A meandering blog with no clear topic. You will find me talking about knitting, building, kids, social and economic issues, Alaska, and lots of other stuff.

Friday, May 28, 2010

My garden




We moved our garden this year, over to the northwest corner of our property. This area gets a lot of sun, so it is almost ideal. The only problem is that it slopes down to the north, but it is a gradual enough slope that it doesn't appear to be a problem.

The biggest problem is the challenge of creating garden space from what was forest until last fall. The big stumps have mostly been pulled out, but the ground is compacted and full of tree roots. Our pulaski's have been getting lots of use this spring.

So far this year, we have lots of raspberries, 75 strawberry plants, 1 rhubarb, some onions and garlic, and lots of potatoes. We still need to create beds for carrots, peas, and whatever else takes our fancy. Beans, maybe. Or maybe we will try broccoli again.

We don't yet have a fence to keep the moose out, which is a potential problem. I lost all my broccoli to a moose last year.
Hopefully, we will get good yields this year, now that it can get plenty of water. I'm feeling hopeful.

- Posted from my iPhone

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Wishing well

We have lived in our cabin for over two years. For all that time, we have had water issues. We did not have a well, and we certainly weren't hooked up to any city water. We have a 150 gallon water tank on the second floor of our cabin, and we have been getting water into it in two ways. For a while, we had been having a water truck come fill it up once a month. But mostly we have been filling up 7 gallon containers at the laundromat and hauling them. This is actually not an unusual thing in Alaska, but it is certainly a nuisance.

So, I was quite pleased to come home from work last night to see this:



This is a well truck, drilling a well on our property. They had to go down 120 feet, at a cost of about $5000, not counting the pump and the generator to run the pump, but we have good water. Our water is maybe a little hard, but not too bad, and it tastes good. Today, James has been working on installing the pump and everything else, so hopefully by tomorrow we will be able fill our tank without hauling water. Plus we will be able to water our garden without worrying about running out of water for the house. This is a really good thing.
This is the well:



and this is the pump:


The pump will go about 100 feet down the well. When we need to fill the tank, we will hook up a hose to the well, start the generator, and let it do it's job.

The pile of gravel you can see behind the well is what came out of the hole, which is a bonus. We will spread it on our driveway.

Pretty exciting stuff.

- Posted from my iPhone