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

Another entertaining week in magical Taos

This past week we went to the Blue Moon/labyrinth/Regeneration ceremonies at the New Buffalo Center. We took the back road across the mesa and down into the gorge and crossed at the John Dunn Bridge by the hot springs. It is pretty down there. I haven't been down there for like eight years or so. The Hondo Valley seemed incredibly green. More so than I remembered when we used to live there.

View of the gorge and Rio Grande from John Dunn Bridge road.

New Buffalo is wonderful. It's very green with gardens full of growing vegetables. I guess Bob, our host, took corn directly from the garden and then the ears went into a boiling pot of water on the kitchen stove. Wish I could have tasted that fresh from the garden corn on the cob. Richard and I were fasting, so we did not partake in the wonderful  food that everyone brought for the potluck. We took gluten and dairy free zuchini bread, which Richard made, and the kids loved.

Turns out our children were the only kids there, until much later when another boy arrived, and so they became the center of the ceremony honoring the youth in our community. We walked the labyrinth with the little ones. The labyrinth was quite large and located in the field below the Barn, or formally the house Richard and I started building ten years ago and gave away seven years ago. (Long, sad story, fraught with emotion.)

My son visiting with the Crystal Skull. Barn house in the background.

One of the most exciting things...well, there were many, was the arrival and presentation of the crystal skull that some kind man brought. Being an anthropologist, I was interested in this very old and rock like petrified item. It looked like the skull of an ancient woman, which the man claimed it was. It also looked like a rock, which it also was, being thousands and thousands of years old. Very interesting. It certainly lent an air of mystery and awe to the event.

The sun set in an amazing show of color as the big, old, full moon rose in the east at the same time. Pretty incredible. The kids were pretty good, considering the ceremony was much longer than we can really expect them to sit still and be focused. They didn't do anything too strange, and I never even alerted our host and former neighbor Bob about my daughter's autistic condition.

The most fun was back in the remodeled community room at New Buffalo, where we had a drum circle. It never ceases to amaze me how incredible the drum parties are in this town. There was a harpist, the man who does the maintenance on the Earthship we live in, and guitarists, and everyone else was just free styling it on the drums. Wonderful. The kids loved it, picking out different instruments from the basket on the shelf behind our built in bench.

Drum circle and music at New Buffalo.

New Buffalo used to be a hippy commune in the 1960's. The movie Easy Rider has a commune scene in it based on New Buffalo, although the setting was staged in California for the movie. The first time we lived in Taos, we bought a small piece of land and the old commune dairy barn from the original owners, who were still there at the time. We turned the barn into a house...a much too large house we couldn't really afford, and so it eventually was sold off to the current owners. Bob bought New Buffalo around the same time and has since turned it into a thriving, community based learning and sharing center.

So our Blue Moon celebration was interesting with the fasting, the old emotions welling up over seeing the barn after so many years, the crystal skull, the kids being the honorees, and the time and place all coming together to create a magical evening. Thank you Bob.

This week, I also got to sit in the gallery where the Arte de Descartes XII show is being held. All of the artists were supposed to volunteer some time to help manage the hours of the gallery during the show. I spent my four hours studying the art, making tiny house plans for one of our cabins, and occasionally talking to potential customers.

That's my recycled wood art piece: Safariarte.

Out on the land Richard got the window put in the pallet shed and put on a door from the stack of glass doors and windows we took out there. We have been moving these glass panels around with us, hoping to build something with them. It looks like we will use them in our house. We also cleared some more sage in the location where our 20 x 20' house/cabin will be.

Pallet shed with window and door.

Richard held his chicken processing class this past Saturday, which was a success for the two folks who came. He plans on doing another in a few weeks to eliminate the many roosters we have in our flock.

Processing chickens.

Also next weekend (September 15), Richard is holding a canning class our here at the Earthship. Hope to see lots of people at this one. Food security is so important as the craziness in our world continues. If you are in  and around the area and want to come, please contact me in the comments. Also, anyone interested in the art, contact me. I will pay for half of shipping if anyone wants to hang this piece in their kid's room.