Forest and Farm adventures

Barn Progress 11-28-08

2008-11-29T12:23:00.000-08:00

The barn begins!

2008-11-06T22:00:00.001-08:00

November 4, 2008. The Barn gets started! Finally, construction begins, we are pretty excited but wish we could be on site more.

Further pictures as we progress coming soon!

Be sure to click on the pictures to see them larger!

Cute photo

2008-07-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Just had to share this - our cat BeeBo on our deck. Check out the flowers going crazy in the box, the only fertilizer we used was pure pollack fish bone meal

Even more progress!

2008-07-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

I went up to the property to meet our contractor to stake out the aproximate locations of the barn and the house and the ADU. Since it was a nice day, I drove up to the top of Mt Walker to see if our land was visible. Since Mt walker is clearly visible from our property, I thought this would be easy. Too bad I don't have a camera with a telephoto lens! Be sure to click on these pictures, they blow up really big!This first picture, I think I missed it, looks like Pope timber land or National forest up against the foothills. But I also think lot 13 is close to the center of this firt pic. After much debate, we "think" we've identified it in this picture, as well as one of our neighbors' lot, 13 that was cleared last winter.

Daniel S, did I get it right? Even if this is not it, the view of the general area was spectacular!

We had our contractor save as much wood as he could for future firewood. I think we have a bit of work "cut" out for us here....

Dan made tremendous progress on the grading! We're just amazed at how smooth he got it.

This picture is looking North, the house site is near the top of that hill. We're thinking the chicken coop should go to the North of that lone hemlock tree. To the right, where the hill angles down will be our orchard.

We want the chicken coop close enough to that so the birds can be put in there to clean up any fruit that falls.

These 2 pictures below have labels on them marking approximate locates of buildings. You can only read them though if you click and make the picture bigger.

We're still working on getting the right grade for the barn, ensuring we have enough slope away from both sides where the horses, sheep & goats will be. We should be able to start barn construction this fall!

July 12- the view gets better!

2008-07-12T21:59:00.001-07:00

Our contractor finished the major part of the clearing of trees today! For the first time, we could easily see Mt Rainier from standing where the house will be!

As we were going home, I took some pictures from the truck while on the Hood Canal Bridge. Mt Walker and Green Mtn are the ones most prominant from our building site.

For bigger pictures, click on them, or go to my

slideshow at Flickr

Our Cabin

2008-07-08T21:52:00.001-07:00

When we first bought our forest land, we tried camping in our trailer. The trouble with that was - we would frequently have to haul the trailer down to town to fill up on water, and empty grey and black water tanks. It was a tiny trailer, no room for much and more than 2 people really cramped the space. The best thing it had going for it - it could be moved. So we sold it and had this tiny, 12 x 16' 2 story cabin built. It has all the comforts of home, but smaller! Propane supplies our refrigerator, range and on demand hot water heater. An 1100 gallon tank stores rainwater that is collected off the roof. This allows us showers and water for washing. The tank has an ozone generator attached, and a sediment filter, but we still use a ceramic filter similar to this for drinking water:

Our cabin accommodates a queen size bed in the upstairs loft, and a full size futon on the main floor. There is also a wood stove that keeps us toasty in the winter!

The pump for water and the lights are operated by a generator, for now. I would love to get a solar set up, at least for lights and small appliances and only run the generator (hate that noisy thing, just spoils the ambiance!) for water. Maybe sometime in the future.

Our eldest dog, Busy!

2008-07-08T21:37:00.001-07:00

This is Busy, aka WTCH Burnt Mtn's Howlin Success RTDs

She's 13 1/2 years old now, but still has the energy to hike throught the woods and visit our building site. The rest of our dogs really enjoy the walk on the trail from the cabin to the clearing as well!

Busy also likes to talk turkey with Tikey our pet Bourbon Red tom!

More land clearing progress

2008-07-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

Progress continues and we went to check it out over the 4th of July weekend:

We're starting to get a better idea of what the view will be like! Green Mt is on the right (a part of the Quilcene foothills range of the Olympic Mountains, and directly South of the building site, Mt Walker (the flat-topped one)

More photos at flickr

Clearing for the Barn!

2008-06-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

Before:

and after! Well, I should say in the process. The broken tree in the first picture is where the new road up to the barn site is. You can see the grass road curving to the left; that will lead to the future house! If you click on the pictures, they blow up quite large. Here are a few more pictures. We are having the guy who is clearing save as many logs as possible for firewood. Here you can see the ones he set aside with the trackhoe that Terry cut the stumps off of.

It was 85 degrees this day, Terry and Adama take a rest in the shade on an enormous cedar stump. More photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kabri/

The forest and the trees

2007-08-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

In 2003, we purchased a sizeable piece of raw forest land, in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, near Hood Canal(click on the map for a much bigger version with an arrow pointing to the general area of our land) We initially viewed this land as strictly a future homestead, viewing the young stands of mostly alder trees as "easy to clear". The trees you see in the picture at the top of this blog are all Red Alder. After we purchased the property, we began educating ourselves about this tree. As you can read here, Alder is extremely valuable as a timber resource! Not only are alder saw log prices higher than Douglas Fir in recent years, it also: puts nitrogen back into the soil, ROI in 30 to 50 years compared to over 70 for conifers, it does not have pitch or extensive lower branches so it is actually used to create fire breaks in softwood plantations, can be made into beautiful furniture and cabinets, imparts wonderful flavor to foods when used in cooking (especially salmon, it's Ivar's Salmon House's signature method of cooking!) and makes good firewood with very few branches to cut. Alder forests are also the perfect growing space from many "special" forest/non-timber products, such as herbs (ginsing, golden seal, bloodroot), mushrooms, berries and floral products such as salal. Lots of other ideas here. So we revised our thinking about this property and how to be the best stewards of it. We hired a forester to file our forest management plan, as required by the State. We have started the process of thinning and removal of non-commercial trees that are in direct competition with the Alder (sprouted big leaf maple).

Breaking ground!

2007-08-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

The driveway is in! This month, we had our future circular driveway cleared. This opens up the view to the west of Green Mountain. Green Mt is a designated roadless area of the Olympic National Forest. This means that Mountain will not be logged, nor will there be ATV's screaming around up there. Between our property and Green Mt is: Pope resources commercial forest, then Olympic National Forest, then Olympic National Park. There are miles of forest road for us to ride our horses on, accessable from an old logging road that starts on our property. Between where I"m standing with the camera and Terry and the dogs will be the drive-thru carport which will lead into the front door of the house on the left (South). You can click on the picture to see it bigger.

This picture is looking at the new road, toward the NE. Next project is to get some grass seed down so we hang onto the topsoil until serious clearing and construction happens!

Adama, where did you get that name?

2007-08-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

Our poor mis-understood Australian shepherd pup, hardly anyone knows the significance of his name. Well, here's the explanation. It comes from our favorite TV show, Battlestar Galactica. Now before you shake your head and scoff, just consider that it's one of the best drama shows in recent years, has won many awards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_series)#Awards and happens to be great SciFi too. "Adama" is the name of the commander, (played by Edward James Olmos) and also of his son, Lee.

Lee Adama is a Viper Pilot, call sign Apollo. Our pup's registered name is Kabri's Viper Pilot.

My favorite character is Kara Thrace, also a viper pilot, call sign Starbuck, but since our pup is a boy, that didn't work. Starbuck is awesome anyway!

And of course, all the guys go ga-ga over the character "number 6" even though she's really an alien.

A lot of people (who've never watched the show!) think we are very strange to be so devoted to a TV show. However, I now loan out our season 1 DVD set with a warning: "Don't start watching this unless you have a whole weekend in which to finish it! "One friend watched the entire 5 DVDs in 2.5 days. (his wife was not too happy about that!) It's just such gosh darn good entertainment!

The 4th and final season does not start until Jan '08, with a special episode to be aired in November 07 called "Razor". Razor actually takes place prior to and during the very beginning of the main story which began when the show began as a mini-series in 2003. Throw us a bone here, will ya? Could they not at least come out with the season 3 DVD's before then?? No word yet on the release date (emoticon here of eyes rolling in a disgusted way) Want more info? check out the SciFi channel website : http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/about/show/

Everyone needs a blog

2007-08-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

At the suggestion of friends and distant family whom we see infrequently, I'm starting this blog to help keep you up to date with our plans - watch as we create a small farm out of our forest property. Of course, adventures with our current small farm and all it's critters will be featured as well.

Cool thing I discovered, you can click on the picture of our horses to blow it up bigger!