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.