This is one of the things I love to do. I’m not very good at chain-sawing, but just like many other things I’m not good at, I get better with practice. If whatever I’m blogging about is something you’re interested in, you can learn from (or laugh at) my inexperience, and I lack pride to …

With all the rain lately, it’s a good thing thing this is just a treehouse, since I haven’t had time to put a roof on it. You can see the ladder Emma built all by herself, and the decorative window at right really is symmetrical (I haven’t screwed in the side pieces yet). The whole …

Visible here are about 15% of her floral extravaganza, which in addition to this exists in four other large flowerbeds. This is besides the strawberry bed you see at back right, the blackberry patch, the rhubarb and raspberry patch, and the garden, which includes vegetables and fruit trees. After seven months of snow, she has …

I was out Thursday and Friday, so no blog posts. I’ve been at this company for over a decade and now get so much vacation time I can’t always remember to forewarn y’all when I’ll be out. Five weeks of vacation a year plus paid holidays, insurance, flexible spending, etc etc–let’s hear it for college …

’nuff said. Or maybe not: This, folks, is the number one way of feeling self sufficient, to my way of thinking. This is a Lopi Endeavor woodburning stove, and as far as I’m concerned it’s one of the most useful objects I’ve ever purchased. Woodheat.org says the brand of stove doesn’t matter as long as …

I have met a neighbor named John, who was a sniper in the Korean War. I asked him if I could bring over my .357 Magnum and have him show me a thing or two. So one evening last week we walked out to his shooting range, stapled a couple of targets up, and started …

Yahoo! The sun was shining Saturday so it was time to work on the garden. Here’s how it looked at the end of the day. (Of course, Beautiful still put in another two hours afterwards on her flower beds up by the house.) On the left is the shoop, still half-painted, with the duck door …

Not all of it, though. If I’d moved the camera up a bit you’d be able to see the strawberry bed that Beautiful moved up beside the driveway. Our real garden already has onions and garlic coming up, not to mention last year’s carrots (we’ll see how that works). Today after work I’ll borrow Kelly’s …

(Wow, that book The Moonstone is still quite a story!) We all live by a white submarine–a 1000-gallon propane tank. A) Even though I’m not a terrific fan of the Beatles, it’s the first phrase that came to mind. B) I meant to get a picture of our propane tank this morning, but then I …

Wow, that book The Moonstone is quite a story! I thought about getting a quick picture of our generator this morning for this post, but I didn’t have time and it’s really nothing to look at: A yellowish box about three feet square and five feet long sitting out behind the house near the woodshed. …