Early August Check In

Posted on August 6, 2020 by Maria Langer

What I’ve been up to lately.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately — other than to share my YouTube videos — and I apologize. I know a lot of folks come here to see what I’m up to and not necessarily to see big helicopters land in clouds of dust.

But regular readers should know why I’m not blogging: I’m keeping busy doing other things. Here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to.

Cherry Drying

One thing I’m not doing lately is drying cherries with my helicopter. We haven’t had measurable rain here since June 28 and that’s the last day I flew.

This is both good and bad.

The good thing is that my helicopter is inching ever closer to the Hobbs meter number that will force me to bring it in for over haul. As I type this, I have 88 hours left until I must stop flying it.

If you watched my livestream video about helicopter operating costs, you’ll know that this required maintenance will cost about $250,000 (not a typo). I’ve been saving, but not that much. So I’ll have to go into debt to pay for that overhaul. (I hate being in debt.)

But because I’m hardly flying it at all, I realized that I can simply put the helicopter away for the winter and save those 80+ hours for next year’s cherry season, thus putting off the overhaul for a whole year. I should be able to save a bunch more money for it, thus reducing the loan I’ll need. It will also Eliminate the stress I’d feel trying to operate a helicopter tour/charter business when virus-related issues — social networking, the economy, etc. — might make it hard to bring in the extra cash I’ll need to keep up on the loan.

That’s the good side of this issue.

The bad side is that I like flying, especially when I can send someone an invoice when I’m done. Although I’ll get a few more flights in before I put the helicopter away — after all, I do have that YouTube channel to feed — it won’t be much.

Fortunately, all of my cherry drying contracts include a daily standby fee, so even if I don’t fly, I’m bringing in money to cover my personal and business costs.

Of course, the standby fee means I have to be on standby, available to fly 7 days a week during daylight hours. So since May 29, when my season started, I’ve been pretty much hanging around at home — or at least the Wenatchee area. (I guess a lot of folks are in the same boat with the virus running rampant throughout the country.)

During the busiest part of the season, when I had the most acreage to cover, I had four pilots helping me cover it. They left one-by-one as orchards were picked and there was less and less acreage to cover. The last one left about 2 weeks ago. Today I’m covering 34 acres by myself.

Here’s the view from my deck back on June 16; you can see four helicopters (including mine) parked in a cleared cherry orchard. The fifth helicopter was based in Quincy, covering one of my contracts there.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll have just one orchard of just 17 acres to cover until August 23. Even though the standby for just 17 acres is pretty low, I’ll stick around until all the cherries there are picked.

Cherry Driving

No, that’s not a typo. I spent a week driving cherries from an orchard to the packing house.

One of my clients was looking for someone to drive a pickup truck pulling a trailer full of cherry bins from their orchard to the packing house about 15 miles away. They knew I had experience pulling heavy trailers — after all, I lived near their orchard in my old 36-foot fifth wheel for several seasons in a row — so they offered me the job. I had nothing else that I had to do, I had to stay in the area, and I didn’t mind making a few bucks and learning about another part of the business. So I said yes.

The truck was a 2004 Ford F350 4WD diesel pickup remarkably like my old green truck (RIP). The trailer was a dual axel with 4 wheels per axel flatbed with a gooseneck hitch that had been customized to hold eight stacks of plastic cherry bins.

Here’s the rig I drove, nearly loaded, parked at the orchard’s loading area. Shade and mist help keep the area cool. Each bin of cherries is hosed down and then covered with a water-soaked foam pad to help keep them cool.

Cherry bins measure roughly 4’w x 4’d x 1’h and hold about 300-340 pounds of cherries. For the first bunch of runs, they stacked the bins 5 high so I was carrying 40 bins or 13,000+ pounds of cherries. This turned out to be the challenge: controlling speed for the first 8 miles of the drive to the packing plant, all of which was downhill.

Of course, before I left I also had to strap down those bins, which required tossing coils of ratchet tie-down straps over the tops of the bins and fastening them on the other side. It would not be good if I took a curve too quickly and the bins tumbled off.

One off my clients went with me for the first run so I’d know how to do it. I almost immediately got into trouble. The roads in the orchard are narrow and twisting and there was a hairpin curve I had to negotiate. I was so focused on the curve that I didn’t register the loose gravel in the middle of it. When I braked to slow (from about 10 mph), the wheels locked up and I came very close to sliding off the road into someone else’s orchard.

Oops.

Backing up uphill with 13,000+ pounds behind me on loose gravel wasn’t easy. I threw it into 4WD and had to use a foot on the brake while I pressed the accelerator to actually start backing up. I only needed to go back about 5 feet and managed to do it. Then we made the curve and were on our way.

I did not make that mistake again.

It took 45 minutes to get to the packing plant and they were stressful minutes. The setup had the braking distance of a freight train so I had to go very slowly any time there was a chance I might have to stop.

But then I was pulling into the delivery entrance and stopping at the entrance check point. I unfastened the tie downs while they took sample cherries and did a bunch of paperwork. Then on to the offloading area, where a team of forklifts took those 40 cherry bins off in less than three minutes. (And no, that’s not an exaggeration.)

On most trips, I came straight back, but on a few trips I needed to pick up (and strap down) empty bins or bins full of the foam pads they use to help keep the cherries cool in transit. Either way, the trailer was so light that I was able to get back in 30 minutes.

I made three runs the first day and two runs each of the next six days. I started at 8 AM — three hours after the pickers started because it took that long for them to fill 40 bins of cherries — and was usually done by noon — two hours after the pickers had finished and gone home. (They can’t pick cherries when it gets hot out and that week was very hot.) Although most loads had 40 bins early in the week, by the end of the week I was taking 44 bins (4 stacks of 5 and 4 stacks of 6). That’s nearly an extra ton. I got pretty good at controlling speed and handling the load and had no mishaps.

Along the way, I learned a lot about packing cherries. I think that was the best part of the experience; learning new things.

Cherry & Blueberry Picking

Like every year I’ve been up here during the summer — including years before I actually moved here — I always manage to get out for some cherry and blueberry picking.

I pick cherries after the growers have picked, “gleaning” what the pickers missed. I actually picked a lot more this year than I usually do, starting early with rainier cherries in an orchard near my home and, more recently, at the same orchard where I did my cherry driving. The key is to get to the orchard within a few days of picking; if you wait too long, the cherries are so far past prime they’re not worth picking.

My first batch of blueberries.

I pick blueberries at the same orchard where I did my driving gig. The orchard owners have about 400 blueberry bushes that they don’t harvest commercially. Instead, they invite friends to come pick when they like. The season lasts well over a month — the blueberries on a bush don’t all ripen at the same time like cherries or other tree fruit do — so I can go weekly and bring home enough to freeze and still eat blueberries all week. I usually bring a friend and chat while we’re picking.

I bring my pups along on these outings. Like Penny, they enjoy running around the orchards, sniffing for mice and other rodents. It’s good to get them out someplace other than home where they don’t need to be on a leash.

Getting Out On the Water

Amazingly, I’ve only been out on the water three times so far this summer, but all three trips were real wins.

The first outing was in my own little boat with two friends. I blogged about that here, so I won’t repeat any details.

The second was paddling with my friend Cyndi and her dog. This was Lily and Rosie’s first time out on a kayak and, at first, they didn’t know what to make of it. I had life jackets on both of them and had them tethered to the kayak with expanding leashes and it’s a good thing I did! Lily took two dives into the water and Rosie took one. In both cases — their first times swimming! — their life jackets gave them plenty of floatation and I was able to reel them in with the leash as they swam back to me. We paddled around the estuary at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers. The water was high so there were lots of channels to explore. We even got a chance to stop on a beach where Rosie surprised me by swimming out to my friend Cyndi who called her from the shallows.

Here we are, paddling in the estuary. By this point, the girls knew the drill and stayed on board.

Here I am with Cyndi, holding up the six fish we caught.

The third trip was with Cyndi and her husband Matt on their fishing boat. I woke up at 2:45 AM so I could meet them at 3:30 for the hour+ drive to Pateros. We were on line at the boat ramp at 4:45 AM and joined the crowd of salmon fishers near the mouth of the Okanogan River upriver from Brewster by 5. I can’t believe how close the boats were to each other, trolling along on silent motors, pulling one sockeye salmon after another out of the river. We hit our limit of two sockeyes each by 8 AM and spent some time trying for chinook, which requires a different line setup and technique. After a half hour with no luck, we called it quits. I was happy! I took my two fish home and filleted them, freezing three large fillets and leaving a fourth for dinner. I also cooked up the bones for fish broth and made myself a nice salmon chowder with garden veggies and the trimmings from my filleting work.

Gardening

My garden is bigger and more productive than ever this year. This spring, I finally pulled out the last pallet planter I’d built, replacing it with one of the plastic cherry bins I’d bought as raised garden beds. That brings the total count to 11. (I have one more bin to install, but I need to do some deconstruction on a flower bed to fit it in; that’s an autumn project.)

Here’s one evening’s side dish, brought in from the garden. I washed and chopped all of these, then roasted them with herbs in the oven. Delicious!

What did I plant? Let’s see. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, onions (2 kinds), beets, radishes, scallions, tomatoes (3 kinds), asparagus, potatoes (3 kinds), sweet potatoes (2 kinds), peppers (4 kinds), eggplant (2 kinds), horseradish, spinach, carrots, strawberries, zucchini (2 kinds), yellow squash, pattypan squash, cucumbers, delicata squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkins, corn (2 kinds), green beans. Well, I didn’t plant the green beans — they planted themselves and have been doing so for the past four years.

Have you ever seen a red potato this big? That’s my hand under it — and my hands aren’t small. I pulled it out of my garden last week.

I’ve been harvesting a little of almost everything and planting more beets, carrots, scallions, and radishes any time a bed empties and onions every time I pull a row. The only veggies I buy at the supermarket now is salad greens and broccoli (because it’s all done now). Everything else comes out of the garden and, frankly, I can’t keep up with production so I’m giving a ton away.

The 11 chicks I got in April are just getting ready to start laying. I just started an egg subscription service for neighbors: $10/month gets you a dozen eggs delivered to your doorstep once a week — if you give back the cartons. When I have all 16 chickens producing, I’ll be getting a dozen eggs a day and will need to do something with them. There’s only so much quiche a person can eat.

Cooking

I finally found a brisket recipe I felt able to follow — with some modifications — and made this. Not bad for a first try.

Like most of the folks stuck at home this summer, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking. Some of it is an attempt to use up some of the produce coming from my garden or the orchards and blueberry patch where I pick fruit. Others are attempts to make something I’ve always wanted to try making.

The cake tasted even better than it looks, but what was I thinking?

When I make something that freezes well, I portion it out, vacuum seal it, and put it in my garage freezer so I always have a quick meal available on those days I don’t feel like cooking. I made a blueberry zucchini cake recently and wound up giving nearly all of it away to neighbors and friends. What was I thinking when I made a cake that big?

Other Stuff

I’ve also been making and selling jewelry, although not as much as I’d like. I think I’ll save that for another blog post.

I’ve also been doing a lot of video editing for my YouTube channel, but I’ll whine about that in another post, too.

But these are the main things I’ve been up to this summer. When the weather is nice, I’d rather do stuff outside than sit in front of a computer typing up a blog post and that explains why I haven’t blogged so much.

I will try harder to blog more in the future. I find that my blog posts are the best way I can remember the things that went on in my life years after these things happen. My blog is my journal and I really do need to stick with it.

The Seasonality of My Blog Posts

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Maria Langer

What you find on the home page varies depending on the time of year.

A few months ago, I was thinking about how I never blog about flying anymore. But a quick look at the home page and you’d think that flying is the only thing I blog about. What gives?

I realized that my blogging habits are seasonal.

I managed to get one trip in before cherry season started: I took the helicopter down to Oregon for some maintenance and spent some time on the cloudy coast with my pups.
In the winter, when I’m traveling and have limited access to the Internet, I often share quick “postcards” that feature photos of places I’ve been. Occasionally, I’ll do a deep dive into a topic on my mind that time of year. In recent years, I’ve been making and selling jewelry on my travels so I write about doing shows, finding supplies, and learning new techniques.
In the spring, after I’ve returned home, I write about springtime topics. Although I love traveling, after 3+ months on the road, I’m usually very glad to be home. I write about the remnants of winter, the weather, and the chores I need to do to get my garden and home ready for the time of year when I’m there.
One of the things I’m excited about lately is the GoPro Fusion camera I recently acquired. It makes interactive 360° videos, which have been a real hit on FlyingMAir YouTube channel. Here’s a screen grab from a recent video — isn’t this a cool angle?
In the summer, when cherry drying season is underway, I write a lot about helicopters and flying. After all, that’s what’s on my mind. I also dial up my video production for the FlyingMAir YouTube channel, which is quickly becoming a decent source of revenue to help cover my flying costs. Flying helicopters ain’t cheap and I occasionally whine a bit about that, too. I might also write about new cameras or video editing tools I use to get that work done.
In autumn, when cherry season is over and no longer have to stick around the house waiting for rain, I eventually hit the road on some sort of autumn vacation. Last year I did a photography cruise in the San Juan Islands, but this year the plan is to go to Alaska; I already got a good deal on First Class plane tickets to get there. When I’m not traveling, I’m prepping my home and garden for the winter and starting to pack for my winter travels, so I sometimes blog about that.

Keep in mind that the busier I am, the less I write in my blog. Sometimes I’m very busy. Other times, I might not be especially busy but I could simply be burned out. Remember, I’ve been blogging here since October 2003 — getting close to 20 years now! Maybe I’m just running out of things to say.

Here’s a morel mushroom I found in mid-May. I hunt for morels in spring and chanterelles in autumn.

I think I blog less now than I did years ago because I’m more active now than I was earlier in my life. I have freedoms now that I didn’t have when I was with my wasband, a man who had limited vacation time and didn’t like me having fun without him. I also have a lot more personal time to learn new things (for example, beekeeping in 2013, gyro piloting in 2014, mushroom hunting in 2016, jewelry making in 2018 and 2019) and build new skills (for example, basic carpentry in 2014; acting as the general contractor on the construction of my home, wiring my home and tiling my bathroom floor and shower stall wall in 2014 and 2015; jewelry scale metalworking in 2018). I do as I please and I do a lot. Who has time to blog?

What does all this mean to blog readers? Well, all it really means is that this blog’s focus will shift with the seasons. It’s summer now, so I’ll be writing a lot about flying and sharing lots of my videos. If the virus situation improves, I hope to get out to do at least one or two jewelry shows and I’ll likely write about that. And, keeping this in mind, I’ll do my best to write about things other than flying when they’re on my mind.

You might even get another political rant out of me. 😉

The Wink Debacle

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Maria Langer

Wink convinces me that it’s time to switch home automation systems.

When I built my home in 2014 I decided that I wanted it to include some “smart home” features — primarily devices that I could access, control, or monitor from my phone. Back in those days, Alexa wasn’t commonplace — if it existed at all — and Apple hadn’t come up with its HomeKit. It was a hodgepodge of options and I did a bunch of research before I decided on the Wink system.

My main criteria were:

I needed to have a generous number of device options that included light switches, motion sensors, and outlets.
I didn’t want to be tied into any monthly subscription plan.

Wink met this criteria. I could buy a Wink hub and then buy compatible — mostly Z-Wave and Zigbee — devices and add them to it. A free Wink app on my phone would give me access to these devices from anywhere I had an Internet connection.

To be fair, I went with other home automation products, too. A Ring doorbell to help monitor the outside of my home. LiftMaster wifi garage door openers that I could not only control but would notify me when one of my four garage doors opened. Various SmartCam and Tenvis security cameras. A Honeywell wifi thermostat so I could control heating and cooling, whether I was hopping on a flight home from a trip or too lazy to get out of bed. None of these products required a monthly fee for use. In fact, the reason I didn’t go with the Schlage keypad lock for my front door is because, at the time, they wanted a subscription fee and I wasn’t willing to pay it.

Wink never worked great, but it never worked badly enough to cause serious headaches or complaints. It was glitchy, period. Devices I added would sometimes be inaccessible or not behave the way I wanted them to. For example, my one Wink light bulb always defaulted to the ON condition after a power outage — not pleasant when the bulb is in the bedroom and the power outage happens at 1 AM. The hub would occasionally go offline for no particular reason. Sometimes, it would take several tries to pair up a new device.

I dealt with all this primary because I’m lazy and it worked good enough that I didn’t need to replace it. After all, it wasn’t as if I were paying for it on an ongoing basis. The hub was old — I’d never replaced it with the new model, no matter how hard Wink pushed me — but it worked good enough.

As this screen grab from the top of Wink’s home page says, you have to “Subscribe now to keep your service active.” Huh? Sell us a product and later ask us to pay to keep using it? No thanks.

Of course, all that changed about two weeks ago. Out of the blue, I got an email message from Wink telling me that they were going to a subscription model and that the hub would cease working on May 15 unless I subscribed. That was three days away. They later relented and, in an email message bragging about how many people had already signed up, said they’d delay until May 20.

I was pissed. I’d invested in their system and put up with its glitches for a long time. I certainly wasn’t interested in paying to continue using it.

I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. There were plenty of Wink users bitching on Twitter — including me, of course — and lots of them were asking about alternatives. I suspected Wink’s email about their rush of subscribers was pure bull. Only an idiot would disregard his/her own thoughts and feelings to do what “the herd” was supposedly doing. I might be an idiot about some things, but I’m not an idiot about tech or my money.

I started doing research and realized that there were a lot more options out there now. The one that kept coming up as recommended was Samsung SmartThings. It didn’t require subscription fees and it was backed by the major electronics company that I already trusted to supply my new TV, sound bar, stove, dishwasher, washer, and dryer. I discovered that if I ordered on the Samsung site, I could save $10 and get free shipping. So I bought a new hub for $59 + tax and waited for it to arrive.

The SmartThings hub is small can connect to my network via Ethernet or wirelessly.

May 20 came and went and the Wink hub’s light stayed blue. The SmartThings hub arrived on May 21. I spent the afternoon moving all the devices off Wink and onto SmartThings.

I won’t say it went like clockwork. I did need to call technical support at Samsung. A real person who spoke English as her first language and was not reading off a script answered within two minutes. She guided me through the process of “excluding” and then adding one of my GE smart light switches. I realized I’d missed a crucial step. I did another switch — this one the Levitron for my deck light (the first smart light switch I’d ever installed) — with her on the phone and didn’t need any help at all. Then I thanked her and let her go to help other former Wink users — she’d told me they’d been getting calls from Wink users all day. I did the rest of the devices by myself. Even the handful of switches that also work with HomeKit and Siri could be added; I’d never been able to get them to work quite right with Wink. The only ones I couldn’t switch over were the Wink brand lightbulb (duh) and the door sensors that were too old to be compatible. I was actually very surprised when I was able to connect my original motion sensor, although a warning in the SmartThings app told me that it was old tech and might not work right.

Oddly, one of the last messages I got from Wink in its app was assurance that they’d extended the deadline for subscribing and were re-evaluating their subscription program.

Too late. I made the switch. The Wink Hub’s blue light is no longer glowing (or blinking) over my kitchen. Instead, the SmartThings Hub’s much tinier form and green light is up there.

What’s neat is that the HomeKit compatible devices can still be accessed via Siri on my phone. (Wow. I really need to clean that vent.) pic.twitter.com/lo22bKIvId
— Maria Langer 🚁 (@mlanger) May 22, 2020

So far, I like it. I was easily able to set up my floodlights so they automatically go on when Ring detects motion outside my front door at night — and go off 15 minutes later. I don’t expect to have any problems setting up my light timers when I travel and don’t have a house sitter hanging out here. And I can still use Siri to turn on my out-of-reach Cocktails sign when it’s 5 PM somewhere.

And if I get really crazy someday and decide that I want Alexa to eavesdrop on my life so I can turn on a light without touching my phone — not likely, but who knows? — I can make the whole system voice activated via Alexa.

Thanks, Wink, for convincing me it was time to make the switch to a more modern, reliable, and cost-effective smart home system.

Taming My Shed

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Maria Langer

I add a custom permanent storage solution to my garden shed.

Folks who have reading this blog for a while or know me know that I have a very big garage. But it wasn’t the first of the three (so far) buildings on my property. The first was a wooden storage shed.

A Short History of the Shed at My Property

I got the shed back in 2013, not long after I’d bought the 10 acres I subsequently built my home on. I was living in my old fifth wheel back then, the “Mobile Mansion,” which was fully hooked up to 30 amp power, city water, and a brand new septic system. I had everything I needed until I was ready to built — everything except nearby storage. My extra vehicles and household possessions were stored in a hangar at the airport with my helicopter. It was a 30-40 minute drive (depending on how I drove) and not at all convenient for larger items I might need around the property. The Mobile Mansion had a decent sized “basement,” but it just wasn’t big enough, considering I had to clear it out to install heaters down there for the winter.

As the blog post I linked to above details, I got a smoking deal on the shed and it was perfect for my needs. They installed it on the south side of my driveway, not far from my electrical box. I wasted no time assembling IKEA shelves I had from my old house inside it to make the best of its 6 x 8 foot space. I moved a bunch of yard stuff in there for the winter.

Fast forward to the following spring when I started prepping to build my home. My favorite dirt guy, Jeff, used various heavy equipment to prepare a building site by leveling and compacting soil. While he was there with all that equipment, I asked him to clear a space for my garden and future chicken yard and relocate my shed to the other side of the driveway. This turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. The shed was heavy-duty and built on skids. Once he was able to attach chains around it, he was able to drag it across the driveway and nudge it into position. We even got it relatively level.

The shed became the “safe place” for a series of barn cats I got from the local Humane Society. They had a program to rescue feral cats. They’d catch them and neuter them and then send them home with people who had mouse problems. Although I didn’t have a mouse problem, I had a snake problem. Snakes eat mice. I figured I’d get rid of the mice — or at least reduce the mouse population — and I should reduce the number of snakes. The program required a safe place the cats could easily access to escape predators. So I put a cat door in the shed, set it up for cat occupation, and did what I had to care for feral cats. The experiment, which involved five cats over two years, was a failure, mostly because the cats didn’t like being chased by my dog, Penny, and eventually moved out. One of them — Black Bart — lives at the local winery and I heard rumors that another was also still in the neighborhood. I don’t know about the rest.

(I subsequently solved the problem by adopting two kittens and raising them with Penny. They became friends and didn’t run off. By that time, I wanted them in my garage so I put a second cat door there. One of them occasionally uses the cat door into the shed.)

Over time, the shed did what sheds do: it collected all kinds of yard junk: flower pots, chicken feed bags, chicken coop bedding, rakes, shovels, insecticides, weed killer, fertilizers, irrigation supplies — you get the idea. If it was remotely related to gardening or chicken maintenance, it went into the shed. The shelves became crowded. Mice moved in. Soon it became difficult to open the door, let alone find anything that might be in there.

It was time for me to do something about it.

The Big Shelf Build

Last week, I was in a shelving state of mind. For over a year, I’d been wanting to clear out a 12×12 section of my garage, build shelves against one wall, remove some flimsy IKEA shelves, and move my table saw and chop saw in. I ordered the lumber and picked it up. One afternoon, I started building an 8x8x2 shelf unit. I built it in place so I wouldn’t need help lifting or moving it. It was great to get it done.

Here’s a pano — hence the distortion — image of the new wood cutting area in my garage. The shelves are brand new but match another set I built years ago in the back 12×12 corner of the garage: sturdy and functional, but not necessarily attractive.

I purposely bought too much lumber. (In my world, you can never have enough 2x4s.) I had also bought a bunch of 2x2s for another garage project. And I had all kinds of scrap lumber from other projects. So I had everything I needed to build shelves in the shed, including that state of mind.

Hard to believe that all of this was inside the shed. Believe it or not, only 10% of it was stuff I could throw out; I needed everything else.

The first step, of course, was to clear everything out of the shed. I went over to take a look on Thursday afternoon and, before I could stop myself, I’d begun pulling stuff out. Within an hour, I had everything outside on the driveway. I’d also evicted at least six mice and used my big ShopVac to suck pounds of dirt, mouse droppings, and cat crap — remember the barn cats? — out. Clean slate.

It’s difficult to take a photo of such a small space, but here’s the left and right side of the shed from the doorway.

My slightly oversized “tool corral” is where I can keep long handled yard tools organized and out of the way.

I’d already decided to move the garden tools — shovels, rakes, hoes, etc. — off the beat up rack on the back wall (which was the first to be thrown away) and into a “corral” on the right side, behind the door which, for reasons I’ll never understand, opens in.

I then went to work on the shelves that would cover the back wall. I needed a design that gave me lots of shelf space, but also a bit of working area, like a workbench. I needed space underneath to store bags of chicken feed and coop bedding. I also needed space to park my small brush mower, which was taking up too much space in my garage. I came up with a design that had a lower shelf on half the wall, a relatively high, wide counter-like shelf, and two shelves above that. The lower two shelves were about 2 feet deep while the upper two shelves were only a foot deep. I used my jig saw to cut out the shapes of the shed studs so the deep shelves went all the way back to the wall, limiting the possibility of things falling down to the floor.

The work went slowly with lots of walking back and forth between the shed and my garage where my saws were. On Friday, my FitBit knockoff recorded over 8,000 steps.

I got the lower shelves done on Thursday. I’d made them by measuring up from the floor but, for some reason, the shelves weren’t level. I told myself a half dozen times that this was just a shed and it didn’t matter and eventually I believed it. But I figured I’d get the upper shelves right by measuring up from the top shelf in one spot and using a level to set the shelves in place. I soon realized that they looked really off. What the hell was going on? The answer was simple; one side of the shed had settled after it was moved and it was no longer level. So the shelves, when they were empty, looked like something out of a Dali sketch.

When the shelves were done and my power strip was relocated away from its space beneath the window — what was I thinking with that original placement? — I started putting stuff away. Neatly. I brought plastic shoeboxes I had in the garage out, labeled them, and sorted various things into them.

Here are the upper shelves, neatly organized.

My mower fit easily into the corner on the left. Easy in, easy out.

The lower shelves and storage space on the right holds my bin full of irrigation parts and other large items.

I updated the tool corral area, too, by adding hooks over it for rolled up hoses and a few power tools that could be hung there.

As you might imagine, I was very pleased with the way it turned out. Best of all, I’d gotten all that junk back off my driveway.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with those old IKEA shelves.

Staying at Home

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Maria Langer

Not such a hardship if you already have hermit-like tendencies.

I got back from my winter travels on March 16 — just two weeks ago? — just in time for the U.S. to finally start getting serious about coronavirus. That’s right around the time they closed restaurants in Washington state for anything other than takeout or drive-up windows.

My rig in a “campground” in Death Valley on the second day of my drive home. The park was remarkably crowded, considering the virus situation was starting to cause closures.

Venturing Out

I’ve never waited behind more than two cars to pick up feed at Coastal; that Tuesday I waited behind eight cars.

Since I’d been on the road in mostly rural or remote areas for the previous two weeks, I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I got home, so I placed a grocery order for pickup on Tuesday. While out, I was able to get my dogs’ nails trimmed at the local pet grooming place, pick up an order of Thai food to go, and stop off at the feed store for chicken feed. Everything looked pretty normal except there was an outrageously long line to pick up my chicken feed.

I went for groceries in person the following Sunday, mostly because Fred Meyer (my grocery store of choice) had a three day wait for pickup orders and, during the three days you were waiting, items that became out of stock would fall off your purchase. You’d wind up with half of what you needed — a situation that was patently absurd if they expected people to stay home. I chose Sunday morning for my visit and was pleasantly surprised by a nearly empty parking lot and store and relatively well-stocked shelves. Indeed, the only thing on my list that I couldn’t get was Jimmy Dean sausage, which I happen to like with my breakfast. I bought bacon instead. Not exactly a hardship.

I should mention that toilet paper was not a concern at my house. I have a lot of storage in my garage and I hate picking up non-perishable items like paper goods so I tend to buy in quantity. I had 20 rolls at home — for one person, mind you — and I later discovered that the toilet paper calculator says that’s enough for at least 100 days. It doesn’t matter because the supermarket had toilet paper. I didn’t buy any but everyone else visiting the store around the time I was there did. What’s up with that?

I ventured out again on Tuesday when it looked like things were on the verge of locking down more tightly. I’d placed an order for lumber at Lowe’s and needed to pick it up. (I’m building an 8 x 8 x 2 foot shelf in my garage to finish organizing the stuff I’ve accumulated so I can set up a wood shop.) I was actually on my way to Lowe’s when I heard about the stay-at-home order issued by the governor the night before. (Oops.) Picking up my lumber required only a brief stop at the Pro Desk right inside the door, so I was able to minimize my contact with anyone. I stopped at the local Ace hardware store — Stan’s Merry Mart — to pick up eight 2 cf bags of garden soil and one 3 cf bag of peat moss, then headed home. I had enough stuff in the back of my truck to keep me busy for at least a week.

At Home

In the meantime, all the time I wasn’t heading out to shop for stuff I needed, I was home working on projects. I always have projects to do at my home.

The unpacking

The first project was unpacking my camper and utility trailer after my winter travels and getting my jewelry shop back in order. This was actually a pretty big project since it required moving furniture. Every time I move furniture I vacuum around where things were and where things are going. This time I also washed the concrete floor. I had to move a rolling cabinet from the back of my garage to the front and then into my shop. It was a small miracle that I could do it since my garage is packed with not only my stuff but various boxed appliances and cabinets that I’m storing for a neighbor who is building a house. Fortunately, the cabinet was only 24 inches deep; if the dimensions were any bigger, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get it into place; there were some pretty tight squeezes along the way.

At this point, the jewelry end of my shop is pretty much ready to go but the general workshop on the other end of the 12 x 24 foot room needs some work.

Photos of my jewelry workshop: my new grinding/drilling station, my soldering station, my rolling mill/metal cutting station, and my main workbench.

The garden

Then, as the weather started to warm up, I went out into the garden and started work on that. My garden occupies a relatively small area between my chicken yard, driveway, and shed.

Although I’d built pallet planters years ago for raised garden beds, two years ago I began replacing them with far more practical plastic cherry bins. These 4 x 4 x 1 foot bins each hold about 300 pounds of cherries for transport to packing houses. In the old days, they were made out of wood and wooden ones are still in use. Now they’re made out of molded plastic, which is more sanitary and lasts longer. What makes them great for planters is that they’re off the ground and have drainage on the bottom and all sides. They’re expensive to buy, but a friend of mine, knowing that I was looking for them, found me a good deal on Craig’s List. A pot farm that had been using them as planters was going out of business. I bought 10 and added them to the two I already had managed to acquire.

Over the past two years, I’d been tearing out the wooden planters and replacing them with the bins. At the start of last spring, I had 10 in place and needed to pull one more. But last spring was interrupted by my two-week cruise up the inside passage to Alaska so I lost a lot of gardening time. By the time I returned, I discovered that hornets had already returned to the planter. Since I had plenty of other planters available, I let it go for the season. Near the end of the season, I pretty much saturated the wood with wasp/hornet spray and then ripped out the planter. Last week, I finally dragged one of the two remaining empties up from my bee yard, put it in place, and started filling it with soil and compost.

The eleventh cherry bin is now in place as a raised garden bed. I think I can squeeze one more into the garden, but it would require some reconfiguration near the shed, which is not a priority.

While I had my old bee trailer hooked up to my ATV, I figured I’d finally move the 425 gallon water transfer tank I’d had near my glamping tent. I wasn’t using it and was tired of looking at it out my window — as I’m sure my neighbors were. This setup made it very easy to move.

The compost

I got some nice compost from one of my two composter.

The compost came from one of my two composters — the rotating one. It was good compost with only a few remnants of its original ingredients. I distributed it among a handful of planters, along with fresh garden soil and peat moss. Over the course of a few days, I was able to plant onion sets and potatoes in two of the planters and get another three of the planters completely prepped for more crops. I noticed that my chives and rhubarb, perennials planted in round plastic pots were both coming back and the garlic that I’d planted in October in one of the other pots was sprouting nicely. I still haven’t seen the horseradish and I’m not sure what the story is there.

The other composter is a pile in an enclosure I’d made against one side of my chicken coop with — what else? — pallets. (I think I finally have the pallet thing out of my system.) That had a ton of yard waste in it, including grass clippings, leaves, and chicken manure. I’d added water faithfully throughout the previous summer and had done what I could to aerate it. But when I pulled the third side off to access the compost, I was faced with a pile of dried yard waste that didn’t resemble compost at all. I’d already decided that I wanted to get rid of that pile and replace it with a second rotating composter, so what was I going to do with all that waste? The answer was to throw it in the chicken yard so the chickens could scratch through it.

The chicken yard

Of course, my chicken yard needed a lot of work, too. Before I’d left in the late autumn, my chickens had started disappearing out of their coop at night. I could not figure out what was getting in or how it was doing it. I secured most of the openings large enough for a predator to get through and thought I had the problem licked. But about a week after I arrived in Arizona in December I got a text from a panicked house-sitter who had found a headless chicken in the coop. I hurriedly made arrangements for a friend who raises chickens to come get them and keep them for the winter. Now I needed to prep their enclosure for arrival.

My chicken coop is a 4 x 8 foot building with nests, a brooding area, and perches. The coop has two chicken-sized doorways leading out to two separate yards created by hooping welded metal fence panels between 2 x 4s laid out in a frame on the ground. One enclosure is 8 x 15 feet; the other is 8 x 10 feet. I can close off the doors to either enclosure and usually have the smaller enclosure blocked off during the winter months. The design, which I’d gotten from a neighbor’s setup, works remarkably well because it prevents aerial predators like eagles, hawks, and owls from getting in. In the winter, I have a reinforced clear plastic tarp that I can secure over it to keep most of the snow out so the chickens can still get out to eat and drink. Their coop has a heater that can usually keep the temperature above freezing.

The hooped enclosure has a frame that was originally up against the side of the coop. Over time, tthe coop and yard enclosure started to separate as either the building leaning away from the building. The gap was large enough for one of my barn cats to get through it — I actually saw him do it. It definitely needed to be closed up.

I put the strap around the tree, attached it to the winch, and attached the winch cable to the yard’s frame.

I thought about this problem long and hard and finally realized that I might be able to bring the frame back to its vertical position using the 1000 lb winch I had. So I rigged it up with a tow strap around a nearby tree and the winch cable around the frame. (If that tree wasn’t there, I was prepared to park my Jeep nearby and use that as an anchor, but the tree worked great.) Within a few minutes, I had the frame back up against the building. I then used a handful of metal brackets and screws and a bit of scrap wood inside the coop to secure the frame to the coop. Then I closed up any remaining gaps between the fencing and the building with chicken wire.

On the left, you can see that the gap is almost closed; I was able to get it very tight against the building. On the right are the three brackets I used to secure the frame to the chicken coop.

I also had some small gaps under the yard’s frame created by scratching chickens. Chickens, if left to their devices, will dig holes in the ground to look for bugs and to make dusting holes. Over the years, they’d dug holes under the frame in a few places. They weren’t big enough for chickens to get out, but they were definitely big enough for large rodents — like weasels, perhaps? — to get in. I closed up these holes by hauling buckets full of river rock left over from the installation of my septic system back in 2013. There’s a pile of this rock in my side yard that’s visible in the spring before grass and weeds and wildflowers hide it from view. I really need to clear it out and I put a big dent in it this week. (I added that failed compost after the rocks.)

And yes, I retrieved my chickens yesterday. I got my first egg from them that afternoon.

Other Projects

I have lots of other projects to do to keep me busy at home. I always do.

One of the bonuses of enclosing part of my garage to make a shop is that I gained a 12 x 24 foot storage loft above it. I’m using it now to store empty boxes I might need in the future.

The big project coming up is that shelf unit. I already have one just like it and although it’s easy to build, it isn’t easy to get it upright after I build it. I don’t think I can build it in an upright position, though. So that means clearing a space for it to occupy while it’s being built, building it, and then calling a friend over to help me lift it into place. It’s going to give me enough storage space to get any loose items currently on the floor on to a shelf, thus clearing out that floorspace.

I already have an old IKEA shelf unit in that area, but it’s getting moved out — likely to my shed, which is in dire need of reorganizing. Then I’ll move my miter saw and table saw into that newly cleared out 12 x 12 space and have a dedicated woodworking area. There’s nothing quite like having your tools out and easily accessible when you need to make a quick wood cut.

Here’s a view from above of the 12 x 12 foot area that will be my wood shop. It’s a total disaster. The shelves will go against the outside wall on the left in this shot. There’s already a short shelf at the top of this shot. The IKEA shelves are at the bottom in this shot and they’ll be moved out. The kayaks hang from the rafters and I can walk under them; the remainder of the big RV garage is to the right.

The shed is another big project. It was neat and organized once. Really. I swear. At this point, however, it needs everything removed from it, shelves moved and installed, and an against the wall “corral” for long-handled garden tools. At the same time, I want to put in shelves around the little window and install some plant lights so I can start seeds in there. I suspect, however, that I won’t get to that project until seed-starting season is over.

My bees need work, too. Right now, I don’t have any; although I’ve had up to 9 colonies at a time, they’ve been dying off each winter and, last year, I didn’t catch any swarms or buy any bees. I have two colonies on order now and will get them in April. In the meantime, I want to clear out my bee yard and possibly create a new, smaller yard nearer to my garden. This would mean cutting back a bunch of sagebrush and setting up a bench for the hives. I also want to go through all my beehive components and sell a bunch of them off. This is the season to do that, so I need to get on it soon.

And then I have more gardening to do. On this past Sunday’s trip to Fred Meyer — I go once a week now — I picked up some early vegetable starts and seeds. Although we’re expecting some cold weather over the next few days, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get the broccoli, brussels sprouts, and spinach into the ground before Friday. I might also plant carrots, scallions, beets, and radishes. And, of course, I still need to prep five planters and transplant my strawberries to a vertical planter I bought for them.

And have I mentioned the new bathroom under the stairs in the garage? That’ll need to wait until my neighbor who is building his house has time to frame it out for me. Then I’ll need to get a plumber over, buy fixtures, and set all that up. That likely won’t get started until much later this summer.

I have countless other small projects to take care of. Honestly, I’ve made living here a full-time job. Why? Well, why not? The alternative is to sit on my ass all day, like I did when I lived in Arizona.

And That’s the Point

That brings me around to the point of this blog post: staying at home during this virus outbreak isn’t much of a hardship for me. I have tons to do both inside and outside my home. I have most of the materials and tools I need to get the job done and, even if I don’t, my once-a-week trip to Fred Meyer — which has more than just food — should make it possible to stock up with what I need.

And yes, I still do socialize. I’m on Twitter entirely too much, chatting back and forth with friends there. I participated in a virtual fly-in with pilots from the UK, US, and Canada on Saturday. I text with numerous friends throughout each day. I talk on the phone with my sister and friends who don’t like to text. And every time I head into town, I pick up grocery items for a neighbor who has a compromised immune system. I even stopped to chat with two neighbors yesterday; I maintained a safe distance away whenever possible.

I’m not lonely; I don’t get lonely. You can’t get lonely when you keep busy and stay in touch with friends and family through other means.

So unlike so many folks who go out every day and spend more time away from home than at home, I’m not suffering at all.

I know I’m fortunate in many ways and I’m certainly not trying to rub that in. I’m just offering up an alternative look at what it’s like to stay at home.

I’m also hoping that those of you who aren’t always at home take away another message: use this opportunity to do things around your home to make your life better. Clean, organize, get rid of stuff you don’t want (or that doesn’t give you joy). If you have a yard or garden, get out there and do some springtime clean up or make some improvements. Look at that to-do list and knock off the things you’ve been wanting to get done. And if your access to the outdoors is limited because, perhaps, you live in an apartment, take this opportunity to catch up on reading or learn a new skill through books or videos. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve learned in the past week about gardening on YouTube.

The new wind ribbons I put on the front of my house give me lots of joy.

Don’t sit on your butt and spend your days eating and watching television. Make this time count, whether you live alone or with your family.

Yes, I know things can be rough for some folks — especially folks who have lost their jobs and are dealing with financial hardships — but things won’t get better if you dwell on the problems you’re facing. Do what you can to ease those financial problems and then try to make the best of a difficult situation. It’ll help the time pass more easily.

Good luck, stay safe, and do your part to make things better for everyone.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2004.

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