Learning, doing, and more learning!

It has been a long time since we last posted. July to be exact. We have been sooo busy with our homestead and paid work. Cheryl and I seem to be on an endless track of way too many tasks. And so often we have no idea how to even think about the tasks let alone accomplish them.

I struggle with this much more than Cheryl. First, engineers are supposed to either know everything or be able to figure everything out. And then there is the male imperative of having it all under control. Final nail in the coffin - being over 50, the experienced thing you know. Well the truth is we embarked on something we didn't know diddly about. Plus we are doing it non-traditionally.

As I look about our homestead, there is much to be thankful for. Since first coming onto the land in the summer of 2009, we have built a house, barn, garden and greenhouse. We've learned about raising and caring for chickens, building roads, organic gardening, preserving food, logging, tractor maintenance, construction of all kinds, care and feeding of the woodstove, living on less money and so much more. All of this with a permaculture focus. Much has been accomplished and there is much to do . . .

There is nothing so comforting as several cords of firewood under cover with winter coming. For city folks and those that heat by more conventional means, making sure you have heat is limited to paying your fuel bill. Although in these tough times, that's not so simple anymore either. But cutting, splitting and getting firewood into a dry place for the winter puts one in much closer touch with what it takes to stay warm. As they say about eggs and ham, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.

We're very pleased to have a finished barn for the winter too. We started the barn project in the spring and put the finishing touches on in November. Eric is getting Cheryl's pet project, the cupola, ready for installation. It's an old, proud copper-roofed piece from a house on the coast of Maine which she found on Craig'sList for a good price, put a bid in for half that and got it. I had to tear the base off and rebuild it because of rot. Eric finished up the rebuild, installed "Riley" the copper rooster weather vane (made in Maine) and placed it on the barn roof. It really sets the barn off nicely.

With the barn, not only do we have shelter for the tractor, but we were finally able to move the remainder of our stuff from storage to the homestead--performing this move one year to the day after we moved into our house. We hired Eric and Corey to help us move and boy were they back-savers. I am so glad to be done with moving. If I see another moving van full of boxes I will know I went to hell!

Unfortunately we had to bid farewell to Stan Brett and his storage barn where we've rented space for 3 years. The pic below is from Stan's storage barn. It's actually a 3 floor former dairy barn, equipped with a homemade elevator powered by a heavy duty chain hoist. Although it seemed a little creaky, it never failed us. Much, much better than stairs! We always enjoyed our visits to the storage barn (when we weren't freezing our butt's off!) because Stan is such a friendly and interesting guy. He lives 1-1/2 hours away so we will need to invent a good reason to go back for visits! Our last talk with Stan and his wife ended in their wanting to learn more from us about our permaculture gardening method as they will be starting a garden in the spring. So we'll have them to our place for a chat!
And now to the sorting, giving away & selling...








A friend named Spring Goldeneagle stayed with us for a couple of days. She came from Colorado by way of Michigan in search of a place to live. She's been living a very precarious existence for quite some time. Like us, she's been looking for community. She is an artistic painter and gardener and lives with three dogs that she dearly loves. After staying with us, she moved on to Mid-coast Maine to pursue a living opportunity.




Ah, the greenhouse. It was a kit, delivered in two crates. One crate weighed over a thousand pounds. This was too much for Ollie, our faithful tractor. Plus Kirk was out of town when it was delivered. Since we have a 600ft. driveway, big deliveries come to the road end of the driveway. It's our job to get the item from the truck to the house. So Cheryl got our former landlord Andy with his trusty Lull to handle the job.

Once the crates got to the house, they sat there for several weeks because Kirk was too busy with paid work to even think about them. But Cheryl couldn't wait for the greenhouse. We started with, you guessed it, clearing of land. Then brought in 32 yards of gravel to level the site and provide a firm foundation for the structure. After placing the gravel, it was compacted in a ring to support the knee walls. Once the knee walls were built and installed, 2x4 frame sub-assemblies were put together and set in place. Then polycarbonate panels were screwed onto the 2x4 framing and sealed. Despite being a great kit, this was more work than you might guess. We almost ran out of reasonably warm, dry working weather. But the weather gods smiled on us and it is ready for growing. Well, almost. The raised beds are yet to be built. But we have a weather-proof structure that's otherwise ready.










The green thing is an interior shot of the solar water tank and the reflectix on the north side of the dome.



Here's Jayne with our cool chickens. It's hard to believe they were chicks in late June! One has started laying eggs--the different breeds mature at various rates. Cheryl has dubbed them the "Black & White Brigade" in honor of their coloration. A couple weeks ago we started letting them free-range around the yard. At first they didn't go far. But soon they were patrolling the entire yard and venturing into the woods. Then a few days ago, it happened. As Cheryl was sitting at this very computer, a hawk flashed by in hot pursuit of Shakti (the always-a-little-behind chicken)! Cheryl bolted from the house to confront the hawk but it was gone as were the chickens. The girls were lucky; everybody got under the travel trailer in time!!! They stayed under there for quite awhile and eventually went back to patrolling. Since then we've become more careful about when we let them out and for how long. Predators are part of nature but we'd rather not help them along.

This is actually a photo from earlier in the year. A phoebe decided our firewood shelter was an excellent place to raise a family. Since it wasn't heating season or time to restock the firewood, the birds didn't get disturbed much. Our firewood shelter is right outside the door so we could keep an eye on their progress. The dark things on the top of the nest are the new brood. As they grew and started to fledge, they were so crammed into the nest, it seemed impossible that they fit. Then, one day, everybody was gone. Maybe they will reuse the nest next year.

Cheryl's soaking tub. Need I say more? I finally got around to finishing it and it's a beaut. We've been so busy this summer and fall, it sat ready for multiple weeks before the break-in run. The maiden voyage finally occurred in November. Cheryl was in heaven - it was everything she hoped it would be. Throw in epsom salts and it's especially nice for aching, middle-aged bodies (and as planned we both fit in together!).














Beets in our garden. My least favorite food. They sure look beautiful though. Other pics: swiss chard, zucchini, kale, kohlrabi (the alien invader on the right) and pole beans from our garden. And a giant hubbard squash that volunteered in our manure pile. We couldn't believe how big and bountiful most of the plants in our garden were. Especially since this area was still forest in May!

























This is our temporary root cellar. Not enough time to build the permanent one so we picked up this old freezer free at our town's recycling center, buried it and are keeping potatoes, carrots, leeks, cabbage, turnips, rutabagas & parsnips in it. The last three items are stored in damp sand in 5 gal buckets.



Here Kirk and Cheryl are hero-ing again. This time we were spreading 32 yards of compost and topsoil into two 12'x36' raised bed garden plots. (Look carefully & you can see that Kirk's dreaming of being in the soaking tub!) We used slab wood from white pines we cut earlier to form the sides. We were working at night because rain was coming and Kirk had to get back to paid work. No rest for the wicked! The orange vest was leftover from daytime when we were avoiding being shot--we live in the woods amongst many hunters.

Speaking of shooting, Cheryl & Jayne learned to shoot rifles, handguns and shotguns this fall at a women's shooting class. They are both good shots.




This picture is one of the best parts of my job. Hydroelectric power plants are often on scenic rivers in New England. Although I' m not a fan of travel and long hours, views like this in Milford, Maine make up for it.


Cheryl's busy using a stump grinder like the old pro she is. We ground stumps as part of building the gigundo raised beds this fall.





My buddy Mark Lenard wailing away on the saxophone when not on guitar. He's playing in a band called "ATF". Mark is a great guitar player and a fine friend. He and I were in a band called "John Wayne and the Cowboys" earlier this year. We had great fun, made some money. That band went the way of most bands unfortunately. It was great while it lasted though. There will be others . . .


The dog of many names. We said goodbye to a beloved member of our family this September. Kico, aka Bubba, Roonesman, Snog and many others, left the earthly life. He was 14 1/2. He is not a summer dog anyway but he managed to keep going despite problems with arthritis. By late summer though, he was really struggling. When it became difficult for him to even go on his favoritest thing, the daily walk, we knew it was time. It was still very hard to do though. Kik was a loyal and loving fellow who did the steadfast breed of Akitas proud. He has a great resting place under a big white pine near the people he loved. I hope to be as lucky someday.


In other family news the headline is that Jayne has become an activist with the Occupy Wall Street movement. She left, alone, for New York City on November 8 and became one of the 300 Occupiers encamped in Zuccotti Park. (Some kind of chutzpah, huh?!) Since then she has divided her time between NYC and Boston working for the movement in both cities. She is at long last making the like-hearted friends she has always sought. We wholeheartedly support her and are hugely proud. We have been following the Occupy Movement in the "people's press" i.e. the non-controlled sources beyond network news and newspapers and will be doing another posting soon devoted to Occupy. Here's Jayne just before she headed to NYC.

One Long To Do List

We didn't mean to take so long to post but Kirk is the main blogger and he's been too busy. So here's Cheryl, to tell ya what's been happening. We are well pleased with our FirstDay Cottage it got us through a cold long winter with both comfort and affordability. We used somewhat less than 2 1/2 cords of wood for heat. The second floor was rather cool but still livable (63-65 F) while keeping downstairs an average of 68 F. And after we add the attached greenhouse we'll have a nice amount of additional heat wafting up there for free.

Speaking of the attached greenhouse, that project has experienced a delay due to design difficulties. It will be sitting a few feet below where tons of snow slides off our metal roof so we've decided to get the input of a structural engineer before settling on a design. Consequently we chose to slip that project to the end of the list and for this growing/building season concentrate on the permaculture design, garden, detached dome greenhouse, barn, and root cellar.

In the late spring we faced the tough task of removing trees again to open up a food growing space and to protect the house and future structure sites from falling tree damage. White Pines grow tall and have shallow root systems making them susceptible to coming down in storms. We had to remove nearly 50 of them which was hard for us but the results are very nice. The house area is still well-wooded but much brighter now and storms won't be so worrisome anymore.

We received our permaculture design the end of April from Sarah Bostick of The Edible Landscape and it's very cool. Generally what we seek to do is create a system following the ways of nature which incorporates we humans into that system. Such a design includes various animal life and makes use of each animal's natural behaviors to the betterment of the overall system. Another focus is on edible landscaping--meaning that plantings are beautiful but also edible and functional structures like a large trellis to block the sun from entering the south side of the house is covered with grape vines again bringing together function, beauty and food. The design has extensive garden beds to the south of the house incorporating a 42' diameter circular area of beds & paths with many additional beds partially surrounding the circle which include 4 very large beds for growing the large crops like corn, squash, beans, melons & grains. The entrance to the garden will be through an arbor supporting Japanese Yam vines. Much more to the design which includes turning part of the existing forest into an Edible Food Forest (i.e. fruit & nut trees form the forest canopy) while keeping much of our forest in its wild state.

On the clean clothes front we now have our clothesline (yay! no more drying clothes in the house on a rack) and she's a beauty. Here are a couple pics of her maiden voyage. She runs from outside the upstairs window which is adjacent to the washing machine to a large maple about 50' distant. Clothes are pulled clean & wet from the washer, you reach out the window and pin them to the line and send them off to engage with the wind and sunshine. Much $$ and world resources saved without a dryer and the clothes last way longer since they're not being dismantled fiber by fiber every time they get dried.

We created the circle part of our garden beds for this year's growing. That took 2 full hard work days in the blistering sun (& with coal in our pockets and uphill both ways!) providing us with planting beds on June 6. The methods used for the beds were sheet mulching (lots of layers of organic matter such as manure, rotted leaves, grass clippings, compost) and hugelkulture (using wood from logs to brush as the first layer and then other organic matter layers above). Then to top off all the beds we used 4 sheet thick wet newspaper like papier mache to fully cover everything and finally 4+ inches of straw on top. All nicely watered periodically throughout building process (several pics showing process). To plant you pull the straw aside down to the newspaper, make a hole just big enough in the paper and plant your seed or seedling along with some nice compost. This is labor intensive to create but minimizes labor thereafter as there is almost no weeding to do and little watering since the beds hold moisture so well.Though we got a late start we planted quite a lot in our new beds from potatoes, squash, cukes, beans to tomatoes, melons, carrots, chard, kale & more using seed except for tomatoes and a couple of other seedlings. The garden is doing well-pics don't really show it. By their third year these sheet mulched beds will explode with growth!














Breaking News Here's a pic of the huge (22' x 16') Hardy Kiwi Trellis going up on the west side of the house. Brian is building it with saplings from our land sturdy enough to hold up the serious vines and heavy fruit that will eventually be climbing all over it. We'll get the vines planted late summer or early fall and won't see them produce fruit for about 4 years. However, even while there's no food coming from this magnificent trellis, it will much sooner be giving us a fantastic shaded patio space!

We also had Brian build us a temporary garden shed on the side of the temporary chicken run using saplings and slab wood from the land. Here's a pic during construction.

The Barn! Cheryl found a design online done by an architect in NY (Don Berg) for a small, stoutly built barn designed for affordability. We chose one that's 20' x 24' with a loft (overall 20' tall) and with a 12' side run-in shed to house Ollie, our tractor. And on the other side we'll be building another shed to house dry firewood. Here's pics of current progress. On left the guys are lifting the huge beams into place. The finished barn will have shiplap siding stained woodland green and an ivory metal roof to match the house. There will be a high door to the loft equipped with a hoist.

We've just ordered the geodesic dome greenhouse from Growing Spaces in Colorado. It'll be 22' diameter and have great solar features: large water tank to store heat & raise some fish and solar heating running through the growing beds as well. This greenhouse, if used intensively, will feed 4-5 people. Check them out! Our kit will be arriving August 8 so we'll be growing in it this fall/winter!!

Chickens! On June 24 we got 5 day-old chicks. One had a problem which we tried to help with but she died during the first night. We've got them in a homemade brooder in the center room upstairs. Two are Light Brahmas, one is a Black Australorp and one is a Barred Rock. What everyone says is true: chickens are fun to watch. Of course being bird people we're already crazy about our girls! We've decided to choose names based on personality characteristics and thus far just one has shown us her name. She is the most outgoing of the bunch and takes every opportunity to hop up on the edge of the box and escape. None of the others has done anything similar. When she's not being given such a chance at escape she's keeping an eye out for the next opportunity. Cheryl named her Sojourner. (She's the close up black one in the pic to right.)

We're hoping to build a root cellar this late summer/fall. It will be built into one of the gravel ridges on our land using cement block and we hope a living roof i.e. soil & plants growing on a slightly sloped roof.

Naturally we're hoping for a good harvest from our garden and as you know we have plans for preserving that harvest. Cheryl & Jayne did their first canning project--rhubarb sauce in mid-June and will soon be canning strawberry jam. They also have started brewing kombucha, a fermented tea made with a mother culture, which is very healthful. The big jar in pic is the kombucha & you can see the mother floating in it. (To get started with it Cheryl put an ad on CraigsList asking for someone to share a mother culture with her and she immediately heard from a man not far away willing to help her out. When she went to pick it up he also gave her a jar of brewed kombucha, a large jar for starting hers in and written directions! Good example of what the people of Maine are like.) We'll be doing both water bath and pressure canning and we also have a real sweet dehydrator to put to good use very soon.

House Update The only house project we've done since moving in is the replacement of the construction stairs with the permanent ones. We used copper tubing for the balusters and we're well pleased with the results.

Wild & Wooly A while back Cheryl went to Bee School here in Maine since we hope to have some hives later on. One of the things she learned was that there are estimated to be 25,000 black bears in Southern Maine (which is where we live). Now if you're not real familiar with Maine you might not know that Southern Maine is a small part of the state and it is where the preponderance of the state's human population resides. 25,000 bears just in the area that's populated? Well, yeah and on Father's Day one of the group was spotted on our land, unfortunately not by us--we were still sleeping. Our neighbor was out and saw the bear going through our woods toward our driveway. A couple of friends have also reported seeing cougars not far from our land. Cheryl & Jayne think this is exciting; Kirk is more circumspect.

As for family news... Jayne got a job cleaning houses and received a raise after working just a week. She works part-time applying time also to "uncolleging" i.e. self-directed learning just like she did in place of going to middle & high school. She is saving toward doing some learning/traveling in the near future. She's looking at becoming a WWOOFer (Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms) which is an apprenticeship program. There's also a possibility of her going after a cooking apprenticeship. We have offered to help fund such expeditions of learning as much as we are able. The three of us feel that in today's world going to college is no longer the best path for promising young people. Jayne has incredible potential and we are very proud of the level of maturity she has reached at such a young age. She has had several significant epiphanies in the last year or two and now has life understanding that surpasses that of many folks her senior. She is currently on a spiritual quest, the pursuit of which may well be involved in her upcoming travels... Kirk's current life situation can almost be summed up in one word: WORK. He still has the same engineering job--computer automation at hydroelectric dams--but he has gone from working part-time to working 60+ hour weeks. It works for us since he's paid hourly and we know it's temporary. He's bringing in the bucks and we're spending it to create our homestead/farm. We ended up hiring help to build this season instead of the barter thing--Brian, of house-building helper fame, is back with us and we've also found a couple great experienced carpenters willing to work cheap as they are trying to start their own business. Kirk does manage to find time for his bass playing, even has a gig this Friday night, and though his week or longer work trips are a bummer, he still feels present to Cheryl & Jayne largely because much of his work is done here at our house. We've all gotten quite good at mixing our personal lives into Kirk's work day. Finally, Kirk was stung by a yellow jacket or a wasp recently and had a systemic reaction so we hustled him off to the urgent care hoping his breathing wasn't going to be affected. It wasn't but now he needs an epi pen... Cheryl is still busy as the managing architect of creating our new life in addition to keeping our day to day lives limping along. We are still committed to avoiding going out to eat and to eating as much as possible real, healthy food which of course requires time. We've found several local farm resources so we do pretty well. Cheryl is also doing some volunteer work at the local library. She really misses the active spiritual exploration that was part of her life in Michigan and would like to find the time and energy to create that here in Maine. All in good time.

Final Words We began our journey to a new life out of desire to live differently, but along the way we realized that world circumstances would have forced us into the very thing we were already seeking. We absolutely feel that the world we're all used to is slipping away. The resources needed to keep doing what we take for granted are simply not available any longer in the quantities necessary. And the small group of rich & powerful will stop at nothing to siphon to themselves what little riches the regular people still possess. The time is now for questioning everything you have always assumed was a given. The time is definitely now for starting to do everything you can to prepare for at least some semblance of self-sufficiency. Whether we want to or not we're all soon going to be heading down a new road. There are rich resources available for wrestling with what is happening in the world: books, online news sources, blogs & articles, etc. To engage with it, however, means taking the red pill (reference from the film "The Matrix") and once you do there's no going back...

Even in Maine, Winter has to end sometime

We love winter - have for years. But this year we're really ready for spring. After a slow start to the snow season, things really picked up in February. I haven't kept track of snowfall or frequency but for awhile it seemed all I did was clean out the driveway and the yard. Since our tractor doesn't have a blade yet, it takes about 3 hours to do a proper job plowing the driveway and cutting back the banks. I sure am glad I spent the time pushing snow back. After the last snow, I was beginning to get concerned about where to push another snowfall.

Most of the pictures are various locations on Anam Cara illustrating the snow depth. The tent-like structure interior is our firewood pile. We started the winter with 3 chords and this is what we have left. It's possible we will finish the winter with wood left. Since the temperatures have been in the low 40's, we have not been doing a fire in the daytime. Generally we start a fire sometime after the sun goes down and throw a few logs on at bedtime. The house retains heat pretty well - we're very pleased.

Since these photos were taken, we've been in a slow snow meltdown. Yesterday it rained most of the day (yuk). The snowpiles are considerably reduced and the ice which has plagued our driveway is starting to give way to brown. Mud season is very likely not far around the corner.



We've added another vehicle to the VW used car lot. Our neighbors were going to send this Toyota truck to truck heaven. We bought it and had the frame repaired. Now we have a handy vehicle for transporting all the stuff you need to make a homestead.



With the coming of the meltdown, flu has also invaded our house. Jayne had a mild case several weeks ago. We thought we'd dodged the bullet since quite a bit of time passed without Cheryl or I getting sick. But then an office mate came down with the upper respiratory stuff. Then I caught it the week before I was scheduled in Vermont on a hydro startup. Up until the Sunday before I left, it was touch and go as to whether I would be in good enough shape. Fortunately Cheryl loaded me up with 1000mg hits of vitamin C and some other stuff. By Tuesday I was actually in decent shape and by the Thursday I was nearly recovered. It would have been a real problem if I wasn't able to go since the job was already scheduled and no one else in my company could go either.

While I was in Vermont, they received the third highest snowfall ever. About 30" if I remember correctly. I drove my car which is not exactly a great snow vehicle. On Monday morning I was snowed into the hotel parking lot. Thankfully the hotel maintenance guy was patrolling the parking lot with a snowblower. After I got out of the parking lot, I found the roads hadn't been plowed for hours. When I reached the hydro site, the side road was filled with snow from main road plows. So I drove on and turned around after several miles. Just as I returned, a town snowplow showed up and cleaned out the side road. I finally reached the site and started the work day. The news channel said to stay off the road unless it was an emergency. I guess getting to a hydro upgrade project qualifies as an emergency!

Making Plans
This winter has been a time for rest & renewal as the building push was tiring, but it has also been a time for planning our next phase of creation. Spring to fall will once again find us busy making our new life. Top priority is being given to establishing food growing. We're going to start an outdoor kitchen garden on the sunny southern slope south of the house which will be several raised beds. Secondly, we'll be implementing the construction of an attached greenhouse/sunspace on the southern side of the house. Cheryl designed this with the help of a great book from the 80's about attached greenhouses. Ours will be 24' along the house starting at the west end and will be 9' wide. The height of almost 10' will allow the accumulated heat, that will help to heat the house, to enter the house into the second floor, which is where additional heat is needed when the only heat source is a first floor wood stove. The prime purpose of this space will be for year-round food growing, but the added heat in winter and the year-round sunny living space will also be very welcome. We'll be using many containers of water in here for heat storage including a 100+ gal tank which will be part of our solar hot water system. This greenhouse will be glazed with glass due to its permanent lifespan. The third growing space being planned is a detached 18' geodesic dome greenhouse which we will buy as a kit and build ourselves.

In addition to growing food one needs to store food for the winter. So our second priority for the coming active time is establishing at least a temporary root cellar system. Our winter food plans include root cellaring, drying, canning, cold hardy crop growing, and some freezing.

Our third priority is the building of our barn/workshop. We have purchased plans for a 20' X 24' barn and would love to have it before winter hits again, but we don't really expect to make that happen. We'll be building it ourselves and siding it with pine lumber from our land. Kirk has a backup plan for providing covered storage for Ollie the tractor by adding a shed roof off the side of our tool crib.

Kirk's paid work volume has increased to the point where he is working full-time probably for several months to come. So if we want to see all our plans come to fruition we need help around here. We are now in the process of seeking someone with building skills who would like to barter work for a place to live. Our Craigslist ad brought in several interesting prospects. We'll house this person or couple in our travel trailer during milder weather. If we all want to make the arrangement more long-term, we'll have to get a cabin built before the snow flies.

Living with Jayne is still a roller coaster ride but she's doing pretty well. She's still working on her voice, has a job interview coming up in a few days, and is volunteering at a local orchard/bakery/restaurant where she's learning skills from barista to waitstaff to baker. She's gotten creative with getting around since having to face the hard realities of no money and parents with snugged pursestrings.