Research and Development...

A slow start...
My health is slowly returning...and I can start to smell and taste the things around me... Not a total success....My P is now sick. She has a sore throat and a nasty cough. So even though I'm not anywhere near the caregiver she is, I gave it my best, and layed low today.
I set Patty up with coconut popsicles, (her favorite), her laptop, a photography magazine and a forensics murder mystery...and I bought her a stuffed baby chick at the store so she could practice being a mother...I then headed for the garage...
After researching the wiring diagram I discovered in the breaker panel for a week, I looked for the corresponding "switch" and junction box it showed. I found them...they happen to be two of the boxes in my garage without covers...(one more thing I have to get around to...) After seeing what they did, I threw on a raincoat and headed down the hill to the well house.
I flipped the cover off, and the old tin lid, and there was another of the big ass spiders we had seen before...just chillin like a villain on it's web...waiting to eat me. Now after I had seen one of these guys before, I looked them up online. Check it out...http://greennature.com/gallery/spider-pictures/callobius_spider.html They can grow up to three inches across!!!! I also read that with speeds clocked at 1.73 ft/s (0.53 m/s), the giant house spider held the Guinness Book of World Records for top spider speed until 1987 when it was displaced by sun spiders. I normally don't run...unless I am being chased by a knife wielding maniac... but from a spider like this....you can find me stopping not short of the next county. I named it Brutus and kept my distance as I checked out the splayed wiring. I called Patty up at the house on my cell phone, and had her flip a series of breakers and switches while I checked the wiring with my meter. Exactly as I hoped...the wiring was as the little message from the past showed. I had her turn it off, and checked out Brutus' location once again. To wire up the well house, (tomorrow I hope), I would have to climb in there...That 3 foot square was no where near big enough for the both of us...I guess it will be pistols(or windex)at dawn...In the words of Caesar, "Et tu Brute?"
So I walked the property before heading back up to the house...walking along the rushing creek while throwing random rocks in...donating to the cause. I noticed something or someone ripped my favorite birdhouse off one of my trees. It was the face of an old man, and the birds had to fly up the nostrils to get in. It had been hanging about ten feet up the tree for almost 6 years now...and it is now lying about 10 feet from the tree...the little roof ripped off. Must be a freaking sasquatch for sure. Hopefully I can patch it up come spring...
I headed up to the house to check on Patty, and then hunkered down with my laptop "Ruby", (because she is Red, my favorite color.) Time for a little research and development....
For the past several days I have been looking at compost tumblers. I am all about simplicity... and flippin compost with a pitchfork, wetting it, and avoiding eating gnats isn't my cup of compost tea. So I'm excited by these tumblers....although they are $300-$400. And the little worm hotel is about another hundred...hmmm...something to think about...The thing is I know we need at least one...between all the raised beds we will have, the animals, the 3 acres of mowed "grass" clippings...it would be dumb to not take advantage of what composting can offer...
I also looked at various goat websites, poisonous plants of the Pacific Northwest, beekeeping, the dangers of NOT having a LGD (livestock guardian dog), and Raintree nursery website. I am actually considering planting several more fruit trees this year...I am thinking about adding a Honeycrisp apple and an apple specifically for cider making. I also plan on adding a Harglow apricot, and possibly a rare black apricot variety. I may add an Italian Plum to join the Shiro plum we already have...and possibly a pear specifically for cider also.
I then checked out diseases of fig trees because ours isn't looking that great. If it is the only casualty out of all the trees we bought last year, we aren't doing too shabby. But it's limbs are black and look rotten and it has little orange spots on it's trunk. I will leave it alone for now...but it's not looking good for "Fig Newton."
I also found another website I added to my favorites... www.moderncowgirl.com. There was a lot of "I ride my own white horse" memorabilia...but there was also a tanktop I just have to have.... It said, "MOXIE: backbone, courage, grit, guts, heart, intitiative, nerve, skill, spirit...it's not just my attitude, it's who I am." AWESOME!!!!
My goal for tomorrow is to get the power and maybe if I'm an overachiever the water to the barn. Come hell or highwater...and considering the creek is rushing and Brutus is waiting for me...it may be a little of both...