Adventures In Homesteading (Day 371)

over 1 year ago

Hello Everyone!

Recovering from exertion, The mucky muck mess of all muckiness, Effective water management, Red clover & A lone mulberry tree!

Alright, I woke up not all that long after midnight and although I could have fallen back asleep... I decided to get up and enjoy the silence instead. Of course, I am here trying to peck out my ponderous thoughts with this keyboard... instead of enjoying said silence so go figure... but at least I am making good use of the kind of peace that is only found here in the wee hours of the morning.

I am also still feeling super stiff from everything... and although I awoke to feeling less 'achy' I can tell that I have yet to completely heal up from my recent endeavors. Thankfully, I do not feel like I did yesterday when I was super frigging stiff... and there was even more overall 'tightness' to all my muscles.

In general (and aside from the stiffness) I was feeling rather wiped out... and after getting outdoors and briefly walking around... I almost immediately headed back to the camp to get off my feet. Although, I tried to 'get in motion' doing stuff again afterwards... I just could not muster the desire to do more than hike around looking at things.

Since it had rained throughout the night, the day was super muggy feeling... and yup even the places that I previously covered in straw were slippery to walk on. Then there was the entire 'muckiness' of the area that the new building is in to contend with... and there is no other way to convey it than to say that totally sucks to traverse.

Honestly, that entire area needs to be covered in gravel (or sod) because I do not think that anything short of that will be sufficient to thwart the muck. The driveway itself needs a lot more gravel also... and sadly I discovered that about three quarters of its width is downright treacherous for walking on after it rains.

To say that the project of getting the driveway fixed, the flat spot created... and the building put into place was a sort of 'silent clustercuss' would be a rather large understatement. As I have said before the weather was not on my side with that project... and it would have been so much infinitely easier (and better) had we been able to do it when the ground was nice and dry.

In other words, the months of rainy weather, the limited space, the steep terrain, the wonky driveway... and not really having the resources to get enough gravel really complicated that project to the nth degree. It is still such a mess, that in the long run.... I know that I will have to find a way to deal with the muck (and lack of gravel) before the inevitable erosion starts happening in earnest.

No complaints there or anything but yeah getting that building... and the driveway... all sorted out was like hammering a square peg through a round hole... which of course is gonna make a mess! The real challenge now, is to figure out how in the heck I am going to make that area actually useful for anything other than storage... because currently it has too many problems to do much else with it.

Part of me is still kicking myself in the butt over having impacted the land so much in that area... but ultimately I know that the wee 'impact zone' that I created is nothing compared to what most folks would have done. Another 'saving grace' in all of it, is that the changes will actually help the place due to how it helps to shed water throughout more of the property by 'irrigating' the watershed itself.

Another thing worth noting, is that I will wind up using the bulk of all the trees that were removed during the site preparation... so it is not like I am wasting good material or anything. Much of that material has already come in handy for building the chicken coop and various trellises around the camping area... so between building more trellises and building the terraces (that I mentioned in a previous entry) I will probably exhaust what remains of that large pile of timber.

Basically, there is a heck of a lot of rehab work to do in that area... and what makes me dread dealing with it is that it is time sensitive... and I dislike feeling like I have to hurry... which I do have to do... if I am going to prevent things from becoming a real mess. For the most part, I have a pretty clear plan of action in regards to what all needs to be done... and how to do it... but whoa I am in no way excited about it.

On a different note, I am unsure if I ever mentioned it before... but I finally found a fruit tree on the property and yup it is that mulberry tree near the driveway. I had known that it was a mulberry tree of some sort before... but I had thought that it was perhaps a 'false mulberry' until I was walking beneath it and saw the ground littered with mostly ripe berries.

It is a native mulberry tree also, which is pretty cool and now that I know what to look for... I have been looking for them while I am hiking around in other areas. Thus far, I have yet to spot any other ones growing anywhere... so I have been considering cutting the other trees back from the existing one so that it will get more sun and have more water available.

Another neat 'plant' that I recently noticed is a bunch of red clover (trifolium pratense) growing near the road... and the heads on them are some of the largest that I have ever seen. Even though they are not a native plant, they are still super handy to have around... because besides loving to snack on them I also like using them to fill in bare spots.

I have been somewhat slacking on it the last few days... but I have been routinely checking on the red clover patch... and trying to catch them just as the heads begin to lose their pinkish (occasionally purplish) color and turn brown so that I can save their seeds. As a side note, I am so excited about them because they are part of what I need (along with Ketucky-31 grass seed) to plant along the slope below the new building to help rapidly create some ground cover.

When I create the terraces along the slope I will be filling them in with a bunch of topsoil that was set aside during some of the excavation work. After noticing the abundance of red clover I decided that harvesting 'sod' plugs with them growing in it would be a good idea... and the plugs could then be used to rapidly establish vegetation along the slope within the topsoil added to the terraces.

It will undoubtedly be a heck of a lot of work to get that slope into the shape that it needs to be in... so that it can effectively manage the water runoff, remain mostly dry and not be prone to erosion. Something well worth noting, is that after all that rain the other day... things are not looking too bad (as far as erosion goes) along the slope... and the water runoff is actually draining to the retention area where it is supposed to go.

The main thing that I need to be watching out for is whether water is going under the building (other than from the roof runoff on the uphill side) and whether it is pooling anywhere near any of the posts/blocking that is supporting the building itself. None of the drainage is perfect per se... but at least everything has the contours... slopes and transitions that it needs to drain appropriately.

There is a bunch of shovel work that will need to be done on the tier below the building's pad... and at some point I am gonna have to buckle down... and spend a few days cleaning everything up. Unfortunately, when it came time to 'finish' that area... we could not bring the heavy machinery back down in there... due to how much of a mucky mess that it would create not just there but also for the main trail-head that leads into the rest of the property.

At first, I was bummed out about that area not being finished... but it just so happens to give me plenty of 'easy' to shovel clumps of clay... to use as the 'sealer' at the base of all the terraces that I need to build. If I wait too long the clumps will become too difficult to break apart and mold to my purposes once in place... but currently it is all way too wet (making it way too heavy) to be trying to shovel.

Well, I have meandered on enough for this entry and best get to wrapping it up. I would like to note that it was an absolute scramble but I managed to get everything (including a few groceries) covered except for a twenty-seven dollar payment that is due in a couple of days... so I can breathe slightly easier on that front today. I swear that kind of stress is a mind killer... and eventually I hope to avoid having it to start with! I hope that folks are doing well and ciao for now.