June 8th

     Well we have hit the month of June. Time is flying by and as per usual we don't know what day it is. I just changed the time zone on my phone so that I could just finally stick with one time zone and not be confused all the time. Our property is in two time zones....so if you are carrying your phone it will go back and forth and you will defiantly be late for dinner! 

    Rain is still a major buzz kill. I feel like I live on the coast or the valley minus the gorgeous ocean to make up for the horrendous precipitation. The other day we had a river running through our road again...and days later its still running down our road. All progress on gravel has halted, we have had to rush to get another green house going. So the road into the property has had to remain a mud hole. Hopefully summer will give us a reprieve from the hell that is this mud. 

    Our current green house is gorgeous! There is green stuff everywhere and it is so exciting! the construction of the year round green house will begin here in the next week. We are also working on plans for a temporary barn. The animals need better living conditions and I really can't wait to give them the shelter they deserve. They are still staying in the livestock trailer at nights. 

    One of our newest additions is finally starting to calm down. Diesel has been quit a spaz since his arrival. All the dogs and other animals get him all in a dither and he can't control the temptation to rip you limb from limb like a vicious assassin! My mom has been working very hard to calm the crazy turd down and has had some success this week. In fact!!! I got snuggles and no new unwanted piercings! He is the youngest in our pack of five dogs up here. Maci is the oldest, she is recovering well from her tick bite and so is Sig. Chevy is always the same, derpy and sweet. Axle has been doing well. Still not a lover of people, but he has been letting me give him semi frequent lovins. He really loves Sig though, I caught them snuggling and it was so cute!

    I don't think I have mentioned...We have tons and tons of wildflowers on this mountain! There are gorgeous lupines and sunflowers galore. There is also a flower called Oregon paint brush and it is glorious. However it doesn't grow in patches as far as I have seen. You usually just see one or two here or there. But it is stunning and so different from the other flowers around us. We also have Mullein and wild Fennel and a few other medicinal plants Yarrow being one of them! As we continue to forage around the property I’m sure we will come across even more exciting things to gush over. I am considering purchasing a mushroom guide book. We have a plethora of interesting looking mushrooms and while I know they are most likely poisonous. I would be interested to know their name. 

Are they gorgeous or what?! The ones with the black tops are so interesting! The next day they look like they had melted. Since I was last on here writing I have looked up these mushrooms! The two on the bottom are actually the same. They start white and as they grow they start to blacken and look burnt, they have a short life span. They are called shaggy inky tops! They are very interesting! They can be used as ink or paint once they blacken and they are edible but we won’t be trying them. As it happens they are toxic in combination with alcohol. Apparently drinking of any kind 48 hours prior to consuming and 48 hours after can cause poisoning. Wow! How interesting. I think we will make paint or ink out of them. I think Bailee would find calligraphy fun and it mentioned it’s made into a good ink for calligraphy. The mushrooms in the top picture I have yet to identify. They look similar to some Magic Mushrooms in the foraging book. 😂 But again we won’t be trying that either. 

   So in my last post I mentioned out new members to the homestead. The Guinea keets! They are currently living in a corner of my 5th wheel. This wasn’t the original plan, they actually have a beautiful brooder in the feed shed that Garret built. But unfortunately we underestimated a lot of factors, one being consistent power and the other… well I’ll be honestest I kinda hold against myself. The other issues was heat. See I have a love hate with raising chicks. And the love is that they are cute and floofy. The hate has 100% to do with brooder lamps. They can be so dangerous in the wrong conditions. And because we don’t have some of the reassurances that we once had…. I looked into another option. The Brinsea chick pad. 🤦‍♀️ What a mistake! The first night half of them died due to low temps. This is after I did research read reviews and decided this may just be our ticket to safer heating for the keets. And a huge plus was that it wasn’t a huge draw on our power supply. As it happens there wasn’t a good thing at all with this chick warmer pad thing… because while we had half left many we’re so weak that it really was only a matter of time before others died as they were weakened from the cold. This was a truly heartbreaking lesson in sticking with what you know. But the fear of losing everything to a fire un nerved me and in panic I looked for another solution. Of which I found non…. So I have the remaining survivors in my trailer so that they can be monitored closely for any changes should there be any. I feel we are in the clear. They are a week and a half old and growing like crazy! I hope they continue to grow strong and reign terror on our tick population once they are older. 

So I haven’t talked much about our new green house. We just got the site excavated. It will be subterranean so we will be below the frost line and able to do cold crops through the winter. If your not familiar with a subterranean green house I’ll drop a photo below for reference. 

This photo is similar to what we will be creating. We are doing a single pitch roof because the design is so simple. 

Here is the site! It needs leveled and then the fun begins!

This greenhouse is going to be so productive! We are about to put some of our seeds in the ground here in the next week or so. I’m so nervous because of all the rain.. but I think we have a good plan as far as planting outdoors goes. We have built berms over decaying trees, they will be sloped for an easy harvest but also with drainage in mind because we so badly need it with all the rain we get!   

The popular name for this type of gardening is called Hugelkultur. The decaying wood provides warmth to the soil to help with colder temperatures when gardening in the spring. There are also a lot of benefits from the decaying wood for the soil. 

I had to rearrange the kids room. They have a door in their room that was previously covered by the dresser for safety. But they need more ventilation to avoid mold on these wet days. I have rigged up their door to now open but the screen is booby trapped. If they try to open it they are getting a miserable surprise. 😂 It’s called a spanking. One thing about full time rv living is the issue of stagnant air. The condensation gets bad when the temps are low outside and we are inside breathing our hot breath everywhere. I told the kids that they need to not breath so much but you know kids… they never listen. 😆 So far but keeping a fan on low in the kids room and a dehumidifier we have had minimal run ins with moisture buildup. We do have a larger dehumidifier on its way. Winter is going to be a challenge with the condensation and we are trying to get ahead of that. 

We went to a plant and seed swap in Grangeville a few weeks ago. It’s was pretty awesome. Small but cool because people had donated all these starts to the Grangeville Farmers Market. Then they sold them for a really fair price. The proceeds go to setting up the Farmers Market! I thought that was pretty cool. We also found out that most locals carry a check book everywhere because some places don’t except cards and frequently request cash or check instead of cards. I have lived my entire adult life without a checkbook. I have just preferred other avenues. But now… guess who’s ordering checks. 🤓 

Amber, Garret and Gwen have been gone for a week! It’s weird them not being here. I’ve been watching their pets. Maci is easy as long as there is no thunder and lightning. Billy had to move in because he took to shatting on their bed. And now that he is here I don’t want to give him back! I don’t need a third cat… But he’s… the sweeeeeetest! Such a big personality! And he is very smart. Photo dump below because he’s too cute! 

Well I think that about covers recent events. We’re about to take off on some big cool projects, so the next update should have a lot more substance than this one. I’m going to round up my kids and go get them started on a character building activity known as - weeding in the rain. 🤣 I can’t wait until I have an update on the green house and barn!  That will be an exciting reveal!