Lots Going On

Excepting the pigs, all our animals are in one pen right behind our office trailer. It is fun to have chickens under foot (as the electric net does not contain them well) and sheep and goats close at hand. I looked over yesterday and saw one of the babydolls standing with the mineral bucket upturned on her head. Sadly, Annabelle the goat charged the babydoll, who escaped by charging over the (flexible) electric net. In that charge, the mineral bucket fell off, and the babydoll found herself free, in a field with some little stands of uneated oats.

I expect that the temporary stress of the electric net underfoot was immediately repaid by the pleasing repast. While the other sheep and goats looked on enviously, blatting on occasion to remind the lamb that she really belonged with them (or were they simply encouraging her to leave some greens for them?), the escaped lamb happily ate her way around the yard. Thankfully, she is the friendliest of the babydolls, and came happily for the grain Phil offered. He grabbed her, and she put up a fuss, but, as with all sheep, once her front legs left the ground, she assumed she was done for, and gave up the fight. We checked her hoofs and Phil carried her back to her pen. Such excitement!

The weather turned very cold. Sadly, the water froze even in Phil’s espresso maker in the barn kitchen. I was hoping that barn would offer a bit more insulation than it did: our coffee plant inside also froze and appears to dead. Thankfully, the lemon tree has survived thus far, but I’m not tempting fate: it has moved into our ever-smaller house. Jonadab has only dug in the dirt one time so far, and he looked very guilty as he showed me the displaced dirt.

With the freezing temperatures comes a freezing cook. That would be me. I thought about the happy childhood stories where the pioneer children would go bounding down to an “already warmed kitchen.” Nice for them, but bummer for the parents who had to rise early to start the fire. While I would not presume that my life, complete with espresso maker for Phil and countertop convection oven for me, is anywhere near as difficult as theirs, I feel a certain freezing affinity for those pioneers.

Phil and I were debating whether to dig the holes for the trees by hand. If we could do ten a day, that would surely get the orchard in the ground by March, and Phil’s a good digger. He could perhaps do ten a day.

Or so we thought. After he triangulated the previously set rows to make sure that we were on in our reckoning (we weren’t always, which would have made sloppy rows), he began to dig. After about 18 inches, he hit perched water, which means that water from the previous rain had hit a rock barrier and ran in sheets, like underground streams. His hole became sloppy as the water streamed out.

With our hard clay soil, I was not expecting drainage issues, or standing water (er, flowing water). We had talked about digging a drainage trench down to a (yet to be built) pond. I think such a drainage possibility became a drainage necessity.

Phil quit digging about two feet down. He had uncovered a few worms and a toad with a very slow metabolism, but we had not prepared the site for even one tree. It had taken him several hours.

He called to hire a mini-excavator, set for delivery this coming Friday. So now we’re waiting on the excavator to dig trees and the fencing to install a perimeter. What to do with the week ahead?

Phil needed to mail some checks, and he knew we had a registered letter waiting for us (it had been waiting at the post office on Saturday). When he got the mail, it turned out to be a registered letter from our insurance, stating that our car coverage expires at midnight. I’m thankful Phil went to get that letter when he did! Our agent took care of it.

Phil also brought our trash to the dump. Yes: in the country there are no lovely trucks to haul it away. I had been carefully separating all recycling from regular trash since we moved here, but Dennis laughed at such fastidiousness: all except the aluminum just gets dumped into the landfill anyway! I have no idea if that is true, but I had reached the limit on trash around the living area, and the recycling center was closed today, so off to the dump went all my glass, paper, and aluminum. So much for the “earth-friendly” living I’m doing here. (And what was that about disposable diapers? YES—I’m still using them! Cloth is really unpleasant to deal with away from a washing machine!)

As we look to the year ahead, once we get the trees in the ground, the perimeter fence up, four acres near the creek cleared, and buy some cows, we won’t have much to do with ourselves until we need to harvest the fruit. Which leads into the big project we’ve been ignoring till now: building a dwelling.

Up until now, we’ve been in the Proverbs 24:27 mode: “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.” But with the cold weather, I think my patience with the exterior kitchen is reaching its limit. I can do it this year, I think; I would rather not do it next year, too.

So Phil and I talked about the next stage. Our current plan is to use the trailer pad as our driveway/parking area, and build a log cabin just downslope from where we are situated currently. Both the Bessettes and the Zach Bushes have used Old Virginia Hand Hewn Log Homes. (One designed their own, and one modified the Allegheny B, which you can see here.) We spent several hours discussing the benefits and drawbacks of the various designs within our very pie-in-the-sky budget. I think Dennis said to estimate $150/square foot, which is a lot of money for even a small home. We need wisdom to know how to proceed, but I am feeling good about our initial conversation.