Wagmore Daily: Ziggy Goes Forth

Ziggy continues to enjoy Wagmore.  Last night we went for a family walk through the trees we planted this winter (I'm trying to figure out a drip irrigation plan for them), and all humans + dogs joined.

Here are some pictures showing Ziggy's happiness.

Into the field.

Stop to gaze.

 

Stop to sniff.

Sniff.

Sniff deeply.

Gaze.

Crash.



Wagmore Daily: Uncle Denzil Spends the Day!

My parents had to go out of town for the day and didn't want to leave their boy home alone, so we had a special guest - Denzil!  Those who've been following the blog since its inception will remember that Denzil was an original member of the Trio of Trouble (along with Maggie and Ziggy).  You can learn more about Denzil on his page.

The Humans and Ziggy love to have Denzil around.  Blossom the c*t spent the day upstairs (that's where the food, cat tree, and litter are, so don't feel bad for her).  I wasn't sure how Rip would do - but he was very accommodating.

Here's how the day went:

We started the day with coffee on the porch.  

Denzil hung out with me.

Then Denz joined the boys in some wandering and sniffing.

When we came inside, Ziggy & Rip thought some bitey play was in order.

Denzil sat in front of me, keeping a close eye on things.

Then Denz remembered he was the Party Police.

So he moved in to break things up.

I love Rip's expression here - very contrite.

He had this expression each time Denz reprimanded him.

Good boy.

The Party Policeman succeeded in his goal.

And later in the afternoon, Zzzz all around:

Another great day at Wagmore.

Wagmore Daily: Rip Tastes Freedom

Yesterday Rip had an exciting day in the country.  Too exciting for our liking.

It all began here:

You may remember this picture from a couple days ago.  

Rip gazing out down the drive.

Combine this with Rip's LOVE of sniffing.  

And the fact that our neighbors have chickens, turkeys, sheep, and cows….

And what do you get?  

A missing dog!

Yes, Rip escaped under the gates yesterday.  He found a low spot near the drive, and shoved his way under the gates.  Thankfully we were outside, and noticed quickly that the only dog in the yard was Ziggy.  Then I noticed the neighbor's cows running around their pasture bucking.  I have no proof that this was Rip, as it would take some squeezing to get into the field with the cows, but the crazy cow frolicking punctuated to us that Rip was indeed missing.

So we walked around using the dog whistle and calling Rip.

The Husband was panicked.  The Small Human was VERY UPSET (who knew he liked Rip so much).  I was hoping that Rip wasn't getting himself into something he couldn't get out of.

After about 20 minutes that seemed like 3 hours, we finally found Rip.  The Small Human and I drove around our area, calling his name and blowing the dog whistle.  On the way back down a dead-end road, about 500 yards from our house, we saw him.  He was gleefully trotting along the road, peeing on mailboxes and recycling bins.

Thank doG we found our boy.

After his great escape, Rip was only taken out on a flexi.  The rest of the time he spent inside, by our front door, barking and pawing at the side light.  Freedom was calling and we were in the way!

So today The Husband Rip-proofed the gate area.  It doesn't look fantastic, but it works.  And let me assure you that Rip has put it to the test. :)

Stakes and chicken wire to fill in the swale under the gate.

Chicken wire all the way up the fence on the side of the gate.

Mesh hanging down on the other gate 

to cover up a very small (but perhaps corg-possible) gap.

And the finished  product.

Sorry, Rip.  Wait, no, I'm not really sorry.  Too bad, Rip.

Wagmore Summer days 1-3: Happy dogs!

To say that the Cardi boys like it here at Wagmore is an understatement.  Ziggy in particular seems a much happier dog here than he is Iowa.  He seems to have more energy.  He's playing more, he's more active, and as a result he's lost some weight.

The C*ts love it here, too.  More places to explore, more projects to hamper.

Here are some happy pack pictures.

Gloria finds the afternoon sun

Blossom "helps" to build The Small Human's new bed

 A yard with no plantings is great for frapping!

Basking in the sun is nice, too

Then a corgi needs to come in and rest using a human pillow

Summer at Wagmore!

I realize that I haven't posted anything to the blog for a while.  We've been busy, but I was feeling a little less than inspired, resulting in a dearth of blog posts.

Inspiration has returned, though, as The Pack has decamped to Wagmore for the summer!

The Small Human, The Husband, and all the pets traveled out early this week (I'll post more about that when I get some good pics from The Husband).  Meanwhile I worked in my company office.  Later tonight, I head west to join the rest of The Pack.

I'm so looking forward to spending some quality time at Wagmore. We're making this work by me taking some vacation time, working remotely for a few weeks, and traveling back to my company office a couple times.

Our big projects for the summer include installing an irrigation system for the trees we planted this winter, and replacing the fence on the west side of our property.  There's a lot of other work to do as well, and we'll certainly be taking some time to enjoy Wagmore.

My goal is to post something every day.  Not long posts, just daily updates & pics. So until tomorrow, here's Rip guarding his domain.

Wagmore Farm: How We Found Cheap Trees

In the last post, I talked about the trees we plan to plant in The Bloody Great Forest.  Since we need to find and plant more than 300 trees, and my last name isn’t Gates or Buffett, finding inexpensive sources of trees was paramount. 

I started with one of the helpful tree people who helped me evaluate options for the screen.  His business is based North of Seattle.  If you need trees and live up that way,  I highly recommend contacting him.  Unfortunately, the shipping would have been prohibitively high given the number of trees I need, so I had to find trees in and around Wagmore.  One would think that would be easy (it is in the Evergreen State afterall), but it took me a surprising long time…

All the trees we’re planting this time around I find via Craigslist.  I love Craigslist.  I found one grower and one large nursery who, together, provided us with nearly 150 trees.  Cheap.  Apparently one can get good deals on trees in the middle of winter.  Go figure.  We ended up paying between $25-$50 for 5' - 8' trees.  I am very happy with this!

The Husband is working on getting these trees in the ground.  I'll share more of his adventures in tree planting in the next few days, once I get an update.  In the spring, we'll stand back and take a look at the overall screen and try to imagine how it will look from the house.  I want to make sure we have a natural forest look from the house, backed by a thick-you-can't-see-anything-through-it screen.  This might mean buying more larger trees from the nurseries we've already worked with.

If our screen is in good shape, we'll likely fill in the rest of the forest with trees from the county foresters association seedling sale (the same place we got the our first lot of baby trees).  The babies require more tending for a few years, but they're a heck of a lot cheaper, and it's fun to watch them grow…

Here's an image my nephew created for me.  

It captures the impenetrable forest feel perfectly.

If I can't have Ents maybe I can have Flying Monkeys?

Wagmore Farm: Trees! Bring Me Trees!

In my earlier post, I shared the reason I suddenly want to forest a good portion of Wagmore.  Once the decision to plant The Bloody Great Forest was made I entered what I shall now call "The Great Tree Quest."

The stuff to figure out includes:
1- What kind of trees work best for our needs
2 - Where to get affordable trees
3 - How to convince The Husband and My Dad to get the trees in the ground.

Step 1 - What Trees to Choose?

Clearly, a key decision.  We need trees that do well in the climate, grow quickly, remain full year round, and will grow together as a screen.

I, of course, started on the internet by searching for screen tree ideas.  Once I had enough information to be dangerous, I started to talk to people.  I learned that tree people really like to talk about trees (which is both unsurprising and lucky for me), that cedar trees make a great screen, and that cedar trees really like it in my part of Washington State (lucky me, again!).

One of these very helpful tree people has a very helpful website, with a great guide to screen trees.  This helped me decide that the Excelsa Cedar is the best screen tree for Wagmore.  We'll be putting these trees 6' off the fence line, spaced around 8' apart.  When the trees are mature they'll be very full and 30'-35' tall.  They also grow at about 2' a year once established, which will help us get a big screen quickly.

Since no Great Forest is made of just one type of tree, the second layer of trees will include Port Orford Cedars (which can reach 100' tall), Incense Cedars, and maybe some Western Red Cedars.  We'll place these in a second line, close together, and close to the other line of trees - to make our first line of defense very thick.

My goal is to create a dense, imposing forest.  Think Fangorn Forest from Lord of the Rings.  And I'd love some Ents, too.  But I realize that I'll likely have to settle for Corgis and Guinea Fowl as forest protection.

I want my screen to be this thick - and cedars will stay more full than these!

(many thanks to xedos4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net for use of the photo)

The next layers of trees will include Deodar Cedars, Hemlock, and various other evergreen and deciduous trees to make the Great Forest look natural.  Most of this layer of trees will be added in the spring - with more baby trees from the County seedling sale.

Overall, we anticipate adding 300+ more trees to Wagmore.  That's a lot of trees, so I'm continuing my quest to find them cheaply and get them in the ground.  More on that next time!

More Trees for Wagmore!

I love trees.   When we bought Wagmore, the property had some great trees.  Unfortunately, many of these great trees were planted very close to the house.  Big trees close to the house = bad.  Still, it was hard for The Husband and I when we had to take down those trees.

Then  My Dad mentioned to me that the Washington state foresters association has a seedling sale every year.  I was in!  I placed my order with My Dad, and sent him some cash.   Apparently, the seedling sale is rather like Black Friday deals, with seedlings going fast, so My Dad went early in the morning, and was one of the first in line.

All the trees I wanted were available, so we ended up with 42 baby trees.  I only ordered 40, but since we were buying so many, they threw in 2 extras.  So nice!  My Dad came home with 3 different types of cedars, fir trees, hemlocks, 2 ginkos, and 3 giant sequoias.

Since the trees were tiny, My Dad planted them on the property, in the area that was formerly the garden, and watered them over the summer when things got too dry.  (HUGE thanks to My Dad for all he's done for our baby trees!)

The Tree Nursery.  Hello, babies!

Hemlock.

These are the smallest of all the baby trees.

Cedar - can't remember which type.

Baby fir tree.  

Now that the baby trees are starting to grow, it's time to think about where we'll put them.  Our plan is to put them in their permanent homes in late-April or May.

I spent some time yesterday thinking about the property, and learning about what type of environment each of the babies like.

Here's my draft tree plan:

The screen trees will be 2 of the types of cedars (deodar and incense) plus some older, fast-growing trees that we'll buy from a nursery and mix in.  I want the screens to look natural, not just a long line of trees.

The choice of the screen location in the front of the property is to screen a rather junky barn, bus(?), etc. that our neighbors have.

On the side of the property the screen will be "preemptive."  The next door 20 acres is for sale.  Right now zoned for one house, but you never know.

In the back of the property the screen will be used to block the view of a giant house on the property behind ours.

The other trees will be used to fill in an area that already has some trees.  I want it to be more of a forest  -- with room for a galloping lane running through it, of course.

Here's a view of the forest as it is now.  

All deciduous trees, and needs to be thicker to be

a real NW forest.

I'll do a post when we do our planting.  Oh, and if any of you in the SWWA area want to help, just let me know!

Water Work at Wagmore

I mentioned in an earlier post that there is lots of work to be done at Wagmore, our property in Washington State.  The Husband and I have been prioritizing and planning.  The thing we decided to tackle first?  The water filtration system.

In order to get all the permits on the house, we had to have the well water tested.  Everything checked out relative to the "this-water-won't-kill-you" standards set forth by the county.  "Great!" we thought.  One less thing to worry about.

Then, in August we stayed in the house for nearly a week.  The water tasted ok.  Nobody got sick.  Then, one night, we decided to give The Child a bath (we find bathing The Child to be part of good parenting).  As the bath started to fill, we noticed the water looked a little yellow.  "Maybe the water will clear out as more runs through the pipes?"

Nope.  When The Child saw the bath he exclaimed, "I get to bathe in pee water!"  Yes, the water at Wagmore looked like pee.  A gentle yellow.  Special.  The Child seemed to think this was pretty funny, but The Husband and I were not so amused so we began to try and figure out what was happening.

We contacted a couple of water filtration companies and they both came back with the same answer.  Our water was safe to drink, but it has lots of iron in it.

Since we have new appliances, new pipes, and new sinks, bathtubs, etc. in the house, we knew this was something we needed to deal with sooner rather than later.

So, when The Husband was back at Wagmore last month, he had a purification system installed.  The system lives in our ugly, needs-a-little-TLC pump house.  We also had a reverse osmosis drinking water system put in the kitchen, because, well, we were in "clean the water" mode.

Here it is- installed and ready to go!

Priority project #1 down, and many more to go.  We'll be back at Wagmore in November, and we'll see what we can check off the list.

Oh, and since water filtration is a little boring, here are some pics The Husband grabbed while he was there...

Denzil patrolling the driveway.

A view of the house from across the street.

So much pasture that needs to be grazed!

Site prep begins

After the house was gone, the excavation contractor wasted no time in getting started.  Two days after the fire, they demolished the remaining structure.

They also did me a favor (for a few bucks extra) - and took out my nemesis the juniper bushes.  You might remember from a previous post that I spent hours trying to hack my way through overgrown junipers in front of the house.  I finally gave up, and the bushes got the better of me.  Since the contractor had an excavator on site, he tore up the bushes (as well as a spinney of small locust trees), threw them into rubble of the house, and burned them along with the still-unburned decks.

The junipers.  Goodbye bushes.

'

They're gone!  Still a bit of brush and debris to clear, but no junipers!

Note the large rhododendron in the distance -- the junipers were trying to choke it out.

But now it's free!

This picture makes me feel good.  Burn, junipers, burn!

And then they demolished the foundation and the chimney.

And finally all of the debris was hauled away.

Next it was on to permitting so work can start in earnest.

Bye Bye House Part 2: Burnin' Down the House

In my last post, I shared the beginning of the house burn day.  After all of the fire departments went through their practice stations, the order was given to let the fire go.  This is when things got really exciting! 

 The fire first overtook the front room.  Easy to see why they wanted the windows boarded up.

  

Then the front window (which wasn't boarded) blew out, and the boards started to come down on the other windows.

Then the fire started to spread down the hall to other rooms. 

Note the fire coming out of the roof vents...

A picture of the front of the house - fire fighters looking on. 

Within a frighteningly short time the front room was gone.

This cracked me up. 

Many of the fire fighters posed for pictures in front of the house.

I guess it's the only time they can be proud that a house is burning to the ground on their watch!

One of the fire fighters rescued the smoke detector for us. Funny.

The last to go was the carport. 

All of the pallets came in handy to build enough of a fire to take it down.

Once the carport was down, all of the fire fighters left.

The house was still burning, but due to the wet ground they weren't worried.

They promised to come by every hour or two to make sure everything was ok.

Since they weren't worried enough to stay, we decided to follow their lead and go to lunch.

 

Here's a view from the front of the property.

Looking at the smoking pile of rubble where the house used to be.

 

When we returned from lunch the house was still burning.

Note the blasted, melted grass stuck into the ground.

A testament to the power of the fire.

After watching the fire for a while longer, we decided to call it a day.

When we returned the next day, the fire was out, but one of the decks was still smoldering.

This deck was attached to the house, but was so wet from all of the rain that it never really burned.

Gotta love the Pacific NW.

Here's how the rest of the house looked the day after.

This is the same side/room that was in the first picture.

Only the chimney remained.