Adding to the woodpile
(Don’t worry, our gorgeous giant gum tree is doing fine. The first pic for this post is to just to show off its latest haircut.)…
Author: stega
Fallen Fig
Following on from the previous post and covering another related story… In January of 2020 we had a major storm. I detailed the damage a…
“New” Bathtub
Back in 2019 when we were assisting our neighbors, we came across one last old bathtub down in the south pasture. Buried by weeds and…
The Deal with the Devil: Addendum
When I mentioned in this series of posts that we got some dirt, I never included pictures of the before, during and after. So here…
The Deal with the Devil, Part 3–Now What?
As covered in the past two posts, Purgatory is basically in…Purgatory. So to summarize: we made the deal with the devil back in the summer…
The Deal with the Devil, Part 2–The Stop Order
Instead of explaining in my usual pithy way what went down, I’m instead providing the timeline I had to prepare, as shortly after we filled…
The Deal with the Devil, Part 1–The Dirt
Or perhaps this post should be titled “Santa Clara County Planning Department should not be run as a revenue generating department especially when it is…
Emergency Exit
The long twisty road that winds up to our little patch services about 50 residences; it’s actually three roads and all of them are “private.”…
Living “Private”
When we bought this place in 2015 we really didn’t understand what the term “private road” meant. Now we do. A “private road” means that…
The Lesser Wall of Purgatory: Part 3
Once the concrete cured, we had a wall, but just a wall. The area between it and the pool coping was still unfinished. The drainage…
The Lesser Wall of Purgatory: Part 2
Carrying on from the last post, we needed a small retaining wall to help tidy up the area along the south edge of the pool.…
The Lesser Wall of Purgatory: Part 1
Back in 2016 we rebuilt the Great Wall of Purgatory. It was a very arduous project that took months. You can read the full tale…
Blooms of Purgatory
It’s been ages since I’ve posted some of the flora here at the ranch, so here are some somewhat-recent images.
Bonus Post
Since I’ve been so lax in writing posts, a wee bonus tonight. Any lingering regular readers probably know we have a Tikee camera mounted on…
Old Windows
When the house was built, the original configuration of the bathrooms opposite the linen cabinets had half-baths on each end with two smaller rooms, one…
Midge Was Stolen
I’m taking a break from writing about bathroom windows to type out this short post. Midge was stolen last night/early this morning from the yard…
Best of 2021
After a few false starts, I finally put together our annual year-in-review video. I went with epic music instead of the usual “chill” or “uplift”…
Sunday Panorama
North office
Sunday Panorama
North Office (stega’s office)
Feathered Friends
It’s been a super busy couple of weeks here at Purgatory. Lots of big and small projects being completed and while I’ve stalled out on…
Sunday Panorama
Inside the trailer
Sunday Panorama
The Foyer
Sunday Panorama
Inside Midge.
A few new trees
A very long-in-the-tooth and long-in-the-making story–it basically can be summed up with the sentence “We have a handful of new trees.” It started back in…
Ottoman Empire and the Comfy Chair
A few months ago I created a bit of furniture to go with the chair I had reupholstered. First, though, the story of the chair.…
Critter Cams
After messing about with a few different trail cams, I’ve decided to stick with the Bushnell line. All the other stuff on the market are…
Other Critters
Carrying on from the previous post, here are some of our larger visitors and residents. First, this is Frank. We learned that Frank and other…
Predators, Prey and the Occasional Electrification
Carrying on from the last post–where I mentioned a number of our apex predators–here’s a collection of some of our more interesting encounters with the…
