Ever Try to Order Ten Tons of Minerals?

For much of my life, I’ve suffered from severe phone-a-phobia—I don’t want to call people. (Is this a real malady? Perhaps. I inherited it from my mother.) So it is stretching for me to contact different people. I had a long list of phone calls to make today, but then I came up with a lot of good excuses: the well drillers were drilling most of the day, so it was loud; Phil was away checking emails and craigslist, so what would happen if the boys were naughty; oh! I can’t order anything anyway because my wallet was in the computer bag with Phil.

So I was proud of myself: when Phil returned, I made a lot of calls. The biggest triumph was successfully placing an order for the minerals for my land. This required more than you might imagine. I had already sent in the soil sample and received a list of what I needed. In trying to find the ingredients, I contacted their “source” man, who turned out to be “for larger operations.” That made me feel a little ridiculous, but how do you know unless you ask? Then I called the lab and talked to their man for some time, figuring out how and where to order.

Then I had to figure out how to spread ten tons of minerals. Neighbor Butch can use his tractor, and we can rent a “buggy” that will do the spreading. (Often just knowing the right vocabulary is the key to getting what you need.) So I contacted the place that rents the buggy to see if they accept large deliveries; they were not enthusiastic about having to unload and store 10 tons. “I’ve never heard of anything like that; what are you planning to put on?” (For the record, five tons of it is soft rock phosphate, and there are other places around the world that do such soil programs. Just not, apparently, around here.)

I then called the distributor. The first young man was a bit clueless, so it was like the blind leading the blind. Eventually we both realized that what I want was a “custom blend.” Incredibly, they can combine all the things that I want, from 10,000 pounds of soft rock phosphate down to 10 quarts of a microbial product, into a blended product that will ship in “totes” (another good word to know) via UPS freight. I will need a “skid loader with forks” to unload the one ton totes on their pallets.

That was all good. And Phil helped me level some mounds of dirt left from the bulldozer flattening our pad, so we have a level spot (now with lots of flattened boxes on it) where the compost can be delivered tomorrow.

The sad thing for me, and it is a bit silly, is that we aren’t getting any more animals, at least not today or tomorrow. I had my heart set on the Tamworth piglets, but even at $100 a pop, they were sold out before I called. I called about barn cats, but they need a place to stay for the first three to seven days so they won’t bolt, and we’re not sure what that would look like. The sheep I had my eye on are about three hours away. And chickens need more of a structured dwelling before we get them. It’s yet more patience for me.

The sad thing for Phil was that, as he was preparing to check his email, his computer slipped from his grasp and fell, screen side down, on the floor. Although we doubt the hardrive was affected, the computer is unusable. A forty minute drive later (20 home, 20 back to our friends’), he realized that his large Mac was not working properly, and that he had left his phone back with me, so all the calls he hoped to make were then impossible. (Among them a call to the electric company! Argh!) “I’ve never had a less productive day!” he said.

And in a crushing blow (for all the Mac lovers out there), Charlottesville does not even have a Mac store! How a university town can survive without one is beyond me, but apparently another trip to Richmond is in our future. Maybe we can get by with just shipping it.

Improving Our Stockmanship

Sunday was our first real day of “chores” for the Bessettes. We headed over to see our naughty goats, too. By the morning light, we saw one goat standing by the gate, so I happily went to let, as I supposed, Flower out for her milking. When the goat didn’t immediately leave the pen, I looked closer at the udder, and it wasn’t Flower.

No, Flower was up at the shelter, tussling with our Annabelle. They would crash horns and charge each other—over and over. I tried calling Flower, and dragging Flower, and saying enticing things to Flower.

Finally I figured that Flower was not that ready to milk, so I let her be. Nothing like an extra eight hours with a full udder to increase the cooperation of a goat.

Back at the homestead, I remembered reading a short booklet published by Stockman Grass Farmer on moving animals. I vaguely remembered that we are supposed to be quiet, and move slowly, and not get behind an animal. I was pretty sure we had broken all those rules the day before, so I refreshed my memory and reread this pamphlet.

What a great read! The premise was that all domesticated animals have certain tendencies, and we can use those tendencies to our advantage. For example, an animal wants to keep moving in the direction he is facing. An approaching human is stressful, and an animal will try to avoid the stress. So if you angle yourself the right way, you can maneuver the animal to go the way you want. If I want a goat to go west, I don’t go to the west and try to pull the goat. Rather, I go straight at the goat, then when I get a little ways away, I veer to the east. The goat should veer west.

This was very exciting, so that afternoon I tried it out. It worked perfectly! I entered the pasture, and Flower-the-goat-that-needs-milking approached me right away, and went to the milking stand. All was okay, except I think a horsefly bit her while milking (I didn’t see that part) because she pulled herself off the machine and bolted a bit. Then, horrors, she went exploring into Dennis’ workshop and began to eat what looked like iron filings on the ground. For a long time.

I fetched Phil. He and I together herded this persnickety beast out of the workshop and … into the forest! Out of the forest and down the hill. Argh! And then, when two adults had finally managed to steer this animal into the pasture again, I still had to clean the milking container, the milking tubes, the suction ring, the milking cups, the filter, and the strainer. And, I’m sure due to the stress of Annabelle and Amy and a horsefly, real or imagined, Flower only gave about a half gallon for almost 36 hours. Argh! Two hours of my life spent chasing, pumping, chasing, cleaning, for a measly eight cups of milk.

Ah, but I gained experience. And we did better getting our two goats back in the truck to return them to our newly set up electric netting.

The goats, apparently, recognized the netting, because they were extremely reluctant to enter the pen, and then they went nowhere near the netting, and so were not zapped at all.

This (Monday) morning we woke up with a chill. Phil couldn’t believe it, but he needed a jacket vest when we first went outside. We were chilly! In August! And a light drizzle was falling. Those poor goats needed a shelter! So he put together something out of pallets and a poncho. The goats were thankful.

As the day progressed, Phil realized that, due to goat curiosity, the pallets needed a stronger connection than baling twine, so he actually used drill and screws to put bracing on.


Our well-drillers came today. They have a heavy southern accent, so much so that I’m not sure we’re both speaking English. Maybe their form is a different dialect. I think one said that they hit water, a couple of gallons a minute, after drilling 185 feet (Phil said the top 40 feet was soil, and then they started drilling through rock. The rock part is very slow, so they sat in lawn chairs, smoking cigarettes). Then they left and will return tomorrow. But we could have not heard quite right. I guess we’ll see.


The debris from the drilling site is extremely small, considering how far they have drilled. There is some fine red Virginia clay, which the boys played in like a sandbox. And then some viscous grey-blue pulverized rock. Abraham stood in it barefoot and when he stepped away, it looked like he was wearing blue shoes. And we saw a blue spider, but we think it was just covered from head to toe-toe-toe-toe-toe-toe-toe-toe with the rock dust.

About this time (midafternoon), I remembered that goats prefer to eat hay from off the ground; if it’s on the ground, they become picky-picky, and refuse. Our hay was on the ground, but we took it and shoved it between the upper slats of the pallet. Those goats went to town! They were so hungry! And after they ate the hay, they wandered about their paddock, eating the brush. They might eat it down after all, but so far, in a poison ivy/goat match, the poison ivy is ahead.

I was looking at craigslist today for pigs, kittens, chickens and guineas. And I confess that I also looked at sheep and cows. So we are discussing what to get next. After almost 24 months of reading about how to care for all these animals, it feels so wonderful to actually be able to purchase them and see what we like! I spent an hour reviewing sheep. We’re thinking we might add sheep to the goat pen. They prefer to eat different things (goats eat brush, sheep eat grass). None of the books I read said anything about a sheep/goat combination. I said to Phil, “It’s like we’re the first people to try that combination since the beginning of the world!” (I believe I take after my Mom in such subtle use of hyperbole.)

He said, “But didn’t Jacob keep both goats and sheep?” Since I had just reread the story of Jacob yesterday morning, I could answer in the affirmative.

Milking Flower this evening went better. I confess to a bit of trepidation, and I can honestly say that no one would mistake me for a pro, but Flower didn’t get into the workshop, she milked all the way out, I got her almost all the way into the pasture by myself (in the end, Phil did walk down the driveway behind her, but he didn’t get too close before she gave up). Today it took only one hour from start to finish, and I think she gave about a gallon.


The other fun thing we did today was spread two large round hay bales (one spoiled, one “spoiled” but really mostly good, we think) all over the bare soil. So along the driveway, on all the slopes down from the trailer pads, wherever the earth shows red. I had sown oats, and some of them are now about 3” tall, which is very sweet. But I think they’ll do better with a mulch, and Butch offered to bring them over, so he brought us these two several hundred pound bales on his tractor. Phil, he-man that he is, rolled one of the bales uphill, unrolling as he went, like a massive roll of toilet paper. I spread it and sowed red clover on it. Hopefully the clover on it and the oats under it will sprout well, form a good root system, and prevent more erosion from happening.

Perfect weather, sweet smelling hay (well, the second bale anyway), happy boys, contented parents—what a great day!

Our Five Minutes of Goat Ownership

The Bessettes are going on their first vacation as a whole family in three years. We went over today to get directions on how to care for their animals and land. There is a list, but it is not too difficult. I learned how to use their milking machine, and milked their goat, the one animal producing milk. Fun!

When we returned to our homestead, Phil calculated what materials we would need to fence in the goats we found on Craigslist. [Now the remainder of the brackets is convoluted and probably not very interesting. What’s funny is that the goats were Michelle’s, and she sold them recently to her friend Barb. Barb had owned goats before (Barb had also been the one to talk to Michelle about homeschooling, many years back). So Barb owned goats, and Michelle bought Barb’s goats. Then Barb had a stroke (probably in her late 40s or early 50s) and didn’t have goats. Recently she bought back some of Michelle’s goats, but decided not to keep them. So I found her note on Craigslist and contacted her, so now I will have Michelle’s goats, from the original owner of the line. Phew!]

Phil had opted against ordering goat netting, figuring that wires would be more versatile, as we can use them for both goats and pigs. After running to a couple of stores to find various supplies (most of which were not available), He spent some time (probably a couple of hours) setting up the three strands of solar powered electric fencing. And, yes, the solar provided the 10,000 Volts of electric shock. (We tested with the tester.) Neighbor Butch came by with some hay for the goats (what a great neighbor! He charged us $15 a bale for the large hay bales, “because it was the first cutting and got too long”). Butch also offered to bring us some spoiled hay for mulching our driveway, so the sides would not continue to erode as they did last night. He brought us several bales, and some home grown tomatoes.

Then we were off to get the goats. Their pen was ready, their food was ready, their five gallon bucket of water was ready, and we were excited.

We talked to Barb for a long time in the hot sun, and then Phil and I went to catch the goats. Having caught chickens last year, I wasn’t expecting it to be easy, and it wasn’t. Goats can be a bit stubborn, and we are not natural husbandmen, I’m afraid. But in time we caught the goats and loaded them securely in the back of the truck (Phil’s genius with knots comes in handy almost daily).

We have an old mother, Chrystal, a purebred Alpine about eight years old, and perhaps too old to kid again (but we might try anyway—Michelle thinks that would be fine), and her purebred daughter, who we named Annabelle, a doeling who is ready to be bred. They are both Alpines, which are like the Holsteins of the goat world. (For the record: Jersey cows produce the most butterfat, and their goat equivalent is the Nubian. Holsteins produce the largest quantity of milk, and are usually used in commercial cow dairies.) This line of goats has produced up to two gallons a day, which is unheard of. A gallon a day is supposed to be really good.

If you think of a goat as about 150 pounds, a goat that produces about 16 pounds of milk a day is really producing!

You know, everywhere we’ve gone that has goats, the owners use grain as a treat, a bribe, a method of getting goats to go where you want. I had the passing thought on the way home that we didn’t have any grain at our house.

I hoped their favorite delicacy, poison ivy, would be enough of a treat for them.

They entered the pen willingly enough. They have cute helicopter ears and lovely brown and white markings; Annabelle has a white star on her side. Annabelle was zapped almost immediately, and jerked away from the fence. They were learning their boundaries!

Until about three minutes later they figured out how to get through. Once the head was through, their body followed quickly enough that it was not hurt badly. Zip zip! All gone! They ambled straight up the hill for the road.

Jonadab had woken in his carseat, so I went to get him on my back before gathering the recalcitrant goats. That was my big mistake. I should not have waited to pursue them, because when they reached the road, they didn’t stay on the road. And there are no boundary fences anywhere near us—the world is their oyster, and they were gone. Vanished. Silent.

How embarrassing! Five minutes of goat ownership, and we lost our charges!

And, perhaps you didn’t know, goats are related to deer. Deer are spotted and blend in well with their surroundings. Goats are striped and blend in well with their surroundings. And goats lie down to chew their cud, and fold themselves into impossibly small spaces. I quickly realized that, if they didn’t want to be found, they would not be found.

Would they come back on their own? Hmm. We had no corn to entice them, no good memories to draw them (“Hey, remember that great farm where we got zinged a few times with an electric fence? I bet they really like us! Let’s go back!”), no companionship to offer them (since mother and daughter were together already). And they’re related to deer. Deer aren’t known for their fond affection toward man. (I think there may be a nasty book called The Yearling, in which a boy befriends a fawn and then his Dad makes him kill it after a year “because the world is a tough place, son, and you’d better learn to deal with it now.” “Right! Thanks, Dad, for raising me so well!” Ugh.)

What to do? Well, tired, hot, and disappointed, we went to the Bessettes for a swim. I was pleased that at least I’d have something interested to write about. I confess I was so mad, I didn’t even want the goats anymore. Fruit trees don’t run away from you! They don’t poop all over your truck! They don’t frustrate your husband! And then I was sad that I was such a bad owner. What about the good shepherd who goes searching for the one lost sheep?

Yes, even the goat loss I could turn into a spiritual failure.

After a swim and a meal, it was dusk, and I was tired. I was starting to feel the three hours of interrupted sleep the night before, and really just wanted to go home. No goats when we got home. But when I made my best “MAAAAA” sound, I heard an answer! Praise God! Isaiah and I set out to search, while Phil put up a tether.

I have the previously unused gift of being able to bleat like a goat. It’s quite convincing. And the goats enthusiastically responded to me—until I was sure I was within about 50 feet of them. Then they hushed. Now goats are not grazers like cows and sheep—they prefer to eat brush, and they prefer to eat from above their head, rather than below. So their ideal feed lot would be a dense, brushy area. What is my least favorite place to walk? (Well, really, probably the Florida Everglades, which are swampy and have crocodiles and stuff, but besides that,) I really don’t like pushing through tick-infested brambles and closely spaced bushes. Every step is fight, and visibility stinks.

But by crouching low and pushing gently through some saplings, I dead reckoned where I had last heard the bleat, and there was a goat right in front of me! Glory! It took me a minute and a half before I realized that the second goat was about five steps behind the first. The dusk was that thick, and the goats blend in that well.

Phil caught up to us with some rope (which I had set off without). He pulled Annabelle, despite her desire to toss him with her horns. Where Annabelle went, mama Chrystal went, trailing slowly. Oh, that Annabelle! She might have been a mule, she was so stubborn! Phil even resorted to carrying her at times; physically, it was about the same amount of effort as pulling, and it went a lot faster.

By the time we had returned them the 1500 feet they had run away (yes, that is how ridiculously close they were), it was basically dark. There was no way I wanted to tether these goats for the first time in the dark. Goats aren’t usually supposed to be tethered to begin with, since they strangle easily. (Indeed, the slipknot almost strangled Annabelle when we first put it on her.) So we loaded them—again—into the truck and went to the Bessettes—again—and put them in with the other goats.

What a relief! And what a day. And what a blessing that our goat ownership will get to extend a bit longer.

Oh, and a note on the name Annabelle. The Bessettes name their animals in alphabetical order by year. So the first year, all the animals were As; the second year, all Bs. That way, they can easily count backward to see how old an animal is. We thought that was pretty smart.

Friday Grief and Other Notes

Yesterday (Friday) was a day of grieving for me: grieving for the poor soil, for the land that, though soaked with 50 inches of rain a year, cannot absorb the rain. So what could be a source of great good becomes a source of erosion and destruction.

And I grieved for the “experts” who have no clue how to help. I mentioned the results of the soil sample to Rachel Bush, including the calcium levels being about 10% of what they should be. She has learned much from various cooperative extension courses, and expressed surprise: “Our calcium levels are so high here, we’re not even supposed to put egg shells in the compost!”

If that’s what the experts are saying, no wonder the raw milk I tasted was noticeably poor quality. And when I measured it with a brix meter, it was not 12 like the grocery store milk, and not 16 like a quality milk, but 10.6—the lowest brix I’ve ever seen. (A brix meter, for those not in the know, is a little device that measures the sugar content in the juice of foods. Higher sugars mean more nutrients; also, higher brix foods don’t spike insulin levels and, obviously, contribute more to health. Different foods have different optimal levels of brix; a cherry would have a higher brix reading than a cabbage. There are charts to help figure out where on the range of nasty to excellent your food lies.)

The expert advice isn’t going to help get the raw milk more tasty (milk needs calcium). It’s not going to keep an apple from tasting watery (as did a local apple I had not long ago).

At one point, I was so sad for the land, I started to walk the slopes and weep and pray over it. And little Abraham, playing cars or Little People in the tent, said, “Wait, Mommy, I’ll go with you!”

It is hard to be sad with a sweet 3-year-old hand in mine, so we walked down to the creek with the other boys, too. I figured out how to get the jewelweed to help my poison ivy, I think. I had been chewing it a bit, then laying it on my tortured skin. I think it works better to just crush it between my fingers, then rub. I pulled up a little plant by the roots, hoping to transplant it into a pot at the campsite, but as I held Isaiah and Abraham’s hand as we walked back up the slope and Isaiah helped me carry the plant, the stem snapped, so I don’t think it is long for the world.

Lethal Lykosh count: 40 strawberry transplants; one jewelweed; one oregano.

The cat owner never called me. I think our complete lack of knowledge of feral cats scared him off. Rachel Bush gave a different perspective on the snakes and mice and cats: a cat would upset the natural predator/prey balance, and kill not only unwanted rodents (all of them are unwanted here), but birds and little lizards and skinks and such. She prefers to just have knowledge of snakes, knowing that a copperhead is not aggressive but scared, living in the woods, trying not to bother anyone. And knowing that a copperhead is the only kind we need to worry about here in Albemarle County. (No rattlers or moccasins, thankfully!)

So no cats for the moment, I think. And it is rapidly growing too late for baby chicks or guineas; I’m hoping to buy some almost full grown. Guineas will also upset the natural predator/prey balance, but I think something needs to make a dent in the tick population. Poor Isaiah had 65 ticks on him after our forest excursion—41 on one leg alone! (Good thing the boys now take tick removal in stride.)

I am stretched beyond my comfort zone on many fronts. I needed to pick Phil up on Friday night. The boys fell asleep, and I was reading, when a terrific rain storm began, about two hours before I needed to leave to get him. It was a deluge—so much so that when the tarp between the trailers finally released from the water pressure, it sounded like a gunshot, and the sloshing of the water in the tarp against the side of the trailer momentarily made me wonder if we were afloat. It sounded that much like the sea on the side of a ship.

The deluge kept going. When it let up a bit, I gathered the dog and the four boys into the car, almost got stuck in the mud backing out of our driveway (the Bessettes don’t know what a hysterical phone call they DIDN’T get, had the car got stuck in the mud then!), and then drove slowly down the dirt road to get Phil. Adverse weather is not something I enjoy driving in, but I did it, and I didn’t crash, despite hydroplaning a bit for the first time in my life, and experiencing near black-out conditions at times.

On a completely different vein, Michelle mentioned that one night while they were living in their basement, before their house was built up above them, something bit her. She flung it across the room and woke the next morning to find a dead 5” millipede. Yuck! While I was feeding the baby in the night, I felt a slender, worm-like creature on my side and, wondering if a worm (or a mini-snake! Eek!) had somehow found its way in through the hole in the floor, I did my best to fling it away.

Only to find that it was actually the drawstring on my pajama bottoms. I bet that, should you wake in the night, you do not worry that a snake or a worm is slithering over you.

When I woke in the middle of the night, I read a bit of Bradford Angier’s How to Stay Alive in the Woods, originally published in 1956. He’s a famous “survival skills” writer, filling his pages with beautiful prose: “A good rule is not to pass up any reasonable food sources if we are ever in need. There are many dead men who, through ignorance or fastidiousness, did.”

However, I’m skeptical as to the ease with which I might be able to actually support myself off the game of the land. For example, he makes catching rabbits sound ridiculously easy: “In the spring particularly, those years when rabbit cycles are near their zeniths, the young lie so fearlessly that a dog will step over one without scenting it, and all an individual has to do, if he wants, is to reach down and pick the youngster up.”

So if you are wrestling with too many rabbits in your garden, you might try his tip: just reach down and grab it.

Mellow Days with Phil Away

On Monday morning, we gingerly unpacked the last of the containers that had been down at the campsite. In the center of a roll of wire, we found the mice’s nest that had summoned the snake. When Phil dumped the contents, he found two baby mice yet alive (barely), which makes me think that the copperhead of the day before had just eaten the parents (for how long could two helpless mice babies live without food or drink? Surely not much more than 24 hours!). A full snake makes a sluggish snake, I suppose.

We drove Phil up to the Charlottesville airport. I knew when we moved to the country that country life requires much driving, but we are often in the car for several hours a day. It’s mostly all beautiful driving, but it is a different use for my time than I used to have.

We did some fun school, and that closed out Monday.

Tuesday we were at Johanna Bush’s house all day. Of the six hours, more or less, that I was on the computer, I worked three and researched another three: are there pigs to buy right now? How about goats? How about cats (get rid of those mice!)? Chickens? Tractors?

It is challenging to be in another person’s house, as much as it is a blessing to use the internet. My boys unwrapped all the little “presents” in a dollhouse, and peeled the flakey plaster off the wall in a large patch on the stairs. And dumped out the dirt in a plant and spread cat food all over the floor. Yuck.

On Thursday, we got the soil test results back.

Grim. Very grim.

Humus, the organic matter in a soil, holds up to four times its weight in water. This is, of course, good for plants, good for holding rain water long term, good protection against drought, and altogether to be desired. The number that the lab would like to see is 60 (this isn’t pounds per acre or anything; it’s a number derived from data). Our number is 3. No zero behind it. Three. Ouch.

Calcium, the king of minerals, we had guessed was low in the soil. After all, when magnesium is high and calcium is low, the soil becomes like clay and sticks to everything when wet. Our soil IS clay. Well, I wouldn’t have guessed that we were almost 1/10th the amount recommended (399 pounds per acre, rather than 3000 that they like to see). That’s a lower grade than I’ve EVER got in a class—like the worst F imaginable.

And the magnesium that is “high” by comparison is only 1/3 what it should be!

The nitrogen, too, is 1/10th what it ought to be: 8 out of a desired 80.

The agony goes on, but suffice to say, our work is cut out for us. Starting with figuring out how to buy, and then apply, 5 tons of soft rock phosphate, among others. And that’s just for the five cleared acres! Phil is going to be busy!

As bad as this report is, it is nice to have a neatly defined problem, and options for how to improve the soil. So it is invigorating, in a way!

We are working on getting cats to kill any mice that may (will) materialize at our homestead. And we will hopefully get a few goats over the weekend. They, apparently, love poison ivy. I’m happy. They won’t be producing any milk, so far as I can tell (bummer), but they were offered on Craigslist by a friend of Michelle Bessette’s (and were actually Michelle’s just a few months ago!).

I’ll be in touch.

Carnage in the Kitchen Wares, or Why Amy Screamed and Kept on Screaming

*Not for the faint of heart*
Last night, I read a few chapters in Little Britches. (Ralph, by the way, sounds to me a lot like Isaiah.) One of the things Pa says is, paraphrased, “There’s a story in everything, if we just have eyes to see it.” And wow, was that true for me today.

I was getting in some needed campsite cleanup things (for example, I got crates for all the different recycling, since C-ville doesn’t have single stream recycling yet, where all gets put together. They make you separate it all out). I also was trying to break down the rest of the stuff in the woods: we had a few boxes yet down there, and some flower pots that kept filling up with water, and some boots. Some of the things were heavy, so I took my time.

There was one kitchen box that had been in standing water. I noticed it several weeks back, but it was such a large box, and the kitchen utensils in it were not necessary, I left it. But today was the day to move it, so I gingerly picked it up by the bottom and the handle I walked slowly up the little path. I felt a little measuring spoon drop out, and the bottom start to give, so I set it down right as all the contents shifted down and out.

I put about half the box’s contents into a blanket and carried the stuff to camp. I had a little wooden mortar and pestle, and it looked almost like a mouse had made a nest in it, with finely cut up paper. And I remembered that one of the boots had had a little black pellet on it—maybe some mice had made their nest in my kitchen wares. That was gross to contemplate as I headed back for the second round.

*Again, let me remind you, this is not for the faint of heart*

As I put my hand back in the box to get more glasswares, the copperhead snake, that had moved into the box to eat the mice, moved enough that I saw it clearly. At which point I screamed and kept on screaming. I ran to the other side of the tent, and, because it made me feel psychologically more safe, I stood on a stump and kept on screaming. (In retrospect, the mice pellets without mice could have been a clue. I saw without seeing.)

If the neighbors heard my screams, I’m sure I don’t care. I had carried a box with a copperhead in it, set the box down next to my foot as the copperhead and sundry items shifted and almost fell out, put my hand into the box multiple times, and emerged from this unscathed.

Thanks be to God.

The prayers I offer each morning for protection for myself and my family were realized (yet again) today.

Phil came with a shovel when he heard my screams (offering only the comment, “That triangular head means it’s poisonous, right?”). He used the shovel to knock the kitchenwares out of the way, then got his .22 and used it to good effect. I had read in Reader’s Digest a man had gone bow hunting and prayed, “Lord, guide my arrow today.” This was, apparently, a hunter’s prayer because “I would never pray that I would kill an animal—I just want to shoot well.”

I am not, apparently, a hunter, as I prayed fervently and repeatedly that Phil would kill the snake without injury to himself. Again, that prayer was realized. So there was much carnage in the kitchen wares: little mice died; the devourer of the mice died. But my kitchen wares remain intact, if a bit mouse-poopy.

As I said to Phil, the box could have broken at the homesite, where the boys were playing and where a good shot would have been extremely difficult. It could have been that the snake was so completely unaggressive because it had just eaten a large meal.

Now we are praying against nightmares, but if the Lord protected us from the poisonous serpent, I think he can guard our dreams without any problem.

In the last chapter of Mark, Jesus says that his followers will be able to carry poisonous serpents without harm. That was literally true for me today.

Sundry Saturday Notes

I have woken the last few nights with such an insane need to scratch my itchy limbs, I feel like Job: longing for a piece of broken pottery. I finally got up in the middle of the night to scrub up with anti-poison ivy soap, which didn’t really help much. Then I found my dream lotion: Caladryl. I smeared it on all four limbs and kept smearing until I no longer wanted to scream. I didn’t realize how poison ivy will keep spreading. At some point after we have internet, I want to research if it gets into the blood stream and comes out systemically. I mean, it starts on me as a whip-like streak (where, clearly, a vine slapped me and I didn’t wash the oil off in time), but then it keeps spreading and spreading until the one spot on my arm is now up and down both arms, on my ankle, my shin, my stomach, and under my underwear line. Yow.

I’m thankful we weren’t hit with ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, poison ivy, deluging rain, and summer heat all at once. We’ve been able to take them in stride as they come.

We stopped by the Bessettes during a pouring rainstorm. They have graciously let us store some supplies in their basement. We had originally planned to get a shipping container for storage, but when Phil learned that they are heavy and difficult to move (and, thus, once set off the truck, they stay in that location indefinitely), he decided against purchasing one. After all, if we decide we want the construction trailers relocated, he simply removes the tie-downs and tows it behind Samson, our dually truck. But a shipping container—well, we didn’t know for sure where we’d want one for the duration of our life on Old Green Mountain Road. So we don’t have quite enough storage.

I was encouraged to hear that a good Jersey cow right now will sell for about $1000. That seems really inexpensive to me, since a gallon of raw milk costs about $8 to purchase. It seems a cow would pay for itself very quickly. And I was surprised to hear how expensive the Dexter cows are, the ones we were hoping to get. They are small and rare, and sell for over $2000. Maybe we’ll stick with Jerseys.

Phil mowed the upper acres of our land yesterday. It took many hours of very bumpy riding for him, as he hit every rut and hillock, every stump and hole. He was stung twice when he rode over an inground bees’ nest (left cheek and forearm—and to add insult to injury, he got a mosquito bite on the sting on his cheek!).

In the meantime, with the baby on my back, I sowed 250 pounds of oats over almost all of our meadow acreage. The over-the-shoulder seeder holds about 20 pounds of oats, and you set a clamp so it broadcasts at the right rate (all clearly spelled out on the seeder itself). The seeds cast out in beautiful waves, almost like a fountain of grain, throwing up to 18 feet wide (though I think I didn’t turn the crank vigorously, so I think my rows were maybe 9 feet apart or so). Phil definitely had the more painful, more nerve-racking job, and he woke up quite sore from his hours of bouncing.

As we’ve pondered the electrical issue, I think we’ve settled on paying about $5K right now for a generator, a battery pack, and a propane tank. For those who haven’t read about off-grid living, here’s how this works. The propane fuels the generator. The generator puts off a certain amount of power, which is stored in a battery pack. Phil describes the generator like a car engine: it has to put off a certain amount of power, even when idling. Same with a generator, so you don’t want to run it all the time, or you would waste electricity. I mean, if you just wanted to charge your computer, you wouldn’t need the same amount of power as if you were heating the house, baking bread, and running the computer and printer. But with the generator, you would have to have it on for one appliance or on for five appliances just the same. That’s where the battery pack comes in. It stores the generated power and relinquishes it as needed.

Meet John Doe, er, Deere

Farm boys in awe over new tractor

Every day when we get up, I pray and ask God for wisdom. So usually when we get up, we don’t have a firm sense of what we’ll be doing during the day, or what is important. But we trust that God guides and directs even little things like what to do each day.

When we started the day, we were going to finish unpacking the POD and … we didn’t have a good idea.

Well, about noon, I found a booklet that detailed when things should be planted, according to the celestial bodies. Apparently, folklore for centuries has planted root crops when the moon was new, and leafy crops when the moon was full; this is similar. The booklet mentioned that this week is the planting time for us, and fruiting crops will do best if planted either today or Sunday. Well, the only planting we really wanted to do right now is oats, and not for harvest but to build the soil. We were going to wait until Phil returned to broadcast, but we don’t really have to wait.

And then I remembered that, to qualify for a lower tax bracket (“land use”), we needed to get the document notarized, and that required a trip to the bank before Phil leaves town on Monday. So we stopped at the bank (when I called to find out what a notary needed, the lady asked what my name was, and said, “Oh, I remember you! You have two or three little boys”—wow! That’s a small town experience, to have the bank teller remember you after one bank visit!). And then, on to Home Depot.

Now, it used to be that Home Depot was a ten minute drive across Boulder, hitting about 15 stoplights. Now the drive to Home Depot is about 45 minutes (or maybe an hour), along back country roads. I think there was a stoplight when we exited the highway.

I’ve never seen a Home Depot parking lot so empty. Maybe twenty cars. A bizarre experience. Dennis recommended that we get a driving lawn mower, and just mow and mow and mow our land until the grass had a chance to reclaim the pasture. So we were shopping for a riding mower. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that we bought a John Deere, but it was the cheapest with the most horsepower (21!). Phil tried it when we got home, and it works well, with its 14” mower. It was the last one of that type in the store, and it was on sale. We got a little cart to pull behind it.

And we bought shoe racks to hang over our windows, since shoes are the main puzzle for me. With six people, each with sandals, rain boots, sneakers, snow boots, and maybe another pair of shoes, the floor of our little home feels cluttered all the time. Twelve feet of shoe racks should help with that.

On the way home, Isaiah said, “Only one thing is puzzling me. How are we going to get the tractor out of our truck?” A good question indeed.

Thankfully, Phil had already thought of the solution. He borrowed Doug Bush’s homemade ramp, as we stopped at the Bush home on our way home. Denise had just returned from her Hospice nursing job, but she cheerfully passed me some flower seeds, and picked me some peppers and tomatoes.


And Phil drove the new John Deere into the sunset, chopping down about six inches of growth. I hope it’s just that our little mower is giving a closer cut than the bush hog—otherwise, the fertility of the land is truly insane (six inches of growth in three weeks of no rain! Eek!).

Walking by Faith

Phil got up yesterday and did a wonderful, creative thing: he put overlapping screen material over the front door (so we fit between the two sides to go in and out), and he put screens on the windows that don’t have any, so the flies and mosquitoes can’t get in. Very nice.

We drove to two different houses of friends in order to get working internet. We had a long list of things we hoped to order online. It was one of those days: nothing was in stock, or it was too expensive, or it didn’t make sense, or the information was missing. Maybe ten things, from credit card reward money to fencing for pigs to checks from our new bank, went unordered. Frustrating!

Back at the land, Phil and Isaiah built the pallet enclosure for compost, and I got started on building a lasagna garden. (Well, first I planted a clove of garlic that had sprouted in a box I filled with leaf litter and rich composted tree material; we’ll see how that does.) A lasagna garden begins with a layer of newspaper or boxes, and I have plenty of boxes at present. The site we chose for our garden is upslope from our house; a level spot without any poison ivy (yay!). Currently part of it is covered with a mound of dirt from the bulldozer, so I am working on spreading that nicely overturned, friable dirt over the boxes, as well as all the decomposing organic matter on the soil surface, left over from the bush hogging of two weeks ago. (Bush hogging, in answer to a question, is like extremely serious mowing. Take an 80 horsepower tractor ($80,000) and a 15’ mower that can chop up trees 5” in diameter and watch the machinery level all the bushes on a site. When Butch got started mowing, he circled the finger of “cleared” land before going back and forth across it. We could hear his mower chewing up the brush, but we couldn’t see him for the overgrowth, even though he was only maybe 50 yards away at times. Incredible.)

Because I had the baby on my back, I didn’t get very far on the garden, but I have some time until the September rains begin in earnest. And I am getting close to the 60-day cutoff for first frost, but I get done what I can. The rains have returned, but I do not think they are expected to continue yet. We had the first rain since getting the tarp over our cooking area, and it sagged so badly we couldn’t open the doors to either of our trailers without tearing the tarp. Phil let it splash down, and then tightened the straps.

Dennis and the Bessettes came to help Phil move the piano from the POD to the storage part of the trailer. We hope to have the POD empty all the way, and picked up by next Monday or Tuesday. Abraham got a huge splinter from the bunk bed, so I held him and restrained him while Phil played surgeon.

I read about root cellar construction when I awoke in the middle of the night. It doesn’t sound too difficult, and we have a good site for one between the trailer and the garden; hopefully we can get that constructed soon.

Michelle and I picked a neighbor’s tomatoes and corn, then dehydrated some of the cherry tomatoes and cut up the rest for freezing, except for the few that we made into sauce. It took about three hours, and we had, in the end, two dehydrators’ worth of little raisin tomatoes, and about 16 cups apiece of frozen tomatoes (we had to leave some for the neighbor who grew them). There is a reason why people grow in quantity and specialize in one thing; those bags of tomatoes are very dear (expensive), when I think of what I could earn in an hour, let alone three, working.

The dryer at the Bessettes had not finished my clothes, so I took them back to the homestead and started hanging them to dry. I haven’t hung clothes to dry since Jadon was a baby, and had forgotten how long it took. Especially when dealing with a week’s worth of garments for six people. On a new clothesline that worked differently than I anticipated. I kept bursting into tears, feeling like all was hopeless and bleak. I did not admire the lovely view (all I could see was the uncovered former compost pile I had created that needs to be transferred to the new compost pile, but I need the wheelbarrow to be emptied of the 250 pounds of oats currently in it); I did not give thanks for the people I get to serve. Instead, I just broke out crying. Why are we doing this crazy life?

To make matters worse, Phil finally reached the county to get answers to his electrical questions. It turns out, to run the wire 600 feet from the box at the edge of our property to our trailer will be about $10,000. And we don’t own that wire. Somehow, legally, the electrical company will own it (though we bought it). So we basically pay $10,000 so the electrical company has the right to bill us for our use. Blah.

Shortly after all this sobbing and bad news, I fell asleep for 15 minutes. Maybe all the wakeful nights caught up with me.

I pulled poison ivy when I woke up. It is becoming satisfying labor. I find the leave-of-three (let it be) and pull, and the vine often pulls up several feet. How lovely to be gradually eradicating the nastiness. I have several spots on my arms and legs, and they are nasty looking, though they do not hurt or itch much (just at night). And I expanded—just a bit—the garden area. It is now maybe 10’x10’, and about 1” deep with friable dirt and organic matter. I think I am supposed to get to 12” or so, so I have my work ahead of me surely.

Phil read the graphic novel of Henry V (a slightly easier than original Shakespeare version) to the boys, who enjoyed it—mostly. And he hung up screen on the office, figured out what fencing we needed to order, removed the badly bowed desk in the office and replaced it with the not bowed desk he had removed from the house trailer, and watched the boys while Michelle and I worked.

Bible study was excellent. It was about faith: Luke 8:22-25, where Jesus calms the storm. I think what I came away with was that I do not have a strong faith, but that is because I don’t know the promises of the Lord to me. Or I want things to work out in my way, rather than saying, “Lord, you say you’ll complete the good work in me. You say you care for me, so I cast my cares on you. You say you’ll never leave us or forsake us—please be with me. You promise to give wisdom to those who ask; please give wisdom to me.”

Then we ordered fencing for chickens, goats, and pigs. When it arrives, we can get animals, and that will be nice! Doug Bush brought Phil a single mattress, so hopefully he will be able to get better sleep tonight. I think he’s getting too old to sleep on mats on the floor.

In answer to a question about the trees: we purchased apple trees that should grow to be, at the largest, about 15 feet tall. Several should top out at about 9 feet. Because of their small stature, they need to be planted maybe 8’ apart in rows, and 16’ apart in aisles, so 300 trees should fit in two acres, more or less. We are hoping that fruit can be our centerpiece money-making enterprise (mostly because I LOVE fruit! And fruit doesn’t bleed, which is helpful for blood-squeamish Phil and I). Two acres to begin with is a good amount—maybe a little too big—but a good starter.

Unpacking the Boxes

While Phil drove to C-ville to sign the well-drilling contract (set to start either a week from Friday or in two Mondays—and we’ll get a generator in the interim because the electricity is not forthcoming), I started unpacking boxes of books. And that’s basically what I did all day.

Phil had the glamorous jobs: he went to Whole Foods and bought gluten-free pancake mix, so we can have something other than oatmeal and eggs for breakfast. (Jadon was pleased with the premade spelt bread, which he ate as PB&J for lunch and dinner.) Then he designed bunk beds for boys, and drove to Scottsville to get materials. He also found free pallets, and purchased some straw bales so we will have a compost pile, and can finally dump the humanure buckets we’ve been accumulating. That’s probably more than you wanted to know. Suffice to say, he had a successful run of errands.

Then he started to build the bunk beds, and almost finished, when both the batteries on his saw/drill/power tool set went out. So we went to the Bessettes. We almost made it two days without entering their sanctuary, but, well, oh well. I was so SO thankful to have a warm shower. I had been more dirty and stinky than I ever remember being in my life.


But what a great day! Our trailer went from feeling like a teeny tiny, just barely survivable dump, to a miniature home, almost a picturesque cabin. Both Phil and I feel like it is survivable, even almost fun!

In closing, a few words of warning
A warning from Abraham: “We should watch out for dangerous things—like matches.”

A warning from Dennis Bessette: “If you don’t drink enough water, you’ll get Alzheimers. I mean, your skin turns to leather if you don’t drink enough—you think your brain is exempt?”

Another warning from Dennis Bessette: “Hey, skinny family: eat more! If you don’t eat enough in the country, you get sick and die.”

Just a friendly reminder from your Central Virginia correspondent: watch out for matches, dehydration, and starvation.

Unpacking the POD

Our POD came this morning at about 9am. I was having a rough morning (hopelessness shows up for me most often in the morning), wondering when our finances or life will ever be the same. Phil said, “You don’t look very good—almost despairing.” That was the way I felt, like a smile would be a lie, or an impossibility. So, lest these emails make you think that all is glowing and perfect, don’t be completely fooled: a once-a-week bath, an impossible house situation, money enough (assuming my retirement really does come through as it should) for one more month—it makes for a grumpy mama.

So we went to the bank. Four grubby children (Jonadab in just a diaper and dirty shirt), filthy mama with the one pair of shorts I could find held up by a clothespin, boundlessly optimistic husband ready to deal with bank tellers—we were a sight to behold. But there was no great news at the bank, so we headed to the post office, hoping to buy some envelopes so we could mail some bills. But the window was closed—apparently, in small towns, postal workers can take off for lunch but don’t have to post the times. I was even more defeated.

Back at home, I ran the numbers and determined that we have enough, barring major expenses, for one more month. So, if on September 15th, when Carly’s contract expires, we will have to take action—of some sort. As Scarlet O’Hara would say (paraphrased), “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

But knowing that there should be money for the month is very encouraging! Phil had hurt his foot badly in Colorado—he hopes he didn’t break it, stepping off the curb unexpectedly while watering the lawn—but it has hurt him every day. But, wonderful man that he is, he decided he could stand on it enough to at least get out the dressers. Which was huge, because with dressers, I can actually assess the clothes situation for myself and four sons! I can find underwear easily! I can get them clean clothes! And, it would help me feel more at home in our little trailer.

Once we got out the dressers, we decided to go ahead with the bookcase. It is 7’ tall, and the roof here is 7’. Unfortunately, there is the little matter of tilting a piece of furniture upright—it makes the height taller temporarily. Somehow Phil realized that the roof deflects more in the middle of the trailer, and he forced that bookcase upright, and then shoved it into place. We laughed because I said, “I don’t think we need to tie that bookcase down,” and he said, “Yeah, I had been wondering if that was needed, but then I realized that bookcase is going nowhere.”

And once the bookcase was out, the POD was almost halfway empty, so he decided he may as well press on. It was a warm day (92) but not too much direct sun, and no rain, which is a definite plus.



I forgot how many books I have. So many boxes had to return, unopened, into the storage part of the trailer. So many more had to be peaked at, caressed, and put away. That is the most difficult part of this unpacking/repacking part. I know a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, but those books are a piece of me! (Oh, and I have a good quote about that, by G. Seferis: “Don't ask who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.”)

But, on the positive side, although I know my life does not consist in the abundance of my possessions, I feel so greatly pleased and at peace that so many of my possessions are accessible again! I have my work cut out for me tomorrow, though, to put books back on bookshelves, and clothes back in drawers. I look forward to it.

Other unpacking notes of interest: Jonadab had been playing near one of our water tubs (actually a camping gear tub temporarily filled with water). While our backs were turned, he fell in, and immediately popped up, spluttering and coughing. What amazing presence of mind, for the one year old to stand up when submerged. Go baby! (And more than that, thank you, Lord, for protecting our little son. It is not an exaggeration to say that death is near at hand, and the Lord protected him this day.)

I was really running out of steam a little after 7pm. I can lug books with the best of them, but I dreaded moving the wall unit. I tried moving it out to the POD with Phil, but he basically did it himself. This would be a different beast: moving it up a stepladder and through a small doorway. I knew Doug Bush was coming to help (he offered), and prayed hard that he would come before it was time to move the wall unit. He came with about a minute to spare, and I was very thankful.

Doug and Phil then kept moving things. We had a huge pile of stuff (mostly books) stacked on a tarp on the gravel. I told whether it needed to go in the house, the office, or deep storage, and Doug moved it for me. What a deep relief.

We fell asleep in the same room we always do, but this night it was crowded with boxes and dressers and the wall unit—what lot of furniture fit!

Bare Bipped Bathing, Jewelweed and More

This was a good Sunday. I read through two issues of Growing for Market, a very short publication on market gardening. I don’t know why I like it so much (maybe because it is only 24 pages, so I can actually get through it all? Probably), but it was fun to read.

I think I have little crises of faith periodically, and this morning was one of them. As we talk about what would be helpful on our land (a tractor; irrigation; a more permanent dwelling), I freak out a little, as we have had SO MUCH money go out the last month, and no money come in yet. And the house continues not to sell. I sometimes feel like I’m playing “chicken” with God, rushing headlong to financial destruction but hoping and praying that He comes through in the end. Will my faith hold? Is it supposed to hold? Are we insane?

But then there are the ways we can recite his faithfulness. Our truck, that Dennis says not only has $1000 of tires, but also a new engine. That’s the third person who has said we got a complete steal on that truck. Or the fact that we bought our land a few months before land prices across the US went through the roof. (I mean, we paid about $5500 per acre, when most land in our county goes for between $8K and $14K. The year after we bought our land, acres in the Heartland were going for about $5K an acre, maybe double what they were the year before. Want to live on an acre in Iowa? Pay $5K.)

Or the fact that we live in, perhaps, the most friendly place on earth. This morning a man drove up with a huge beard down his chest (from my vantage point, he looked a little like Michael Pearl, if that means anything to you—do an Internet search maybe). Jerry just wanted to let us know that we could come by if we need anything, and to remind us that we can go to the swimming hole on the Rockfish River. Really nice. Then while we were at our creek, Hog Creek, cultured neighbor Butch stopped by to drop off all the free magazines that let the reader know what cultural events are going on in C-ville, as well as a farming catalog and a few other things he thought might be helpful. Really nice. And then this afternoon, when I was in my undies behind the trailer trying out the solar shower, the Bessettes stopped by (thankfully Phil had reminded me to get a towel before I started, and he let me know that they were coming down the driveway—otherwise, eeek!), just to say hi and to invite us for a swim. Really nice.

The neat things about today: we decided we should order more trees. Peaches, cherries, maybe pears, plums, and apricots. I want a few nut trees and some random fruits for our personal consumption, but how lovely to have a more varied orchard. I think maybe we’ll get about 50 more, to make the total planting somewhere around two acres. I’m thankful we have seven months to deal with uprooting trees, getting ponds dug and irrigation ready, fencing out deer, adding soil amendments, digging 300 holes, and whatever else must happen.

Phil hung the clothes line. It has about 50 feet of hanging space, and slides very easily. As it runs from the hill our trailers are on, to a tree across an expanse, I doubt our clothes will drag on the ground at all.

Phil went to get water from neighbor Brian’s place. Recently divorced (we met his former wife back in October), he was really lonely and talked Phil’s ear off—what parts Phil could understand. (Some locals have a deep Virginia accent.) But having about 60 gallons of water in buckets and bins made us feel so wealthy. We can bathe! We can wash dishes and drink water and other great things!

Phil drove the truck much of the way down to the creek. He cut down a tree or two with his axe, and then we hiked the rest of the way. He went bathing au naturel in the creek, and the boys went “swimming” in their skivvies.



So cute! Abraham, though, stayed in his clothes and duck boots: filthy face, hot body, stubborn boy. I took off my shoes and walked along the low creek bottom, amidst the minnows and the red silt. I was so pleased to find Jewelweed, a plant that counteracts poison ivy. It has beautiful orange flowers (they look a bit like miniature jack-in-the-pulpits, I think), and the leaves are water-repellant. When put underwater, they turn silver, and when released, they spring to the surface, completely dry. I put some on my patch of poison ivy, and it did relieve the itch somewhat.

At one point in my river walk, my feet felt so chewed up by the sharp edges of the river rocks, I stepped onto a larger flat rock, holding on to a branch for support. The rock tipped, the branch broke, and I fell forward (with the baby on my back, my balance was a bit off anyway). I jammed all my toes badly, which made me see stars, and when I stepped onshore, one toe was bleeding from a gash, and that made me feel faint. Then poor Abraham, who had opted to stay behind because he doesn’t like the water, started crying thinking I had abandoned him, and Phil was further upstream, exploring.

For some reason, that little bit of drama reminds me of when we first drove onto our land, three weeks ago. Within three minutes, Phil was walking with his parents to show them the boundary lines of the property, and Zach Bush happened to call. I answered, ecstatic to be here finally, and we were both praising God on the phone. Meanwhile, Jadon had gotten out of the car, only to be attacked by sweatbees, little flying ant-like insects that sometimes sting. He was, apparently, getting stung, and climbed up on top of the minivan, where he was weeping and calling for aid. I, not being good at multi-tasking on the phone, did not notice.

Here’s how Jadon tells it: “My first memory of Virginia was getting out of the car and the sweatbees started stinging, while Mom talked happily on the telephone, and Abraham slept peacefully in the car.”Good use of adverbs on his part; bad parenting on mine. The first time he volunteered this description, I cracked up ... “and Abraham slept peacefully in the car.” Do you think he reads very much?

Without many fresh foods (it is hard to eat fresh when there is no refrigeration, and no things growing), we ate two good meals of rice noodles with canned fish, capers, garlic, and butter. From a “roughing it” standpoint, that’s not too bad.

Go Team Lykosh!

After staying Tuesday night at the Zach Bush’s, we left early Wednesday morning for the land, stopping at the Bessettes for eggs, ground beef, and a bucket of strawberry and mint cuttings we had prepared last Sunday.

I spent much of Wednesday trying to transplant into the Virginia clay. This stuff is crazy hard! I got in about eight little sections of mint (spearmint, I think), and transplanted about 40 strawberries. Sadly, I think most, if not all, the strawberries have since bit the dust, as we have had no rain, and the land around is (very hard) dust. Ah, well. They were going to die in the water bucket anyway. I put my aloe plant, brought from Colorado, in the ground, but the directions say, “Likes well-drained, loose soil.” Which is basically the opposite of what we have, so we’ll see how it does. We have used the aloe gel on our sunburn. If I accidentally get it in my mouth, it sure tastes nasty, but it does help sunburn.

I pulled some poison ivy. Some of the vines were an inch in diameter. I think we’ll borrow the Bessette’s buck that will do okay on tether, just so he’ll eat our nasty vines. I played around with laying some stone for a little retaining wall, but the rocks were too little and Jonadab enjoyed the deconstruction process more than I enjoyed the construction process.

All in all, Wednesday felt productive (though, from the perspective of several days later, if anything actually survives, it will be a miracle). I made two pounds of hamburgers and, of that, I ate: two bites. Yes, my four sons ate almost two full pounds of meat for dinner. Go team Lykosh! We went for a quick swim/bathe at the Bessettes because we were all dirty, and Michelle and I talked about how to increase the protein content of feed. Which sounds really heady, but basically it boils down to this: she left a bag of feed out in the rain. Many little worms (not maggots, but mealies or something like that) invaded. She gave the spoiled feed to the pigs and chickens, who devoured it with great gusto. Perhaps it is better to let our feed spoil? I don’t know; it smells pretty bad.

Thursday we drove an hour to Louisa, where abckidsmom/Dana from the Sonlight forums lives (her children’s names begin with A, B, C, D, and E: ages 6 to two months). She lives on about an acre, and has fun with homesteading with many littles. We ended up staying eight hours, which was probably a large imposition on my part, but it was fun to snap beans and hear her story and how God is at work in her life. Are we kindred spirits? I think not. I think, though, in all fairness, that I was a bit depressed because she can stand in her backyard and see her parents’ house and her grandma’s house. And she has a house. Maybe the reality of the crazy life we’re leading hit home a bit more hard than usual, and bummed me out.

We went another hour on to Richmond, and Costco. And spent another happy hour browsing and buying. Some good finds: three unbroken hoses, another camp chair, a toaster oven on clearance (to match my rice cooker, so I will be able to prepare meals without an oven or stove, as soon as I get an electric griddle—nice when winter comes, I think). I had two people comment on how lovely my children were, and when I went to load up the car, which made me pause because I had just bought a LOT of stuff, and had a dog and a husband-coming-home to contend with, two very nice African Americans insisted that they help (mom and grandma of a 7-year-old named Jaden, who merrily came over and met Jadon). It was fun to have them to talk to, and then we drove to the airport and waited to pick up Phil.

Sadly, I had eaten some unusual foods (Country Time Lemonade, a granola bar, salad dressing, and Dr. Pepper) and they made me psychotic for about half a day. As in, “Let me hang myself” psychotic. It was very weird, and when I came out of it, I thought that probably half the US could get off their anti-depressants if they would just stop eating weird dyes or high fructose corn syrup. I think, if such is offered in the future, I will be able to more vigorously refuse it, preferring water or plain salad and a sane mind, to tempting treats with suicidal thoughts.


Despite my bad late Thursday/early Friday, Phil immediately got to work. He moved the camp stove up from the forest, and rearranged the cooking tables. Then he put up a tarp over all the trailers (and, using his amazing tarp-preparations, I don’t think this tarp is going anywhere), so now we have a shady spot between the two trailers, which has been very nice and makes our living arrangements even more bearable. He unpacked a bit, and got many gallons of water in all manner of buckets for today. He made calls about the electric and the well (we finally got a well permit via email, so we can get the well drilled soon. (Yay!) And our POD comes on Monday. I will soon have dressers again! Finding underwear for little boys will be much easier!


I started school with the boys yesterday. We read all about the Greeks v. the Persians, and started a book called Kildee House about a man living in a shack against a redwood tree. The skunks and raccoons join him, and Jadon laughed out loud at the descriptions. (I confess I keep wondering when there will be a plot, but the descriptions are nice.)


Today Phil went with Zach Bush to get the supplies for an electrical box. I taught the boys (we made it through Alexander the Great). In the afternoon, we worked on spreading a biodynamic preparation, which is supposed to aid in breaking down organic matter (basically, speed up the composting process on the clearing floor). So Phil sprayed a couple acres, but with a sprained or broken foot, he finally had to rest. I took over the spraying, and the backpack sprayer is none too comfortable. I mean, not to complain, but my right arm got a workout in muscles it would have been happy to never know it had. Ouch. And Jonadab in his Ergo is much more comfortable than 32 pounds of water in a rigid plastic container loosely supported by straps, all manufactured in China. The sprayer finally clogged too badly, so then I took the water and flung it before me (imagine casting seeds, but with water droplets).

And, yes, I felt like an insane woman. This prep works on the same principle as homeopathy (as I understand it, it affects the energy of the material, rather than the straight chemistry), so casting tiny droplets of water that may or may not do awesome things for our land is an exercise in humility, and hopefully not in futility. Only time will tell on that one.

Phil broke out the solar shower (from my parents for Christmas this last year). The boys were in sore need of a bathe, and Phil cleaned them well.

Our place is feeling more manageable (I mean, I was able to start homeschooling, for goodness sake!). I was thrilled to see an email today from the nursery; my 250 apple trees are ordered, and my math was incorrect—even with some shortages, I am getting 254 trees, at about $10 per tree, plus about $.75 per tree shipping, to come in March.

That gives us a little window to improve the soil, get an auger to drill holes, find supplements for the soil, figure out fencing and irrigation, and sell the house so we can finances this venture. The Cummins Nursery folk are very pleasant to deal with—another pleasant group in the midst of a month of pleasant people.

Considerations for an Apple Orchard

I’ve spent much of the last two days at the Zach Bush house, working on the Beam. It will be nice to have electricity of our own, and, after that, Lord willing, internet. Rachel Bush is an introvert, and I feel I am invading her space (though she has given no indication at all!).

The progress on the homestead is as follows: I contacted International Ag Labs, my soil testing, fertility recommending lab of choice. Jon there had just returned from time in Africa, helping to “grow their soil.” A few years ago, he had written a pamphlet on what the people of the Congo could do to help their soil (using indigenous things like bat guano and eggshells). One man found one of the pamphlets and put it into practice, and has been tripling his yields. Good for him!

I went to the homestead and dug up about 10 spots, trying to get a cross section of soil 6” deep. It was HOT with Jonadab on my back, and for a long time, I only could find Jadon’s little red shovel, which is not terribly efficient. I mean, I’m shorter than some, but a shovel that only comes up to my waist is just not an effective digging tool. I did finally get some samples, and was surprised to note that many of the places I had dug were not 100% red Virginia clay. Several were more rocky; several had organic matter. It surprised me: maybe the soil is not as bad as I feared.

I drove in to the Post Office and mailed my sample. That felt good. I had taken soil last October, but never got up the guts to mail it in (you have to fill out a questionnaire, and I had no idea—at that time—how to answer the questions. I know a lot more now. But I sort of wish I had mailed in the sample last October—it would have been revealing, I think).

I also looked at electric fencing, which we need before we can get goats or pigs or chickens. Even after calling the fencing supply company, it’s too complex for me—I’ll figure it out another day.

The biggest triumph, though, was finally placing my first apple orchard order! I ordered 250 trees, in 30 varieties, ranging from 4 trees of a type up to 25. I have spent many hours researching apple trees. Did you know that there are hundreds of varieties? And just because a variety is delicious in Maine does not mean it will be delicious here. Thankfully, the Albemarle Pippin, “one of the world’s truly great apples,” is named for my home county. Yes! (That was the variety that I ordered 25 trees.) I have read many descriptions and weighed the advantages and disadvantages of many types.

Besides regional flavor issues, one must also take into account rootstock (how large do you want the tree to grow? Do you want it to be resistant to x and y? Do you want to support the tree for its lifespan on wires?); time of bloom, for cross-pollination (if you plant an early bloom with a late, you will get no apples, because you need two earlies and two lates for the trees to set fruit); time of harvest, for ease and extent of harvesting (if all apples come ripe the same week, you’re pretty much screwed—better to spread the harvest over a period from August to November); flavor (tart, sweet, rich); use (canning, eating, cider, cooking); color (mix it up!).

So to finally feel like I have a reasonably good list for a beginner who has only ever eaten about 10 varieties in a 30-year life is a big accomplishment.

Jadon had a big accomplishment, too. He lost two teeth in the last 24 hours. (He became really serious about losing his second when I offered him the chance to watch a movie if it came out. The grown-up tooth is already in behind the second one, so I wanted it out!) When Phil brings back my camera, we’ll take a picture. He is practicing lisping.


I wanted to mention gravel dust. Think of a photo of the dirtiest child you have ever seen (we have one in the family album of Justin, while camping: he fell on dirt and is looking very merry!). That is my life, every day. Times three (usually Jadon stays a bit clean). Crazy.

Water Boarding and Other Central Virginia Tortures

Today was the first day that I awoke and thought, “Today is going to be hot.” There was a very light dew on everything, but by 8:30 it was WARM. (Yesterday it had reached 90, but it didn’t really get hot until 2pm, because it was so cloudy earlier.) I cleaned up the campsite a little (took the dirty diapers out of the tree where they had been draped).

Having already faced my phobia of wasps, today I had to face my phobia of maggots. As a young girl, I read a book in which a missing high schooler is finally discovered: “I smelled him before I saw him. Maggots crawled out of his eyes.” Now, with such a disgusting introduction to flies, is it any wonder that maggots just put me over the edge? I had already noticed that there are some in our bag of garbage on the ground. But today I noticed them in the hotdogs. Hmm. Guess we WON’T be having hot dogs for breakfast. But how to empty the hotdog bag? Gotta touch them. Eeewww! I said to myself out loud over and over, “I am not dead. I am not dead.” And they didn’t jump for my eyes or anything.

Another phobia conquered!

(Did I mention the wasps? I had one land on me twice and I just said to it, “I am not your enemy. Thank you for all you do for my land. Please don’t sting me.” And it didn’t! It wasn’t aggressive. Yay! Now when I see them flying low to the ground, I say, “He works his work; I mine”—an allusion to “Ulysses” by Tennyson. It makes me feel so literary.)

By 10:30, the boys had been playing construction trucks in the gravel for an hour and were covered in grey dust. Abraham, who refused the dunk in the pool yesterday, looked like the little grey ghost, covered from head to toe. We headed for the Bessettes: air conditioning, pool, refrigerated water. Ahhh.

I was so pleased, because I had gone over intending to weed Michelle’s garden. She was already out, and we worked together for several hours. She said later that she would have given up, because it was so hot an overwhelming. Instead, though, we chatted and made progress. A weedy hillside again looks like a strawberry patch! It made me think that any garden is not going to be entirely “No work,” although she tried to follow Ruth Stout’s “No work garden method.” I think Bob Cannard has the right idea: let the vegetables grow with the weeds, and don’t worry about it. Probably not as nice aesthetically, but pretty mellow! We pulled several strawberries by mistake, so I am hoping I will get to plant them. And mint—anytime. And I gathered some sunflower seeds to scatter next year. They’ve been volunteering annually at her house, and they are HUGE.

I snapped peas while feeding the baby for his nap. After lunch we weeded until another homeschooling family, the Gritsko’s (who used Sonlight for a few years and then switched to The Well-Trained Mind) came over. Sunny has had digestive issues for a long time, and she just, two days ago, quit eating wheat, and is now feeling better. So she picked my brain for food ideas. I thought that was fun—nutrition conversation in the pool! Yay!

The older boys are putting their heads under water. Alex Bessette taught them how to do so. I passed Jonadab to Dennis; Joe cried, so Dennis dunked him. Joe wised up and enjoyed himself after that.

Abraham had sat up on the deck looking down on the pool party, still grey from head to toe, in a navy shirt and blue jeans, both now grey. I manhandled him into Mater swimtrunks, and carried him, upside down and screaming, out to the pool. And these were true screams: mouth wide open, full volume. I walked outside with him and all the people in the pool started laughing, he was so noisy.

I passed him to Dennis, and Dennis dunked him, midscream. Abraham coughed and choked and resumed, full volume. Arms stiffly stretched out, not holding on, face panicked. Dennis dunked him again. Abraham didn’t cough and choke as much, but resumed, full volume, arms still stiff. Dennis dunked him again.

About this time, Abraham wised up. With a face of misery, he relaxed a bit. Within a few minutes, he rested on a noodle.

And then he played in the water until his lips turned blue. He was one of the last to exit the pool. Water boarding works.

At times in the afternoon, the TV would be on, and my boys would try to plop in front of it. I did not allow it. They would get sucked in, and I would order them to do something else. They came up with some really creative ideas: they put invisible tape somewhere, and the other children would play hotter/colder until they found it. So creative!

I prepared tomatoes for dehydrating. We stripped spearmint off the thickest stems for both dehydrating and tea—by boiling up a lot of it, we made a tea base, which will work well when cut with some water. Michelle made dinner (it was going to be Mexican, but as we assessed what we had, it ended up being a delicious Asian meal, with ground beef, green peppers, tomatoes (all three from the garden), as well as garlic, ginger, onions, and tamari, on my recommendation. Michelle said, “Amy, I would never have come up with this combination, but it really worked!”).

I put in a full day. Putting up vegetables is a lot of work. The boys played happily. As I think about it now, they have never really had anyone other than each other to play with, so having a few other children, even much older, is very fun for them. And the pool is a huge added blessing.

Back at the Lykosh homestead, the Doug Bushes stopped by while I was reading Holes and we showed them our little place. What a good day!

Jonadab's First Birthday

My baby is one today. Such a joyful day here, two weeks in Virginia. He is a happy sweetie, beloved of all who see him. Dennis took him in the pool today. He even dunked him, and the baby (after a brief crying spell) played happily apart from me for some time.

The boys all played happily today. I don’t think they had one fight. Jadon worked on his book of riddles, which he finished (“My goal was to finish by Jonadab’s birthday—and I did!”) while Isaiah and Abraham played. Then Isaiah worked on a puzzle book while Jadon and Abraham played. They loved their cars in the gravel. They also became filthy dirty.


I unloaded many of the boxes under the tarp. Many of them were soaked, especially on the downhill side. Incredibly, though, despite all the standing water, as far as I can tell, nothing is truly damaged. The bullets were in bubble wrap; a box with documents had sweaters packed on the downhill side; a box of rummel had, strangely, nothing really touching the downhill edge. It was like a little kiss from God to see box after box that should have been ruined and wasn’t.

It was fulfilling, too, to move out of the tent and into our trailer-house. The mats and sleeping bags all fit in the little closet, so I think that will be their permanent staying place.

I tried to make out my order for apple trees, after walking around the upper acres and thinking and praying. I have a good idea where a pond should go above the homestead site, and where a root cellar should go. I think the northern side of the property is more suitable for growing, and less so for water or such. My order, on paper, came to 600 trees exactly, but then I read that it is best to wait two years to build up the soil. That would be six years before a crop (at least), so I need to think and pray about that some more. And I will talk to Jon at International Ag Labs when he gets back from an African missions trip on Tuesday. May the Lord grant wisdom, as I need it sorely.

By 3pm we were filthy and hot. I’ve been surprised by the weather: it was misty and chilly when we woke this morning, and the sun didn’t burn through until about 2pm. But when it burned through, it was 90 and humid—phew! The boys were happy to go to the Bessettes and swim (well, not Abraham, who was so incredibly filthy that you could hardly recognize him. He looked in the mirror and immediately turned away because I think he scared himself!). I helped harvest some beans and tomatoes with Michelle, and then they went to church. I weeded her garden a bit (not that she will be able to tell, necessarily; I started in the easy, not-very-weedy section and was overwhelmed with the hard sections), then watched Faith Like Potatoes. I think I read the book, which I’m guessing was not very well written because I don’t really remember the book well. But the movie really touched me, especially today.

I realized in the night two things: first, that I’ve been getting too much sleep, and that is why I keep awaking in the night. Second, that I have my trust in Phil’s retirement, and that I think God wants to strip my dependence on that. I have to be reminded again that the goal is not to make Amy Lykosh a wealthy woman with lots and lots of shrewd business deals and investments; the goal is to make Amy Lykosh faithful and full of faith in an omnipotent God. And while I would like to be debt free and have everything just peachy, that’s God’s purview, not mine. This movie was basically preaching the same thing.

Last night we went to the Historical Museum. They had about six different farms from different eras and different places. It was amazing to see how little the 1740s settlers in America had, and amazing to see how long a process it was to make flax ready for weaving. The textile industry was a very slow one. I think, as much as the agrarian life appeals to me, seeing the very impoverished conditions they lived in, I am not really ready to return to those days. It was a good reminder not to look back with rose-colored glasses. (Or, as Tamara would say, “There’s a reason people try to leave subsistence farming!”)

Some impressions after two weeks here in Virginia
*I love it here. I love the people. I love the land. I love driving through the green light with the trees on either side. I love that it feels like home, in a way that Boulder did not.

*I went to look for receipts that I had thrown away in a pile of papers I plan to use for a lasagna bed. There was a large beetle-like creature with wings (maybe an inch long), and another one without. I got a glass jar and discovered that the latter was just the exoskeleton. So neat!

*When going down to my stove to cook breakfast one morning, I looked down to see a four inch long millipede. Good morning!

*Some days I walk into the woodland glade and a butterfly flickers by my head, a sign of peace and rest.

*I debate whether the best name for the farm is “Lavish Abundance” or “Rest and Be Thankful” or something else.

*I planted the pussy willow cuttings from my mother (that sat in a vase for three months until they were moldy and nasty on the bottom, then moved them across the country in a wet paper towel that dried at some point) in a beautiful mound in the woods, where the dappled sunlight hits them. I think they will live, and may the Lord grant that they offer pollen to the bees in early spring, when the bees are so desperately hungry.

*Michelle has some supersweet little yellow tomatoes that volunteered in her garden this year. I eat and eat and eat them, so sweet they are almost like grapes. I bet if I dried them, they would be like raisins.

*The fireflies light the woods and, a bit later, across the meadow. I catch one for the first time since childhood, and then Jadon and Isaiah catch one, also.

*Abraham runs around with his “stick gun” saying in a funny voice, “Hands up, Chickanees! Hands up, pooly! Hands up, housey!” The Bessettes find this endlessly entertaining.

*We read Holes before bed. Abraham sets me straight: “Mr. Sir drives the truck.” He’s right. He’s three.

*Jadon plays cars with Abraham. When he stops for a bit, Abraham says, “Jadon, are you going to play more cars with me?” Such a “brothers dwell together in unity” moment. After two weeks, Michelle comments that Jadon seems happier. I know that, compared with last year, and even the stress of living in a “for sale” home, I am yelling less and having a happier time.

*After leaving the Historical Museum, both Zach and Doug call to check up on me, to make sure I made it home safely.

*I expected the humidity to drive me into despair. Surprisingly, I find it manageable. And if I get too hot, I head to a home with A/C.

*We really have no complaints.