November 2016

Dev and his students from the High Desert Center for Sustainable Studies came over and helped us apply a base coat of earthen plaster to the new root cellar, and built most of a dirt-filled-tire retaining wall.  Linc continued on and got the new summer kitchen addition framed and roofed, graveled the floors and we moved our freezer over to the summer kitchen, and fridge into a new back room next to the root cellar.  Now, we'll be able to access our food storage fridge, freezer and root cellar (and compost toilet system) without leaving the protection of a roof.  That will be nice in inclement weather and mud season (which can last for half a year in these parts). 

The new summer kitchen area with freezer in place.  The summer cookstove and sink will eventually (maybe in 2017!) be installed under the shed roof on the left.  The door in the background leads into a room that will house our second refrigerator, composting toilet, solar storage battery, inverter, charge controller and switchgear.  Off of that room is a door that leads to the new root cellar located behind the cabin.

Here's the root cellar, getting filled up with fall harvested garden veggies and local orchard fruit.  Jeanne also intends to make hard cheeses, so this room will come in handy for aging those.  There is also a pass through from this room into the cabin above our kitchen sink, so we're able to move things from pantry/root cellar to kitchen and back without trying to work our way through four separate doorways with our hands full.

Linc finally built a small storage shed for building materials.  No more digging under tarps in the middle of winter for that essential two by four.

Apple cider pressing time.  Normally we make this a community thing, but this year we were lucky to fit it in at all.  We ended up with several gallons of cider, gave some away, brought some to holiday parties and are turning 2 or 3 gallons of that into raw apple cider vinegar.

Needing a break, when Linc's friend Dave emailed to invite him to bushwack up Coal Mountain, there was no hesitation.  It was a great climb.  Here Dave is, on top of the first of two false summits, with the final (steep!) summit cone in the background.

From the top, we could look down past the ridge we'd climbed, past Mount Lamborn, and into the North Fork Valley and our homes below.  It's always nice to get up high for some perspective on things, especially on a crisp clear fall day.

Looking back towards Coal Mountain from home.  Coal is the half cloud-enshrouded bump between the rainbow in photo center and Mount Lamborn photo right.  Hey, look, a rainbow!