- It really HAS been a long time since I posted anything.
- Someone is actually reading what I post.
Remove sick trees
We knew we had a couple of sick trees. And I'd been talking with Josh (who we were renting goats from) about doing some landscaping. He does trees. So we had him look at the suspicious trees, and he pointed out some that we had not realized were a concern. I mean, he could walk up and stick his hand into a rotted trunk. So...
All told we took out 17 trees. At the base, they ranged in diameter from about 14 " to close to 5'. And in a lot of cases they were more rot than wood at the base. For example, the three maple trunks growing over our bedroom (actually over our bed) had a thin ring of wood around a massive hole in the center. I don't know how we got through winter storms the past few years without being crushed as we slept.
There is a lot of wood in 17 tall trees. Even after you discount the rotted parts. Really, really. A LOT of wood. We have
- Hillocks of chipped brush and ground stumps.
- A wall of massive rounds of firewood completely that blocks the back driveway.
- The woodshed is nearly full of split wood.
- There are towering heaps of split wood waiting to be stacked. Somewhere. (Note: Hydraulic log splitters are good things.)
- And we bought 2 Costco tents to shelter the sawn lumber.
All this tree cutting suffered some delays. Not through any fault of Josh's, I hasten to add. Mostly problems getting the crane operator out to pluck up the trees closest to the house as they were cut, and lay them gently in place for the miller. The guy who finally showed up was a prima donna who laid out the wood in a haphazard pile. When we could get him off the phone long enough to work. It was September by the time we had the trees down, and then we had to rent a backhoe to rearrange them so the miller could access them.
Get my goat(s)
I mentioned in my last post, ever so long ago, that I was considering goats. I got goats, I love the goats, but it was a rough start. Of the three little goatlings that Josh brought out for me to choose from, one died within 48 hours, and another a couple of weeks later. Josh looked at everything I was doing, where I kept them, what food they had access to, and assured me I really was not doing anything wrong. We never did figure out what happened to the first casualty. Josh took Sadie home for a backyard autopsy. She had eaten a handful of dry ferns (why, with all the lush green available to her???) and that blocked her up and gave her a bit of bloat. Which she probably would have survived; we were treating it. But she had a wee bit of a cold. Which she probably would have gotten over quickly. But with the bloat, she was laying down. And laying down was the worst thing for her cold. It turned into pneumonia. From eating the dry stuff to death was maybe 18 hours.
Rosie, meanwhile, was robustly healthy. Eating her way through a forest of blackberries, sweet, smart, and energetic. She even dealt well with being an only goat for a few weeks. Now I have Rosie and Gigi. Rosie is the clear leader & the brains of the operation. Gigi lets Rosie pull things down where she can reach them -- or calls for me to do it. Gigi is purebred Nubian; Rosie is 3/4 Alpine and 1/4 Kiko (and that Kiko is probably the source of her smarts and vigor).
Together they've cleared the back yard. We can see the trunks of the trees along the road in the back yard. We moved into this house nine years ago, and we have never seen those trunks before. They were smothered in blackberries.
Butterfly lady has extended a standing invitation to the girls to dine on their blackberries, so Rosie and Gigi are busy extending the neighbors' meadow.
Clear the coop area
Early in the summer, we identified a good area for the chicken coop -- at the road end of the back drive. It had a scattering of brambles and scrub, and it was really uneven ground, and it had a pile of mixed brush on top of an old maple log blocking access.
We cleared it.
It filled up with trim from the big (BIG!) cedar that needed to come down.
Chipped the branches -- coop area was clear.
Then the crane operator filled it with trees.
Himself moved those to the far side of the driveway, and then filled the area with logs positioned to roll onto the portable mill.
The millers cut that, then started work on the logs in the front yard.
Himself staged the rest of the logs on the coop area. (Seventeen trees. A LOT of wood. Lordy, lordy!)
The millers cut all but the marginal stuff at the back of the stack.
Himself cut the marginal stuff into rounds, and Millionaires helped move that to the driveway (where it now forms an impenetrable wall) when they were out to help move the heaviest lumber.
Now the coop area is pretty much clear. The slabs from the outside of the logs are pushed to one side, in a pile about 12' long and 6' high and 5' deep. When we can get to the coop area (past the wall of rounds in the driveway), we can rake it smooth, shovel in some sawdust and maybe some gravel so we (never mind the coop) don't sink out of site in the muck, and start building. The girls can hardly wait. I mean, really. They need their coop!
Eat chicken
Did I mention that two of the chickens turned out to be roosters? Those roosters turned out to be vicious. Rhymes with delicious, which they were also. I was the only one who could go into the pen once those roosters matured, and I had to constantly watch my back. Collecting eggs should not be dangerous.
Really, I didn't know chicken could be so flavorful. The pullets get table scraps, and boy did they enjoy the rooster left-overs. Himself was convinced that they knew exactly who they were tearing into. (The roosters were a bit rough on their girls -- but not as bad as they were on us.)
Tidy up the back yard
I mentioned the goats. They do a great job eating leaves and small stems off the brambles. I spent a lot of happy hours with the goats, clipping out the bigger branches so they could keep moving through the yard. Among other things, they cleared access to one of the trees that needed to come down.
Having the backhoe let us do a few other things -- take out stumps both new and old in the back yard, etc. We've been burning half-rotted stumps & roots off and on since the burn season started (1 October). I've scattered clover seed on the exposed earth, and started separating out the stones.
Right now, though, the back yard looks pretty raw.
We've identified a fence line; we will need to build fences to keep the neighbor's dogs away from the livestock. That's another story.
Bury my father's ashes
When enough of the back yard was cleared, we were able to access the spot where I wanted to plant a willow and bury my father's ashes. We had a tiny ceremony on his birthday. It was harder than I expected, but gives an element of closure.
Get things organized indoors
Himself started with the lovely room over the garage, that had been wasted on storage while designated as my sewing room. We've been going through everything, making a conscious decision whether to keep each item. I need to list the things we have decided to sell; donations have been going out in batches. We are maybe halfway through this project and I can't remember the last time we didn't have boxes of stuff everywhere -- all through the house, and on both porches.
I even burned old financial records -- cancelled checks from the '70s and '80s and '90s. That was hard. It was like burning diaries. So much of my life is recorded only in those old records.
Paying work
I did a little faux finishing. More technical writing at this point. I do that part time, for one client. I work from home & set my own hours, and check the goats and chickens on breaks.
Beadwork
Learned netting and ndebele stitch, and used them in some necklaces that came out great. I will get pix and post them.
