Walk around the lake

It has been a dream of mine every since we bought this property in 1985 to have a walking path around the lake. It is such a beautiful setting and offers many different views and some dramatic changes in plants - from forest to river savana to jungle grass to lake bank........ etc. Well I did try over the year with shear muscle behind a chain saw, weed whip and on an ATV but not much luck. If it finally took a tractor and even an excavator to clear the twisted piles of fallen trees lashed together with massive blackberry vines.

The new trail is like a rustic park but very smooth and clear of brush and debris. It does take some maintenance every year but is well worth the effort to keep it open. We live in a north western coastal rain forest. We get about 60 inches of rain a year. So I have to literally fight back the jungle. Fortunately, it is only a few times a year in the early spring when I have to mow and weedwhip. I look forward to the dry season and grass dying. hahaha

With tractor I can rake and maintain a nice 5 foot wide walking trail. It is like a peaceful meditation. The trail is smooth so your eyes can take in the beauty of the forest, the lake, the wild life and nature. I have created a labyrinth of trails with foot bridges around the property.

I have built 3 different foot bridges spanning water flow areas on the lake trail. Thank heaven for pressure treated wood and screws and bolts. They last for years and years.

The wildlife really love the new trails. They can walk freely and easily around the lake. Last winter I smelled the strong unrine smell of a cougar. Ten or 15 feet farther Janai spotted the foreleg of a deer. In the fall, we occassionaly see foot prints of bear and elk. Many wild things use the lake. It is a major migratory stop in the spring and fall. We have a nice batch of Northern Pond turtle along with other amazing creatures - fox, mink, nutria, bald eagle, heron, hawks. vultures, dragonflies, etc. The lake does have fish - non-natives mainly. I do not fish because they are ravaged by the wild life. This time of the year the lake is really low. In the winter it raises up about 3 to 4 feet and covers about 7 acres.

So after 23 years, it has finally come together.

I will just stream the pics. They are in order and I took an occasional side view of the lake from the trail. Elk Creek is on one side of the lake and runs like a river in the winter.

Enjoy...........................






this is a new land bridge so I can get down when the ground dries up to harvest firewood and keep the trails clear.


























I would guess that it is around 3/4 of a mile around the lake. We are so lucky that it sets on our property alone so we do not go down and listen to LOUD obnoxious music blaring or find beer or soda cans floating in the water. It is a very protected place for the wildlife. They just have to watch out for each other - hahahaaaaaaaaa.

Massive House Painting

I will just post a series of pictures. We had the new windows put in last summer and you can tell the house really needed painting. This summer we hired the painting done. They used an excellent caulk for all the boards and cracks. The power washed the house. It sat for over a week in the heat so it was nice and clean and dry before the paint was applied. I had them use ICI Dulux paint. I have used it a number of times before on other buildings and it seems that their latex paint in a nice hard plastic seal for the house. I think our home can go a good 12 to 15 years before we will have to add another coat of paint to it.

http://www.dulux.com

check for a paint store near you.

It was nice to hire the help to get it done even though I have excellent painting skills. I have so much going on and the 2 story house is quite high - I respect heights and avoid hanging off a ladder at 15 ft off the ground. The prep work alone was massive and tedious.
I love the bamboo shadows on the house in some of these pics.
A good paint job really upgrades the appearance and value of a home as well as keeping it in good shape for years and years to come.






Those are huge grape vines I have growing along the deck rail - yummmmmmmm. The garden is just busting and booming.

This is my new blog about my method for gardening.

http://supergreengarden.wordpress.com

I will be posting about my approach to organic gardening. I will be publishing some eBooks as how to manuals. Delicious food, easy, little work, sparse watering........ etc.

Hot Summer, Way hot and the Garden starts to thrive

It has been a wild and crazy spring here in Oregon. Sun, rain, chilly, wind, clouds and unseasonably cool then burning heat. Could Mother Earth being going through 'the change' - menopause on a global scale. Poor gal.

Well the garden has been funky. Cold weather crops got going but most things have been setting. Now finally things are starting to take off. The grapes are one of the best looking crops this year. I spent a ton of time repairing and upgrading the garden beds in the greenhouse area. I need to do more repairs and buy some new plastic before the winter but we will have lots of yummy food this summer and some all through the winter.


This is a close up of the new grapes, they bloom and then the fruit sets. These are delicious Himrod grapes - incredible sweet flavor. We usually have 60 pounds or more easily just off the rail here by the house. There are 2 other kinds of grapes as well.




I have designed a new kind of garden bed that is really efficient = uses very little water, nutrients go just to my plants, no weeding and as you can see I can grow really intensively.


This is the tomato bed. There are 8 different tomatoes plants. By the end of the season they will be huge. They grow up and over the wooden frame on top and then come cascading down the sides so the the plants end up being 8 ft tall or so. They are filled with tomatoes and it is quite the job for Janai just to harvest them all. This year we will need a more effective way to preserve with all the high food prices. The quality is supreme - yummy Organic, picked at the peek of ripe prefection. Oregon has cool nights so I like to grow small sweet tomatoes. The big red ones are okay but do not develop the acidic bite that you get growing in the middle of the US or south.


Here are 2 potatoes beds with Yokon Gold type potatoes and some chard. They are 2 kinds of raspberries in the far bed. The backdrop is some of my bamboo collection.


This was another huge spring project. This is firewood for the sauna. It is packed up high. I also use it to start the woodstove in the house. The really rotten old wood left over from tops of trees that we logged back in 1996 burn fast and hot.



This is a much prettier view of the sauna. I have about 26 different kinds of bamboo. I like the prettier kind. Some are clumpers and some are spreaders. I have some that I spread around our land and some that I can trade or share with others.


This is the bamboo shading the river gravel walkway to the sauna. It is cool and refreshing. Nice leaf songs if there is a breeze blowing. It is really cool at night as well.



Here is a naughty little new timber bamboo - Vivax, that is trying to creep up through the deck. I will just smack it and it will die. Some varieties could do damage.



This is my herb garden on the deck. Makes food insanely delicious when you use fresh herbs. I need to come up with a way to transfer into the house this winter so we can sustain them and their yummy flavor.



This is another area of bamboo that I am growing near the lined pond - fire danger resource and has fish growing in it. I have on bamboo that is quite rare. The others are a little more common and very pretty.


This is firewood that I have cut and split from the selective harvest of trees that we did last fall. I am building a new storage area so I can stack it in to keep it out of the rain. Man we blew through the firewood last winter when it was soooooooooo cold.

bye
ciao