2/23

Here on our homestead, which we're starting to call "Folly up the Creek", time passes differently.  Yesterday I spent some of the wee hours awake and active, then fell asleep until 9am, when I found MM making the morning fire instead of me- 

It was time to record the reading on the electric meter- we're monitoring our daily use- and the news was good.  We're well within our allowance of 50 KWH, averaging about 25, after our binge in early January that got us over 100 KWH a day until we figured out how much it was costing to keep the house warm day and night on electricity alone.  Now we have turned the thermostat pretty much off, use wood to keep the central room warm, and rely on blankets to get us through the night- and we're perfectly comfortable.

 We got our breakfast cooked and eaten and it was already late; I got dressed in my long johns and overalls and boots and ready to go out, but first there was some business we got caught up in; returning and reordering a weather station that will work with the Weather Underground to measure and track the weather.  By the time we got that taken care of, having gotten the cost of a system that would do what we wanted from $600 to $350, it was time to stoke the fire and make a late lunch.

After tuna and crackers with tomato, apples, and dilly beans, sitting together at the dining room table once more, there was the other backlog of tools and equipment I needed to get ordered, and our medical and dental insurance that is getting completely replaced thanks to our move, and garden planning.  

We were treated to a freakish hailstorm, in which the BB sized hail just fell straight down like sugar crystals without a trace of wind, making white patches in the grass like grey hairs at the temples of the lawn; we stoked the fire again, and then the hail was over and melted as though nothing had happened.  

Somewhere in there I finally got the tools for making mortise and tenons for roundwood furniture ordered, and a peavey, and bare root blueberry bushes, and soil block maker with some bagged soil to get me started on tomatoes.  I didn't get the lawn tractor I've been researching on order over some concerns with an attachment system called a sleeve mount; I will need to go to Eugene to see it for myself and confirm that the model we're ordering comes with such a feature, or start over.  

Somewhere in there MM made a Bundt cake in the fancy pan she bought at the thrift store.

I went to the garage and worked for a time replacing some lamps and mounting another array of lights to dispel the shadows in the workbench area, while the rice cooked, And then it was dinnertime, and I steamed pot stickers with rice and veggies.  

Over dinner and beyond we got caught up on our Facebook posts, MM did some washing up, and I spent an hour on the phone with Grace and Orah on speaker phone.  MM brought me a slice of cake to enjoy while we talked, and then it was bed time.  

I never got outside, except to get another load of firewood.

I peeled off my layers and layers and washed up, then we crawled under two comforters and two blankets and we were off to sleep, another day passed.

And that was our catch-up day at Folly-up-the-creek.  Tomorrow I'm going to Eugene I guess to check out the lawn tractor; another time-suck.  But better to be sure than to have attachments and so forth that don't fit.

And shopping for that used pickup truck I need: always put off.  I have to get on that.

My test of the viability of the mule stable sweepings- good to go. Muleskinner Bill has a team of mules that have a lot of sweepings piling up out back, basically sawdust with "enhancements".  He offered me as much as I wanted- I want about three dump trucks of it- and I have to arrange to get it picked up and delivered here.  Looks like that project is coming due- I'll be needing it soon for the next project I have in mind.

The hoop house- about a 10 by 16 foot frame needing a plastic covering and some soil to be built- I have already covered the weedy floor with two layers of the cardboard boxes we used to move here.  Next is six inches of stable sweepings and then I can cover it.  Later it will be where I have tomatoes and other plants that need some extra care and warmth in the summer.

Also a partial list:

- harvesting poles and downed trees from the forest as posts for deer proof garden fence and as firewood.

-seeding the meadows with wildflowers

-building acidic soil beds for blueberries and rhododendrons 

-building Spring and summer garden plots with deer fences

-mapping the site and analysis of soil pH, drainage, and fertility

-laying out contours and planning swales, ponds, and orchard trees

-cleaning up the yurt and making it habitable

-building a portable chicken house

-clearing out spaces for camping- 

-building a bridge near the yurt over the creek

-building small foot bridges over gullies in the meadow.

-building a skiddable compost toilets for yurt and "Peter Pan's village"

-bringing up/ chipping the huge antediluvian brush piles to build fertility in the meadows

-planting some fruit trees.

-laying out a labyrinth.

-clearing some paths through the forest, around the property line.