We are so thankful — not only did it rain yesterday, but also today, giving us over a half of an inch. And it looks like more might be on they way. The ground was awfully dry and we still had a lot of seeds that had not germinated yet so we were praying like mad for rain. Already much more corn has come up, beans are popping out of the ground, and the squash and pumpkins are also coming up nicely in the North garden.

Will’s been busy tilling in the main garden and house garden along with working on his plank fence around the cow paddock. I follow him when he’s tilling, hand weeding as much as my back will let me — so far, so good. As soon as it’s weeded, on goes the deep mulch and that will be that. Then it will be on to pulling the Wall O’ Waters off the tomatoes, staking, and caging them.

I went to visit my friend Dara a few days ago to see her litter of piglets. They are out of an American Guinea Hog sow and Mangalitsa boar. (Mangalitsas are a very old European breed of pig that has woolly hair like a sheep — really! Her boar has regular curls and dense “wool.” The baby pigs are so cute and love the greens Dara brings them! A few are “watermelon” striped, which comes from the Mangalitsa. (These stripes go away as they mature.) By the way, Dara says those pigs are for sale…

Here are some of Dara’s baby pigs. Cute, huh?

Yesterday, David began installing the big window they had gotten curb-side with a free sign on it. Will and I went over to help out and in a few hours, that window was in. Now there’s lots of natural light in the living room-to-be. David also took apart the storage shed he’d built last year to house his tools, building material, and miscellaneous. Now he can store it in and under the house plus he gained enough building material to finish up the interior walls and close in the two gable ends of the upstairs.

David’s real happy the new window is in place.

Will and David also finished up the outhouse hole. David had cut out one end of a big fuel oil storage tank and the center of the opposite end. Will carefully dropped it down the big hole. When it was seated level, he and David back-filled the hole, leaving the area nice and level. Ready to set the outhouse in place. The tank is to hold the sand from caving in and filling the hole prematurely.

The outhouse site is now ready to install the outhouse.
It’s starting to look nice around the cabin now that Will cleared some more brush and small trees.

Will had also gone over that way with our Case crawler-loader to set in some fence posts on the Wolf forty for cattle pasture. When he went past David’s cabin, he swung in and cleared some spaces David wanted for a parking spot and future garage site. It’s looking very nice around there! — Jackie

7 COMMENTS

  1. I have to admit, the piglets are awful cute. Probably a good thing the stripes go away lol.

    When one has woods, clearing/keeping cleared is truly a never ending task. And makes one appreciate what our ancestors accomplished without the benefit of today’s equipment.

    • Holy buckets, yes! We think about all the old timers did by hand or with a team of horses and feel humble indeed.

  2. The cabin is looking so good, What a treasure that boy is. I would happily send you some rain. We are swimming here after two years of very very dry weather.

  3. Wow! You have one amazing son! And hubby too! The cabin is amazing! Geesh he should be so proud of himself for taking this on and being so young. We are dry now here in northern Nevada but we have to put in drippers on everything anyway. And have to completely enclose the garden, top, sides, everything in order to keep the crawling and flying critters out! No hope of anything without 1/2” hardware cloth for fencing! I swear it’s a war with Mother Nature! Makes me wonder how the Indians and early settlers survived!!

    • Sometimes they didn’t….. No Super Market back then. They just had the dogs, kids and old folk sit around the garden, chasing out critters and flying destroyers.

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