Batchelor pad roof - day 2

2:30 pm. Not much visible change - but the side walls are down in the green house

 

6:30 pm.  The greenhouse has been cut away from the house - a must in order to put the roof on properly.

The covers over the doors are done.  The greenhouse - although not completely removed - has been cut back from the house.  We are ready for felt and shingles.  I precut the shingles today while Peter was at the office.  The rain is supposed to start tomorrow afternoon - I think we can do it.  But certainly - this two day project is stretching to three.

Bachelor pad upgrades continue

The goal:  replace the roof, add two roof covers, tear down the green house.
The time frame:  2 days.

This is the progress of day 1.

8:30 a.m.  Peter removing the roof  (I was down below picking up the mess)

11:00 a.m.  Old roof gone and mess is mostly cleaned up



7:00 (ish) pm.  The first of two entry covers is getting finished.  Part of the green house walls have come down.

Just can't wait for tomorrow!

I need more fiber!

But before I go into that..  I FINALLY finished the socks I was working on.  Aren't they cute?  It helped that today was a very rainy and blustery day and I was cooped up inside.

Now, about that fiber.  Saturday Jill and I went to the Canby Flock and Fiber Festival.  I was on tactile overload.  I had to touch and feel and caress all the lovely merchandise.  Unlike so many places there were actual signs that said "please touch."  So I did.  I couldn't have helped myself anyway.  I wanted to dive into it head first. I wanted to roll around in some of the fiber. I purchased a big bag of natural cream colored alpaca roving.  In the animal barns there were alpacas, llamas, angora rabbits, romney sheep, black faced sheep, angora goats and my favorite, pygora goats.  I learned a lot from the goat breeders.  I still have a lot more to learn.

I have great plans for my alpaca fiber.  I'm going to spin some of it and ply it with some red alpaca I purchased several weeks ago and then make some really neat felted things.  The rest of it is going to be sacrificed as a dying experiment. 

Despite hours of fiber immersion on Saturday, I needed MORE.  I had not yet gotten my fiber fix.  Sunday morning I went back to Canby for the parking lot fiber sale.  I wanted to get my hands on some freshly sheared pygora fiber.  I wanted it all dirty and unwashed.  I wanted to experience the process from start (minus the shearing) to finish.  Unfortunately I was unable to find pygora.  In fact, I was almost unable to find the sale because, despite it's name it was not in the parking lot at all.  It was in the fair grounds arena.  I haven't quite figured that out.  Although I couldn't find pygora I was able to bring home some lovely brown and gray romney fiber.  I'll learn washing and carding with that. 

Fiber is good.

Things I've learned...

Yesterday I learned about potato blight.  It seems that the part of the potato plant that lives above ground - the very part of the potato that feeds the actual potato - will get a disease called blight and turn on the potato and ruin it.  Big potato growers (big growers - not growers of big potatoes) spray the potato tops and kill them off.  The potatoes stay safe underground while the plant and it's horrible disease dies.  We are not a big potato grower.  We are a small operation that only harvests a couple thousand pounds a year.  We do not use chemicals.  Thus - the tops to all the potatoes must be cut off and removed far far away from the bottoms.  Thatsalotta bending and stooping.  After about 8 hours frolicking among the potatoes I crawled back to the house on my hands and knees.

 potatoes before beheading 

  potatoes after beheading  

Other things I learned was that the definition of grass and weeds is different.  Peter said - toss the tops into the grass.  I learned he did NOT mean toss the tops into the weeds.  Of course.. I didn't learn that until I'd completed 4 rows.  I thought I had cleverly clarified his intent by asking.. "do you mean the near grass or the far grass?"  I actually meant the weeds vs. the grass (because I KNEW what I meant).  His reply "the near grass" meant the grass near the weeds, not the grass near the trees.  So of course.. I put the potato tops in the weeds, which was my "near grass" and not in the "near grass" which was the grass not by the trees. 

I learned proper communication can be a time saver. 

I've also learned that frogs and toads like to live among the potatoes.  My husband - being a 12 year old at heart - collected all the frogs and toads we found.  I even found a big fat toad today to add to the collection (as a belated birthday gift). I kept it in the kitchen sink until Peter came home from work  (Happy Birthday!  Here's a toad!).  As I type this, there happens to be a bucket-o-amphibians sitting next to me.   They will be photographed, admired, talked to and held and then put in the toad and frog relocation program.

Birthday Cake

Yep. I got some. Double Chocolate Decadence, I believe, was it's name. You really can't go wrong with anything called chocolate decadance. My birthday (#52!) was a week ago. Peter and I ended up going to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, Washington. It was a lovely trip where our intent was to research goats and fiber animals. We found a Pygora goat breeder who tells us she should have some kids sometime around April. I've started saving my money because April should work out just right.

After the fair we stopped at a local restaurant and had dinner and cake while we watched the sun set.

I got a spinning wheel! It's a Schacht ladybug. Selecting a spinning wheel is such a process. I made three trips to the spinning wheel store trying out each model and evaluating each one all the while hoping I would bond with one. I talked to more than a dozen spinners about preferences and pros and cons of each model. I finally settled on this one because of it's adaptability and size (and maybe a hint of a bond). I've already spun a small skein of yarn which I intend to knit into an accessory bag for my wheel perhaps (but first I have told myself I MUST finish my existing knitting project).

Before I get goats and bury myself in fiber and milk and hooves, I have gobs of stuff to do.. as always. The house remodel continues progressing. In the past week we finished the kitchen and living room, nearly entirely, except for the floor and grout work on my newly tiled wall. Yesterday we took down two trees that were too close to the house. Tomorrow we start taking off the roof. We're going to build porch covers over the two doors and then put on the new roof.
For the next few weeks - while the weather holds - construction will move outside. Then we'll get back to the interior. We still have the garage to convert into additional living space and then we need to gut and re-finish the bedroom. Easy stuff. (cough cough).

Tomorrow I get to climb up on the roof. I should go to bed.

G'night.