Passing Wildlife and One Curious Doe

A lone doe pauses at the crossroad of our trails.  It's one of the few daytime photos that we get as most of the  interesting activity takes place at night.

Turkey strolling along the trail shortly after the doe head to their evening roosts, having spent the afternoon feasting in the adjoining cornfield.

                                   This doe was fascinated by the camera flash...

 and gives gives the camera a good sniff.

Off the Grid/Sustainable Projects for 2012

Winter is planning time out on the farm.  It's time for me to strap on my Superman cape once again and list all of the things I believe that I can accomplish before the end of the year.  I enter this knowing fully well that I will have reverted from Superman to Clark Kent before the end of June.

So we'll just call this my, "Best-of-intentions-I-know-I-can-do-it-but-now-I'm-not-so-sure-chalk-it-up-to-wishful-thinking-but-really,-what-on-earth-was-I-thinking-list."  While there are also a number of maintenance, building, and smaller scale projects that also need to be done this year, these are the fun, green, self-sustaining projects.

Raised Bed Hoop Houses

The Raised beds were built in our garden last year and worked very well.  This year we will try to extend the season for our tomatoes and greens by adding removable hoop housing.  My plan, derived from so many others out there that I can't call it mine, will use 1/2 inch PVC pipes for the frames and attach to the raised bed by brackets.  We'll then lay plastic sheeting over them and "bunch" it and weigh it down at the ends.  We'll begin this in April to get an early start on our tomato seedlings, and remove it until September, when hopefully we can add a few more weeks to our tomato harvesting.

Raised Bed Cold Frames

The cold frame design is similar to the hoop houses, but mainly for the raised beds that were constructed out of eight foot 6"x8" boards (as opposed to the 12 foot 2"x12" raised beds).  Rather than bending the PVC, they will be angled at about 45 degrees.  There will also be fewer of them:  one on each end and one in the middle only.  The base for these, while also running through 1/2 inch brackets on the sides, will be driven into the ground.  Their sole purpose will be to hold translucent poly roof sheeting in place.  We'll see which of the two designs works best.


Solar Shower

This is my favorite project and one that I've been wanting to build for three or four years, even though everyone around here thinks I'm nuts.  Having up to six people showering in our house on almost a daily basis not only takes a tremendous amount of water but the propane to heat it and the electricity to run the well pump.  Since we do not use air conditioning, the humidity these showers create on a hot summer day is miserable as well.

So the answer?  Shower outside.

I'll be building a frame out of black locust timbers (take forever to rot) to support a 70 gallon plastic container about six feet off the ground.  You can stop laughing now, please.

I'll paint the container black and screen the top of it so that rainwater can be collected.  If the water temperature doesn't reach an acceptable level, an old storm window will be placed over the top to help retain heat but still allow for solar heating.  The window would then be removed on rainy days so that rain water can be collected.

The "shower room" will be attached to one side of the frame and also constructed out of black locust timbers.  A simple connection from the bottom of the tank to a shower head will be added.  In case the water is too hot, I am also planning on running a cold water line via the nearby milkhouse.

My biggest dilemma has been the drain.  Because of the location, which was chosen for the greatest amount of privacy, I can not find a suitable way to connect it with the milkhouse drain.  I've currently settled on a french drain with a filtering system that would purify the gray water, but would prefer some other system in order to utilize the gray water for the garden or some other project.  More research will be done on this over the next couple of months.

All planning and research aside, I can not wait to take a nice hot shower and look up to see blue sky.  As to no more burning through propane or steaming up the house?   Priceless.


Drip Irrigation System

This is another long, thought out project that really needs to get done this year.  The container is the exact type as the one I'll be using for the solar shower.  As my drawing below shows, it will also be collecting rain water.

The container location will be on a slope overlooking our garden.  The bottom of the container should be a minimum of eight or nine feet above most of the garden, so the irrigating will be by gravity alone.

Getting the water to the places in the garden that we wish to irrigate will be through the combination of hoses, PVC pipe, and a whole bunch of various attachments.  Oh, I can feel the frustration already.

Since having made these drawings I have already decided to relocate the PVC in the raised beds.  Rather than running them along the sides (which I originally chose to do in order to secure the pipes to the sides via brackets) I've chosen to run them more toward the middle and support them through larger PVC that will be cut on one edge to match their diameter and driven into the ground.  I realize that probably doesn't make any sense, but trust me.  I'll post photos later.

What I love most about this project is that it is completely self-sustaining.  Provided it works (and provided we have a normal amount of rain this summer).  If all that comes together it will require no water from our well and no electricity to move the water.  Man, I love it!

My Private War With Cellphones

I hate cellphones. I hate talking on a phone when I'm driving. I hate how my cellphone routinely changes its ring tone from a manly one to some sort of Tinkerbell-sounding thing. Funny too how it never goes off when I'm alone but waits until I'm standing in line with a bunch of guys at the hardware store when it decides to let me know it changed tones on me.  Really nice timing.  I hate cellphones.

I hate how cellphones interrupt without apology and at the most inconvenient times. I hate the little buttons on the side of it that I inadvertently push while opening it when I get a call. I hate having to dig for my glasses so I can read the teensy little letters and numbers on the phone so that I can decide whether or not to answer the call. I hate being interrupted when I'm deep in thought about heady topics such as the industrialization of the American farm or the national healthcare crisis or homeland security and our diminishing civil liberties or what to do if the rotisserie chicken is sold out when I get to the market. I hate cellphones.

There was a time when I liked cell phones. That was back when they weighed about twenty pounds, had gigantic numbers, and a foot-long bendable antenna. Very few people had one, but I did and that made me cool. It made me important in the eyes of others. Why else would I need to have a cellphone while having coffee at Perkins?   I'm certain other customers thought I was a very important person and that important people must need to be able to reach me in case I was needed to make some important decisions or be advised about some important developments in some important issue. Truthfully, the calls I would get in those days were usually from my wife reminding me to stop at the store to pick up some toilet paper on the way home. But no one in Perkins knew that. They all thought that I was on the phone with someone important like the Governor. Maybe even the President.

That all changed when cellphones became more affordable. Pretty soon everyone had one. When everyone has something, that something is no longer cool and its owner is no longer important. Once everyone from Grandma Moses to the teen at the local high school who was voted, “Most Likely to Remain a Hermit,” had one, the only justifiable reason for me to have a cellphone was to actually use it. That's when my enthusiasm checked out.

Pretty soon everyone that knew me in even the most remote of ways had a new cellphone. And bless their hearts, they all punched my number into their speed-dial system. Suddenly I was getting calls in the weirdest places: In meetings, on the road during rush hour, in bathrooms, in my garage, in checkout lines as I waited to purchase toilet paper. It was a nightmare.

In desperation I learned to use two important cellphone tools: The “Off” button and voice-mail. At first the benefits were marvelous but in the end, all too short-lived. The use of these tools had created two brand new problems. First of all I was missing phone calls from people that I actually wanted or needed to talk to. Secondly, I quickly realized that I had to not only listen to but actually respond to all of those voice-mails. Oh holy communication overload!

Over time my cellphone operating style evolved into something that resolved the continual state of conflict that I had been in. I stopped answering it AND rarely listened to the voice-mails that people left. This complicated and revolutionary approach to non-land line communication devices brought about an instant state of peace to my world.

Along the way I also discovered a miracle of sorts. If you don't listen to your voice-mails, they magically disappear after a couple of weeks or so. It's as if my cellphone company takes pity on me as the number of messages stack up and just wipes them out. I don't care what anyone says about them, US Cellular is my hero!

So now, as the years have passed and having left my city job and for a simpler life in the country, no one calls me anymore. No one that is except for my wife and kids and a couple of other people who understand my idiosyncrasies. These days my cellphone has evolved into nothing more than an expensive intercom system. If I'm up on the hill, which I often am, Grace can call me to ask if she can make some hot chocolate, which she often does. It has taken me nearly twenty years, but I am finally warming up to having a cellphone again. Now if I could just remember to leave it in the truck when I go into the hardware store.

Winter on Hillsong Farm

With a snowstorm blanketing the landscape outside, I thought it would be a good time to organize and post some photos of scenes around the farm.  Every season out here has its own beauty and winter is no different.

The photos from the hilltop are brought to us courtesy of the new Firestone M/T tires that I just put on the truck.  Yes, that was M/T and not A/T.  These things are big and nasty and awesome!  While they were designed to take you through deep mud, they have already proven themselves to be the best thing that I have ever had on any truck for getting through snow.  Photos of these bad boys will follow in a future post.

But for now I sit with a glass of red wine, occasionally glancing out the window at the snow coming down while listening to Van Morrison's, "Magic Time" recording, and pull up photos that make me so very glad to be living in God's Country.

 On top of the hill and near the site where our future off-the-grid dream house will be located.

The sun setting behind the Hickory Grove.  I've caught some of the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen from this area after the leaves have fallen for the year from the hickory trees.

 Deer love our cornfields and dig through the snow to find unharvested cobs every night.  The tip of our largest silo can be seen just above the horizon on the right.

 The intersection of the field road and ridge road.  I refer to this spot as, "Haight/Ashbury."  While I think the name is really groovy, it has not caught on with the rest of the commune.

 Blanketed in white are about 60 or 70 apple trees, as seen from our yard.  The mound in the foreground is part of the drain field for our new septic system.  More on that whole disaster later.

 Cheers!  Ran across this Cabernet Sauvignon a few weeks ago.  It pairs well with photo viewing, day-dreaming, or anything else I've tried it with.  I highly recommend it.

One more pic, looking down to our little creek which has vanished behind the trees and under the snow.

My New Toy

Lisa and the kids gave me a wonderful toy this Christmas, a trail cam.  I put it up in a few locations around the farm alongside deer paths and crossings with mixed results.  Seemed like the only thing that I could catch were leaves blowing in the wind.

I went back a few days ago to one of my original sites and adjusted the settings and placed the camera in a slightly different direction.  The results were much better and I've posted a few here.

There was a group of deer passing by the camera when the night shots were taken.  One was an eight point buck.  The small buck in the last photo was quite curious about the camera.  There are several shots of him inching closer to it.  He is missing one side of his rack, which isn't much of a rack.  However if you look at the remaining side it appears that the ends of the tines are broken off and jagged.  Perhaps after going a few rounds with the eight-pointer.