Happiness is ...

Fo me happiness is a good supply of Firewood!  This has been true all of the years we have lived here, and knowing we did not have enough to see us thru the winter has been  discomforting to me.

 Not as much as it would have been ten years ago, when we didn't have central - propane- forced air heat in the house and we depended on the fireplace and wood stove for heat.  But still  discomforting!

A I sit here tonight, I feel a pleasant exhaustion from a very hard weekend of work, but a comfortable knowing the wood is up.

Yesterday I mentioned the last 40 feet of the path up as being steep.

 This picture doesn't really show it, but I am standing at the top of the hill and Craig is just making the  turn into the more gentle grade part of the path.  The top of his head would be about level with my feet.

We only harvest trees that have already fallen, and of course they are never near the path.

I'm standing with the cart on the path and Craig is climbing up the side of a hill to a nice deadfall.

After he cut it up, I joined him to get it down to the path.
We have to be careful not to fall, and not to let the logs roll to far astray.

The fork of this dead tree was caught in it's fall by another one a few year ago.

It was quite close to the path.

 In fact some of it was across the path and we had harvested that when if first went down.

Now it was perfectly seasoned and dry because it was off the ground.

The big negative was that once cut up, the logs were on a steep hill below the path.  It was really hard work to bring it up to where we could load it.

Hard work, but worth it because it was a madrone.  Some of the finest hardwood firewood on our land.

In this picture Craig is driving  crate load of wood along the path.

 I went ahead to the bottom of the hard place (where I have to help push) so I could take his picture.

And when the day was done, fat old Merikay poses with the unsplit logs.

Until we get it split I will put  a tarp over it when it rains, and take it off when the weather is dry.

We also stowed quite a nice bit of ready to burn size wood in the woodshed.  So now we should have enough to last us for the bun season.

Happiness is ...



By the way, I have several new followers lately and I want to welcome them to my Wannabe blog.  The encouragement I get from all of my followers helps me stay focused and keep working toward the dream!  If you're also held captive with your house or your job(s), my efforts may help you keep on tack as well.  If you are already "free" you remember how it was!

Firewood and Pulled Pork

Today's exercise was helping Craig cut and haul some firewood up from our forest.  We knew we would be short this winter, and considered buying some, but as it has turned out we harvested one bunch from the roadside and are supplementing it with wood we are collecting now.

I like to have the winters supply all dried and stacked in the wood shed, with additional wood stacked along the garage, but this summer the painting just took all of our energy and time.

We have had a lot of rain during most of December, but it has been dry again for the last week or so.  Since rain is forecast for Tuesday, this was our chance to do a bit of cutting.

Getting the cut wood from the forest to the back yard is reasonably easy except near the end.  There is a pretty good path, and we have a DR power wagon.  But the rise at the end is about 14 feet in the last 40 feet.  When we get to that place we both have to give our all to push the power cart up the last bit.  We will be cutting again tomorrow and maybe I'll be able to get a few pictures.

PULLED PORK:
Recently I signed onto the allrecipes site to use their recipe "box" feature.

 They have been sending me a daily recipe email ever since and the couple we have tried have been very good.

On Friday they had "the year's Best."  A pulled pork made in a slow cooker. Craig saw the recipe and decided we should try it this weekend.

But he also remembered that our old crock pot hasn't been working right and bought a new one at COSTCO after work.

Not the actual one he bought, but the wine bottle implies the size!

 When I saw the box I made lots of negative noises!  It was a COSTCO size slow cooker.  I think you could have made a 20 pound turkey in it.

"It's too big!"
 "This proves you don't want to go with me!"
 "Yadda, Yadda, Yadda."

So without being opened, the box went back into the car, we went out to dinner and then shopping for a new slow cooker that was a bit more reasonable in size!

After checking Target and Walmart, we found a very niceProgrammable  3 1/2 Quart Cuisinart slow cooker at Macy's.

Craig was happy with the controls (more than just High and Low) and I was satisfied with the size.

The pulled Pork was absolutely delicious, and so easy!

Recipe:

2 pounds pork tenderloin
Root Beer to cover
1 (18 ounce) bottle BBQ sauce
8 hamburger  buns

Put pork and root beer in slow cooker.  Cook on low 7-8 hours.  Check liquid level halfway through and top it
 back up to cover.

Remove pork from slow cooker and discard liquid.
Shred, return to slow cooker, and add BBQ sauce.  Rewarm.

Serve on lightly toasted buns.

I put half away before rewarming it. We each had two sandwiches tonight, and will have a second meal tomorrow.  We had french fries on the side, and would have liked to have had either a coleslaw or a nice salad too.

Root Beer...  who would have thought!

Later, as I put the new slow cooker away, I started thinking about what I might  store inside of it.  I'm sure the space won't go unused for long in an RV cupboard.

300 miles!

I only walked one mile on the treadmill today so I could put up the number

300

I walk to remind myself that I will reach my goal only by taking one step at a time.

Exercise Goal:
1000 miles on the treadmill, 

1 miles Thursday

Total walked = 300 miles  Aiming for 500 miles by end of March 2011

Someday I will be hiking 1000 miles in National Parks!

Puerto Princesa

Busy Day

I had six items on my to do list today.

  I accomplished five of them:

•  Epoxied the moose antlers,
•  painted the ceiling of the hall by the kitchen,
•  installed the eyes on the moose sculpture, 
• walked on treadmill, 
• and found two things to send to the Goodwill. 

The sixth item was to set up the sewing machine and work on a new pair of PJ's for Craig, but then when I found an order for four more animal sculptures in the email, I decided to go the first step on them instead.

It was a busy, but productive day.

Oh, about that RV with the sky deck,  It is a large Class A from Airstream and apparently it is a regular production feature.  I can imagine it being used by a business of some sort for promotional parties!  Great for parking along a parade route!

I walk to remind myself that I will reach my goal by taking one step at a time.

Exercise Goal:
1000 miles on the treadmill, 

2.5 miles Wednesday

Total walked = 299 miles  Aiming for 500 miles by March 2011

Someday I will be hiking 1000 miles in National Parks!

Glacier National Park

Something Different!

Sometimes, when I'm relaxing in the evening, and I don't feel like reading, I like to just look at the RV's for sale on the RVT site.

  Tonight I came across a floor plan I had never seen before.  

It has a staircase inside.

Where does it go?


To the Sky deck of course!

I don't think this is the model for us.  We are a bit more "down to earth" types!
But I'd like to see one someday.  (It is an Airstream.)


On the home front, I've gotten several  chores I put off until the New Year taken care of today, and resumed my treadmill walking!

Exercise Goal:
1000 miles on the treadmill, 

1.5 miles Monday

 2 miles Tuesday  

Total walked = 296.5 miles  Aiming for 500 miles by March 2011

Someday I will be hiking 1000 miles in National Parks!

Getting Going Again

Now that the holidays are over, I am determined to get going again on the many projects around the house.  I know I do have to balance time spent on them with time required to work on my animal sculptures.  I'm pleased that I already have two orders to do, a moose and a polar bear.  A  good start for 2011.

I finished the painting in the front hall after we got back from San Diego.  We have decided to wait to replace the woodwork until all of the painting is finished in all of the rooms that might also want to have new baseboards.  We will remove them, or not as we go.

You may wonder why we want to replace the woodwork. Simple, it is ugly and it is cheap!  When this house was built the trend was to use rough wood with a dark stain for trim.  Over the years we have replace it in the family room, the upper hall and kitchen with stained oak.  This house is already a hodgepodge of woods, so it probably won't matter if we don't replace all of it, but I think we would like to.

My next two areas to paint are this half wall on the stairs from the entry hall to the living room:

And one of the walls of the staircase going down to the studio and family room.

The other wall of this staircase is quite tall and will require using the extension ladder.

I'm going to skip it for now.













I spent a couple of hours on Saturday wrapping the railing in newspaper and poster board.  The slick advertisement sections are better than the newsprint pages. 

 Looks a bit like gift wrap.  

Today I painted the first coat behind the rail, but ran out of paint. I think I am going to change brands of paint.  I used a Gliddon outside and it was great.  I bought a BAER Premium for indoors and it seems very thin and needs two coats to look good. 

 I didn't mind doing two coats outside, but I think one coat should be enough for an off white, over white inside.  Since I only bought one gallon, and finished the hall with it,  I'm going to look at the Gliddon colors tomorrow. They can always mix a match to the Baer color card, and I think the Gliddon covers much better. There are a lot of walls and I hate to do it all twice.

I have also restarted jotting down several "to do" things in my book of lists each evening.  I found that very helpful last summer when I was working on the outside.

I have skipped walking for a few days, too busy, but I will get back to it tomorrow, or the next day!

I'm Glad I live in a HOUSE Today

Like many of you we spent a very pleasant Christmas with our family.

While we were in San Diego we also had the pleasure of meeting ,
 Kevin and Evelyn for lunch.  It was fun to see them "in person."  Although I feel a connection with most of the bloggers I follow, an in person meeting makes it that much more real! I hope there will be many more meetings in the future.

Today, New Year's Day, was very foggy. These pictures were taken at about noon.  It never did clear. It wasn't cold, and it didn't rain.  Actually it was a bit magical which was why I decided to go out and snap a few pictures.  

After working on a house project for a few hours, Craig watched the Rose Bowl on my laptop.  Yes he is awake.

(The poor squashed penguin is the pillow pet I gave him for his birthday.)

It's been a good year.  We are healthy and working toward a dream together.

Maybe tomorrow the sun will shine, but for today I'm glad I live in a house!