Putting up fence, gardens, chickens and snakes at home, and one old, old truck

parking area

Another weekend out on the land, clearing sage for the parking area and finally getting a roll of fence up. That was complicated without a winch and our old friend Mark and his ATV. We had an umbrella casualty when a dust devil blew through and tore the umbrella pole in half, and took the poor umbrella for a ride through the sage, basically turning it inside out. The cloth was ripped from its frame. No more temporary shade. Now, the permanent shade structure has become a major priority with temperatures reaching 90 F in this desert, mountain town.

Fencing layed out.

Pulling the fence tight with a come-along and our car.

Fencing on northwest side is up!

That's about all we got accomplished out on the land this past Sunday, but we did take another load of pallets over there yesterday, courtesy of Native Scents, who also donated a bunch of polypropylene bags to our building cause. We are going to make a shed/composting toilet structure out of the pallets and then stucco the whole thing. We also picked up some free windows down in Santa Fe from Gaia Gardens, a cool little community garden project. Although the windows are not in the best shape, we should be able to use them for sheds and barns. Way cool! Thank you all!

Tomato plants in the front window planters.

And at home, we got some tomatoes out in the front planters, finally, although this week, they are not fairing well. I think we need to replant, make water trenches and mulch like crazy. This heat is incredible and very hard on the plants. In the other beds, the garlic and onions are doing great, the peas are starting to flower and we have lettuce, radishes and carrots poking up through the soil.

Chicken Infirmary

Our baby chickens are getting big and are out of control. Too many roosters in the mix, I'm afraid. I've never had babies peck each other, but these guys are, so I separated every pecked bird and for a while our living room was the bird hospital, utilizing every available cage and Rubbermaid container. Good thing I have travel cages for my parrot and parakeets. But still, we had to search the thrift stores to find more, and Pieces delivered with a small kennel and a large wire dog crate.

Now, we have most of the flock outside. The Jersey Giants, which ironically are the meanest (everything I've read claims they are the one of the friendliest chicken breeds) are in one yard with the Chicken Barn and chicken tractor, and the Cuckoo Marans are in another yard inside the big chicken yard, with their own housing. It has been a chicken nightmare to say the least. Now I only have five plucked babies I have to keep separated in individual cages, but I'm keeping my eyes on those rooster babies, and watching for more abuse in the chick houses.

Back end of baby rattle snake.

Other excitement: killed a baby rattler with my handy sage clearing axe when my son and I went out to check on Richard making a delivery of water to our cisterns. Sorry, politically correct community I live in, but I'm not going to catch and release any rattlers. This one was five feet from our fenced yard, and heading for the house berm, where I know there are plenty of holes for little snakes to get in. No deal. Don't threaten an axe wielding mama and her baby, not to mention a whole lot of chickens, my dogs and my llamas. I think it was, what two years ago that Vador got bit in the face by a rattler. His chin swelled up like crazy and we had to give him shots for a week. That was fun. Not to mention a huge vet bill. Here in Taos, there don't appear to be any large animal vets, or not any who treat camelids, so we have to take the boys to Espanola to get to the nearest vet in an emergency. Crazy.

The truck has been acting up, stalling out here and there. I end up going to rescue Richard and the truck in some interesting places, pulling it home behind the Kia. That Kia has been a remarkable SUV, I have to say.

Rainbow truck and the water trailer.

We did have the truck towed to town to visit a mechanic, who explained that the old gas tank is corroded and full of sediment, which clogs up the fuel line. Now Richard takes the fuel line apart and blows it out with his compressor, which keeps the truck running until we go over a lot of bumps. Ha ha. This is Taos. How many days between tows? About three, if we work the truck hard. We are trying to find a replacement gas tank.

Still having fun in the sage, and lots more to come!

New Mexico Adventure

News and more news...

We have been crazy busy this past month and with our tax refund, have been able to get some things done, including adding two new (used) solar panels to the existing array. The guys at Paradise Power figured out how we could do it and not add another inverter. So, Richard added onto the frame and hooked it up.

The new panels were a bit larger than the old ones on this array.

We put a deposit down on a wind turbine/generator (home windmill) and surprise, it's already arrived at Paradise Power...we were expecting it in about four weeks.

It has been crazy windy out here for the past few weeks and a turbine would come in handy to boost our power that much more, especially on those cloudy days.

Raised planters in southwest corner of yard.

Also started seeds for the outdoor gardens, and decided to convert our indoor planters into herb gardens. In pots. We are still not sure what is going on underneath the gravel and brick in the planters and since we are renters, it's best not to go digging around too much. Richard built some great raised planter beds out in the yard and we have been transferring dirt from the planters in front of the sloped windows outside to the planters. The E-ship guys told us the dirt was too high and sloped toward the glass when it should slope away from the house, so we are correcting that issue and re-using the dirt for our garden beds.

Herb garden in the kitchen windows.

Work truck

We had our first load of water brought in last week too. One of our cisterns is full, but we can't seem to get the water out of it, so we decided to fill up the two working cisterns on the other end of the house. We are entitled to 2000 gallons of water per month from the community well.. There hasn't been much rain or snow lately so we thought we should learn how to get water before we really get desparate. In addition to the community well,  there is a community water hauling trailer, but you have to have a truck or big enough vehicle to tow the trailer. Some of the other residents can do this for you and we were happy to pay $50 for delivery of 1000 gallons of water, rather than ruin our one vehicle. But, then we decided to invest in a truck...a typical Taos work truck, and she's a beauty...a bargain at $650. I think she's kind of cute and when I look out the window and see that old truck, I just smile and think New Mexico. Fits right in with old "Lucky" the ugly horse trailer we've had for a couple of years now.

I was debating buying an old Mercedes we could convert to veggie diesel, but when the water issue came up, the truck seemed the better choice. I'm still keeping my eyes open for a little fuel efficient commuter car though.

Wells Fargo repossessed the truck we had. I'm surprised they found us. But they did. We decided we couldn't really afford that big old diesel truck anymore and could use that money for...rent! They are still trying to get $8K out of us. Good luck. Bail us out oh great American government? I don't think so, but wouldn't that be nice. They could pay my student loan too.

rain barrels

We headed down to Santa Fe to stock up on some bulk items at the health food stores, picked up some barrels from the Coca-cola distributor for water catchment, and I even found two Pekin ducklings at a feed store in Espanola.

It seems Spring makes me yearn for babies.

A Cuckoo Maran, Charlie, and an Americauna.

We got rid of most of our chickens. Sold them on CL. Producing hens are popular when chicks are for sale.We had someone come all the way up from Albequerque for hens. It didn't seem cost effective for us to keep feeding fifty chickens when we can't find egg customers around here. Plus the weird neighbor complaints about chicken noise and what not. I even found Gideon my yearling Roo a home. We kept old Charlie and 11 hens. It has taken a while, but the girls are finally laying again...I got 8 eggs yesterday.

Richard still wants to raise turkeys, but I'm not sure where we'd put them after processing, without a working freezer. We need more power! And an efficient freezer. One of the many things, in addition to a Laptop computer, that we are shopping around for.

We are also selling most of our electrical appliances on CL...fridge (gone), dehydrator, alarm clocks, heaters, crock pot, phones, etc. Even when we build our own house, there will be little need for the plug in appliances we have become accustomed to. We don't need them. We've been doing great out here without all the gadgets, and hardly any power, compared to people tied to the energy grid. Simplify! Do we really need all these extras? Not so much. But, maybe someone else thinks they do and will buy our old stuff.

We are expecting a shipment of chicks at the end of the month. Jersey Giants and more Cuckoo Marans, which seem to be very popular around here. They have gorgeous dark brown eggs. I love them. We will keep some and sell the rest, hoping we get a roo in our straight run selection so we can raise them. They are a heritage breed. I'm sure the neighbors (?) will be pleased with more roosters crowing in the wide open desert spaces.

Honey Bear behind the straw bale insulated chicken coop.

Honey is doing so much better out here, but the wind seems to upset her a bit. When the wind blows, she hangs out inside, wandering back and forth along the length of the house, barking at phantom noises.

Yes, that is a toilet...comes with the land purchase.

And the best news...we found some land! 10 acres out on the southern edge of the valley/plateau/mesa. The owner is willing to carry it for 5 years, although I think we can pay it off much sooner. It has a clear title and we are even having a title company do the closing, with title insurance and everything. That's a big deal here in this area. It's a great place with soft, red dirt and so much fragrant sage. I long to run barefoot among the sagebrush, connecting to the soft earth. It even has a hillside dug out, where the previous owner was going to build his house. He's now in the Alaskan bush somewhere. (Taos has the most interesting people connected to it!) Hopefully by the end of the month the deal will be done and we can begin to build our house! We will be collecting earth bags again and may utilize some cob, some can walls, maybe some tires, but most certainly south-facing passive solar!

It is all coming together now. It feels right and I'm back on the path! Started writing again and even did a watercolor of the view out the south windows.

Welcome home to the sage! The New Mexican adventure has begun.