August 28, 2018 Random Thoughts: Permitted Uses

Dealing with Washington County is a process of confusion, delay, and confounding of plans. The employees at the County are always cheerful, always helpful, but at the same time they are slaves to the process and can't do very much for you. They answer specific questions specifically, but general questions are impossible for them to handle. I have been trying to get some sort of traction on the building permits thing, but the whole process is Byzantine, to say the least.

To build a house is simple. To get permission to build a house is not. The cost of permit applications is relatively low, but the number of permits is relatively high. Electrical, Plumbing, Septic, and building permits are all required. Land use actions, site evaluations, and the people required to provide data used for these decisions are expensive, time consuming, and hard to find.

I have had one County person out to authorize the repair of my septic system. He was very helpful, but the resulting letter needed for me to get a repair permit is weeks in coming, so the septic system permit awaits a letter.

I have a temporary electrical service permit which allows electricity to our tiny home cabin. I never got a permit for the cabin since I think of it as a type of RV and I figured I'd be building once I got the money to do so. Since the County probably won't agree with my living in the house this will eventually give us trouble. The eventual nature of the trouble means that beginning to build, sooner rather than later, might keep our plans in place. But this doesn't seem to be happening so our plans might be rendered moot by the law.

The hang up is in getting surveys and plans, as well as in getting through the County process.

We are allowed to build a house, this is certain; but when we will be allowed is not certain at all, at this point in time. The process is something akin to the bank loan process where it seems that need  complicates things. In a bank loan: the requirement is that you really don't need the money. In a legal house building process: the requirement seems to be that you already have a legal house. Right now I have an illegal house, so the project may have an expiration date which is fast approaching.

Today I looked at rental housing in the area, just in case I have to close up our tiny home until we can build a house to live in. We might be able to buy a legally built trailer to live in while we build, but the County isn't saying anything at this point so all is uncertain.

Yet more delay and expense on the road to building the plan we all agree ought to be built.

August 26, 2018 The Aftermath

Yesterday was far too busy to take pictures, way too busy to write anything down.

The Summer Supper Party was a complete success, with a few provisions. These come first:
I am sorry that I didn't have time to invite all of those people that I would have invited, had there been time. A few special people, family and friends, didn't get their invitation because there wasn't enough time to go out and deliver them in person. My own Mother wanted to come, but there wasn't any way to do it. I am deeply sorry that these important people didn't get to be here. They missed out on a good thing and I owe them one (at least one). But the good thing is the thing, so here is the story.

To begin:
We spent weeks planning this. Weeks were spent building the place to have it. Weeks of hard work went into preparing the place and the plan. . . And, yesterday, it all came together in a spectacular way.

We woke up early to begin cooking all of the food we had spent the previous three days collecting. The amount of food was something of a surprise to us and cooking for this many people in our tiny home kitchen was a challenge all on its own. The number of people we would have to feed was something of a mystery until the Friday, when the RSVPs finally began to roll in.

On Tuesday the number of people committed to coming was twelve. This would have been a disappointing number, but we would have taken it and moved on. . . By Thursday the number had hit a very respectable twenty-six committed to attend. . .  We expected about twenty percent more would simply show up un-announced, and that would have been something near forty (so I went out to rent tables and chairs on Friday). . . On Friday the number of people committed to come to our first Summer Supper had grown a bit. In the end we had over fifty people. We had enough chairs, tables, and space for all of them. But they were coming to be fed, so this was a big thing.

Ann and I spent the entire day cooking, chopping, and otherwise preparing for fifty people. Our plan was to err on the side of generosity, but not knowing exactly how to feed such a large group was a constant worry.

The menu was to serve a Comprise salad, with tomatoes, basil, spinach,olive oil and feta cheese; backed up by shrimp and Chicken skewers, with bread; a dessert of strawberry shortcake, blackberry cobble, and apple crisp; backed up by lemonade, iced tea, beer, and pop. Enough food to feed an army is was what we built on our six foot tiny home counter. How to move the food around took a long time to figure out. And in the end we over-served everyone we could.

I built a greenhouse frame and covered it with shade cloth.
Then lit it with 1100 twinkle lights.
The sun never came, but a light rain did.
No-one were hurt by it.

Guest began arriving at two P.M. instead of the appointed hour (at four). This was a good thing since I needed help finishing the preparations in the outdoor serving area I had built for the occasion. They helped me secure the table cloths and bring things out from the house. The bulk of the crowd came around four o'clock and simply greeting them all, while trying to have conversations with those recently arrived, was a challenge. Before five everyone had come and we began the final push to bringing out the food. Since the drinks were all in place before the people started coming, the crowd milled around while waiting for dinner to show up. Needless to say, Ann and I were quite busy showing people around and trying to keep people from becoming bored. Supper began at around  five thirty. Ann enlisted some help to bring it all out, while I began finishing our pre-cooked meat skewers on a charcoal grill.

By the time I finished cooking, most everyone had eaten their fill. (In fact: Ann and I didn't eat much at all because there wasn't time, and the food had mostly run out. We ate egg salad sandwiches around nine and never got a spoonful of the desserts.)

People began abandoning the party as a gentle rain started at six-thirty. A few had left prior to this, owing to family obligations and the like, but by seven-thirty almost everyone had left. We sat around talking with a few guests until nine o'clock. For us this was a complete success. Again with a few provisions.

• One of our desserts had taken a tumble as Ann went to check on it. The Blackberry Cobbler spilled over the front of the oven and this will have to be taken apart to get the thing clean.
• We bought entirely too much beer. This will have to be used up prior to the New Year.
• We will have to find some way to get rid of the extra food.
• And there is the problem of cleaning up, though this isn't the biggest problem since the place isn't that messed up.

In the end we are very happy about the whole thing and plan on doing it again next year. For the people who came we are very grateful. To the people we missed we are very sorry. For the people who brought gifts we are thankful. For the time we spent in doing this we are glad.

And very glad to be done with the whole thing.

---

Someone took a few pictures:

August 24, 2018 The Stage is Set

The Tent is built. 

The lights are on.

The food is bought.

The guests invited. 

The stage is set for our first Summer Supper Party.

 

 

The view from Sell Road.

August 21, 2018 On the Right Track

This morning shows us that some of what we're doing makes sense.

• The peppers are popping. We have both mild and hot Jalapeno, and the Poblanos were delicious as chili rellenos.  
• Tomatoes look good. We are picking yellow pears, San Maranzanos (roma), Super Bush, and a good canning tomato. 
• Cucumbers abound, both slicing and pickling. 
• A few Zucchini show up now and then. 
• Bush beans are becoming a nice harvest. 
• Pole Peas are ripe and sweet. 
• And the Strawberries are out of season but still producing.

The experiment is becoming a success,
though not yet in quantities worthy of a produce stand.
Perhaps later in the year.

August 9, 2018 Random thoughts: A Typical Farm Day

There is a great deal of things to do at the Farm every day. So many, in truth, that there is literally no way to get to ten percent of the chores available each and every day. And this might sound daunting. But today was a typical day:

• Wake up at five thirty and lay around having coffee in bed until six or so.
• Because you have no alarm clock but do have roosters
• Lay in bed for a few minutes and enjoy the morning coffee without television news, staring out the window as the sun comes into the upper branches, and listen to the animals as they wake up to start their day.
• Get up and eat breakfast (enough to get you to eleven thirty). 
• We don't worry about the calories, there will not be enough to cover the number burned at work.
• This is when you plan the day. (The plan that will eventually fail.)
• Feed all of the animals.
• Walk through the Garden weeding, and stomping on anything that looks wrong.
• Allowing enough time to love each and every plant.
• Allow enough time to recognize how absolutely lovely it is to work in the dirt at eight in the morning.
• Pick anything that looks ripe and eat some of it right then and there.
• Weed as many garden rows as possible until about ten o'clock.
• You will never get done with the job of weeding.
• Begin the first list project. 
• We keep un-prioritized lists of thing we want to get done. Each thing is a part of the bigger picture. Some things are simply trying to keep things from back-sliding, such as tractor weeding large areas. Others are part of some future goal, like getting parts for a new fence or greenhouse, or building a fence or greenhouse.
• Finish the first list project at about eleven-thirty and then it is lunch time.
• Have a nice lunch, eat something grown and picked today.
• Do some part of the second list project. (Yesterday it was ripping out most of the weeds along the front fence of the Farm using the Tractor while Heide Hay cut berries off of the fence. 
• She ate a whole lot of fresh blackberries as she went along. 
• Today it was to begin cleaning up all of the debris piles I made yesterday ripping out the weeds all along the front fence of the Farm.
• Finish this list item before three, because it is going to get radically hotter at three and only a fool is out under the sun after that.
• Do something off of the household maintenance list: groceries, car maintenance, etc . . .).
• Drinks on the Veranda at about five.
• At about six have supper.
• As the sun finally begins to calm down, do something for our selves or for the animals. 
• Yesterday we washed all of the dogs. 
• Today we set up a new pool for our own use in the late Summer.
• At eight, begin bathing for bed.
• At eight thirty go to bed happy to have had such a lovely day, doing what we want to do, where we want to do it.

If you do the entire day with Zen-like attitude, knowing that nothing is ever started or finished, knowing that nothing you do will make any future difference (so you might as well be happy right now); knowing that there are a great many people in the world who would trade their entire lives for the chance to do what we are doing every day (and are too afraid to let go of the safety they think they have in their jobs or retirement accounts), and being grateful for all of it; then you have done something right, if not well, if not to completion, and done no wrong.

A typical day at the Farm is not typical in a manner that most people will understand. Each day brings now challenges, new things to do, new risks and new rewards. A typical day is distinctly a-typical in the conventional sense of the word. But this is what we try to do every day. We keep the vision of the future in front of us, love the moment we are living right now, and accept whatever come of it gladly. Tomorrow will take care of itself, just as it has always done.

Few people get to say things like this, most never even try because they are too busy believing some lie that some other person has told them. Almost all are putting off the momentary happiness of the right now for the long termed happiness of the some day, when there will be time to be happy.

August 2, 2018 We Bought a Flock

We got an opportunity to buy a 21 bird Orpinton flock from the Hsu (pronounced shu) family farm, so now we have 32 hens and two large roosters. Five of the hens are Rhode Island Reds, the balance is all the larger Orpingtons.

Chicken politics: They stick together by order of age and rank.
There is definitely a "pecking order".

The big coop, built in May, holds thirty birds.
We now have thirty-two.
But eight of them are still living in the broody coop.

With this amount of hens we now have about a dozen free range / organically grown eggs per day. This is enough to sell, but not enough to be profitable. The egg business is not intended to be profitable. Much as with many of our crops it is intended only to break even and pay for itself in free food and for free factors for other things made with eggs. Self sufficiency is not only about profit, it is about non-dependency.

Eventually these hens will provide offspring to replace the birds which age out and become meat for the table. We expect that the hens will last about a year or so before failing to produce enough eggs to earn their place in the coop; but we have no mechanism in place to track them at present, so all are safe for now.

We have had three fights for dominance so far. Two were between Rhoda, our Rhode Island Red, and one of the new older hens. The other was between Goldie, our Wyandote hen and another of the new girls. The third was a classic "cock fight" between the two Orpington roosters (Biff Buff, and Rodger: the new guy). I think Rodger won, but it is hard to tell. Ms. Hsu worried that the roosters might try to kill each other, and this might happen (only time will tell). But I have seen flocks with more than one rooster, so we hold out hope for an amenable settlement between the two roosters. The real problem of two roosters is that the hens take a bit of hard treatment as the roosters try to mate with as many as they can.

For now we just hope that they are all happy little egg layers.

Pleas RSVP if you can come. Click here for the RSVP thing.