Sunday drive

Yesterday Mrs. Waggs & I took a Sunday drive.  We left at 9:30 AM and made it home at 5:00 PM.  We traveled 129 miles and never were more than 20 miles from home, as the crow flies.  We drove around the lake, something Mrs. Waggs has never done and something that has been more than 35 years since I had done.
The sky was a little hazy as can be seen in the following photos.

This pic shows the lower east side of lake.


From the east side looking north.  Lots of sail boats were out.

This is the south end of the lake looking west, toward the populated side.

An old homestead.  We would have explored this but there is a large modern home just out of the picture to the right.

My favorite house of the whole trip in one of the small settlements near the lake.  Access to these communities is by boat only in the winter.

The remnants of an old log cabin.  This place was literally built on a small leveled spot on the side of a gully.  Old lilac bushes were evident as well as this patch of sweat peas.  Somewhere I have a picture of this with the log cabin still standing. I don't know if I can find it but if I do I will try to get it posted.

On the down-hill side of the cabin was this rock retaining wall.  It's hard to see in this pic.

Just a little further back was this building, not sure if it was another house or a shed.  At one time it was two stories but it is fast becoming one.  We did not go into it, it looked like it could come down at anytime.  We would have loved to explore this homesite a little better but were pressed for time.  We were never lost but were a little bewildered a time or two and got on the wrong road, which cost us about an hour of time.  That's what we get for using a map nearly 40 years old, even on the back side of the lake roads change.

The lake side of the mountain where we live.  From steep cliff it looks like half of it fell into the lake at one time.

Coming down out of the mountains into civilized country again, the backwaters of the lake or river.

And one last photo of the backwaters.

Way-Back: self heating iron

This iron is self heating.  In the container on the front goes gas.  It was pressurized with air pumped in from the spigot on the back (I think.) and lit.  No need to set this on the stove top every few minutes to keep warm, but stand near the back door and throw it outside if the fire should escape the combustion chamber.  This model called a Monitor (apparently after the ironclad of recent fame) was patented in 1903.  Electric irons were in use by 1912, and maybe a little before, if you had the money.


This photo clip from the 1912 Sears catalogue shows some of the irons available at the time.


The $2.65 asked for the electric iron was more than a day's wage for most people, here it is called a bargain price.  No gas powered versions shown here but you could get a charcoal burner version for 78 cents.  Don't miss the asbestos lined irons.

Wages about this time averaged somewhere around $750 per year.  If you were paid in silver coin this would be about $16,000 at today's value.  10 hour days were the norm.  You could figure on about 26 cents per hour or up to 36 cents if you were in the construction trade.  Just remember there was no income tax or social security deductions.

Wine Equipment

As expected the wine equipment arrived on scheduled Friday.  We decided to go with making 1 gallon batches of wine to start with.  It's a lot better to ruin 1 gallon rather than 3 or 5 gallons.  We can always upgrade our equipment later, once we get the hang of it.  It shouldn't be too difficult, fermentation is a natural process, anything we do can only make it better, right?

Beginning with the green wine bottle and working clockwise, we bought a dozen green wine bottles appropriate for making fruit/red wines.  A couple of 1 gallon glass secondary fermentation jugs. A 2 gallon primary fermentation bucket.  On top of this bucket are number of various sanitizers, yeast, acid adjustment, pectin enzyme, yeast nutrient, campden tablets, air locks and stoppers.  The big red thingy is a corking machine.  We decided to get the medium priced corker.  This one is mostly metal, the cork holder is plastic or nylon, hopefully it will hold up to regular use.  Available for this corker is a capping attachment so that when we enter the brewing phase we can have a decent bottle capper. Still in the package is a small  auto syphon - something usable with the gallon jugs. The upright tubes contain a hydrometer (for measuring specific gravity), a cylinder for holding the sample when taking specific gravity and a wine thief (collection tube for taking samples). A bag of corks and a syphon tube.  Having watched the included video I have already made a list for another order for more equipment. A thermometer (which I meant to get with this order but forgot), a couple more secondary fermentation jugs and a bottling wand (to ease bottle filling).  A couple of batches and we will be ready for more bottles too. 

Perhaps this weekend I will be able to get the first batch of Tayberry wine started.

Zucchini

The Zucchini is coming on fast.  This is yesterday's harvest.


Chop it up and put it on the dryer.


This morning it is ready to put in jars.  Makes great stews and keeps well.

Berries

It's been a good year for berries.  The rainy spring has apparently agreed with them.  We have a bumper crop of Tay berries.  For those who don't know, and I think many do not, Tay berries are a cross between Logan Blackberries and Raspberries.  They were developed near the Tay River in Scotland, hence the name.

When they are ripe they develop a purply like colour.  The darker one above is nearly ripe.  The red berry has a day or two to go.


Last year we didn't get but a handful of berries, the harsh winter cold with little snow cover froze the canes back to just a couple.  Like raspberries they fruit on the previous year's canes.  This year is a different story.

What can you do with Tay berries?  3 quarts of Tay berry cordial comes to mind.  In a couple of weeks these will be a delectable treat.
Other uses are the same as for raspberries or blackberries. Cobbler, pie or wine.  We have not tried the wine yet but are about to venture into that.  Tomorrow my wine making equipment arrives and thus will begin a new venture.  I don't know if we can wait 6 months or a year for the wine to mature.


The blue berry bushes are also doing well, now that we have effectively fenced out the deer, the bushes are growing adding some size and there is a respectable showing of fruit.  We never had a problem with deer eating the Tay berry bushes, they are just too thorny.  One has to be quick to get the blue berries though, birds like them best of all it seems.  They pluck them as fast as they ripen.  We will either have to throw up some bird netting or overwhelm them with volume.

One of Mrs. Waggs favourite berries, the native blackcap.  We have a volunteer bush near the tool shed. We are hoping to establish a few more bushes in the vicinity.

Misty Morning

Last Sunday morning there was a beautiful mist early.  We don't often get fog on the ridge top. Generally it lays in the valley to the southeast but this day it crept up to our place and was very ethereal-like. It was a real treat but it didn't last long once the sun peaked over the mountains to the east.

Hoop House

My other big project this year was (still is) building a hoop house.  Now you can use a hoop house to raise hoopers or you can use it to grow vegetables in a less than cooperative climate.  We are doing the latter.  Little hoopers are hard to find and big hoopers, well, are just too hard to control.
We considered many different designs of varying complexity and expense.  We had to have something that would contain our raised beds as they are already in place and didn't want to rebuild them, not yet anyway.  We could cover 4 beds or 6.  With 4 beds the hoop house would be 12' wide, with 6 beds it would be 20' wide and the length would be 20' for either configuration.  Because of the elevation drop, side to side, in 20' we decided to go 12' wide and just cover the 4 beds, it would also be cheaper and easier, not a bad combination.
We set 3' long x 1 1/2" pipes in concrete every 4' along each edge for the anchors.

The beds already being in place complicated the whole process.  The anchor pipes were attached to the bed boards and so are some of the end-frame pieces.  Because of this replacing the beds someday will be more difficult but not impossible.  When that task finally arrives, as it will, then the anchor pipes and end pieces can be attached to the perimeter base boards, as they should be to begin with.
The hoops are 1 3/8" chain-link fence top rails.  It takes two of these
to make one hoop 12' wide.  They are connected together and to the
anchor pipes with screws drilled into them.

This picture is a little canted but it shows the basic structure.  The 4x4s frame the doorway and are set in concrete.  Also framed into the ends are three vents, one on each side of the door and one above.  The end frames are the same on each end.  We are hoping to get enough ventilation to be able to leave the covering in place through the summer.

A side view showing the layout of the six beds .  Also visible are the 1" boards on the ends cut to the shape of the hoops, these are there to attach the fabric to.  The original design called for 1" boards to be bent over the end hoops but that was beyond my patience.  The plan is to use the twin wall rigid greenhouse panels on the ends and
to use greenhouse fabric/plastic over the hoops and purlins attaching
it with staples.

The purlins  are 1x3s attached with wires.

We will see if this attachment holds.  I was reluctant to attach them with more screws being afraid to weaken the structure anymore by drilling them into the pipes.
Plans are to cover the ends as soon as finances allow and to put the rest of the cover on just before cooler weather arrives, about September.  The chief disadvantage of waiting for main cover will be the plants are already growing past the boundaries and may have to been pruned back or gently shifted about.