Frugalbundance Farm: January 2015

Welcome to our Blog for 2015!

We've been burning a lot of slab wood from a local sawmill lately. A bunk (about 1 cord) of spruce and fir slabwood costs 15 or 20 dollars. We use a lot of this wood for building projects (siding) and for fencing. The unusable pieces get sawn and split for cooking. Linc put together a rack (above) to make it easier to cut them to length. Always on the lookout for labor saving measures, he then screwed a salvaged ATV tire to a large cottonwood round and uesd that to hold the slabs together for splitting (below).

And then to the woodshed/outhouse.

Here's the interior of the addition to the goat barn, sided inside and out with slabwood, and hinged polycarbonate panels for light and solar heating. Came out nice!

Our 1983 Toyota Tercel wagon, complete with multiple coats of house paint, expired at the end of 2014, and Linc bought a 2004 Prius down in Arizona to replace it. Linc tried to revive the Tercel, but the engine had lost compression, so he got it running well enough to drive to the junkyard. Sad to see an old reliable friend (machine or not) go. We have a lot of great memories of times spent car camping and sightseeing in that car! So, the Prius needed new headlight bulbs and ballasts. The bulbs had overheated and fused themselves into the headlight assemblies, requiring the entire front end be taken apart to get them out and replaced. Yikes! Maybe it's not too late to go buy that Tercel back from Phil's Auto...

I don't remember when we did this exactly, but we added a solar electric system to the mobile camper chicken coop to power their portable electric mesh fence. Our chickens have entered the solar age and now qualify for carbon credits!

Chanterelle, our Chanticler hen (one of two remaining hens from our first hatch purchased when we moved here several years ago) needed nursing for a few days. Either that or she was faking it and just wanted to spend time in the warm, wood stove heated cabin. Here she keeps Linc company in the office/dining/living room. She made a complete recovery and was evicted from the cabin for defecating on the dinner table.

Still lots of apples in the root cellar we use (at a neighbor's place across the road). With Linc down in Arizona much of last fall, we hadn't had a chance to press any for cider.

And, we were starting to get sunny days in the 40's, so we had a cider pressing day in January.

The cider was delicious. We ended up with something like five gallons. Drank some, gave some away, and bottled a couple gallons for vinegar - the best vinegar around. We saved the pulp and dried it in racks on the goat barn roof and in our cabin greenhouse to use for treats for the goats.

Then came a shocker. Our good friend and neighbor, Colin Dunbar, passed away unexpectedly on the evening of the 26th. I know we're all unique, but Colin gave a completely new meaning to that word. He was EXCEPTIONALLY unique, and his leaving us tore a huge hole in this entire community. Writing this, a year later, I realize how often I still think about him, and miss his visits, long talks about the meaning of life, and his quirky sense of humor. He is still very much part of our lives. All plans were cancelled for several days as we all came together to give Colin a loving send off. Lead by his former partner and neighbor Zoe Zappa, the community came together to bring Colin's body home from the hospital in Grand Junction (in the back of our old Toyota pickup truck), wash and wrap his body and set him on ice, dig his grave in frozen earth in a grove of junipers that he treasured, learn how to lower a body (we practiced by lowering Linc into the hole first), create a day-long internment and life celebration ceremony attended by a hundred or so people who were shuttled up the icy mountain road by volunteers, and place one of Colin's works of art on top of his grave. It's been great knowing you Colin. Thank you for being part of our lives.