As you can see, the atrium is no longer a construction site, but a room. A few weeks ago I decided it would be nice to put the Christmas tree there this year, and Grace agreed; Jae has wanted it there for two years now, but I didn’t feel the area was cozy enough until now. The rugs and the fireplace make a lot of difference, and I like the tree being at the center of the complex; it’s visible from both cottages and the inside of the main house. Best of all, I could pick a tree based upon its looks rather than its size; since the living room ceiling is on the low side, we’ve always had to pass over large trees, and even medium-sized ones needed to be cut to fit. But this time, I just picked one I liked and didn’t have to worry about its height. This is definitely the largest tree I’ve ever had, but the atrium has the highest ceiling I’ve ever owned, so it works well as you can see. And rather than having to crowd in the lights and ornaments, everything went on easily. Furthermore, I didn’t have to shift the table and chairs around, and we have a real fireplace to hang the stockings by! And though the chimney might be rather small for Santa, he’s got several doors to choose from.
Posts Tagged ‘Sunset’
Annex 127
Posted in Diary, tagged holidays, Sunset on December 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Diary #699
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, Sunset on November 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I don’t actually mean to collect stray animals, but it does seem to happen more frequently than random chance would account for. Ever since I moved to Sunset full-time, I’ve noticed that the neighbors had a small pig in a not-very-large pen; his name is Louie and he’s half kunekune, so a bit larger than Cicero. Apparently he started as a house pet, but grew too large and too able to break into food, and he’s been outside ever since. I’ve always felt a bit sorry for the little fella, all alone and without a lot of room to exercise, so when the neighbors told me a few months ago that they would be moving and had to find Louie a new home because they couldn’t take him to the new place, I offered to let him live here. Well, on Friday they asked if the offer was still good, so here he is. I’ve opened the barn gate so he can have shelter from the rain and wind, and I’m feeding him there for now until he gets brave enough to venture out and start exploring; Cicero seems fine with him, but Shiloh is unsure and Jonathan is of course engaged in llama drama, making his alarm noise as though Louie were a coyote or something. And Louie has been by himself for so long, he’s shy of the others. But he’s very docile (and castrated), and I’m scratching him behind the ears whenever I feed him, so we’ll see; I’ll bet within a few months he becomes one of the gang.
Annex 126
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset, video on November 17, 2023| 2 Comments »
Since the annex project is all done except for a few tweaks and clean-up details that don’t really make good pictures, it’s almost time to retire this feature (except for occasional reappearances when I make some noteworthy change of addition). So I decided to do a short video tour of the atrium area, starting at the back door of the main house; this should give you an idea of how it all fits together.
Diary #698
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, psychology, Sunset on November 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Now that the apples are gone and the trees are going to sleep for the winter, the dry leaves are falling and the animals are finding it more difficult to locate plants they want to eat. Cicero keeps poking around these trees despite the lack of fruit; he seems to be eating something he likes, which I suspect may be mushrooms. Of course, around here that also means the rainy season has started; we get a few dry hours from time to time, such as this relatively-sunny break on Saturday afternoon. But those don’t last long; though I took this picture less than 15 minutes before sitting down to write this column, I can hear the rain on the roof, and in only 90 minutes I’ll start the process of closing down for the evening: turning on the lights, feeding the animals, and then (just a bit after sunset) starting our dinner. Though October is my favorite month, US politicians years ago extended the Time of Lying Clocks into November, which means my brain doesn’t get its full relaxation until after my birthday. But for the next few months, until the increasing day-length begins to become noticeable in February, I get to enjoy days that are too short to accomplish as much as my inner nun demands, and catch up on the rest I never get enough of in the brighter 7/12 of the year.
Annex 125
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset on November 10, 2023| 1 Comment »
As you can see, my fountain is finally working! Though we got her connected to the hot water back in June, there were a number of cracks from years of improper storage, which resulted in water spraying out of her back every time I turned the valve on. But last month Jae got most of them fixed (there is one left, but it’s barely a drip), so when I noted the water level was low last week, I went ahead and used the fountain to add some nice hot water to the tub. There’s also a small leak where the tube exists her jar, which results in a crooked stream if I increase the flow rate above what you see. But that will be fixed eventually, and it sure was nice to be able to top off the tub without having to haul out the hose and sharply drop the tub’s water temperature!
Diary #696
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, Sunset, Washington (state) on October 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The cold weather has arrived! A rather strong front moved in on Thursday, and the temperature dropped quickly. When I saw a light freeze was predicted, I made all of the usual preparations: took the hose off of the outside faucet, put the floating heater in the stock tank, etc. And of course we’re now running the propane heater again, as you can see. Speck is such a plump kitty, you’d think she would stay warm easily, but nope; the only time she moves far from the heater during the cold months is when she wants to eat, use the litterbox, or move into the bathroom (where we keep an electric radiant heater going 9 months out of the year because for some reason it is otherwise the coldest room in the house, and not by only a little bit). When she wants to go in there, she’ll follow Grace in; when she wants out, she simply waits until one of us uses it and then waits patiently by the door until we go out. Either bathroom or in front of the heater is preferable to her early-autumn nap spot, on my desk uptairs; it tends to be very cluttered, which means there isn’t enough room for a fat cat and all of the things that are there, so guess which one ends up on the floor? At least in the cold months, she’s more likely to occupy Grace’s desk, which is right beside the heater. Or to occupy my lap during our evening movie time, while I’m sitting on my own heating pad because I have embraced that aspect of old-ladyhood. 
Diary #693
Posted in Diary, tagged psychology, Sunset on October 10, 2023| 1 Comment »
I’ve been wanting one of these for quite a while, but until recently it just loitered unclaimed on my Amazon wishlist until a generous gentleman sent it along with several other useful but less-photogenic gifts. I’m actually quite tickled with it, and when it arrived last week I was inspired to do some long-overdue straightening and cleaning of the front porch. That in turn led to a slight rearrangement of the atrium rugs and putting my Wellies and farm-coats in the vestibule, which allowed me to put my good coats, sweaters, and boots in the front closet near the mat, which made room for me to get my clothes-closet upstairs in order to make room for the clothes from my incall. The process of integrating everything from Seattle has not been a quick one; I hate moving and get easily overwhelmed by the need to fit everything into its new home, so the best thing for me is to simply put it someplace it will fit temporarily and then slowly rearrange it as the mood strikes or the need arises. Yes, I realize it has been two months, but I’ll probably be done with it by my birthday so it isn’t a hopeless clutter for holiday company. Yes, my birthday is coming up at the end of this month, and if you’d like to send a token of your appreciation I do have an Amazon wishlist. I can’t promise your gift will inspire me to get the rest of my incall stuff rearranged, but it certainly can’t hurt. 
Annex 124
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset on October 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I’m not quite ready to start using the stove just yet; as you can see in this picture, the shutters aren’t yet closed, though I’ll be putting them up next week. However, earlier in the day I took this, I had used silicone sealant to close up a nearly-invisible gap between the roof jack and the stovepipe which was allowing a small drip directly onto the top of the stove whenever it rained; I only discovered it recently because it hasn’t really rained between the time I installed the chimney and this month. Anyhow, once I got that sealed I figured I’d go ahead and make a fire for the first time; the fireplace in my first house was of the traditional open variety, so I wanted to figure out how to build a fire in this stove in such a way that I could light it, close the door, and then leave it alone without having to mess with it again until it was time to add another log. My first attempt, pictured here, took about an hour to get going; however, I quickly figured out what I was doing wrong, and on my next try the following evening I achieved my goal, and the fire was blazing merrily within ten minutes of my lighting the kindling paper and closing the door. That evening saw the realization of a vision I’ve had for the space from the very beginning: I found myself in the hot tub on an autumn night, with a fire going and music playing, the mood lighting overhead, and it started to rain heavily enough for us to hear it on the metal roof. Next time, I’ll remember to fix cocktails before bathing, but other than that it was just lovely, and I really felt all my hard work and expense had at long last paid off. 
Diary #692
Posted in Diary, tagged holidays, recipes, Sunset on October 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The tomato season is ending, and cherry tomatoes are much too small to turn into fried green tomatoes. So I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with all these unripe tomatoes until this past weekend. See, I’ve still got plenty of apples, and I decided to turn some of them into mincemeat because, unlike many modern Americans, I love mincemeat pies. But I haven’t made it in over a decade, so I pulled my old recipe card out of its box and was pleased to discover that it actually calls for green tomatoes; the last time I made it I just used red tomatoes because they were available. But now that I actually have green tomatoes to spare, I’m going to use them. One irritating factor is that my mincemeat recipe is rather old, and like so many older recipes it lacks proper measurements. It specifies a certain number of apples without specifying the size (mine range from smaller than a tennis ball to larger than my fist), and though it does specify “large” green tomatoes I remember how big most tomatoes were in the ’70s, when the recipe was published. So I decided to work backward from the volume of the final product, subtracting all the specified volumes of fluid or solid ingredients (ie ignoring sugar, which dissolves) and then assuming whatever volume was left had to be apples & tomatoes combined. Of that volume, I figured 60% apples and 40% tomatoes, then halved the recipe so it’ll only make two quarts instead of four; that’ll be enough for two pies, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and also enough to tell whether my guesses were good ones (I have a pretty good track record of reverse-engineeing recipes). And if I was off on some ingredient or proportion, I can tweak it next autumn because this time I’m going to write down whatever I try, and move it to a permanent card once I get it locked down.
Diary #691
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, Sunset on September 26, 2023| 1 Comment »
This is called pomace; it’s the stuff left over after finely-chopped apples are crushed for juice. And I usually have a lot of it at this time of year. I collect a bucket of apples, tossing aside the ones bugs have bored into or that are too small to work with. Then I peel and core them using a hand-crank device which really speeds up the job; I can process a large bucket of apples in about an hour, less if they’re large. Next, the peeled apples go into an attachment on my Kitchen Aid which finely chops them, and the resulting drippy mess gets dumped into this mesh bag and put through the cider press. After the juice is squeezed out and put into carboys to ferment, what’s left is this dry apple debris, a mass like this for every liter or two of juice (the apples seem a bit less juicy these year, perhaps because there are so many of them). Fortunately, the animals like it; I mix it together with oats and use it for their feed. Cicero also likes the cores, and I throw some of the peels to the chickens and the rest on the compost heap. We try not to waste anything! And once I get enough cider for the year, there is still apple butter and apple bread and apple pie and stewed apples and… 
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