Automobiles

Yesterday was a beautiful day of 55 and raining occasionally.

It turned out to be a perfect day for changing oil and shocks. My car needed an oil change and I wanted to learn how to do it myself. Mark walked me through it audibly while I did the changing.

Start by jacking up the car

Make sure you have your oil pan in place, then loosen the bolt that is acting as the oil plug

Drain the oil into the pan (this is when it starts to get messy)

Take off the old filter and once it has finished draining replace it with the new one

Make sure you have the plug and new filter back on tight

Take it off the Jacks to check the oil level on even ground

Refill with new oil

Check the dipstick to make sure you have the right amount in there.

It was as easy as he lead me to believe, and I had fun. Although it my not be much cheaper to do it yourself, I learned about the inside of my car and fixed a couple other things we found while I was down there. I also got to test what I learned on Mark's truck. We didn't have to jack his up for me to get under there.

After all the changing of oil Mark put in new front wheel shocks, which were long overdue. Although there are very few steps to changing the shocks- take off the tire, loosen two big bolts,

exchange the old shock for the new one,

tighten the blots back up and return the tire-loosening the bolts is actually quite time consuming and difficult. So difficult that all the weight and friction that Mark distributed on the socket wrench broke the socket right off.

The raddishes are getting BiG!!!

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Yea for bricks!!

While rodatilling this winter, in preparation for this beautiful spring, Mark came across quite a few bricks and large rocks. Thanks to this discovery I was able to make walkways between the pepper plants this afternoon. It took a lot of digging, placing, packing, digging back up and packing back in, but they are finally settled and the work paid off. Two beautiful paths to enjoy all summer long.

BEFORE

AFTER

PATH 1

PATH 2


The boys enjoyed hanging out with us during garden time

and they're in!

Today the garden has begun; all over again. After living under the carport for a few days to acclimate to the harshness of the outside world, it was time to plant the tomatoes and peppers into the earth.

What was once brown space, is now...

The peppers were pretty easy and fun to plant

Caleb helped too

while the tomatoes were much more of a two-person challenge.

Tomato Forest

After thinning the radishes we had a few to snack on.

A beautiful wall

BEFORE

AFTER

Seedlings

This year, instead of buying baby tomato plants, herbs and flowers from our local nursery

or James' nursery we have made our own nursery and have grown all of our plants from seed.

First we gathered up seeds from that we had saved from last years harvest. Any seeds that we didn't have, but wanted to include in our garden this year we picked up from Northwest Seed and Pet. Next we needed to get the seeds to pop. To do so, we spread them out on wet paper towels in baggies to give their roots something to hold on to.

After a few weeks they were ready to put into starter pots which are about 3" tall

and can be planted straight into a bigger pot when it is time.

Quickly they began tangible living things.

and now they are in full bloom.

Now it is time to work that soil. Mark has collected truckloads and truckloads of sand, gravel and compost to work into our garden for optimum nutrients and irrigation.

See the difference
Once that was squared away it was time to clear paths and create a barrier so the dogs don't make the garden their stomping grounds.