Hemp in the ground

Hemp is in the ground! Better late than never. Hopefully it will mature enough to get seeds for next year. If not, it will be a great mulch and improve our garden soil.

Windmill spins

The windmill is up and spinning!

Wind power

Wind generator

 The rest of the garden soil has been tilled and is ready to plant. Richard and I took turns to get maximum usage out of the rented tiller. We had both gardens done in about three hours of constant tilling.

Richard with rented tiller

Three Sisters Garden

The pallet fence provides a bit of shade and some windbreak for the plants.

Hemp Field

We brought home a trailer full of road base to work on the Earthbags on the front of the office. Richard is finishing the roof metal now.

We have been having a hard time finding pallets in this town. Who'd a thought? Pallets have value here and most places (in fact every single place we have called or asked) charges around $3 a pallet. Well, at least they are not throwing them away. But, it makes it quite a task to locate free pallets for building with. How are we supposed to uphold the ghetto farmer image without our pallets? I am still looking. There has to be a pallet source somewhere around here.

Gardens, horses, rental deposits

The food garden is pretty much in. We may supplement it with a few more things, but now we have tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, carrots, green beans, cucumbers, kale and a new raspberry plant. I also found a tree. It's an Aspen and we put it in the corner of the garden. I planted the irises I had in pots from the rented farm along the south fence and we found some annuals which we put in pots here and there. We'd like to put a three sisters garden in the middle open space. The garden is looking good!

We drove to Salida to buy a couple of huge solar panels. I remember how cute Salida is now, and how trendy and expensive. It seems all of the rich granola types have flocked to the tiny mountain town and the real estate prices are staggering. Ridiculous. Too bad. It's cute and artsy. But Taos is more of an art town and cheaper, believe it or not. Significantly cheaper. Not that it matters. We have chosen Alamosa now and there is some art here, and some culture...thanks to Adams State University, I'm sure.

Salida had a lot of large, outdoor horse sculptures here and there. Strange to see so many. Down here, in the Valley the wild horses run. Horse medicine is still with me. In fact, I have been reading a book on touch training horses, but I was hoping to use it on the llamas. They need to learn some manners. Or I do. They need to learn trust, and so do I. Larry, the neighbor, didn't think it would be a good idea for me to get a mini horse. I get the feeling he discourages people with no horse knowledge from getting horses. But how does one learn then? I just wanted to have a live horse around to remind me of the horse medicine. It doesn't matter though. The horses are with me anyway.

Richard is working on the power station for our homestead. He's almost got the wind generator assembled and ready to raise. We still need a charge controller for the solar panels. Things are moving forward.

We are having trouble getting our security deposit returned on the rented farm we recently vacated. The landlord has told us he sent it. but it has not shown up. Three weeks now. We may have to take him to court, which I just really don't wan't to do. But we need that money for materials. Plus he kept our driveway gate...said he would buy it. Ha! Maybe we need to go take it down. Why do people have to act so dishonorably? I cleaned that place like crazy, and last we knew, the landlord said it looked good and we had been great tenants. So? The lease assured us of a returned deposit within ten days of vacating premises. I just don't understand what the issue is. The landlord won't return our calls now. So we sent letters...one regular mail and one certified. This begins the process we have to follow to take the landlord to small claims court. I hope it doesn't go that far.

Today I am collecting llama beans to spread in the gardens. Hopefully tomorrow we can rent a tiller and get it all worked in. Then the Sister's garden goes in and the hemp goes in. It'll happen.

Planting and pondering

This place, Mt. Blanca

We got our raised garden beds made, half filled with dirt, and today the kids and I planted potatoes in one. Tomatoes go in next. We need more dirt for the other beds and then we can plant them too.

More hemp seeds are started. We had a mishap with the wind...the last starts got blown out of their pots, pots overturned, dirt everywhere. But maybe some hemp will come up out in the middle of nowhere.

Now that we have water, the planting really begins.

We bought a Lilac bush and planted it near our compost/grey water pit, hoping it will reap the rewards of such a nutritious place. I long for trees and I can't find any to buy that we can afford. So, Lilac bush it is. It's a start. I love Lilacs anyway, but some shade would be nice. I know it will be years, but we have to start somewhere.

It has been difficult. I have become disillusioned with this whole process and have house envy when we go to town. Oh, to have walls and space to get away from one another; a backyard with green grass and trees; a real kitchen with cabinets to fit all of our spices and pots and pans; a shower and bath tub to soak in; windows to keep the sand and dust at bay; a comfortable bed; I long for some sense of permanence. This nomad lifestyle is wearing thin.

It is difficult, but then I think of an oasis in this desert place--of greening the desert--of permaculture masters who have achieved amazing results with only a piece of land to work with. That's what we have--an empty canvas, waiting to be filled. I long to fill it with color. Bring on the flowers! Let's get the fence up and get some peacocks to strut around and remind us of natural beauty. These things excite me.

And, the most important thing of all...it's all ours, outright, no banks, no debts. This land is ours. That's pretty powerful and has so much meaning. Everything we do will be for us and the future of this place.

I have also been disillusioned with the idea of the church. I have been witness to too many churches that seem to represent everything I don't. I have seen the people in charge of churches fall to their own egos, striving for power and fame, money and a name for themselves. I'm not interested in any of that. In fact, I'd rather sit in the shadows and let the church create itself. Is that possible? I foresee a space where all people are equal and hold the same value. No one has any more power than another, not even the minister. Who am I to pretend that I know more or have any better connection to Source or All That Is? We all have the same connection, or the same ability to connect. We can all communicate with Nature, with God. we do not need anyone to do it for us. Perhaps we need to be reminded of this, and if I can do that, I am honored.

If this Green Desert Sanctuary can be a place of sharing, a place of ideas, a place of peace and love, then it will be a success. I see a Sanctuary where people can come and learn, come and teach, come and just be, enjoying nature, spending time with the animals, and a place where they can remember who they are and their connection to All That Is. We are All One.

Let us redefine what a church is and who the players in a church are. We are all the church. This is a church of love for Earth, love for All. This is a church where people can gather and simply be together, doing simple things like gardening, building, taking care of animals, talking and taking care of each other and the planet. The only expectations are love and honesty, kindness and compassion. Can we do that?

The well is working and other farm news.

We have well water!! The third pump we have tried is working and the cistern is filling right now. It will take several hours, but today we don't have to haul water. That is something major.

  

The boys finally get their pool.

pump filling the cistern

I have been spreading the manure and compost out in our garden spot. Now we will have the water to get the garden going. I was beginning to worry. The hemp will go in the ground very soon. In this area, the last possible freeze date was today, June 10. Crazy late.

The garden

Fairy Dust's baby goats are adorable. They jump on and off of Taylor, our female black llama, when she is laying down. At first she spit at them, but now she tolerates it. I have been trying to get a photo, but I keep missing it.

The bugs are horrible out here. Nats or something with attitude. They are eating Oreo the goat up. She's the only one though. We bought some bug spray that is environmentally friendly and have been hosing her down. She looks pretty bad. With her scratching, she has rubbed patches of hair off all over. Too bad, I was hoping to sell her and Cookie, her daughter. With the two new does, we have decided to keep them and re-home Oreo and Cookie because they have horns. The horns are just too much to deal with. I remember right after Oreo had her buckling, Coco, I was trying to examine him and she kept getting between us. She horned me, right in the eye, with her one horn. I thought for sure I'd have a black eye. (How to explain that? It was my goat...) I put frozen peas on my eye for a while and had some puffiness, but that was it. Now, I avoid Oreo and her horn. Our goat herd should be horn free. One of the baby girls may be growing horns, so we will have to disbudd her, but the other looks to be polled for sure.

Harley the pig had developed a major aggressive attitude last week. We could not figure out what was up with him, but he was mean, charging at us whenever we went near. I did some research and found out it's a dominance thing. So, we growled back at him and began pushing at him with the trashcan lid, which also serves as a shield. I guess in pig language, you have to shove them sideways to gain the upper hand. Richard got Harley's respect. He had to go in the pig pen to change the water and had it out with Harley with the metal trash can lid. (No one got hurt. I was worried about Richard being eaten by the pig.) The next day Harley's attitude was mostly gone. But, I listed Harley on Craigslist anyway. He scares me. And, after all we did to find his wandering pig self when he escaped. Irritating. Chloe may have been feeling sick or something, which may have started Harley's attitude. I think she may have been in heat. She seems better now and he's acting nicer. In any case, no one seems to want Harley so we are trying to figure out how to deal with him next. I think we need to separate him from Chloe, but I'd love to get them into the garden space so they could till it up. We are trying to build a pallet fence around the garden area, hoping to run electric wire along the bottom to keep the pigs in. They hate the electric wire, we have discovered. We need more pallets and have to find a local source.

Harley, looking all sweet

Building is going slowly, with the 1-2 hours of water hauling daily. I finally got the foundation done on the office. The gravel trench and first course of gravel E-bags are finished. I put gravel on the floor too, hoping it would be better than the sand. I've been thinking of a patterned concrete floor. Richard got the plywood on the roof and is working on the metal. He got the batteries installed, the invertor going, and has been using the van as an office for the past few days. He is looking for solar panels now to recharge the batteries, but has installed a plug to hook the generator up to recharge the batteries. The straw walls are going in soon, and the door needs to be framed in. I was hoping to find a small window to put on the west end, opposite the door to create a cross draft in the hot weather.

Battery box and inverter

Earth bag foundation is done.

I have been thinking of where we are going to put our first small house. This is the house we will overwinter in before we begin to build our bigger house. We have been looking at round Earth bag studio houses with a loft for sleeping. Anything warm that get's us out of the weather will be perfect.

All of our houseplants are living in the big horse trailer with shade cloth. They are looking pretty sad, but the trailer helps protect them from wind and sun. I don't have anyplace else for them now.

Horse trailer greenhouse

We had a storm this week that rocked the camper back and forth. It felt like we were on a boat. I wonder if the wind could ever tip it over? I heard a story from a man at the Artesian well about his little camper being rolled, over and over in a wind storm. The camper ended up at the other end of his property. Scary. We have to get a stable structure built.

So much to do.

This is the Artesain well where we got our water for the past week and a half.

How we met Larry the neighbor, inherited a stray llama, and had baby goats

Moving the pigs

The day we brought the Pot Belly pigs to the new land, the sheriff followed us home.

What's this, we wondered? Is he going to give us grief about our off grid homestead and livestock situation? Richard and I both got out of the car to greet the officer in our driveway.

"Are you missing a llama? he asked.

Quickly we took stock of our half herd of llamas, who were all standing and staring at us with curiosity. Nope. All three boys were in their new pen, waiting for water and hay.

"The neighbor has caught a llama who has been stealing his hay, and he's tired of feeding it," the deputy sheriff informed us.

We had seen a llama a few days prior on the road near our house. It appeared to be out of its pen, on the wrong side of the fence. Before that, we had seen the same llama in that same pen. It looked atrocious, like it hadn't been sheared for a few years. I wondered to myself if the owners would mind if I offered to pay for it to get sheared. (keep in mind, we had to cancel our shearing due to the move, so it's back to searching for someone to shear all of our camelids.) I suspected that this caught llama was the same one.

We told the sheriff about those people and he said he'd check there. Meanwhile though, the neighbor Larry was tired of feeding the hay stealing llama, and the sheriff asked if we'd take it until he could find it's rightful home. In two weeks, if we did not hear form him, we could assume the llama was ours, if we wanted it.

I could only think of the neglected llama and said yes, we'd go get it. After all, what's one more llama?

So, the sheriff gave Larry our number and we unloaded our pigs, which involved building a pig chute out of pallets to direct them into their new pen. it worked wonderfully. It was much easier than getting them into the trailer.

We played phone tag with the neighbor Larry for a few days, and trying to coordinate around our moving schedule was very difficult. So much to do, so little time. We still didn't have the fence up for the girls. We had no place to put the stray llama.

We did get the fence up and got the rest of the farm moved. We spent our first night in the camper and decide to pick up the llama that morning after an ordeal that involved getting water from the free spring off the highway (the pump we bought crapped out after its first use and was non-functional), and our car with a dead battery at said spring (Richard ran home to get the van...three miles or so across the fields), but I managed to get a jump from someone who stopped for water just as Richard came driving up with the van.

Since we had both horse trailers, we decided to stop at Larry's, on our way home, to get the llama.

Larry is the nicest, healthiest 80 year old I think I have ever met. He raises and trains horses, and admitted he knew absolutely nothing about how to deal with a llama. I think we only know marginally more, but we at least had wrestled llamas before. So, I got the gear (halter, lead, trailer) ready while Richard and Larry talked about life in the high desert of the San Luis Valley. Mostly Larry told us about all the people who had come before and eventually had given up because it was too cold, too windy, too hard and just really miserable to live here. The biggest issue, he said, is water.

Sure, sure, it's the desert. But he reiterated what I had read before, about how every time the farmers put in a new irrigation sprinkler on a circle, the level of the water table dropped significantly. There used to be a free flowing spring on his land--catails, grasses, small pond--it was beautiful, he said. All gone. Dried up.

I got the feeling he didn't think we'd be around long, just like all the others who had come before. But he just doesn't know us, does he?

The guilty, hay stealing llama was in a pen in Larry's barn. She was scared, skinny and had dreds of wool hanging down on both of her sides. And she was hard to catch. Like any llama, she didn't want anything to do with any human hands, but it had probably been a while since she been caught and haltered, although I think she had been at some point. We wrestled and wrangled the stray llama and pushed and pulled her into the small horse trailer. She was not happy. I'm not sure I was either, but I was willing to give her some time.

Silly Sally

I was out of breath and the adrenaline was pumping when we pulled into our driveway to put the llama girl into the pen of corral panels we had made for her. But lo and behold, there was a new baby goat laying outside the goat shelter. Fairy had delivered and was still giving birth to her second! I jumped out of the car, left it running with a scared llama in the trailer behind, and went to deliver a goat baby. Now, that was a little more complicated than anticipated. The kid's nose was out, but its feet were nowhere to be seen. I had to go in and get them.

So, I'm yelling for Richard to bring me goat birthing supplies, wiping the bag and mucus off the baby goat so it could breathe, and wondering what to do next. Thankfully Richard showed up fast with clean towels, puppy pads and lubricant. I lubed up my hands and arms and went in. It was a lot like loading a film canister in the dark (for those who have ever developed their own film from old school film cameras). It was all by feel. I was scared and just wanted to call a vet. But I realized how long that would take and had no choice. First I untangled the umbilical cord from the baby's neck and then I felt inside for the feet. When I found one, hooked my finger around the ankle and straightened it out, pulling it out of the birth canal. Then, I had to go back in and find the other. There was not a lot of space in there. But, with Richard encouraging me, I did it. I birthed that goat kid and she is healthy and fine, as is mom and the other kid. Two does. They are the cutest.

Fairy Dust's babies

Wrangled a wild llama, birthed a goat kid, jumped  a dead battery, hauled water for the farm and met Larry, the neighbor...all before noon the last Friday in May.

Now, the llama girl is doing better. We named her Silly Sally after a character in a children's book. She does not belong to anyone in the neighborhood. The two goat doe babies are Trixie and Pixie and are the cutest little things.

We have met with Larry again, when we called for water on the morning after we finished moving the rest of the farm. He allowed us to get a few gallons and even gave Richard a ride up to his house and back. He's a nice guy. (What a blessing.) We needed water for the critters, but got in at 2am the night before and still had a car and trailer packed full of stuff...no place for water and hours of work to make the space. I'm so glad we met Larry the neighbor. He's turning out to be very neighborly. I think this relationship will work out just fine.

We still haven't heard back from the sheriff. The pigs are doing fine. The goats are all great. Silly Sally wants to run with the other llamas. And we still have a few loads of barn stuff to move from neighbor Mark's house in Jaroso. He's a really nice guy too. Nice neighbors are wonderful!

Llama boys in their new pen