Pekin ducks find a new home

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Frosty the little llama, roads, mud, pallets and earthbags

Today I'm fasting, and the urge to eat is incredible. Richard and I decided we would begin this fasting/detox regiment at the beginning of each month, for at least three days to begin the new month with clean systems. But it's hard. Haven't gotten past three days in my fasting attempts, which is when everyone claims the hunger subsides. I'd like to make it to that point.

Frosty the new llama boy.

Yesterday we picked up another llama. His name is Frosty and he's seven or eight years old. I found him on Craigslist for free. He's a little llama, like my two boys. Today, he's standing out in his yard humming, nonstop. I think he's pretty upset about the whole arrangement. We have him separated from Turbo and Vader, but in connected yards so they have time to adjust. Frosty is a gelded male, like my two llamas, but still, they will probably challenge each other and try to decide who gets to be the new boss. My money is on Turbo...he's been strutting around like the king of the playground, showing us his "crazy" eyes, ever since we brought the new llama home.

Turbo and Vader looking on at the new llama.

I enjoyed our ride into the mountains to pick up Frosty. It was green and there were lots of trees. Lately I have been missing the trees, in a bad way. But as we drove the scenic mountain roads yesterday, and I looked at the huge Ponderosa Pines, I knew with the fires hitting the southwest, it is far better for us to be in a more defensible space right now. Still, it was so nice and cool up there... and there were little creeks running next to the roads. I miss standing in mountain streams on hot summer days.

Pallet coop.

Also at home, Richard has been busy on a pallet chicken coop for the Jersey Giants. It's finished now and the chickens have been moved to their new yard. Still too many roosters crowing in the early morning hours though. They are twelve weeks old now. Another month until they can be processed for the freezer.

Richard is getting pretty good with building out of pallets. This time he cut the pallets and then infilled with other pieces of pallets to make solid walls. There is a hinged roof and three nest boxes inside. The space underneath the coop allows the chickens to find shade when they need it. Pretty cool. I will post a more detailed blog about this later.

Out on the land, we have been repairing the road in front of our place...the spot where we got stuck, hoping to prevent a similar situation in the future. We brought in two trailers full of base course, which is sand mixed with gravel, and filled the ruts we left  the day we planted the Kia and trailer in the mud. Hopefully this will keep others from getting stuck too.

Next weekend we are planning the beginning of the ongoing workshop to build the Earthbag cistern, and we want people to be able to get there. They will still need high clearance vehicles to clear the mound of grass and sand that fills the center of the tiny dirt track we like to call a road.

Richard also finished the shade structure, which is the most wonderful thing! And we even hung up a hummingbird feeder for the little bird that has been buzzing us the last few times we have been out there working.

Classroom space cleared.

While Richard put the finishing touches on the shade building, and finished up the walls of the pallet shed, I cleared more sage. I got the 30 x 50 foot space cleared for our classroom/temporary house, and a space cleared for a pallet hay barn. I'd like to stock up on hay for the winter...before it hits $18 a bale like it did last year.

Pallet shed, west side.

Front of Aly's Earthbag house.

I haven't been posting much, and so much is going on. We made it over to Aly's house a couple of weeks ago to help her plaster the inside of her house. That was fun. David and Simone were there too, and they left a few days later to head back home to Maryland. We sure did appreciate their help while they were here. Thanks guys!

Mixing up the mud plaster at Aly's house.

And...the ducks started laying eggs! Well, at least one of them. I saw some rather suspicious mating behavior yesterday, so one of them might be male. Maybe we will have Pekin Ducklings next spring. That's be fun.

And on a side note, but very exciting for me, I got accepted into my first Taos art show, which is pretty darn cool, considering this is a REAL art town.This event, Arte de Descartes XII (sponsered by Wholly Rags) is about art made from recycled stuff, which is right up my alley, but since all of my recycled wood masks were done so long ago, I had to come up with something new. I asked for wood scraps on Facebook, and a wonderful lady in town has been supplying all the wood scraps I need for many art projects to come. After I get the piece hung up in the gallery--August 23, I will post a picture of it. Still making art for the young at heart!

Having fun in Northern New Mexico!

Stay tuned for the Earthbag Cistern news and directions on how to build a pallet chicken coop (for up to six hens).

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.