The bare minimum

We ordered our shed/tiny house this past week and it will be delivered on September 9, only one week or so from now. We are super excited, but know we have so much to do. The shed we are getting is much smaller than the one we wanted. Sort of. No porch. No lofts built in. Plus, we had to scrap all windows and all but one door to bring the cost down. So now we have more to do. I am on the search for windows and other cheap building materials. We are also looking for propane range and a decent wood stove. Whatever will get us through the winter.

Office

We did get the glass in the office this week. This building is coming along now. As is the hay barn which Richard got a roof on as well. He is currently putting the masonite from the floors of the Jaroso farmhouse up in the turkey house. We used that masonite to protect the pine floors of the house we rented. Now it will serve as walls for the barns. We will most likely stuff the pallet walls with straw as insulation, but I have been toying with the idea of using llama wool too.

Hay barn

I'm still working on the labyrinth, as bottles and jars allow. I wish I could start planting the herb spiral, but it will have to wait until we move the cistern up next to the shed/house. I sure don't want to carry buckets of water the three hundred feet or so from the well, and I'm not sure we have enough hoses to run that far.

Labyrinth

We are starting up a recycle pick-up business in Alamosa. There seems to be a need. Maybe. I hope. We are calling ourselves Recycle Roundup. We will provide bins and pickup at the curb for those who might want to recycle but never really have the time or can't get around to it. If you are in the Alamosa area and are interested, please e-mail me for more details.

We have been selling off appliances and other things we no longer can use in our off-grid living situation to make money for the tiny house conversion. I am hoping to run by the Habitat for Humanity store this next week to look for windows or flooring or even a gas stove.

In the hemp field, we have a rat problem. Either that or the chipmunks have been sawing off our hemp stalks and leaving the tops, with seeds all over the ground. I have been collecting the sawed off tops and whatever seeds I can rake off of the ground. It appears we might be growing hemp there next year too--unintentionally. I put the hemp tops in a large paper bag in the hope that it will dry and the seeds will develop enough to be viable. Blasted rodents.

Hemp stalks

Another chihuahua joined our farmstead this week. He's a cute little guy we like to call Pico. Pico poco. Little bit. He's only about three months old now, so we are house (camper) training him and trying to teach him to walk on a leash. The other animals just don't know what to think of him. The llamas are curious as usual and come to the fence with ears perked up whenever we walk Pico by them. Next week he is off to get neutered, because it is so important to spay and neuter all of our pets. There are just so many pets out there that get euthanized because they don't have a home.

Pico

Things to do before winter...

You know, I'd really like to get into vermaculture. That's the farming of compost worms. I just need to build a bin and get some worms.

I'd also like to have an apiary. If there's one thing people should being doing, it's raising more bees. (And planting more trees.)

I'd also like to get a green house up and finish the office.

Of course there is that pesky little problem of winter coming on fast. Maybe if we just ignore it, it'll go away? Hardly. We must get ourselves some adequate shelter before the snow flies. There is no other option.

So, time keeps on marching along and there is still so much to do before the winter comes. Barns to finish and insulate, hay to buy and store, finding a winter safe place to live.

We have brainstormed and brainstormed and decided that if we take out all of the bells and whistles in the tiny house project (ie. doors, windows, lofts and porch) we can afford the monthly payment. Re-homing the goats saved us a bundle in feed costs, and we've paid off our car and a couple of credit cards too. There is a little extra money, but mostly it goes to building supplies. If we tighten up our budget, we may be able to make this work before winter comes along and we all freeze to death.

Now that is good news!

Dinner with the Amish

Yesterday we went to an Amish dinner that was just a few miles away in the Amish country of the San Luis Valley. Well, part of it anyway. There sure were a lot of Amish folks there. And a lot of non-Amish folks too. I think this is a pretty popular local event, and I can see why. It was a fundraiser (by donation) for an Amish school.

There were horses and Amish buggies parked on one side of the fence and cars and trucks parked on the other. We pulled our black SUV in nose to nose with a couple of horses, harnessed to black Amish buggies. Our kids really enjoyed petting the horses. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of a parking lot of horse and buggies on one side of the fence, and on the other side, a parking lot of cars and farm trucks.

Amish dinner, parking

The food was great...home cooked grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, mixed vegies, salad, fluffy dinner rolls and several varieties of pies with a side of home made and churned on site vanilla ice cream. It was the best food I've had in a while, but probably not so good for my heart and digestive system. Still, it was a wonderful time, watching two (or more) cultures intermingle.

Amish farmers talked with non-Amish farmers...hay is hay after all. Kids ran around barefoot. As we waited in the chow line, there was an adorable little Amish girl in dress and bonnet, half hiding behind her mother as she looked at my little girl of about the same age and size with open curiosity. I can only imagine her thoughts, similar to mine, as we all encountered new people who live a little differently from what we have always known.

We ran into Levi, the nice Amish man we met at the shed store. We have talked with him at length about building us a custom cabin/shed, and if we had the money now, we'd be moving forward on that plan. He was very understanding about our delays though.

It sure was a lovely experience, and the anthropologist in me sat right up and took mental notes on a culture I have always romanticized but never come in contact with in any meaningful way. Big surprise, they are people too. They shop at local grocery stores. They ride in engine powered vehicles, although they get rides from the non-Amish locals. Some of them grow their own food in backyard gardens, and I suspect some of them don't. Some of their clothing is home and handmade and some of it isn't. They use some machines in their daily work, and I'm not really clear on the philosophy about that. But, you know, ultimately, it doesn't even matter.

What a refreshing moment in time when two cultures can come together in peace and simply enjoy each other's company and the shared abundance before them. If only we could extend these wonderful experiences out into the rest of the world.

People are people. They live, they laugh, they love. They experience pain and sorrow too, just like we all do. The one thing we all have in common is our shared human experience, and in that way we are related and connected. I am them. They are me. We are One.

We are building a labyrinth!

Having fun in the sun re-purposing bottles for a enlightening experience.

This week on the farmstead

Progress.