Kate

After inventorying many of the plants growing on my property, I turned my attention to the fungi. One of the mushrooms in the photo below contains psilocybin and another one is an hallucinogen that can kill you. I plan to take an online course to learn how to identify mushrooms, and I will join the […]

I moved to the PNW in search of clean air, and as I built my house I imagined that I would spend a good portion of each day on my back porch, eating breakfast, reading, watching the sunset, and generally getting healthier. But for more than half the year it is too cold and too

My Tulikivi masonry heater has arrived, just in time for winter weather! I ordered it in January, expecting it to be installed in May. But in May it was sitting in Finland, waiting for a shipping container during the pandemic. Many people in the Pacific Northwest use wood burning stoves as a secondary, or even

Look at him go! In the video below Gage, the owner of Terrasculpt Art Gardens, is mowing my property with his electric mower. When the weeds started to die off and dry out I started to worry about wildfire risk. I have a corded electric push mower but I don’t have the energy to mow

My house passed through the recent record-breaking heatwave in the PNW with flying colors, even though it has no air conditioning. It was consistently 20° cooler inside than outside, relying only on overhead fans, 14″ insulating walls, and a light colored roof. The temperature inside ranged from 76° to 79°, with the exception of a

Before construction began in 2019 I hired a person with a tractor to mow the entire property so the construction crew would have a clean slate. But last summer, and again this summer, I let most of the property grow wild. Some of the plants are now taller than I am! When I landscape next

I have now retrieved my furniture from storage, more than a year after I moved into my house. I delayed doing this in part because there were interior construction projects I needed to complete, like installing the wall base and assembling the hanging doors, and in part because I knew there would be fragrance on

I spent the past few weeks turning corrugated metal roof panels into hanging doors for the bedrooms. I didn’t want conventional doors on the bedrooms because there is a fair chance that I will eventually end up in a wheelchair and if I do they will be in the way. In addition, I live alone

This is Frank Bauer, of Bauerkraft, with the ceramic mosaic bench he created for me. I discovered Frank’s art when I was living in Venice and commissioned a bench from him before construction on my house began. I requested an aquatic theme, with an octopus and turtles, and his design is more beautiful than anything

On the same day I moved into my house in February a health emergency was declared in WA, and approximately three weeks later the first Stay Home/Stay Healthy order was issued. During the lockdown I have been finishing some of the details in the house. I built the sauna bench out of the materials I