Taken by Isaiah, while waiting in the car at the co-op feed store
On Wednesday, we got a call early from the well-driller: “We struck a gallon a minute at 405 feet; we can only go down to about 500 feet, but we might hit some more water. If not, at least you’ll have another 130 gallons or so of water storage.”
We drilled to 500 feet and have a gallon a minute, with about 600 gallons of stored water.
That wasn’t exactly the fast-flowing, water-abundance we hoped for. On the other hand, in Colorado we used, on average, about 4000 or 5000 gallons a month year-round (more when watering the lawn in summer). This well should produce 43,000 gallons a month (thereabouts), which sounds like a lot. And if it's not enough, we’re planning several ponds that we can use for irrigation, and we can always put in a cheaper well later. (Apparently, around here, you can get a cheap well, or you can get a good well. Maybe someday we’ll have both.) It is fun to have a well, even though it doesn’t have a pump.
On Thursday, Phil talked to the electrical company and had a breakthrough. We will, hopefully, only have to run the line 150 feet down our driveway. At $10/linear foot, we’ll be under $2K, which is much easier to swallow than the $10K we had initially been expecting. That can, hopefully, happen soon. How wonderful not to have to pay many thousands up front for an alternate system.
Wednesday was a day of retail therapy for me (sort of). We did some internet stuff in the morning: bought a full-sized mattress from costco.com that will just fit in our place. It will be nice to sleep on a mattress again. Bought some herb seeds that can be planted in fall. I’ve been reading about medicinal herbs, and it makes me excited to plant and use these gifts of nature. I even sprung for the $7/root goldenseal, that grows in “Eastern Deciduous Forests in 75% shade.” You can’t harvest until the fourth year, so I will be glad to get that started early.
I continue to check craigslist every chance I get. People who post sheep and piglets do not remove their ads after selling an animal as quickly as I’d like, so I keep having my hopes disappointed. Good thing that pigs and sheep have babies regularly, and Phil, with characteristic patience, simply says, “If they don’t call us, then it is not time for us to have them.”
Wednesday we also went to the feed store and bought more peat moss for the lasagna garden (more on that below), as well as various random things, like tree restorer for the tulip poplar that the goats chewed (they didn’t chew all the way around, though, so perhaps the tree is not fully girdled, a death-knell for a tree). We also had 10 cubic yards of compost delivered. The rich black is in stark contrast to our red clay.
On Thursday I worked on the garden much of the day. I make sure there is as little organic material as possible on top of the soil. Then I lay out the boxes (torn down from the move, with all tape removed) as the base of the lasagna garden, and then layer up whatever organic matter we can find. I also took a thin layer of the pulverized rock from the well, and spread that on top of the boxes. I figure that that rock has not been subjected to erosion, so it may be more highly mineralized that rock on the earth’s surface. (I cannot take credit for this idea; there are books out there with titles like The Enlivened Rock Powders, which I haven’t read but sound, um, interesting.) Whether it will work or not, I can’t say. I put some compost down, all the organic matter on the surface of our clay (tiny amount that it is), and went to visit neighbor Butch to see if he had spoiled hay.
Butch lives in a 6300 foot house (with a five stall garage). In the lines and the trim, the house is gorgeous. I would probably not wall-paper quite as much, but I enjoy getting to see a bit of his wife's personality in her different choices. Wall paper has more variety than paint, that's for sure!
He took me on a tour, and we chatted for a time. When I left, he immediately brought me three large bales of spoiled hay for my garden. It’s incredible to me. His tractor is not exactly a hot rod, probably going maybe 5mph. I think it probably took him the better part of an hour to bring those three bales to me, and he just started immediately. So gracious. We chatted for some time about spiritual things. (He asked if we were “very religious” because he “thought we might be.” I suppose the boys names are a dead giveaway, though he disregarded that.) He described himself first as a “heathen atheist, but a moral and ethical one,” and then revised that to an agnostic. He’s been Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Bible-believing, and Jehovah’s Witness, but finally gave it up. Phil and I really like him, and he likes us.
Abraham helped me spread the hay on the boxes, and then he shoveled one or two scoops of compost. I am not sure how far 10 cubic yards of compost will go—I suspect it will go not nearly as far as I wish. I am making a thin strip of a garden down near our construction trailer. That strip is mostly shade, and I’m planning that that will be my shade herb garden.
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