Move update

The male llamas and the nine chickens are moved and doing well on the new property. The chicken house is in the llama paddock for security. We have been driving up everyday to feed, water and check on them. Everyone is doing well.

Tomorrow we move the turkeys and the rabbits. And on Wednesday the goal is to move the goats and the rest of the camelids, as well as the pigs. Then we will stay overnight in the camper and be living full time on the land.

Yes, there is still so much to do. We have not finished the office for Richard, which means he gets to set up his computer station in the van. I'm not sure what will happen to our houseplants as they were going to go in the office space. We still need to hook up the power station (windmill, batteries, invertor, wiring and what not), set up the well (pump, hoses, battery and solar panel) dig in the cistern and get it filled, put up shade and shelters for all of the animals, finish the fencing for the goats ( must get done tomorrow), finish moving our household to storage, clean the farmhouse, muck out the barns and take them down at the rental farm, move compost, and get the garden set up at the new place.

On the plus side, the Hemp seeds have sprouted!

We have to be out of our rental farm on Saturday. Entirely.

If anyone is looking for something to do for a few hours...we sure could use the help.

Sheep in the Valley

Busy, crazy week. Will we get moved out to the land? Will we get the office done? Will we get the fencing up? Will Fairy Dust have her kid/s?

Roof is going on and Earthbags are going in. 

We have been moving stuff, building, cleaning and taking down fence to put it up again on the land. This past week Richard got the roof started on the office, and I got the Earthbag foundation going. I have moved a lot of gravel. I'm sore and tired and we aren't there yet.

New home

We got the camper put back together (water tanks and hoses) and moved it out to the land.

Goat yard

Richard got the gate up for the goat yard, and most of the corner posts and H-braces done. We also got the posts in for the boy llama yard and plan on moving them and the chickens up there tomorrow. Yep, things are moving fast now. We are running out of time.

Pigs play ball

At home, with the return of Harley, we celebrated by getting them a new toy. Well, it's their only toy. And I ordered it when Harley was missing, hoping to keep Chloe from getting depressed. I'm not sure if they like the ball--certainly not as much as food, but it looks cute in their pig pen.

Sheep family

The Valley is alive and awake as the warm weather moves in. Things are happening...Ag sprinklers are running, ditches are flowing with water to irrigate the fields, and the sheep are out, free ranging the area. We have seen several real cowboys out herding sheep, and one training what looks to be a wild horse colt, although I'm not sure how that can happen. Yesterday as we drove out to our land, we saw so many sheep between Jaroso and San Luis. There were sheep in the road, sheep near the road, sheep among the sage brush, sheep everywhere. And the wild horses were grazing near the road too. We have seen several herds now. South of San Luis there appear to be two herds. One is all male, and the other is mostly female with their babies in tow. Interesting. I wonder why they are split up like that?

Sheep herd

We may not have any photos for a while as we transition computers, but I'll post them when I can.

Building the office

We have been working hard every hour we can to get Richard's office built on the land. It seems to be slow going. Will we get it done in time? We lost a lot of hours driving around and walking around, looking for our wandering Pot Belly pig, Harley, but now that he is safely back home, we are pretty dedicated to getting moved out of the rented farm house and onto our land full time. 

Office framing and straw bales

We have picked up a total of 60 bales of straw for the walls. I think we need 12 more.

We used up the load of gravel on two of the trenches, so we will need about 3 more loads to finish the trench and first course of Earthbags. Yesterday I think we moved 2 tons of sand and gravel by the shovel full.

Gravel trench with Mt Blanca in the background

The kids found a couple of treasures on the land. This beauty...

Big Ol' Gopher snake

Can you see him looking at the camera?

And, a wonderful old, worn out, hand forged horse shoe from years gone by. I should've taken a picture of it. It's pretty cool looking, and magical, considering what significance horses are coming to have, especially associated with this land.

We also saw another one of those military Ospreys flying overhead. Very odd looking, but I think I'm getting used to the interesting planes flying around the San Luis Valley. No UFO's though. At least not of the extraterrestrial variety.

Well water update

The well water tested clean! We have potable water! So now we need to hook up the cistern and fill it up. We also need to hook up the solar panel to a battery and get the pump running on solar instead of the gas generator.

We worked on the office roof framing a little bit and also picked up a load of gravel for the rubble trench that will be the foundation. We picked up about a third of the straw bales we will use for the wall too. This building will be a hybrid Earthbag, strawbale, passive solar structure--all under 200 sq ft, so we won't need a permit.

Lost pig is found!

One of our neighbors, Martin (or maybe Jose), about two miles down the road, found Harley and had him penned. We went and got him this morning and that was interesting. Did I mention how hard pigs are to catch? Fortunately, Martin seemed to know more than we do and tied up one of Harley's legs and used that as a leash, guiding him to our SUV. Unfortunately, Martin spoke very little English, and we very little Spanish, so there was a communication barrier we all seemed to feel. But, in the end, Richard and Martin picked the heavy pig up and put him in the back of our Kia. Harley is now  back in with Chloe, looking none too happy about it. I think he really enjoyed his freedom.

Pig update

The post master found it quite humorous that we lost a pig, but hung up the flyer anyway.

Our neighbor, Mark, saw Harley the wandering Pot Belly running down the road yesterday afternoon. Actually, the pig was running along the acequia, eating the wild asparagus.

That was a long time ago. Where is he now?

Richard has been driving the neighborhood for over an hour looking for Harley. No news yet.

Lost pig!

We spent the day up on our land, trying to get the well to work. We had a series of issues....the car died out there and it took 2 hours to get it started. We tried to charge the battery on the generator, which finally worked, and we got the car to start just after we called for roadside assistance. It was a horribly cold day with blowing sand and eventually snow, and we encountered a blizzard and really scary driving conditions on the way back home. But, we did get the well pumped out and got a sample for the lab to test for potability. We should have the results in 24 hours.

Well water test

After we spent an extra hour driving home on icy, snow packed roads, we found one of the pigs was gone. Harley had torn out the bottom of the kennel panels and escaped. We found evidence of him rooting around the property, but no pig. We didn't find any evidence of an escape off the land, even though the perimeter fence leaves something to be desired. We looked for him until it was too dark to see, and had Chloe escape too, but she followed me back to the pen while I shook a container of food at her. We walked the dogs around, hoping they would find Harley in the bushes. No luck.

Harley

I had a dream last night that when I got up this morning, Harley was sleeping against his pen. He wasn't. I woke early and ran to check. Instead I found 6" of new snow, and no pig.

We are making a flyer to hang at the post office, hoping one of our neighbors has seen the wandering Pot Belly. I was hoping he'd get hungry enough to come home, but he has vanished, without a trace. I suppose there is still that possibility...that his belly will lead him back. Maybe aliens abducted our pig. I am really worried about him and worried that Chloe will get depressed now.

We are hanging around the house today, hoping Harley will show up or a neighbor will call. Plus, there is too much snow to go anywhere. Maybe we could drive the neighborhood and look for the lost pig. I have plans to finish curtains for the camper in between wandering the property and yelling for Harley to come home.

Last week we did get those tar painted posts into the ground where Richard's office will go. It's a start.

Office posts

Slow progress...but progress

It almost didn't fit!

So far this week, we have cleared more land with a rented backhoe, spread out the road base (it sure didn't go far), moved the cistern into place, put in more fence posts and moved more of our stuff to storage.

Richard clearing more space

NE corner H-braces going in

We painted the bottoms of the posts for the office with some kind of sealant (which I managed to get all over myself) so they will last longer in the ground.

painted posts

We moved the cistern into place, rolling it along the newly made roads. The sandy soil is still too soft and thick to drive on the roads without the possibility of getting stuck.

1650 gallon cistern next to well

road to cistern

bigger cleared space with road base spread out

Richard has been working on the camper...cleaning out the water tank and water lines, putting new seat belts in and getting it ready for us to move in.

Still no babies from Fairy Dust, our really pregnant goat.