June 2014

 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!

May 2014

 This month, Jeanne went off on a 9 day Vision Quest in the desert with a group of girlfriends.  Here's what she looked like after spending 3 of those days sitting by herself on a rock out in the wind (and it was really windy) and sun without a tent, no food, a jug of water.  She has this "grounded" look to her, I think.

 Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Linc ran around like the proverbial headless chicken, milking chickens, collecting goat eggs, prepping garden beds, planting potatoes, going for bike rides with a friend, work sharing with neighbor Dev (we'd work for a few hours together on my projects, then go over and work for a few hours on his), doing some HVAC load calc work for a friend, etc.  The garden bed prep this year involved loosening weeds in beds and paths with a sharp shovel blade, shoveling weeds from paths onto the beds then covering that with topsoil from the paths, then adding hay mulch to beds and wood chip mulch to paths, then reinstalling drip hose.  Still a lot of work.  Gotta be a better way...

 The goats didn't know what to make of Linc as he went tearing around the homestead trying to do the work of two people, looking a little frazzled due to sleeping 5 hours/night. 

Finally, Jeanne came home!  Welcome home, Jeanne, how was your trip, great, now help me plant all of this chard, kale, beets, lettuce, corn, beans, the rest of these potatoes, and, oh, can you separate out some cream, churn some butter, and make some cheese, cause there's about six gallons of milk in the fridge...

And, we bought a web cam so that we could enjoy dinner time Skype webcam calls with Linc's mother, calling from the laundry room/office of the assisted living home that she shares with a family (the owners) and two other elderly residents.  She frequently enjoyed telling us her favorite joke, "There was one smart fella and he felt smart, two smart fellas and they felt smart, three fart smellas and they smelt...oops!"

April 2014

April brought the usual high winds and louder whisperings of spring.  Linc turned on the new mile long buried pipe irrigation system for the first time on the 3rd. It worked great!  No more herding piles of leaves and sticks down the ditch every spring (OK, actually that part was fun).  No more worrying about the ditch leaking, drying up, or slipping down the mountainside.  Fantastic.

Linc purchased a better electric bike kit for Jeanne's town bike (shown above), along with the requisite fenders and lights, and put together our second e-bike.  This one is MUCH better than the first.  Slightly less power, extremely quiet, with a digital control pad that allows one to set the level of assist desired (can be overridden with thumb-throttle for a quick boost up short hills, passing cars on the freeway ;-)).   Pedaling lightly, she is able to do 22 mph on the flats.  Steep hills are around 10 mph, 14 if pedaling hard.  Jeanne at first expressed only mild interest until one day she decided to take her first ride by commuting to work and back on it.  By the end of the day, she too had EGG (Electric Goofy Grin) on her face when she pulled in the driveway, and her days of driving the car pretty much ended right there.

This month, we planted peas out in the garden, and started warmer weather veggies in soil blocks in our cabin greenhouse.  We also planted 17 dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit and nut trees in the garden.  Planting food-producing trees felt REALLY good.  With time, ONE of these could produce as much food as an entire garden bed.  Its roots will mine minerals from the soil and drop them as leaves in the fall, enriching the topsoil around it.  The flowers will attract insects.  Its roots will pull moisture from deep in the ground and transpire it from its leaves, cooling the air around it, and its leaves will provide some shade and windbreak, both of which we could use a lot more of on our south facing mountainside.  Lastly, the trees will attract and form symbiotic relationships with fungi, eventually creating an information and nutrient-exchanging subsurface network in the garden.  REALLY, ALL THAT?  Wow, why wouldn't everyone drop whatever they were doing right this instant and go outside and start planting trees?  Well, for one, I'm writing this on Dec 31st, and it's 16 F outside...

February and March 2014

No photos!.  I think we were too busy!  We both had work, Linc's mostly being in Grand Junction, doing HVAC/plumbing design/drafting, with some additional engineering and water treatment work from home.  Jeanne continued to work at PACE at the senior center doing physical therapy two days/week, as well as taking care of all of the chores while Linc was away.

Linc's e-bike motor burned out after a month or so of exciting pre-dawn and post-sunset winter commutes across the Grand Valley to work from his friends' home, often in sleet, snow, rain.  Still, he was impressed, and immediately made plans to order a better made kit for Jeanne's town bike.

While on the subject, here's what I like about these e-bike kits.  They're fast, silent (well, the newer ones are), one can pedal as much and as hard as one wants for a work out while commuting or running errands, and if tired or hauling a big load of groceries in the trailer, the motor is always there to help out, or even take over completely if need be.  Uphills and headwinds are no longer an issue, and given the speed boost, it's possible to nearly keep up with traffic, which gives car drivers more time to react to the sight of a bicyclist flying along in the bike lane with a huge grin on the rider's face.  All this, and a 20 to 30 mile battery range, and the ability to recharge (2000 to 5000 times) for 6 cents worth of electricity per charge (if grid tied, free if off-grid solar electric).  Errands (and the associated finding of parking spaces, undoing seatbelts and hauling oneself in and out of the car - all associated with errands in a car), are a breeze.  Cruise up onto the sidewalk, lean the bike against the front of the store, back out in a flash, then whip across town to the next place.  Santa Claus needs one of these!

In February, Linc drove down to Flagstaff, Arizona for a week to visit his mother and sister, and help with Mom's filing and tax prep.

One weekend in February, Linc took at weekend-long workshop in Paonia called Transformation Mind Dynamics, a self-examining, dysfunctional pattern exposing, self-actualizing program similar to the EST trainings that were held in the 70's.  Immediately hooked, he began spouting TMD terms like "I am now RADICALLY HONEST!", or "I'm out of INTEGRITY!" on a regular basis, which amused (or irritated, depending on the day) Jeanne and any neighbors who hadn't already taken the training, quite a bit.

We used up the last of the root cellar-stored apples in late March, and a day or two later, the first Robin of spring started singing outside the cabin.  In early March, we planted the first spring greens, parsnips and beets in the garden.  Not complaining, but WHERE, did the winter go?

January 2014

 Thinking wisely that we should eat what we grew, we continued eating potatoes at a furious rate (well, they tasted good too), along with the usual eggs, kimchi, homemade ketchup, etc.  They usually found their way into breakfast and supper, and if there was soup, for lunch.  Late in the month, we finished off the last of the 400-something lbs that we'd harvested last fall, minus whatever had been given away, and the 80 lbs saved for seed potatoes.  This year, we'll aim for twice that!

 Linc finally got time to pursue his interest in electric-human hybrid transportation, buying a mid-drive electric motor kit that allowed him to pedal up hills pulling a trailer, feeling like Superman.  The motor was operated from a handlebar twist throttle, and a Lithium phosphate battery rode in a rear pannier.  A small charger came with the battery, allowing charging off of our home solar electric system.  The kit was a blast, but cheap.  The motor mount twisted, chain fell off regularly, and it smelled like it was burning out almost from the first day he rode it.  And, he was hooked.

With snow on the ground again up higher, we did our best to get out for the occasional quick ski tour up Tower Hill.  The snow was always good, with the trail head located perhaps 6 miles, and 3000 feet or so higher than home.

Linc received some engineering work to do from home, and Jeanne was hired to do physical therapy work at the local senior center 2 days/week, a dream job for her, being less than 2 miles from the farm, close enough to zip home at lunch if need be to check on the goats and chickens.

December 2013

 Early December was a bit of a scramble to try and finish a few things before the snow started.  We wanted to get the heavy digging done for the new hoop greenhouse beds before putting the frame up over the winter, and figured that our last chance until spring was NOW.  The backhoe wouldn't start (too cold), so Linc removed all of the fluids (oil, antifreeze, heated them up on the stove in old pots, poured them back in, stuck a magnetic block heater on, running off of a generator, charged up two batteries, sprayed ether, and finally, with a groaaannn, it started!  Linc used it to dig out each greenhouse bed, grab loads of semi-rotted Cottonwood and Siberian Elm logs from the other end of the property (above), piled them in the dug bed trenches, and put dirt back over.  With only three beds left to go, daylight fading, and the big snow storm and cold expected that evening, he made the mistake of running the backhoe out of diesel fuel.  Quick run down to the gas station for 5 gallons of fuel, and 30 minutes of mechanicking to bleed the air out of the fuel system, and it was running again!  The final digging was done by headlamp, and came out a bid messy, but it was done, yay!

 The snow came that night, and temperatures dropped to below zero.  Winter arrived like a flick of light switch, it seemed.  Restricted to indoor chores for a couple days, Linc has been helping a group of friends organize a community shift into gift economy, inspired by the ideas presented in books such as Sacred Economics, by Charles Eisenstein.  Below, a focus group meets in the warmth of a friend's home. 

Winter this year seems to be starting out as a time to reflect, look at what we did during the last year, have a few doubts and misgivings, maybe, and research some alternatives.  I'm sure by February, we'll be starting to envision what is next, and maybe begin the first steps towards as author Eisenstein puts it, "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible". 

Thanks for joining us in this blog summary of our own efforts.  Hopefully, it will help inspire you and let you know that other people are out there struggling, like you maybe, with understanding what's wrong with our dysfunctional human world, and starting to take the first steps towards something better!

November 2013

 November brought continued work on the 6000' long irrigation pipeline.  Here, the contractor is burying the pipe that he previously fused and dragged up the ditch.  One day, the pipe suddenly made it's way to the end of the ditch, right past our cabin and down the driveway.

 Meanwhile, with the cabin liveable again, Jeanne's focus was to build a goat milking parlor shed, so that she could give the goats more room in the barn by getting the milk stand and equipment out.  So, she learned how to operate a circular saw.

 Then she learned how to frame a deck and walls.

The two of us put the walls up and fastened them together.

 When it got to the roof, she made the trusses, Linc installed them, and a friend dropped by just in time to put on the roof sheathing so we could get it weathertight before the next storm.

 After the storm, we started in on siding the shed, using leftover lumber and boards that folks had offered.

 And finally, the test!  Eggplant, our black Nubian goat, was quite uncomfortable on the stand at first, without the support that a back fence in the barn had provided (above), but Jeanne extended the stand and added carpet to give them better traction, and now the goats are jumping right up for the their milking snacks.

 While Jeanne focused on the milking shed, Linc worried his way through getting holes made for the greenhouse support rail foundation.  This involved attempting to bore 18 holes exactly 30" deep in clay and kaliche, and pouring the support posts in level, plumb, and the correct distance apart.

He borrowed a friend's tractor and post hole auger, and found that, even sitting on a 6' pry bar to give some weight to the auger, it still couldn't get through the rock-like subsoil in places.  In the end, he had to dig out several with the backhoe, lightly backfill, redig them with the tractor and hand-operated post hole digger, and set the posts.   Whew!

 Here's a view (above) of what those fold down canning jar cabinets look like when open.  And, a view (below) of what Jeanne's reaction looks like when you forget and leave them open!

With the greenhouse foundation done, we took Thanksgiving Day off and went for a several hour-long, exploratory run/hike up the stream that feeds water to our ditch, and back along an older, higher, abandoned ditch to a friend's home for a visit, and then over to another couple's home for dinner.  While hiking, we realized again how lucky we all are to be here, surrounded by all of this beauty, wild nature so close by that it's within a short walk, run or bike ride.  I have a feeling that connecting with nature is going to gain a lot more importance over the next few years, as we all realize how disconnected we are from a world that is much more alive and enspirited than we'd been led to believe.  I'm looking forward to it.