roberta mccanse

I just reuse the sturdy paper bags from the grocery store. They have good handles and can carry quite a bit of weight. I get $.05 rebate for each one I bring in. A good deal. They can be doubled for especially heavy loads. Eventually a handle will break or a bottom will get wet and give way but in the meantime they work well and are free. I even had a clerk staple a handle back together for me. I also use them to bag stuff at Costco as it’s easier for me to carry than boxes.

I’m not your basic cistern challenged person and maybe am too naive to offer advice here so I will simply say that I love my cistern. Our well, fed by water seeping through rock, went from five gallons per minute to two. Given problems such as interrupted showers I paid to have an eighteen hundred gallon cistern installed, buried at a depth less than that of my earth sheltered home so water comes downhill, assisted by a pump, to two pressure tanks. The only time that I have run out of water was when I foolishly left a forgotten garden hose running. The cistern refilled overnight.

I have since also installed a hand pump that will bring water from the cistern to the pressure tanks in case of power failure. (Gravity is not adequate to do this n our situation.) The beautiful red hand pump probably cost more than the cistern, but long and short, if you decide to start from scratch this was a good way, for me, to go.

One day a guy let me know that he was clean up wood chips from a nearby forest thinning project so I asked him to bring me three loads. Big mistake. I had, have, mountains of wood chips and, at 82, no obvious way to move them. Meanwhile I had acquired an electric wheelbarrow that had handles that were too heavy for me, a short person, to lift.

Enter a strong young grandson who needed to stay busy. He loved the wheelbarrow and he shortly filled my garden paths, all uphill as I garden on the roof of my earth sheltered home. This year I’m short a grandson but working on tempting one or two to visit. If you have one to lend please let me know. I will trade for use of the electric wheelbarrow.

I know that I have mentioned this before somewhere. Construction of my earth sheltered home involved tons of backfill they attracted an entire metropolis of what we called ground squirrels. Perhaps they were, or were similar to, voles? They ate everything I planted in the ground. I tried flooding them out, encouraging snakes(I would love to have more snakes), raising beds, gassing them with flares, etc. Nothing worked and I couldn’t bring myself to poison them. We decided that the only answer was to outsmart them. (Who is smarter than a couple of retired PhDs?) Ha.

We started importing old bath tubs and put them Up on concrete blocks. Success. They can’t climb over the tub lips. It limits my garden square footage but I have several and can grow enough to satisfy me. And I plant tomatoes in stacks of tires, some wrapped with wire.

Lately, the last few years, the ground squirrels seem to have disappeared. I suspect that a neighbor poisoned them. In any case I can now plant potatoes and pumpkins in the ground without risk. (Chipmunks on the other hand…)

I don’t see an option here for including a photo but I will try to do that at some point.

I like overnight oats. I use what I call oatmeal, the big bag from Costco that I bought twice because I forgot that I had bought them the last time. Half a cup each of oatmeal, oat milk (or whatever “not milk” is on sale) and low fat yogurt. Add seeds, (pumpkin, hemp, chia…,) stevia or maple syrup for sweetness, and blueberries frozen from the garden last summer. I make four or five covered glasses that go in the fridge. This keeps me energized for four days of Zumba at the gym and a couple of mornings a week as a cat slave at the animal shelter.

My Aunt Nellie made, when I was a child, what she called pettijohns. They sat on the back of the wood cook stove overnight. When she finally upgraded to an electric stove they never tasted the same.

I remember taking the steam engine train from Broadhead, Wisconsin to Milwaukee with my Aunt who was a children’s librarian in Milwaukee schools. Late 1940s, early 50s, I was probably four and five years old. The huge steam engines were frightening. I got to “go to school” with my aunt before we had kindergarten in my small Wisconsin town. Milwaukee also had electric streetcars that we rode to and from school. How exciting. More lately I have taken Amtrak from Libby, Montana to Chicago, usually with a sleeper, and enjoy meeting people from all over. The romance of trains continues. I fear that Amtrak will alter its Empire route to the south of us and leave the small towns that used it for daily transportation along the Highline train less.

My son-in-law’s gate to his unfenced property.

At 82 I decided that I needed an electric hauling vehicle. I garden on the roof of my earth sheltered home and lots of things, like compost, wood chips, etc need to be moved up hill. So I ordered a “recommended “ electric wheelbarrow. Alas when it arrived, and had been assembled by helpful neighbors, it was very heavy for me to use. I am 5’2” and lifting the handles, which were too high for me, and the motor which was mounted toward the rear, was simply too much for me. Fortunately my 25 year old, over six foot, grandson arrived to house sit and he loved it. He easily hauled wood chips for garden paths, compost and garden amendments up to the gardens.

So beware of electric wheel barrows unless you are young, tall, and strong.

Love the painting. Love the dogs.

John W. What a beautiful dog. He looks bigger than Val. I met a woman at Zumba (Val often comes along as we dance at the riverside) who has a larger male from the same breeder, black and brown. He must also look very much like your boy. Note: I adopted Val when her people lost their properly. No problems with car travel, strangers, deer, cats… except for elevators. She hates elevators. She spent three hours interacting with people at my son’s favorite bar. So she must have been well socialized by the breeder.