As the last of the snow melted off of Mount Lamborn and Lands End across the valley, things really started to green up down below. Here, our Sannen goat Phoebe appears to be enjoying the view from Robbins Ditch as much as me, with Fire Mountain Canal contouring its way around the Roatcap Creek drainage below.
Late May and early June brings mornings with Bluebird skies, green pastures, singing birds. This time of year helps me remember what I'm inspired to create here more than any other time. Abundance, trees, water, flowers, fruit, happy people, birds everywhere!
Our neighbor Eric spent much of May and June constructing a two-story, 2400 square foot community dance hall on his property, mostly by himself, with the occasional assistance when needed from his sons and once, a neighborhood work party to move the homemade roof trusses into the building. I want to have more neighborhood work parties - fun!
The warm weather helped several of our hens remember that they sometimes like to go broody and sit on eggs for 21 days straight so that they'll hatch out flocks of tiny, chirping chicks.
Linc and Jeanne worked, with help from friends Ian, Dev, David and Colin, on putting up the high tunnel hoophouse frame. It turned out that the company had sent the wrong instructions and several of the wrong parts, but that didn't stop us. If anything, homesteading teaches about perseverance!
Inside the cabin, we replaced a small, chest fridge with a larger one (to handle the increasing refrigeration requirements created by more goat milk products), and squeezed a front-loading clothes washer into the attached greenhouse. The larger electrical load from these, plus charging electric bicycle batteries, necessitated a larger solar electric array, so we moved the array down off of the cabin roof (hard to keep clear of snow in the winter), increased the size from 600 watts to 1000 watts, and fenced if off from goat hooves and horns. This array will eventually be pole mounted, with the ability to change tilt angle seasonally to follow the sun.
The alfalfa in our alfalfa/grass pastures got hit hard by weevils again this year, and the goats (not being insectivorous I suppose) opted not to eat from the pastures for a month or so. Linc borrowed neighbor Ryan's tractor, rented a mower attachment, and cut two of the paddocks (recommended for weevil control). Also this month, we planted all of our warm weather garden vegetables, including 66 tomato seedlings we'd raised in the cabin greenhouse in soil blocks, and replanted carrots (we still haven't quite figured out how to get carrots to grow here). Go plants go!
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