September 22

Hello and Happy Equinox! 

The first day of fall is already bringing cooler temps and helping reduce the fire hazard across much of the state - thank goodness for that!

So many thanks to our recent guests for fun times at the lake near Fort Bidwell and all kinds of help with our late summer project completion goals. Aaron got a lesson on the mini and became a digging machine, completing literally hundreds of feet of trench for our water pipe, and Pat helped put all that pipe together so it's ready to go in, as well as helping with siding, cutting and insulation. Brenda took some beautiful color palette pictures and helped us finally decide on some colors for the interior. Nolan and Lizzie found rocks and cut rocks... 

And Lizzie, as you can see, served as our rock model for the largest entry in our Rocktion.

What is a Rocktion, you ask?

On November 6, here in the Bay Area, we are going to have a social gathering and rock auction. Outdoors and one cow apart, of course. We'll be highlighting some of the cool Modoc rocks that come tumbling down from the Warners every year. We've got green rocks, orange rocks, jet black rocks and seemingly everything in between. Some of them have shiny black bits in them as if the rock were formed during a lava rain. Others have small shell fossils in them and once in a while, tiny geodes or seams of quartz. We find lots of petrified wood, which is technically a rock, and some pieces that we think are fossilized sea shells that filled with quartz over the millenia. We will be auctioning off a selection of various types and sizes that could be used as landscaping features, fidget toys, jewelry, or just to admire as nature made them. It will also be a chance to say hello in a safe outdoor environment, so save the date and look for more details to come!

Visiting Opportunities Coming Up

October 14-17 Builder's Weekend

This will truly be a builders weekend because we still have lots to do before the snow flies and we could really use a few helping hands. We'll also have some hiking and chill evenings at the campfire and plan to watch a live streamed concert on the Saturday. Bring your guitar if you play one! Projects are likely to be: digging a winter burn pit with the little excavator, finding rocks, cutting rocks, staining the bath house siding, and prepping exterior insulation and lathing for stucco on the energy shed. If you enjoy projects like that and want to learn or practice some practical skills, we'd love to have you come up!

Veterans' Nature Retreat

This weekend is for veterans and their families to come out and enjoy the Silence of our remote foot-of-the-mountain location, hike, share, reflect, admire the Milky Way, enjoy outdoor meals, and generally just relax. You could go for a long ride around the valley on your motorcycle or bicycle. Or you could just hang out under the pear tree all weekend and never leave the property. We probably won't have any projects going this weekend... if someone really wanted to make something, it might be a camping platform for our first future hut site on an outcropping that overlooks the valley. If you're feeling really adventurous, you could sleep out there, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Wait for the hard-sided hut.

Here are a few photos. It feels like things take forever sometimes, but wow - we actually have gotten a lot done this year!

We explored a new area of the property.
These rocks are too big for the Rocktion!

Owl Creek ran over into its natural creek bed!

We trucked in lots & lots of insulation...
with more yet to come

I hope everyone is staying well and healthy. It would be great to see those of you who are local, so do pencil in November 6 on your calendars. 3:00 pm in East Palo Alto.
Happy Fall, You All,
Patti

September?!?

My goodness... it's September already, summer is winding down, the school year is winding up, covid is still with us and that makes it harder to travel, but we still have a lot of space up in Modoc for people to keep their "1 cow apart." So if you're still deciding what to do for Labor Day weekend, consider coming up - you'll be outside and can stay true to your bubble while still hanging out (loosely) with other people. 

Fire update - fortunately, Modoc foresters have done an amazing job taking care of our forests and residents have been extremely fire-conscious. So far this year, we haven't had any fires that got out of control. Joel and I are strategizing about how to mitigate our own fire hazards on the property, which may come down to digging a winter burn pit the size of a small house. It's heartbreaking to see what's happening with fires in California.

Anyway, we changed the design of our cedar siding to make it hopefully more resistant to catching embers, and that project is well under way. Thank you Alicia for huge help with that over a weekend of tonguing and grooving with routers and table saw!

First, we added 2 layers of non-combustible R-6 Rock Wool to the exterior.

Then, we use a tongue and groove method rather than board and batten.  The hope is that not only embers but also flickers have a hard time finding a foothold.

OMG - look at all that lumber that needs to be tongued and grooved!

A big thanks to everyone who came out to help salvage lumber from the Baylands a few months ago - Jamey, Braxton, Jim, Nolan, Lizzy, Trish and Trish's girlfriend. That lumber is also up in Modoc now waiting its turn to be turned into a hopefully fire-safe walk/rollway.

I hope everyone is staying well and healthy, and please do let me know if you want to come up for a visit Labor Day weekend - we'll be there Friday through Monday and we would love to have you up for a visit!

Patti