Before & After - Some Of What We've Accomplished In The Past 9 Days...

Peggy and I have really been enjoying the past nine days of labor intensive outdoor work cleaning up mom's overgrown acreage under these big beautiful Utah skies.

The four photos below are before and after pictures of the orchard and a large fenced area at the back of her property which could be divided up between vegetable gardens and the raising of farm animals such as chickens & goats.

Much of this area was 4 to 6 feet deep in a thick nasty tangle of weeds, brush, & cockleburs, and quite a challenge to deal with, but we're getting there!

I must say here that, if this were my place, I'd have a herd of goats to manage the weed problems, to help fertilize the gardens, and to provide milk for drinking and the making of goat yogurt and cheese, and, that being said, we'll move on to the reality of the present circumstances.

Click on all photos to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

Weed Management With Infernal Combustion Machines!
Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

Yes, we accomplished a lot in a very short period of time mainly because my mother has this little John Deere tractor mower that rose way beyond the task it was designed for, which is basically to mow big lawns, which is why mom bought it.
We were in dire straits here with too many chores to do and not nearly enough time to address them all in some sort of sustainable way before winter sets in.
So, I'm certainly not proud of the fact that we converted about 7 more gallons of fossil fuel (on top of what we blew through the U-Haul truck) into the C02 which is every day rendering our planet less habitable for humans.
But we came here to help my mother, and, at this point in time, I have to do that partly within the context which she lives, and, as I said above, if this was our place things would be done in a different way.

Weeds Ready For the Chipper/Shredder

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

Peggy and I brought our electric chipper/shredder with us because we knew there was going to be a mountain of stuff we could use for mulch and compost and we're just getting started with that.

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

This little pile is just the first trailer full of chipped and shredded weeds headed for the compost heap. The horse manure in the corral will be another essential ingredient.

Note the empty bottle of Negra Modelo in the John Deere's beer holder, sometimes it's so obvious that I'm just a redneck farmer at heart.

The above photos show only a part of the many problems we've had to address in these 9 days, from a huge overgrown lawn to runaway shrubbery and weeds in the flower beds around the house, to broken door latches, lost keys for important locks, automatic sprinkler malfunctions, a broken fitting in the plumbing for the well, and so many other things I've already forgotten.

But the three of us are having a lot of fun together and that's what's important.

Painting The House...

...I spent much of today on this ladder Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 peggy otterstrom

The past several days we've been prepping and painting the house in between our other activities around here. We're hoping to have the whole thing done before the weather turns on us.

It was 25° F on our back porch this morning, but the tomatoes, eggplant & squash are doing fine in the greenhouse thus far, and the vegetables growing outside are relatively cold tolerant.

Tool-Shed/Workshop/Studio/Beer-Garden Nearing Completion

Front Entrance & West Facing Beer Garden Patio

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

All summer long we've been enjoying our meals out here on this cozy little patio decorated with the recycled artifacts of the lost (Mid-Twentieth Century) civilization I grew up in.

South Facing Wall With Big WindowClick on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

I just finished siding the north and south walls of the shed, the day before yesterday, then painted the recycled window olive drab.

The siding on these walls all comes from four 10 foot long sections of weathered picket fence we salvaged from a neighbor several years ago when he replaced it with chain link. I still have three more 10 foot sections for some future project.

This beautiful wood was either going to be kindling for a fireplace or would've ended up at the county landfill.

The big window came from an old lodge up here that was being remodeled some decades ago and fitted with new windows. I got several of them free of charge, just for hauling 'em away, and they've been used here over the years as tomato hot-houses and even a temporary home for baby chicks once. I have at least two more of these I'm saving for a garden potting-shed.

North Facing WallClick on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

On this wall I staggered the old fence pickets randomly, using as many of the original nail holes as possible and then drilling new holes where they were needed.

The very old marble-reflector porcelain-on-steel DETOUR sign was given to me by a friend & neighbor some years ago.

Workbench Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

As you might guess, I spend a lot of time out here now tinkering around with my various hobbies & crafts. Again, most everything here was built from scrap, salvaged wood, or recycled junk. The 'carvings' at each side of the window are from an old piece of junk furniture we dismantled (I have 3 more of them too).

The workbench and ceiling are from salvaged wood, and the wall around the window is covered with empty seed packets used in our vegetable garden, which I adhered to the wall then tinted with amber shellac. The trim by the ceiling is recycled wiggle-board.

The small stained-glass windows hanging there were the first two windows I made, for a stained-glass class I took way back in the early 1970s. The tulip design was made from a very simple beginner's pattern.

Beer Wall Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

As some of you may be aware, we have several friends who get together now and then to enjoy the many delicious craft beers being brewed these days, so, just for fun, I decorated the back wall of the shed with nearly 100 different beer carton graphics, giving them the same amber shellacked finish as the seed packets.

These are the actual cardboard six-pack (or four-pack) cartons which I cut out and pieced together one by one. They were mostly donated to me by my beer drinking buddies, Bill and Denny (thanks guys), but I've had just about every one of these beers over the years. Ohhhh, and so many more!

They make an appropriate addition to the workshop considering that the adjoining patio is the beer garden which will be served by the tap in the front wall, starting on September 27th, when we will be christening the joint with keg of good beer and a shrimp-kabob barbecue.

Jim In His Workshop/Studio This MorningClick on photo to enlarge - © 2009 peggy otterstrom

Peggy took this shot of me in the studio about 8:45 this morning, a quite common sight around here now.

I have a just little more work to do inside, finishing up trim on the interior west wall.

Click here, here, & here, to see older posts of the beginning and evolution of the project...

The Greenhouse Today...

Eggplant, Tomatoes, & Yellow Crookneck

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

In the greenhouse today we have several dozen Japanese Eggplant ripening on the vine, a bunch of Yellow Crookneck Squash, and hundreds of Tomatoes just beginning to ripen.

Our Little "Slice O' Heaven"...

Yesterday In The Garden

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

A Good Part Of The Fun Is In...

~Sharing The Magic Of A Garden~

Click on the above letter to enlarge for reading...

Thank you Fran!

Finding your letter in our mailbox this morning put a smile on my face and reminded me, once again, how important it is to be part of your community by sharing what you love with friends and neighbors. Our garden exists today because of friends inspiring us with their love of native plants and we simply passed that love along to you.

It is a joy and a pleasure to know you have found inspiration in our humble efforts.

We were not part of the 2008 Xeriscape Garden Tour because we have several unfinished projects that need our attention this year but we hope to be back on the tour for 2009.

Much Love, Jim & Peg

Today's

flower of the day

Malacothamnus fremontii

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

Fremont's Bush Mallow blooms today at Earth Home Garden.

The Postman Always Rings Twice...

Jimmy The Postman

September, 1971

Click on photo to enlarge - © 1971 & 2008 jim otterstrom

I made this self-portrait 6 months into my 30 year postal career. If the patch on my left shoulder was more visible you'd see that it's not the stylized Postal Service eagle, but the old Post Office Department design with the maroon & blue embroidered Pony Express rider.

Been a lot o' water under the bridge since them days...

Still Delivering The Goods Though!

March, 26th, 2008

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

An ancient photo from the dregs, and one from yesterday's United Natural Foods co-op order arrival, tie 37 years of my life together with the delivery of goods.

I haven't been a very responsive blogger of late, and my only excuse is that it's a busy time around here and the computer isn't getting much attention.

Now we're out of town for 4 days, to the Eastern Sierra again for another visit with Brad, Amy, Claire & Hannah.

We'll catch a David Lindley performance in Bishop, do some hiking for sure, and I'm hoping to get some more photos of the lovely Alabama Hills!

See you Sunday evening, and maybe I can catch up on some of the comments then.

Both photos were taken by Jim using a tripod. Some things don't change much!

A Visionary Architect, Humanitarian, Writer & Philosopher

Nader Khalili 1936-2008 Click on photo to enlarge - photo credit unknown
Borrowed from Kelly Hart at his Green Home Building Blog

"No one can prove there is a meaning to life. I must make my own life meaningful. That is all."

One of the ways Iranian born and educated architect Nader Khalili made his life meaningful was by designing and building beautiful earth-friendly super-adobe structures at his Cal-Earth Institute Of Earth Art And Architecture in nearby Hesperia, California. And by sharing his ideas and enthusiasm not only with his Cal-Earth students, but also within a larger global community of thoughtful, creative & hopeful people from all walks of life. People who are concerned about a viable future as they take deliberate steps toward sustainable living.

Peggy and I had been admiring Khalili's work, through photographs, newspaper articles, and websites for some 15 years before finally visiting Cal-Earth last April for a first-hand look at his delightful creations.

See photos at our post here.

We didn't get to meet Mr. Khalili when we were at Cal-Earth, we missed him by a day, and figured we'd get the chance on our next visit, but that's not going to happen.

Nader Khalili passed away last Wednesday, March 5th, he was 72 years old.

Much has been written about Nader Khalili by the people who knew, loved, and worked with him.

Yesterday morning, one of those people posted a comment at my previous post.

I have re-posted the comment below---and I thank 'anonymous' for the information---because Nader Khalili was the rare kind of human being this over-populated world needs more of.

"Nader Khalili, internationally renowned architect, author, and educator, passed away at the age of 72 on Wednesday, March 5th.He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Hospital, of congestive heart failure.

Khalili was known for his innovation into the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses and the SuperAdobe Construction (sandbag and barbed wire) technique also known as Earthbag.

He developed his SuperAdobe technology in 1984, in response to a NASA call for designs for human settlements on the Moon and Mars.

He had been involved with Earth Architecture and Third World Development since 1975, and was a U.N. consultant for Earth Architecture.

In 1991 he founded the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth), in Hesperia, CA, which teaches his SuperAdobe building technique.

His sustainable solutions to human shelter have been published by NASA, and awarded by the United Nations, the Aga Khan award for Architecture, amongst others. (see http://www.calearth.org/khalili.htm, for more.)

He authored six books, including his international best-selling auto-biography, "Racing Alone," (his newest book "Emergency Shelter," available this summer) as well as two highly-acclaimed volumes translating the poetry of Rumi, "Fountain of Fire" and "Dancing the Flame."

Born in Iran as one of nine children, his quest was to empower the world's poor and refugees to build homes using the earth under their feet.

He was a prominent American leader on the value of ethically based architecture, where the needs of the homeless are considered above all else.

Inspired by the mystical poetry of Rumi, (whose poems he studied and translated, from an early age) his architecture was distilled from the timeless principles of this universe and its timeless materials -- the elements of earth, water, air, and fire, and has been described as "Poetry crystallized into structure."

Laura Huxley, Aldous Huxley's widow, called Khalili the "practical visionary."

He was a quiet hero and a gentle humanitarian, who wrote: "No one can prove there is a meaning to life. I must make my own life meaningful. That is all."

He is survived by his wife Iliona, son Dastan, daughter Sheefteh, eight brothers and sisters and extended family.

~~~The Burial Ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday March 11th at the Sontag Greek Amphitheater, Pomona College, 300 E. Bonita Avenue, Claremont, CA, 91711. North-East Parking Lot entrance.

Burial and wake to follow after the ceremony.

10:00 - 10:30 am arrive at the Sontag Greek Amphitheater: For directions call: (909) 576-9830 (The Sontag Greek Amphitheatre is adjacent to the Seaver Theatre due east of Oldenborg Residence Hall.

Located in a wonderful wooded area known as the Wash, it is secluded from traffic yet a five minute walk from the center of campus. There are many theaters in the college but only one open air amphitheater.)

Ceremony until around 12:00 noon.

Then to Oak Park Cemetery for the burial. The main entrance is at the end of Oak Park Drive, cross street with Sycamore Avenue. (909) 399-5487

After the burial, the wake/refreshments at the Seaver House, Pomona College close to the amphitheater and the organic garden."

Homey In The 'Hood On Sunday Morn....... Four Pictures Of Today

~LONG OVERDUE PROJECT~ Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

We've been sporadically working on this 'TOP SECRET' project for months so I've decided to de-classify it, making it available through our own sort of Public Information Act!

This is a gift for family members, and their baby boy, who was born back on January 11th!

I'm off to visit them by train next week and their gift still won't be finished! That's why I'm posting this now, so at least they know we really are working on something for them, and maybe as a bit of motivation for us too.

The project is a crib-sized quilt (if the baby grows up before we finish it maybe they can use it as a wall hanging) made in the same design & colors as a stained glass window I made for my parents almost 30 years ago (click here to see a photo of the window).

The above photo shows my part of the project, cutting out the paper patterns for the applique parts, and then tracing them onto the cloth and cutting the fabric pieces out.

For the pattern I printed out a full-size image of the design from our computer onto 28 sheets of heavy 8 1/2 X 11 paper stock and taped them all together.

~PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER~Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Here's who does the real work!

The rectangular background panels have already been stitched together with charcoal bias tape added to define the seams, as the lead came would in an old window.

That was the easy part!

Now Peggy is assembling the 121 elements (plus batting & bias tape) for the applique portion of the quilt.

The vine, leaf, and floral parts will be applied over the background with extra layers of cotton batting to give dimensional relief. The white flower parts, and the green leaves, will have two extra layers of batting, and the stems one. All the applique pieces must also be bordered with charcoal bias tape.

Peggy is well-skilled with a sewing machine, but we aren't quilters, and this is a challenging experiment for us, making things up as we go along.

I'm hoping a little home-made treasure from one branch of the family can be extended to another part of the tree. So let's hope this thing comes out OK, because we're on the spot now.

It looks good so far...

WINTER GREENS UNDER RABBIT WIRE

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Our winter beds of greens (spinach, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, beets-for greens, and some green onions) are well-established now, but, for the first time ever, we had to replant the original seedbeds because European Starlings descended upon the place and devoured the first planting as soon as they sprouted. We haven't had Starlings here until the past couple of years but now they're over-running the joint. So I fabricated these cages from rabbit wire, solving that problem, and they keep out the ground squirrels too, who have also moved into the neighborhood in the past two years.

We've already been using some of the baby spinach!

The plants will go dormant when the weather gets extremely cold, but we'll have early greens peaking up through the snow (let's hope we get snow) as early as January or February. A heartwarming sight!

~HAZY SUNDAY SUNRISE~ Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

For those of you wondering about the fire situation, here's a picture from about 7 A.M. today looking west toward the fire. Beyond that little peak to the far left, fires are still burning, with some containment reported on a few fronts. We are still not in any immediate danger, and, as you can see, today we only have some light smoky haze hanging over the alley.

Nine Days Later...

A NEWBORN RHUBARB LEAF

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Our last post, 9 days ago, found us with 4 inches of new snow but this week has been spring-like and new life bursts forth once again, ever-ready to reclaim its place in the sun.

WINTER LETTUCE

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

This is the lettuce mix we planted last October which has thrived outdoors at our elevation of 6,750', under fiberglass panels, through the worst of a rather mild winter, but still surviving temperatures as low as minus 10° F.

We'll leave these hardy greens uncovered at night from here on out, even though our night-time temps are still in the low 20's, unless we get another extreme cold snap. We will get more snow but these plants are established enough to survive, and even thrive, under an insulating layer of snow now.

WINTER GROWN ORGANIC BABY SPINACH

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

This spinach was also planted from seed in October, directly in our raised beds, and covered with corrugated fiberglass panels.

I kept the seedbeds wet until the spinach sprouted and then watered once or twice more afterwards.

Otherwise, the only water they received until today was the condensation dripping from inside the fiberglass covers.

This morning , after uncovering the plants, I soaked them with the watering can using snowmelt from our rainbarrels.

Our kind of folks! Unsung heroes of The Stanfield Marsh

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Meet Joe, Jim, and Charmaine

We encounter these folks almost every morning on our walks along the marsh, where they can often be found picking up trash and repairing vandalism to the boardwalk.

Jim is 82 years young and Charmaine is 78. Their autistic son Joe (on the left) is 51, and never developed the ability to speak.

Rather than institutionalizing Joe, Jim and Charmaine have dedicated much of their lives to caring for him, which has included taking him out daily for long walks, and the healthful benefits of fresh air and exercise.

A couple of years ago Charmaine fell down a flight of stairs, breaking her neck, and I worried that she might never recover. But, as soon as possible, Jim had her back out on the boardwalk, in a wheelchair, pushing her along while holding onto Joe at the same time.

Charmaine has been walking again for quite some time now, out there every day like the trooper she is, but they still bring the wheelchair along in case she gets tired.

The kind of care Jim and Charmaine give their son, and each other, is also evident in the way they care for their environment.

Every week-end, especially around holidays, hoards of tourists flock to the marsh to picnic and view the beautiful scenery & wildlife of Big Bear. And every Sunday they drive off in their humongous rolling trash-bins, leaving behind, literally, mountains of garbage along the lakeshore.

Consequently, throughout any week, you will find Jim and Charmaine, walking Joe, and selflessly collecting trash without thoughts of recognition or reward for their work.

Some people also enjoy vandalizing the boardwalk by tearing the wire fencing loose from the wooden railings but Jim is soon there, with his hammer and a pocket full of horse-shoe nails, putting the fence back together again (see photo below).

For years, Peggy and I have also gone out with our bike trailer (and an extension pole with a home-made hook, fashioned from an old paint-roller, for snagging floating trash out of the water) picking up trash behind thoughtless humans who think nothing of desecrating nature and beauty.

While I completely understand that, for Joe and Charmaine, doing this work is its own reward, I personally want to thank them for being the kind of people who restore my faith in humanity.

As a society we seem to look for some hero, or leader to solve our problems for us, but Joe and Charmaine, by their caring example, demonstrate that each of us, through personal responsibilty, can make a huge difference in the world, if we choose to.

If the human species is to survive the 21st Century, I don't believe it will be through the efforts of celebrities, politicians, technologists, or philanthropists.

I believe any future we have is in the hands of average men, women, and children, who can change the world profoundly by caring enough to change themselves.

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Jim, at a young 82, repairing fence along The Stanfield Marsh boardwalk.

Click on photo to enlarge - 1954 photo credit unknown

52 YEARS AGO

Charmaine and Jim on their Wedding Day

The very lovely young Charmaine, and her handsome Jim, were married on September 25th, 1954 and will be celebrating their 53rd Anniversary this year.

Jim, a B-24 pilot during World War II, later earned an engineering degree and went on to a career with Rockwell.

A veteran with a conscience, Jim is rightfully proud of his WWII service but also thinks the Viet-Nam and Iraq Wars should never have been waged.

Charmaine was a personnel manager for Atlantic-Richfield before she married Jim, thereafter becoming a devoted housewife and mother.

They also have a loving daughter, Nancy, who lives in Colorado.

Thank You Jim And Charmaine!

For Caring...

Postscript 2-26-07

When Jim gave me the wedding picture to scan, he also pointed out that his father had painted the beautiful landscape scene hanging on the wall behind the newlyweds.

Saving The Seed Of Giant Lupine

PICTURES BELOW

These are seed-saving days around here and I’ve just finished collecting and cleaning the seeds of our Giant Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus), a nitrogen fixing legume in the pea family with a very neat seed dispersal method.

When the seeds are mature, and the casings have completely dried out, they snap open with a forceful spiral twist which sends the seeds flying some distance from the parent plant so they might find their own place in the sun.

The first time I collected seed from Grape Soda Lupine (Lupinus excubitus), another native lupine with the same dispersal scheme, I put the seed in a bowl on top of our refrigerator. That night when Peggy and I sat down to dinner we heard these popping sounds and noticed lupine seeds were flying all over the kitchen, so after that we covered our bowls of lupine seed with a screen like you put over the frying pan to stop grease splatter.

From the time these lupine pods begin drying you only have a few days to collect the seed before they've all dispersed.

The Lupine pictured here was started in the spring of 2004 when I planted 6 seeds that I collected in the wild. These seeds have a very hard shell, so, as an experiment, I nicked the shell of 3 seeds with a small file and planted the other 3 as is, all spaced about 6 inches apart and their places marked so I'd know which ones germinated.

Two of the nicked seeds sprouted and none of the others, but one of the sprouted plants didn't come back the second year. As you can see the other is thriving and was over four feet tall this year.

The pictures below show, from top to bottom:

1. The plant just beginning to bloom.
2. A close-up of the flowers.
3. The still green pea-like seed pods.
4. Harvested seed in a bowl before separation from the chaff.
5. Seeds, and their dry twisted pods after separating, with an old dime to give an idea of the size.
6. One of the packets of seed that are now available for locals who wish to grow Big Bear native plants.

Our one mature Giant Lupine produced over 500 seeds this season and we have two younger plants coming up now as well.


Click on individual photos to enlarge

1974-1979 Another Time, Another Craft...

Click on photo to enlarge

As you might have gathered from this blog, I've always had the desire to express myself artistically or creatively in some way, and after I started working for the Post Office that need grew stronger, so in 1974 I took a class on making stained glass windows, another craft I had long admired.
I pursued this rewarding hobby for several years and here are some of the results.

The window above measures 24 x 36 inches and was made for the front door of my parents home in Granada Hills. For this one I bought a pattern I liked and selected some earthy tones of glass that would bring warm colorful light into their house yet still allow them complete privacy from the busy street they lived on.

This was the last window I built, starting it in mid 1978, but not completing it until late 1979 because of being laid up from a motorcycle accident in which I almost lost the lower part of my right leg. Mom sold the Granada Hills house recently and I was very pleased to learn that she shipped this window along to her new home in Utah.

I still love the design of this one even though it was a fairly common pattern back then.

















Click on photo to enlarge

In 1976 I was hired by a builder in Topanga Canyon to make a few windows for two rustic custom homes he was constructing out of huge timbers he salvaged from the old Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica, and from ancient heavy planks that were once the floor of an old Southern California Chrysler assembly plant.

They weren't exactly your typical humble hippie abodes of the day, but most of the materials were recycled, and he built them all himself. Well, not entirely by himself, he did hire helpers, so I made the stained glass windows and also helped dig & install a leachfield for one of the septic systems.

This window was by far my biggest stained glass challenge. It's four feet in diameter and the owner/builder requested a Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Sign design which he wanted to be at least semi-transparent.

The design part was simple enough, I just checked out a Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Sign book from the library, found one he liked that I thought I could make into a window, and then selected the appropriate colors of glass in a variety of textures that I felt would accentuate the strong elements of the design even in a translucent/semi-transparent medium.

The challenge came in bracing and stabilizing a large-paned four foot diameter round window without detracting from the design. With a bit of difficulty I fabricated a segmented galvanized steel brace which was then soldered to the lead came on the outside of the completed window, and last I heard it was still there.

Some Pennsylvania Dutch folks believe the commonly six-pointed hex signs bring good luck or ward off evil spirits, and that the colors each have a meaning.

Blue for protection - note the six-sided cobalt blue center.

Red for emotion, passion, lust, & creativity - I chose a clearly vivid red don't you think? ;~)

Green for fertility & growth - a green ring anchors the segments of the large six-pointed central star.

Violet for things sacred - it's hard to tell from the photo but half segments of the large star are violet.

Orange for success in career - the other halves of the large star segments are orange.

White for purity - The clear panels were white in the original design and they do let a pure clean light into the room, which appears to be white on occasion, like in the photo.

But I wouldn't know about all that because I'm not Pennsylvania Dutch, I'm Swedish, Irish, and Cherokee...

The window was fitted into a massive frame and installed in a rock wall beside the hand-hewn front door of the house the builder constructed for himself.

I took the picture from inside the finished house a year or so after I built the window.

Click on photo to enlarge

The same builder was constructing a similar house on an adjoining lot with more of the same salvaged timbers. This was a spec house built and sold to pay off his construction loans on the two houses. The antique etched glass above was installed in the master bathroom of the spec house and I made the smaller stained glass panels to either side. These are two of my favorite windows because they were among the first ones in which the design was all my own.

I haven't done any stained glass work in 27 years, but I still have the equipment, so who knows, maybe one of these days I'll get back to it...

We have a couple of windows in our house that would look nice in stained glass

I rediscovered these old photos while going through my slides, copying them into digital format with a slide copier. I removed some dust specks and scratches in Photoshop.

A Spotted Owl Family

Click on photo to enlarge

You are looking at a very special family of Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis) in that there are actually 3 babies in this nest, a somewhat rare occurrence I'm told. The adult female, on the left, is actually feeding the third youngster who is hidden behind the other two, but it did pop its head up for a moment.

The male adult, in the upper right, was being a very good mate and father. As we gave him mice, he would take them up and pass them to the female, who would then feed them to her young. If you look closely, just to the left of his tail-feathers, you'll notice the long thin tail of a mouse that he's holding in his right talons, and is about to pass to his mate.

The male took four mice from us and gave each one to the female before they seemed to have had enough fun for the morning and lost interest. This photo was taken at 7:08 A.M. today.

And I apologize for the poor quality of the photo, but these birds live in deeply shaded canyons or groves of trees with very little light for photography. To get a shot like this I had to use ISO 400 (that's why the picture is so grainy), and still couldn't shoot any faster than 1/40th of a second wide open at f/3.5, and its pretty hard to hand-steady a camera at that slow shutter speed (I was lying on a slippery slope in deep oak mulch trying to stabilize the camera on a wobbly fallen branch when I took this one).

But the photo is legible and the owls are beautiful, and I wanted to share them with you.

This picture is for Mary Anne, the first person to take me owling, because I know it will make her homesick. :~)

Wildlife Tree Tag STOC 321

Click on photo to enlarge

One of our tasks this morning was to place this USFS Wildlife Tree Tag on the oak the above owls are nesting in.

As a consequence of the recent 7 year drought---the resultant bark-beetle infestation, and also because of nearly a century of fire suppression that has allowed our forests to grow far too dense, and become extreme fire hazards---there is now a much needed thinning going on throughout the forest, and the people cutting the trees need to know which ones are critically important habitat for wildlife.

So that's what the tagging is for, and along with monitoring population stability, it's just another of many reasons that these owl surveys are important.

Orchid Black, Plant Lady Extraordinaire...

Click on photo to enlarge

Saturday's 4th Annual Big Bear Xeriscape Garden Tour was well attended again this year and our efforts at Earth Home Garden were especially rewarding due largely to the fact that our dear friend Orchid Black lent her considerable native plant knowledge and salesperson skills to our second annual native plant sale. Orchid sold nearly $800 worth of plants from the front porch for our local Hunter’s Nursery, thus furthering the cause of native plant gardening and helping to make it economically feasible for Hunter’s to be involved.

The native plants are grown out from seed collected locally under permit from the Forest Service by another friend, Bill LaHaye, the water conservation specialist for the City Of Big Bear Lake Department Of Water & Power (and sometimes I even get to assist in the collecting), who ships them off to the Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery for propagation under a program sponsored by the DWP in conjunction with Hunter’s Nursery. Once the plants have grown to marketable size they are picked up by the DWP and sold to Hunter’s for resale to local gardeners and landscapers.

Orchid, who has been honing her native plant skills for some years now through working with the Theodore Payne Foundation, and a continuing education in the sustainable practice of Permaculture, has started her own native plant landscaping business, Pitcher Sage Design. It was Orchid who suggested last year, when she came to help us with the Xeriscape Tour, that we could probably sell a lot of plants on our deck, during the tour, to those actually interested in drought tolerant native gardening. Lucy at Hunter’s has known us for years and trusted us to bring home dozens of plants for that experimental first sale which was quite successful, just under $400 if I remember correctly.

It’s a sweet reward for Peggy, Orchid, and I to be instrumental in spreading the joy of native gardening through the community, and to think that native species may be benefiting a little bit from our efforts. We enjoyed a full day of sharing, with old friends and new, our garden experiences as several hundred people wandered through the yard admiring the results of nearly a decade of native species gardening.

Thanks Orchid for all your hard work and your lovely spirit...

And thanks also to Brad Henderson and Bill LaHaye for the inspiration.

The Big Bear Xeriscape Garden Tour is presented yearly by the Sierra Club Big Bear Group.

Mill Creek Crossing

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This photo was taken while crossing Mill Creek last Thursday evening at 7:41 P.M. on our way to a Spotted Owl territory.

Mill Creek is a tributary of the Santa Ana River and is part of the Mount San Gorgonio watershed. At 11,502 feet above sea level Mount San Gorgonio (Ol' Greyback) is the highest peak in Southern California.

The picture was taken to the east just outside of the tiny mountain enclave of Forest Falls, about 35 miles from our house (by road), in these same San Bernardino Mountains.

Planting Greens

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Actual gardening took place today, compost was turned, greens were planted and weeds were pulled. More weather on the way tomorrow evening though.

Petroglyph Bowl

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The bowl was made about 5 years ago and combines a gourd with pine-needle basketry.

There's a remote early-man site in the Mojave Desert about 35 miles from here with ancient petroglyphs adorning the rock walls of a short narrow canyon. We spent a lot of time there when the kids were younger and I took close-up photos of most of the symbols.

I copied the petroglyph designs as closely as possible onto the gourd with a large red indelible marker and then colored the rest of the gourd blue, also with indelible marker. Then I hand-rubbed the bowl to wear away some of the indelible ink which gave the bowl a sort of weathered batik-like patina. After the pine-needles were stitched on, the entire bowl was finished with a coat of beeswax.

For the baskets & bowls I usually stay with earthy tones, but I had some turquoise colored hemp twine and wanted to experiment with color. I like the way it came out and I may make a couple more Petroglyph Bowls in different colors, but the above photo doesn't really do this one justice (see the photo I added below).

The Petroglyph Bowl was given to our friend Bob Varga in appreciation for the 30,000 pound boulder birdbath he brought us.

And with this more current work I think I'll bring my little art retrospective to a close, I want to go out and play. But it's been fun going through this old stuff and sharing it with you.

If I ever get a slide scanner for the computer you guys are in real trouble, I've got about 2,000 old slides from my photography days packed away in closets.

Have a good Sunday everybody...

Same Bowl, Another View...

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Here's the above bowl in a little better light where you can actually see what the finish is like.

Our Finished Floor

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I finally finished our living room floor on Saturday morning and none too soon as it's supposed rain or snow tomorrow.

I haven't added the baseboards yet because we needed to get the furniture in off the porch before the weather hits, but I can measure those, cut & finish them outside when the weather permits, and just move the furniture a bit to nail them in place.

The floors came out nice and Peggy is very happy with them so I think I made points there!

Blogger Dread Pirate Roberts asked a couple of questions about the floor so I'll answer those here.

1. The tiny spaces between a few of the boards will collect dust and crud but cleaning & waxing will eventually seal them over.

2. Because I used standard 1" x 12" pine planks from the local lumberyard I had to consider the possibility of the wood cupping or warping so I decided to both glue and nail the planks to the plywood sub-floor. I used a non-flammable, supposedly non-toxic adhesive, Taylor's 4071 meta-tec floor adhesive, and I nailed the planks, 3 nails across, every 2 feet. I also acclimated and further dried the planks by stacking them in the house for two months with spacers between each plank to allow for air circulation. The floor is nice & flat with no signs of cupping.

The pine floor is finished with OSMO Hardwax Oil, an environmentally safe product from Germany that is non-toxic & recommended for use on children's furniture as well. It is primarily made from two waxes, carnauba & candelilla, mixed with sunflower, soybean and thistle oils and a bit of highly distilled benzene-free solvent which evaporates upon drying.

The downside is that I messed my back up again doing all that bending & lifting so it's off to the chiropractor again tomorrow.

But it's a pretty floor and as environmentally friendly as I could make it on our budget and in this location.