The Lumber is here

Yesterday I met the sawyer at my friend David's house, to stack and examine the wood we ordered for the khana (walls) and rafters. It feels like we are finally making a big step forward simply by having some of the supplies. My plan is to start coming over to the shop after work and start on the khana. Seven of the boards were already dry and ready, which is coincidentally just the number of boards I need for the walls. The rest have been stickered and stacked until I'm ready to begin the rafters. The rafters will be pretty simple since I am more or less just cutting the board in half to make a 1.5" X 4.5" X 16'.

The nitty gritty of the information is that we bought 34- 2" X 10" X 16' boards. Seven of them will be used for the walls, the remaining 26 will be used to make the 52 rafters, and there is one extra board just in case anything happens. Each board cost us $14.68 plus tax and a delivery fee of $25 for a total of $555.07

I also had the opportunity to go by my friend Wendy's land, to try and help her find a spot for a shallow well. She has graciously offered her land for us to stay on, although we have yet to decide if we can make it happen since she lives in the opposite direction of our jobs. We were however able to find a spot that had some standing water and some orange bacteria. The orange bacteria is present when iron is available in the water. It is also commonly present where de-oxygenated water flows into an aerobic area. This could mean that the water is coming from a  source underground and when it reaches the surfaces the bacteria is able to colonize. This is all theoretical at the moment since I only dug a small hole to see how the water was behaving. It appeared to be flowing in the hole, albeit not as quickly as I would like. I am hoping that a deeper hole will remedy that situation and we will be able to use this spot as a shallow well for the land.

On the home front, we had a bit of a scare these past few weeks with Silas. He has been losing weight and having some bladder control issues. After a lengthy visit to the vet with x-rays, blood work, parasite test, and a urine culture, our next step is to change his food and give him a different antibiotic once the culture comes back. All I can say is that he is lucky he is cute. The only good thing that has happened since he became ill is that the cats have taken an interest in stepping all over him and cuddling him at the cutest times.

Garden cuddling Silas during a mid-day nap

Last but not least, we went blueberry picking! We now have 5.5lbs of blueberries for winter waffles, jam, or snacking.

I most likely ate about as many as I picked. I wasn't of much help. Sarah did most of the picking.

All in all, it was a great "weekend" and now we are relaxing in the kitchen and making some choke cherry mead!