“Is it hot enough for ya”



Well, its been a few weeks since we last updated the site. These poor northerners are dying! The refrain has been, “Is it hot enough for ya?” Summer has arrived with the full force fury of hurricane; daily storms, hot muggy enveloping heat with nary a wisp of cool relief in site. Highs in the 80’s and 90’s with 70-80% humidity. Stifling! If you need reference occasionally ck in with dome weather station on the link below. Its not up to full force reporting yet, but will be eventually updating more often, with so many other projects currently running, we are a bit strapped for our efforts. The pool is WONDERFUL in the heat.

But the big news has been the whirlwind tour of Gina’s dad. Wow! He has been a godsend. He arrived 2 weeks ago for a week laden with power equipment and knowledge to turn around the dome/farm/compound whatever you want to call this place. He even brought Jake the mix 8 month old puppy. Super cute and describable only as a floppy dog, all leg and not so smart.

Within moments of his arrival he tried to run through the back screen door. Jake 1 – Door 0.
We were a little worried he might run off, but in fact when he did go snooping around in the woods, in general Greta would go get him and bring him back. Greta LOVED Jake. She is still sullen and moody from his departure. Most of the time he just ran around chasing Greta and playing like a puppy. So from day one it was up early work all day, go for a swim, build a fire drink some beer or wine or whatever. He even brought some of his homemade sweet wine. Very very refreshing and excellent.


So what did he accomplish?
before

The studio.We gutted the upstairs of the barn. What a mess, untouched for what seemed like years, the space was infested with ants, bees, and chipmunks and sectioned off into several small dirty rooms. We tore everything out.
after
In the process we came across 2 hidden closets full of high intensity lighting gear and ventilation equipment from the former owner. Yeah they were some whacky weed growers! Funny to find stuff like that with a man of the law!

Otto shored up the floor and laid down some masonite to smooth things out, now its up to us to put in the insulation and wrap up the electrical work. His final flourish on the space was an amazing rough cut lumber railing for the stairs!

Beautiful!


The roof. In the process of working on the inside we, rather Otto advised, we re-shingle the roof as some leaks were apparent. If we were going to get the barn setup as a dry studio, we really really needed it to be dry. So… I got on the phone and tracked down some broken pallets of shingles and ladders. Let me tell you, Gregory supply in Plattsburgh came through for us like gangbusters! They sold us enough bundles from a broken pallet for the whole roof for 5$ a bundle! Essentially 75% off and to beat all they were architectural 25yr shingles not the old 3 tabs! The ladders were home depot specials. Otto took the lead and I followed. After 2 full days and 2 evenings we are finally done. And what a difference it makes. Wow!

In the process, he organized the shop, installed a some lights, placed a spigot near the garden, etc ….the list goes on and on. He was amazing!

Another highlight was watching him teach Gina how to use the tiller and the riding lawnmower.

In other news, the vineyard is doing well, growing slow but without pestilence or problems. (Knock on wood). The posts are up and maybe we will get enough growth to install some wires this year, but I doubt it. Next year.


The garden has grown a bit with another small bed added in. (Insert Gina’s tongue lashing for all of the gardening work by hand that the tiller made quick work of months earlier). The garden is coming along just fine, we’ve got zucchini and lettuce coming out of our ears, tomatoes are just coming in and the pumpkins are popping up all over the place not to mention the occasional squash.

The only problems have been the occasional Colorado potato beetle, some aphids and a couple of caterpillars, all that technology solved organically for us. We used some organic stuff called surround which is nothing more than kaolin (fine clay) that is sprayed on the plants. It stifles the bugs but doesn’t hurt the plants. Super duper stuff. Even knocked prevented an infestation of Japanese beetles that were coming in off of the raspberries.
Yeah, we have raspberries all over the place.

We’ve been finding lots of woodland frogs, toads and an occasional grass snake down below the pool. Greta has kept most of the large animals at bay but we have seen a rabbit down the driveway and scat from another small mammal, probably a fox or raccoon.

The wildflowers are going crazy with all of the rain.


Ive been making some cheese. Lately I’ve been experimenting with making cheese. So far I’ve only tried Mozzarella, super easy and delicious, next it will be provolone and maybe some aged hard cheeses like cheddar for the fall. All the parts for the cheese press are here, just haven’t constructed it yet.


Mom mentioned that Uncle Gary & Aunt Kim were all about the California Red sheep, hmm fresh sheep’s milk to make Pecorino sounds wonderful….Scott as farmer, …I don’t know.


And that’s about it. The next few weeks we are working on the studio, painting the inside of the dome (red in the kitchen & green on the extensions) before we work on the outside, prepping for delivery of our 7 cords of firewood for the winter, building some compost bins that are dog proof, and possibly even starting the construction of a dry stone wall!