Fall flocks

A couple days ago, I was raking leaves in the yard when I heard the distinct honking sounds of a flock flying overhead.

It didn't sound like either Canada geese or swans. The flock was enormous, too large to take in on one camera shot. But what kind of birds were they?

By cropping the photo, I could see black wing tips.

Aha! Mystery solved. These are snow geese.

Photo source: Travel Through Pictures

Snow geese are famous for their spectacular feats of migration, typically about 3,000 miles twice a year. What a privilege to see them in action during this accomplishment.

Planting garlic

In August, I harvested the two beds of garlic I planted last year.

The garlic has been sitting in a box on the back porch, waiting for planting. Periodically we'll dip into it for some fresh garlic for cooking, but mostly it's just been waiting for planting.

Last week, I finally got things done. First I had to prep the beds. I wanted to plant four beds instead of two this year, which meant weeding and raking things smooth.

This time of year, the oak that dominates this corner of the garden is stunning. There are worse things to do than prep garden beds under autumn foliage, y'know?

Prepping the beds didn't take long. I raked off the summer's straw mulch and put it aside, pulled a few weeks, raked the dirt smooth, and voilà.

Next I sorted the garlic.

I knew I could fit 100 cloves per bed, so I made four piles of 100 cloves each.

I laid out four rows of 25 cloves each. I later revised this to five rows of 20 cloves each, which fit better, but didn't get a photo.

After each bed was planted, I mulched it with straw.

And that's it, except for a little light weeding, until it's time to harvest late next summer. That's one of the things I enjoy about growing garlic: It's almost maintenance-free and produces an abundant harvest.

What's not to love?

Thank a veteran today

Today is Veteran's Day. Please remember to thank a vet for your freedom.

We can't forget the brave men and women who have served our country.

Nor will we forget the ones who won't be coming back.

Thank you to our veterans.

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

For an amazing photo tour of Ardennes American Cemetery in Liege, Belgium, where Don's uncle is buried, see this post.

Feeding the cows

Up to this point, we haven't had to feed the cows. They've been picking at the new-growth grass in the pasture, and we've rotated them around a bit to other locations as well. However we knew those opportunities would become limited as autumn advanced.

On November 1, we decided it was time to start feeding them, at least in the evening. We've had hay stacked in the barn since last year, but haven't used much of it.

So on the evening of Nov. 1, we went out and put about a third of a bale in the feed rack.

Then we called in the animals. They were a bit suspicious and weren't inclined to be cooperative.

But it was late and they were heading into the corral for the night anyway, so with a little persuasion, they came into the barn.

The moment – the moment! – they realized they had hay in the feeder, they plowed in and never looked back.

They've also been sleeping inside the barn every night, which I like. We're having rainier weather moving in, and it pleases me to know the animals are snug and dry in such conditions. It also means I have to clean the barn every day, but that's just part and parcel of having livestock.

Now in the evening, they're all waiting for me to fill the feeder. Oddly it's Filet (our massive and pregnant Angus) who leads the herd into the corral at night. She's usually the most stand-offish since she's a former range cow, so we find it amusing that she's the most eager to get into the barn each evening.

Very soon we'll start feeding them twice a day, and once there's snow on the ground we may even keep them locked in the corral. We're also close to using a stock tank heater to keep their water unfrozen (I had to break a layer of ice on the trough this morning).

Winter's a-coming.

Requiem for a circular saw

Don has been working on a complicated project on the back porch (which will be a future blog post) for the last several weeks. As such, he has a large selection of both hand and power tools in constant use. He came into the house the other day with an expression both sad and frustrated. "My circular saw just died," he announced.

This Craftsman tool is something he's had for decades, literally. He tried to figure out when he purchased it, and concluded it was shortly after we were married, which would put it somewhere in the early 90s. "Older than the internet," he observed. You can't ask for more than that when it comes to the lifespan of a power tool, especially one he used as heavily as this circular saw.

Without much option, Don took himself into town to purchase another circular saw.

The new circular seems to be working fine, but it's not his old tool, y'know?

There's a certain nostalgic sadness at losing a trusty tool, especially since this new one is unlikely to last through a quarter-century of hard use.

So this is a requiem for Don's faithful old circular saw. May it rest in peace.

Things missing

We've had an unusual late summer and early autumn. The weather is perfectly normal; but what's notable are the things missing.

The biggest missing thing is wild plums.

This part of Idaho has wild plums up the whazoo. In years past, they've been so thick, they've weighed down branches and carpeted the ground.

But this year? Nothing. Literally nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Of the hundreds of thousands of wild plum trees in the region, apparently not a single one yielded fruit. Lots of people were commenting on it.

Another thing missing this year, believe it or not, is blackberries. With wild blackberry bushes everywhere, normally there is tons of fruit.

This year? Absolutely nothing. And I mean nothing. The bushes all look healthy, but they bore not a single berry.

Another thing missing: Rose hips. Wild roses are a thorny staple around here, and they've always produced abundant rose hips.

Unlike the plums or the blackberries, there are some rose hips on some of the rose bushes, but they're small, scarce, and anemic, even though the rose bushes themselves seem healthy.

Another thing missing: Honey locust seed pods. We have a honey locust tree in our yard (when I photographed this, the leaves had almost all dropped).

Normally this trees drops hundreds of big honkin' seed pods. This year? Hardly any, maybe one percent of the amount we normally get.

Another thing missing: Mushrooms. Last year we had loads and loads of mushrooms popping up everywhere.

This year? Nothing. I've seen precisely zero mushrooms around us. Last year we had tons, especially after a hike in the mountains. (To be fair, there might be mushrooms along the hiking path; we haven't been there this year.)

The one thing that hasn't been impacted this year is apples, both wild and domestic. We have thousands of wild apple trees, and they've been producing heavily (no doubt to the relief of the wildlife, considering the dearth of other fruit). Our own trees produced a bumper crop.

As for everything else, I have no idea why we're having such a shortage of routine things. To the best of my knowledge, this year hasn't been wetter or drier or hotter or colder than normal.

Go figure.

November madness

Well here it is, November 1, and I'm embarking on the usual November madness: NaNoWriMo.

As most of you know, NaNoWriMo is thirty days of insanity as participants attempt to crank out a 50,000 word book in thirty days. Unbelievably, it works. Why? Because it gives writers a deadline. It's rather amazing how effective a deadline can be.

So I'm pounding the keyboard for my next Amish romance, with the working title of "Adele's Redemption." Onward!

The private life of pheasants

One of the fun little things I like to do is sneak up to the gate in the barn and peek into the corral to see what kind of wildlife I can surprise. I've glimpsed all kinds of critters – deer, quail, pheasants, even an elk (outside the fence, not inside).

Yesterday I snuck up, peeked through the gate, and caught a handsome male pheasant engaged in a private moment preening his feathers.

What a handsome boy.

 Just one of those little pleasures of country life.

Enough food for a feast

Last week, Don and I offered to bring food for our after-church fellowship. We, um, went a little overboard. Don made homemade sourdough bread and a fabulous soup (creamy Italian sausage and Parmesan, which simmered all night). I made blueberry tarts, and some homemade Caesar dressing to go along with the huge amount of raw veggies I cut up. We worked all day long on Saturday to prepare. This is what we ended up bringing to church, including the ingredients necessary to add to the soup last-minute.

Essentially we made enough food to feed 40 people. "Next time," Don remarked, "slap me if I suggest getting this fancy." We agreed that a salami-and-cheese tray would have been just as welcomed.

Everyone raved about the spread, but we have to remind ourselves this is supposed to just be a snack to tide everyone over until after the Bible study ... not to provide enough food for a feast.

Water project ... done!

A couple months ago, after Don finished a large project (the new woodshed), I remember he came inside, sat down, and asked, "What should I work on next?"

There is never a shortage of projects, of course, and he could have gone in any number of directions. But I had an instant reply: "The water tank."

Let me back up. Since moving rural in 1993, we've never had a secure source of water. What I mean by this is our wells have always had electric pumps. During power outages, those pumps don't work and we have no water. We've compensated by storing water in anything from one-gallon jugs to 50-gallon barrels, but it's still a limited resource. Water (or a lack thereof) has always been my biggest rural insecurity.

Our last home was particularly challenging because our well was 610 feet deep (with a static water level of 450 feet), far beyond the capacity of hand pumps and far beyond our financial ability to construct a deep-well windmill or other options. (We compensated by building a pond.)

The well here in our new place is much more shallow, about 120 deep with a static water level of 40 feet. This puts it within reach of a hand pump. (In fact, we purchased a hand pump but haven't yet installed it because the well is inconveniently located inside a shed, which means we have to dismantle the shed before installing the pump. Yes, it's complicated.)

So, in the spirit of "three is two, two is one, one is none," we wanted to install a water tank fed by roof runoff as a backup source of water.

To this end, we purchased a water tank. There were a number of factors to consider in this decision: price, size, location, shipping, etc. After examining all possibilities, we selected a vendor in southern Idaho and purchased a 1500-gallon vertical above-ground tank which was on sale. Additionally – highly important – they could deliver.

So in April of 2023, they delivered the tank. We parked it next to the woodshed, covered up all the port holes (so critters wouldn't get inside), and there it sat for 15 months.

But we had a tank! It's hard to describe how excited I was by the prospect of a secure water source.

While Don worked on other projects and the water tank sat next to the woodshed, the Big Question was where we should put it. We had several options: Under the deck on the north side of the house; off the kitchen on the south side of the house; nearer to the garden; or even next to the barn (to supply the livestock).

After weighing the pros and cons of each location, we decided to place the tank under the deck on the north side of the house. The clearance was adequate, and this space wasn't being used for anything else anyway. Additionally, it's convenient for both fire suppression (a fire truck has the room to back up to the tank and hook into it) and livestock (the underside of the house is fenced off to keep the cows out, but it would be easy-peasey to put a water tank just outside the fence).

This decision was just the first step in a loooong process of installing the tank, beginning with cutting a level pad into the slope below the house

Don framed in the pad, then laid down weed cloth. Then he backfilled it with gravel (at the botton) and sand (on top) to provide a solid foundation for the tank that wouldn't have any sharp rocks that could poke a hole in it.

The next step was to move the tank from the driveway to the new pad below the house.

This was an exceptionally delicate procedure. We knew the tank had adequate clearance under the deck ... barely. The difficulty was getting the tractor to climb the slope below the deck, clear the lip of the pad, and place the tank in location without the tank bumping into the deck in the process.

It took slow and careful work to get the tank in place. It also showed Don's mastery of his machine.

That's the clearance between the top of the tank and the underside of the deck. Don had this engineered to the nth degree.

He was also forced to lay down hardware cloth around the tank over the sand...

...after some neighborhood cats started using it as a giant litter box.

With the tank in place, the hard work began. Don had to design and implement an entire customized plumbing system to direct roof runoff into the tank. This included intake valves, overflow valves, guttering, drain pipes, etc.

I'm glossing over weeks of work here, folks. I can't emphasize enough my clever husband's success in plumbing this monster in.

Mr. Darcy was always interested in the procedure.

But finally the bulk of the work was done. He had installed split downspouts in the gutters from both sides of the deck. By flipping a lever, water can either be diverted into the tank, or allowed to flow down the gutters.

He also installed filters that would sift out gravel and other debris before the water could enter the tank.

You can see how one of the gutter splits looks from this angle.

Plumber's tape supports the pipes on the underside of the deck.

What we lacked, at this point, was rain to test the system. Finally the weather predicted some incoming precipitation, and Don pushed through to finish everything before it came in.

This included cleaning out the gutters.

Because our roof is shingle, debris gets washed into the gutters (not to mention all kinds of other detritus). Here's a "before" photo...

..and the "after" pic.

The rain actually moved in before getting the hand pump installed. We let the rain wash the roof for about half an hour, then moved the levers to divert water into the tank. What a gratifying sound as the tank began to fill!

But we didn't know how much water we'd gotten. Don put together a chart that gave an estimate:

• Average yearly precipitation – 24.89 inches
• Highest ave month – 3.94 inches, May
• Lowest ave month – 0.87 inch, August
• Average monthly precipitation – 2 inches

Area served by gutters and downspouts to tank: 1,425 square feet.

1,425 sq ft x 1/12th of a square foot (1 inch of rain or .08333 feet ) over 1,425 sq ft = 118.8 cu ft = 888 gallons 

With a roof of such-and-such size and the amount of rain, we anticipated we got about 200 gallons from that one rainstorm.

But to access the water, he needed to install the hand pump. So he cut a hole in the deck to reach the access hatch on top of the tank.

He drilled a hole and sank a pipe next to the access hatch to plumb in the hand pump.

Don had ordered the hand pump several weeks earlier, so with the plumbing in place, he was able to install the pump itself.

He built a sturdy and permanent table heavily coated with a clear epoxy, and fastened the pump to the top.

A new pump must be primed to let the leathers soak before using it.

But then we were able to pump ... and it worked!

Sort of. As is typical of any plumbing project, stuff happens. Don found there was a leak from a valve at the bottom of the tank. So he opened the tank and flushed out as much water as he could.

Then he fixed the valve and we waited for the next rainstorm.  This came in a few days ago, and the valve is not leaking. Right now we estimate we have about 300 gallons in the tank ... far, far outstripping the amount of stored water we previously had on hand.

We're entering a wet period and anticipate we'll have the tank full to capacity within a month, after which we can switch the gutters back to divert water down the downspout, as before.

While we will add chlorine to the tank once it's full, we have no plans to drink the water directly from the tank without filtering (or boiling) it first. However the water has endless other uses during a power outage: Showering (using shower bags), washing dishes, flushing toilets, watering livestock, fire protection, etc.

The next step is to insulate the tank. We're planning on making an insulated wrap to keep things from freezing in winter. That will be a whole blog post unto itself.

The sense of security this new project gives us is impossible to underestimate! I've always keenly felt our vulnerability as far as water during an extended power outage. This tank cures that concern.

It also underscores the need to tackle such complicated projects sooner rather than later. While obtaining the tank almost a year and a half ago was a major step in the right direction, we didn't realize how many specialized parts would be needed to plumb it in. Don took many trips to the hardware store as well as ordered many parts online (including the hand pump) to complete the project.

Water project ... done!