September 27th, 2019 Catching Up

I usually do these things weekly, but last week was particularly taxing and busy.

We started off the week building a new shelter for the Summer Supper, which came Saturday evening. We have built three of these "Hoop House" styled shelters. The first was built two years ago and used for a greenhouse until this Summer's tree took the thing down for the last time. In its short life its film cover had been torn many times by animals and mistakes, the roof completely collapsed by snow and rebuilt. We used many part from this first shelter in building the new one. We also used the experience to make some changes to the design. The second one we built was the shelter for the first Summer Supper last Summer. I had some new ideas, built it larger, and gave it a fabric floor early on. I also tried out a new way of anchoring the thing to the ground by pouring heavy gravel over the margin of plastic film. This scheme worked for the most part, but the older style of using minimal steel tubing and a low pitched roof failed in the show just the same night as did the greenhouse roof. Cheap as these things were, they wore out a bit quickly. This latest shelter is built a bit heavier, using about a third more steel tubing spaced about a foot closer. I also changed the roof pitch to forty-five degrees, much higher than the previous sixty degrees which collapsed easily in the snow. I put a cloth floor in it and put the shade cloth cover on before adding the plastic sheeting. With a bit of luck, this shelter should perform a bit better than the previous versions.

The Summer Supper was a bit of a flop because none of the local neighbors came this time around. They all showed up last time, none of them RSVPd last year either, so the lack of notice didn't give us enough information to cut back. But we did have a good sized party none the less. We made food for seventy-five and fed about twenty-five. The biggest problem was in finding homes to all of the left-overs. We will be eating very good chili-dogs and chili-burgers all Winter long. No complaints from us.

Following the Summer Supper we re-purposed the new shelter we re-purposed the shelter to become a convenient place to store building materials for the upcoming house build. THE BIG NEWS is that we were able to pick up the permits for the new house build! We will begin building as soon as we are sure that the weather will cooperate, but buying parts and tools began right away.  We needed a new compressor to push the bigger tools and spray drywall texture once the house is mostly put together. We also got a lazer level to help insure the thing is square and plumb. We will begin laying the new house out this week.

As if there were some spare time last week, on Friday we arranged my driving to LaGrande to pick up our two new Basset Hound females. At the time of purchase, we figured we wouldn't pick them up in the same week as the Summer Supper. We never dreamed we would also get permits in the same week. And the breeder gave us a date which made Friday the only day to get the new girls.

The new girls were a bit skittish at first, but the Summer Supper guests held them sufficiently to break the fear of people. Both of the new girls are very pretty, Abba Zabba is especially so. Her stance is perfect, her coloring is wonderful. Her sister Bit-o-Honey is turning out to have very light brown fur. This is unique in a tri-color, but very nice to look at. Follow the girls progress on out Rocketdog  Blog, the link is at the top of the page.

Laffee Taffee is coming near to her due date. We expect she will deliver five or six pups within the next week. So it appears we will stay busy until at least mid-December. But this week has been quite busy already.

We spent yesterday moving about half of what is being stored in the Shipping Container into the new shelter. With the space we gained by putting stuff that is not easily damaged out in the new shelter we can now move all of the stuff we have in dry storage in town into the Shipping Container. The move will not only save money every month, it will allow us to use some things we have been missing since moving here. The time it took to get the permits means we will be living in our very temporary tiny home for two full Winters. The missing stuff we had in offsite storage will allow us to make waffles, replace dishes, and wear different clothing than that we brought here or bought once here.

Today Ann and her good friend Beth spent the morning harvesting potatoes for Winter eating. We got a good crop, quite a bit more than last year, and one more variety. I was able to help them dig the dirt for some of the time, but I had to get the new back porch and laundry room set up to have Taffee's litter.

This week started out as busy as every day last week, and it doesn't look like things will slow down for a very long while.