent footing ready for support..

so i jacked it up really high... and measured..

then went a cut an appropriate length of tamarak

which i nuded in place

if you read my previous post, you will know that the railway ties have "turned" a bit, hence the gap..

which i shimmed with low-grade ceder shingles - you can get a ton at home depot for 10 bucks - not so great for roofing - but nice wide shims!

the last pic looked crooked - hey this is 12-15 inches or crawl space - i did use a level..

so here is the finished product and the jack off to the next spot..

special added bonus - i slammed out a shelf for the greenhouse that day.. from discarded stuff i got in large garbage pickup...

this is for big plants...

all done!!

spring is on it's way..

cheers all!

spring is in the air - woohoo!

brown! brown! we can finally see some brown - woohoo!

 

over the past few days there has been much melting and dripping! and we are finally seeing some ground. and because of the melting, jambaloney has finally been able to get to a job that has been driving him crazy since december.

 

 because the cold weather came on so quick in december, our bags of peat moss and dirt froze to the ground and as we didn't want to rip them, i told him to just leave them there until it thawed. but he would go out every single day and try and lift them up. but it was no go. they were frozen solid to the ground!

 

here he is all proud of himself finally getting those bags off the ground and into the greenhouse! this bag was still a little frozen...



but with much careful jiggling and wiggling, he finally succeeded.



i guess when you live out in the middle of nowhere, small victories can be found anywhere - bahahahah! but no, like i said, it has been driving him crazy all winter. plus we need the dirt and peat moss in the greenhouse all warmed-up, so that we can start sifting it all to get ready to start some cold-weather plants - woohoo! we'll be doing that this week. he is at work today, and was there yesterday as well, so for wednesday, thursday and friday we will be getting the greenhouse in order. plus on the weekend, i will be starting tomatoes and a few other things in the greenhouse in the house. i am so super excited - woohoo!

so kids, what do you do when you only have a little bit of rabbit stew left? well i'm glad that you asked. you add a little more broth, throw in some celery, add some frozen peas and corn and then dump that on a big hunk of buttered bread. don't forget the cranberries!



 so as you all know from the previous post - jambaloney went down to get some training on driving the fire-truck with our brother b on saturday morning. our brother is going to teach all of us, one at a time. and then we can all practice whenever we want. our brother b is in charge of keeping the truck in running order and good maintenance and jam is going to be his assistant.

we ran into a friend of ours, a, that we hadn't seen in well over a year. a and his wife d have a cottage up here. so we yakked for a while and then a went back to his cottage. when i got home i called because i wanted to leave a message for him and his wife to remember to come to our benefit dance for our friend r on april 5. i thought they had already left and headed back to town but they were still at the cottage. i talked to d for a bit - she's a hoot, she is! i can't wait to see them at the dance. but this next pic is for her.

that's Frankie Blue Eyes on a box IN a hamper! jam had just hung up the laundry in our computer room and needed to get that box out of the way to do so. so he put the box in the hamper and 2 seconds later - there's Frankie Blue Eyes!!! now we can't move the box or the hamper until he finds his next little favourite place!

so continuing on, saturday night was our St. Patrick's Day Dance at our community centre. there was only about 20 of us there but when you have the exact right mix of people, all of whom are in the mood to party - well, a fun time will be had! we had an absolute blast! we were all dancing and singing and yakking and we didn't close the place down until the wee hours of the morning. we had such a good time!

i am soooo looking forward to the benefit dance that we will have on april 5 for our friends r and d! the gifts and donations just keep coming in and there will be awesome door-prizes, a big huge goodie basket, and maybe even some silent auctions. it is going to be a huge success and it is going to be fun!

anyway, i'll leave off with a pic of the moon this morning. sorry for such a blurry pic, but i just thought it was gorgeous!

off now to catch up on some blog reading!

 

FIRE TRUCK!

isn't she a beauty? that's our new fire truck that our friend s found for us. and that's jambaloney in the driver's seat and my brother b in the passenger's seat!

now kids, you all must remember that jambaloney has the driving experience of a 17yr old. and he has never driven a standard. NEVER. and this truck has air brakes.

we went down to the hall this morning for jamie to get training on the truck. our brother b is the only person who can back any of our trucks into our halls - he's a master at all different kinds of fire trucks! and he was going to teach jambaloney.

so we go down and figure that our brother b will drive, with jam in the passenger's seat, and he will explain what he is doing and why. no way jose! our brother b put jam in the driver's seat right off the bat and said "you can do it buddy. you can do it".

when i went out to take the pic i couldn't believe jam was in the driver's seat. he has the driving experience of a 17yr old and has never driven a standard. or used air brakes!!!! but our brother believes in hands-on training and he encouraged jam the whole time. our brother b had jam drive the truck about a kilometer up the road, all the while explaining different stuff, getting him to shift different gears and whatnot, and then when they got to our neighbour r's house, b had jam pull in to their gawd-awful driveway. then b got in the driver's seat to back the truck out.

they came back to the hall...me and s were so super impressed that jam had driven the truck. his nerves were shot - remember he has the driving experience of a 17yr old and HAS NEVER DRIVEN A STANDARD.

we thought we were done for the day. but oh no. b had him back in the truck going the other way this time, took him to our church which has a big parking lot, made him turn in, turn around, back up and then drive back out. then jam drove the truck back to the hall. our brother b made him back into the drive of the hall and said he did a really good job. even though the truck was a little sideways. but our other brother d told me earlier that THE ONLY person who could back our firetrucks into the hall was b. our brother d said he couldn't and neither could our other brother d. only b could do it.

so jam got out of the truck to much acclaim from our friend s who gave him a big hug and told him he did real good. so did everyone else.

but it was because of our brother b's calming attitude and manner of teaching that jam did so well.

do i sound proud? it's because i am. i am really, really proud of bringing that city boy here who had never even driven a vehicle until he was 45 and that was only to get us here. and now he is learning how to drive a big, giant firetruck with air brakes.

ugh. i am getting teary. could be from the onions i was just cutting. could be just because i am so proud of him. i am so freakin proud of him.

( a big thanks to my brother b. he has such a compassionate manner about him, he never looks down on anyone, he never judges, he just encourages. and he made me proud of him, too. and i thank him from the bottom of my heart for making my jamby comfortable enough to try and do this. thank you b)

it's been a long couple of weeks...this post doesn't even have any pics!

where to start? well, how about 13 weeks of chase the ace over the winter. having to be out in public every friday night for that whole time. ok - to be honest - we missed 3 fridays due to being snowed in. but heck - we don't like leaving our little mountain top. once a month is good for us. even though we really do love seeing our friends every week!

now we are involved in a benefit dance for dear friends of ours and we were honoured that we were asked to be included. and be in charge of all of the money and document all of the donations. and keep track of the dance tickets and the raffle tickets. and we had to join "the facebook" - something we got rid of back in the city.

it's a lot of computer time during the day and computer time since we got here is just checking out our favourite blogs and putting up our own posts on our blog when we feel like it. both of us have spent several years of our lives carrying blackberries, work cellphones and being on call. when we came here we wanted to ditch all of that. our regular home phone is in the room that is in the farthest end of our house and if we don't hear the phone ring...and don't discover a message on the phone for 3 days - oh well. that all changed when we got a beeper for our VFD. now that thing is with us all the time. thank goodness it doesn't go off too much.

i know that most of you have full-time jobs and cellphones to keep in touch with children and whatnot...but we retired here...because we could. we live on a small, fixed pension, grow a ton of our own food, and live according to our means. and we are happy that way. but this past several months of chase the ace every week, which has just started up again, and with all of the work that we need to start doing to get our seeds going and getting cold weather crops started in the greenhouse soon...well, it's all a little much. please don't think that we are complaining. we love our community and we love being so accepted...but last monday we were in to the city for an appointment, jam had IT contract work on tuesday and wednesday, wednesday night was our VFD meeting, tonight we were setting up the hall for the dance tomorrow, tomorrow during the day our brother B is teaching us all about the new truck that our VFD just bought and tomorrow night is the dance.

we are so looking forward to learning about the new truck tomorrow, sooo looking forward to the dance and we are soooo glad that the community asked us to take care of collecting the monies, gifts and donations for our friend. but man, we are tired.

the man crashed at 10pm. he emptied our freezer to defrost it today and i documented all of our meat. we definitely have a year's worth of meat and that is not counting all of the frozen veg from our garden and frozen local fruit that we picked last summer. i won't even talk about the preps in our pantry - beans, rice, chickpeas, flour, sugar, powdered milk, apple cider vinegar and a ton of canned stuff. we are way over a year's worth. that tired me out today because it took such a load off of my mind. i feel safe.

i feel like we are in a community that loves us and accepts us. we're going tomorrow and our brother b is going to teach us all about the new truck. the hall is set up and decorated for our dance tomorrow night - it will be a blast cuz my besty c will be there - we'll dance up a storm. out benefit dance for our friend will be a success.

i'm just a little tired is all. i'll go read your blogs till i can't keep my eyes open any longer. sorry for all the blathering. i just got a million things on my mind and have to stay on top of all of them. thanks my friends.

more snow, a deluge and a fantastic brother who gave us wild rabbit - YUMMEH!

yesterday it snowed. ALL. DAY. LONG.

it was still snowing when the sun went down.

today we are experiencing a deluge, the likes of which haven't been seen since biblical times! but that's awesome as it's warm out and the rain is washing away most of the snow - woohoo! jam and i were sitting at the kitchen table the other morning and he said "brown. i just want to see brown". i said "whaaaaa" like my besty b says...i just can't say it as awesome as he does! then jam explained that he is sick of seeing so much white and for so long. we don't normally get snow until january, and then it stays and goes, stays and goes until about mid-march. but this year, we got snow in december and it has kind of stayed around. a lot. so this deluge is a good thing as we will finally see some brown.

now on to the best part of my post! our brother d snares wild rabbits. his wife has made us several rabbit meatpies and they were deeeelish. but then our brother asked us if we wanted some wild rabbits because he has a freezer full of them. can you believe asking us a question like that?!?!?!?!? i jumped all over him and hugged and kissed him, told him i would love him forever and give him all 3 of our cats if he would give us a wild rabbit. that he snared. this year!

he gave us four wild rabbits!!! i couldn't believe it! i haven't had proper braised rabbit or rabbit stew in a million years! we took those rabbits home and i defrosted 2 of them. our wild rabbits aren't huge but they make for a decent supper and a lunch the next day - unless you haven't had wild rabbit in a million years. then you stuff your face on it. like we did.

i now present the braised wild rabbit going into the roaster to roast in juices (homemade stock, not pictured) below:

for our first meal, i wanted a simple braised rabbit. i sauteed some onion, carrot and celery to provide flavour, braised the rabbit on all sides, put the veg and the rabbit in the roaster, filled the roaster about 1/3 of the way up the rabbit and roasted that baby for 3 and a half hours. when we took it out, the meat simply fell off the bones! i served it up with wild rice with mushroom and cranberries (from our own land. yes, Sue, from our own land!)

have a gander:

i would love to say that we used the fancy plates with fancy napkins and other fancy things - but we just dove in to the platter! and the platter looked like this in about 15 minutes:

it was probably the best tasting wild rabbit i have ever had in my life. except for the next rabbit that we made the next day. we were wild rabbit crazy! but since neither of us have had access to wild rabbit in so many years, we just had to have rabbit stew the next day!

i browned this rabbit on all sides and then put it in the crockpot for 4 hours with homemade broth. then i dumped all of the pieces of rabbit and stock into a big pot and added our own homegrown potatoes and carrots. we ate the whole thing!!!!

we still had 2 more wild rabbits in our freezer, when, at the VFD meeting last night, our brother d tells us he has 4 more wild rabbits for us. can you believe this? this is free food....and not only free, but really healthy and local! there is nothing that we could eat that could be more healthy for us!

here's a pic of the next 4 wild rabbits that our brother gave us.

have you ever seen cleaner, packaged meat? our brother isn't only an expert in snaring the wild rabbits, he is an expert in cleaning and preparing them.

what more can i say than that we are gonna stuff our faces with more wild rabbit this evening. probably tomorrow evening too. you can never have too much of a good thing!

for all of our prepper friends out there - ya, we know how lucky we are. pretty much all of our brothers and neighbours know how to hunt and fish - there will be plenty of food to be had around here if SHTF. we've got enough seeds to grow more food than you can shake a stick at, and the protein, be it fowl, fish, deer or wild rabbit, is plentiful!  i'm telling you all to git yer butts up here!

now i am off to go cook another wild rabbit. yummeh!

(a big giant thanks to our brother d. a big giant thanks!)

march

yep. it's march. we haven't been hit as bad as some areas of north america, but it has been much colder and we have gotten way more snow than usual!



we also had a january and february with unusually-long stretches of gray, gray days. but we've also had some really sunny days, too, thank goodness! i am ready for march to be over because then i can start using the greenhouse to start cold weather crops - woohoo! more on how the greenhouse will be used for this year's planting will come in future posts. for now, i just sit with my buckets of seeds, sort them, re-sort them, plan the rotation of starting seeds in the house, moving them to the greenhouse in a hotbox, then moving them onto the shelves in the greenhouse, then finally putting the plants in the ground.

the tomatoes will be started super-early this year and kept in the house in a grow-light contraption that jambaloney will make this weekend. the tomatoes will stay in the house, and after a few weeks, they'll be potted and put out in the greenhouse. i will keep them there flourishing and will not put them in the ground until the first week of june. by that time they'll already be flowering which means we'll have tomatoes by july - woohoo!

the peppers will live in the greenhouse all summer and then be brought back in the house to overwinter. here is one shelf of peppers that we tried to overwinter to see what would happen. have a look.

we actually have 2 shelves of these peppers for a total of 12 pepper plants that survived the winter! in the pic above you can see a red pepper and a green pepper!  the peppers certainly didn't thrive, but they didn't die and some of them continued to flower and produce a few extra peppers! have a look at how thick the stalks are becoming.

they are becoming like little trees! and did you notice the buds? there's more buds on this one below.

 they will be re-potted into much bigger pots in the next month or so...we are just waiting for the days to get longer so that we can put them on the plastic-wrapped porch during the day (it's like a greenhouse out there!) and then bring the pots in the house at night. we won't put the peppers out into the actual greenhouse until we are certain that we will have frost free nights.

my question is: HAS ANYONE EVER DONE THIS BEFORE? overwintered peppers? if these plants keep growing and producing there will be no need to start from seeds or am i getting something wrong here? and if you can overwinter peppers then why not tomatoes? i am just terribly excited about all of this year's gardening adventures.

anyway, here's a good way to use up some peppers - stir-fried onions, peppers, avocado and a greek yoghurt/cucumber/garlic/dehydrated green onion spread. yummeh!

our community has been very busy this week, meeting up, getting donations, contacting businesses, selling tickets - and we just know that this benefit dance for our friend will be a huge success! we have a great community of people, none of whom are rich in money, but very rich in giving of their time and energy to help each other out. we feel blessed to be a part of it.

i'll leave you off with a beautiful sunset.

jambaloney is at LobstersRUs today working his magic and i am figuring out what to make the poor guy for supper. as well as the usual petting cats, kissing cats, cat taxis, regular cleaning up duties...all that boring stuff. but i will stop in from time to time and check out your blogs. i am at least a week behind in reading and commenting on some of them, but that is only because we have spent the last week doing so much running around. i'll get to your blogs to be sure!

a busy week and a half! and sexy seed porn - seed enviers - avert your eyes!

did you ever have one of those weeks where you were so busy that you can't even remember what kept you so busy? well that was last week for me...i know i was run off my feet but i just can't remember why!!!

this week, i can certainly remember why i was so busy. more on that later, here's a beautiful sunset:

 

 it was such a beautiful sunset but we had to look at it through the window - it must have been -100degreesC out there! brrrr! but it looks like our cold season is slowly going away and that is always a good thing! but when it's this cold outside, you want comfort food. i had done a roast in the crockpot and made the corresponding veg to go with it - and didn't get a pic! but the next night, we had hot, roast beef sandwiches on bread with bean salad - nothing like comfort food eh?



the bean salad was left over from the day before, and the recipe is up on our recipe blog if anyone is interested.






we played chase the ace on friday and my besty c had the winning ticket - but on behalf of someone else. so, when she chose the card, guess who picked the ace and now has a hit out on her - bahahahahah! she chose the ace! the winner received over $1200 and our halls each received a little over $900 each - woohoo! so we will be starting "chase the ace" up again on the 14th of march. it is an excellent way to raise money for our halls.

 some sad news - a member of our close community and family was just diagnosed with esophageal cancer and will need many treatments into our city, and down to halifax. his family is on a fixed income and the travel costs are going to be tremendous. so we are holding a benefit dance for him on april 5. our vfd is also holding one of our games of bingo for him and his family this sunday. our friend r has worked at the bar at every one of our dances since we have moved here 4 yrs ago. he always has a smile and everyone always gets a "good" drink from him at the bar. all of our friends have banned together and we are in constant communication about getting tickets and posters ready, getting the word out to everyone in our other communities, getting donations from businesses and we hope that this benefit dance will be a huge success!

AND - and here's a big AND - G & C will be coming up from the mainland for the dance - woohoo! we love g &c and we love seeing them. we can't wait for them to move here and we are hoping that we can successfully kidnap them, lock them in their own basement and keep them here, this time, forever. 

last up, for all of you seed lovers, i am giving you a chance to close this page now. what is coming next is like a Spoiler Alert in movie reviews.

LEAVE NOW.

teehee. i haven't ordered many seeds this year because we have been practicing the fine art of seed saving for years. we have all of the usual suspects - pepper seeds, tomatoe seed, potatoe seeds, cucumber, zuchini, squash, cabbage, lettuce, beans, peas, and every herb known to man. so this set of seeds are what i call my "sexy seeds". have yourselves a gander:

ya, you might not think that sorrel is sexy but once i plant that - it will spread and spread. and it will grow anywhere so it doesn't even get a bed or a tire. you just have to admit that growing eucalyptus is pretty darn sexy. come on now. THAT's sexy!

off for now. we got a whole pile of stuff to do tomorrow and over the weekend for the benefit dance - plus we are having a night out with our besties c &b on friday night - woohoo. i need to go make some supper for the man who has been at LobstersRUs the past 2 days - then i'll hit up your blogs! laters gaters!