Kitchen Counter Top - Check!

We ate breakfast on the completed kitchen counter top last week. Yee Haw! OK, so the sink is not quite hooked up, but that is nothing that a bucket under the sink can't fix.

Thank you Overstock.com for the cool stools.

Tile placement gets creative when you don't want to haul out the tile saw again.

It's like a greywater system, kinda.

Yeah, there's some painting that needs to be done, but hey, we can do that in our sleep!

Snow, Mud and Poopcicles

We had a goodly amount of snow at the homestead near the end of December. Then we had Chinook winds that melted a lot of the snow. Then we had the roof of the barn blow off  from the Chinook winds, and other parts cave in. Then we had mud. Dakota (MegaHoof to his friends) left enormous piles of poop in the month that we were absent. These provided extra nutrition and entertainment for the dogs. Uck. It was a messy visit.

Well preserved by the cold.

No, my name has not just been yelled for the 14th time so I'll stay away from the poopcicles. I always slink like this.

I DO NOT have something hidden under my paw. You are so suspicious.

I am no mud expert, but this mud seems particularly finely textured. The is the bit that froze onto the sole of my boot.

And then there is the barn. We waited for the wind to die down before collecting the sheets of tin roofing in the hope that we could keep our heads attached to our bodies a bit longer.

Here's hoping there may be some insurance money in our future! (Hey, I can dream.)

Redneck Entertainment Center

Supplies and Instructions for the Redneck Entertainment Center:
One disassembled wood stove crate
Assorted 2x4s
Screws
Cardboard (to keep the wood debris out of the TV vent slots)
One very handy redneck, preferably hairy and/or a Ginger

Assemble at will.
Stand back and smile.
Fill with stuff.

In Permaculture, this is called 'stacking functions'.

Morso Wood Stoves Rock!

So finally, the wood stove is in, and what a heatin' machine it is! Yes, it is smaller and more oddly shaped than most, but it fires up quickly and is very responsive to added fuel.

The first fire!

Luckily, the hassle of getting the correct pieces of the stovepipe has faded, and now we just enjoy it. We even cooked eggs on it!

So here is a series of photos showing the hearth and heat shield construction and the final stove business.

First, the inspection.

The Durock used as a heat shield and the metal spacers to allow air flow behind it.

Mikey securing the Durock.

The theory is that air flow behind the heat shield will allow excessive heat to dissipate and not set the wall on fire.

We agreed to keep the cost WAY down by using only tiles from The ReStore, Craig's List or leftovers from our own projects.

Attaching the adaptor.

Almost there...

Hearth trim installed and everything! (Note the charred log that I tried to force in. Oops.)

Chillin'!

Death Comes To The Ponds

Last Sunday Mike made a sad discovery on our regular trip down to the ponds. A young coyote drowned at the edge of the largest pond. The poor thing looked like it had walked into the water and gotten stuck. He/she was in a standing position with head bent as if looking at something on the floor of the pond. That is probably not what happened, but it was in an eerily lifelike position.

I know coyotes lure and kill small pets from the safety of their homes, and I'm sad about that. But I also grieve for this young one who died alone in the cold water. Rest easy, little one.

At the bottom of the page is a photo that I know not everyone will want to see. If you choose to look at it, please say a prayer for this little soul. Thanks.

Epoxy Grout and I Are Not Friends

Firstly, (is that a word), I had the pleasure of buying 21 bales of straw in Penrose on Friday on my way down to Cañon. Why 21 bales? Because that's how many the clever fellows at the feed store could get in the truck.

Supposedly, some of this straw is barley straw from what Coors Brewery uses.

This configuration didn't even require tying down. Cool!

These bales were much lighter than our last batch, which required 2 people to lug. When the wind stops blowing like crazy, we'll open these up and spread them out in the dog yard to keep the mud tracking down.

Secondly, I painted the legs of the countertop on Saturday. (Mikey was at the Air Force game.) Despite being a different color than we had agreed on, they look fine, and most importantly, are no long lumber colored.

All that is left to do are the tile and sink. And hook up the gas stove. And put up the range hood. And the wall shelves. Oh joy.

The real reason I went down to see 'Dwight' was to grout the hearth and heat shield in preparation for the stove. Despite the fact that it has been 8 or 9 years since I grouted anything larger than a side table, I assumed it would be like riding a bicycle. And I suppose that is accurate for me. The last time I rode a bicycle, I fell off.

I bought epoxy grout because it never has to be sealed, and it comes in a cute little bucket because of its minimal mixing requirements. I should have done some research beforehand. It was not a pleasant experience. It was very hard to mix, and very, very hard to spread. Maybe if the spreader is a guy, it is not a problem. But I worked up a sweat just trying to get this mess of black, stiff marshmallow fluff textured stuff to go where I wanted it to. With regular cement based grout, you can use more water or a wet sponge to move it to the texture you need. But not this stuff. Never again. The best thing I can say is, "It is finished." Alleluia.

I ran out of epoxy grout for the last bit, and used regular grout. I don't think it is noticeable.

Now it is Mikey's turn to add trim to the edge of the hearth. As Daddy used to say, "Everybody gets a turn."

Did I mention that the whole hearth/heat shield is weird colored because we bought all the tile at the ReStore? We limited ourselves to what we had on hand, and what they had there at the store. YAY! C'est Fini!

Mikey's Trash Documentation

The PO (Previous Owner) left us an amazing mess. Both Mike and our wonderful realtor, Trish, said that we should hold back a couple of thousand dollars at closing to make sure he cleaned the place up to our satisfaction. But I said, "Oh, no! He really needs the money! If we hold back money as leverage to get him to do the clean up, that's the same thing as saying we don't trust him to uphold his word. He'll be living right down the road from us, and he won't want to be known for breaking promises - this is too small a town! I'm SURE he'll clean it all up."

The day of closing, it was raining hard to beat the band. When he came into the title company office, he was soaked to the skin, which just reinforced my belief that he would work tirelessly through rain and wind to make the place free of crap, just as he had promised they would.

Yeah, right.

 Mikey wanted to be sure that we documented at least the big stuff, so that if we had a giant dumpster dropped off, we could legitimately send him the bill. 

Most of this is stuff we brought up from the ponds. This is the size of the pile after the scrap metal was removed.

Hey! Rotted and broken doors! We could use those for something!  NOT.

Scrap metal and warped boards. I always need these, don't you?

Roofing from the now firewooded "cabin".

Really, can you ever have too many broken pallets?

The frame of a former something.

Pieces of a former something.

Oh, look! Tires!

A nice view of the pond garbage pile.

I always like to fill the erosion spots on my property with old mattresses and sheet foam.

Let's just not think about this too much.

Former location of The Shed That Blew Away.

This is the shed that DIDN"T blow away, and some of the stuff that fell out of the shed that DID blow away.

Pallets, roofing, OSB.

Roofing? Flooring? Doesn't Belonging?

A nice addition to the woods.

Pallets, vinyl flooring, carpet scraps.

When we said that we wanted him to come and clean up the rest of the junk, he looked perplexed.

What junk?

The Mutant Horse Thingy

How did this not get published back when I wrote it? Oh well, here it is.

Last, last weekend, Mikey and I were walking back from the ponds, and came across some GIANT hoof prints. (Mikey is always the one who notices the footprints. Is this a harkening back to his Boy Sprout days?)

As there is a fence between our neighbor's property and our own, we knew it could not be one of their horses. We were perplexed. I postulated that it was from a giant mutant horse thingy, but from whence did it come? There is really no other access to our weird little piece of land. Well, not that a giant mutant horse thingy could get through.

OK, so you really can't tell how big this is, but it was BIG!

 I decided to call it/him/her MEGAHOOF. (The name reminds me of that awful cartoon show Austin used to watch on the Internet. What was that called? With the heavy metal band characters?) (Evidently, it is Parentheses Day here.)

All you horse people out there - look at the depth of the frog!

Now you REALLY have something to compare it to! That's Mikey's mitt!

We walked a little further (farther? Any English majors out there?) And that is when we came across The Pile of MegaPoop. Holy crap. (Pardon the pun.) This is the biggest pile of poo I've seen out side of the elephant corral at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Unfamiliar with equine excrement? Then you'll just have to trust me that this is one, big pile o' fertilizer.

So it turns out that the fence is down and we had visitors. (I love horsey visitors!) His name is Dakota and he is a black Percheron. He travels exclusively with a donkey named Kong. (Get it?) And they love our property. One of them dragged one of the straw bales we used to insulate the water line off the top of the cistern, and mushed it around for potential yummies.

Kong is on the left - that's his little spotted hiney. Dakota is the big guy on the right. Pardon the terrible photo - the dogs barking spooked them off to a blurry distance.

Later that weekend, we saw the whole herd - about 8 (?) - hauling ass across their land toward the barn. It was SO COOL!!!