a couple of pics

Cool boulders to protect the new hydrant in front of the berm shed. #usingthesurplus #problemisthesolution #gotrocks (um, didn't mean it *that* way! )

The bucket is upside-down in case of freezing at night that could crack the bucket if there's water in it.

It's the elusive mermoose - captured in pfeffernuss form!!

(Now if they just come off the pan in one piece!)

Some times the snow melt works in mysterious ways!

Spring is happening - even in Montana!

The first pic is of a two gallon bucket filled 2/3rds full of sunchokes. This was one plant cluster from the berms around the turtle lot.

The second are (I think) dwarf Siberian irises. These were a little potted plant from the grocery store we bought to have fresh flowers in the house, then when the blooms were done, I planted them out in a hugel berm.

The third pic was a gift that I found on the path between the north end of the house and a hugel berm. They must have rolled (or were dislodged by a critter) out of the side of the berm!

Our hugel berms are still largely dormant, but with some sprouts coming to life!

Sooo much going on!

Just a quick upload of willow feeder #3 in the works thanks to Bear Paw, Fred, Cliff and family,  Lane, Jesse (not Jesse Grimes), and Tuesday.

I think the camera lens on my old phone is scratched...though in the interest of some photos are better than none, here are a few shots from last month.

When I was harvesting edible flowers, one was occupied, so I decided to leave that one be.

Note that the auditorium was a bit junky because we were still cleaning up after the PDC and ATC workshops there AND Cliff was working on finishing the couch balcony railing.

We have an albino wild turkey roaming about base camp.

I was shooing them out of our paddock (I want to discourage that idea before it becomes a habit!) and tried to snap a pic, though it was hard to do.

Sometimes your garden will grow things other than vegetables, they shouldn't be dissuaded rather encouraged. It might take a different person to harvest protein but it often grows in the same garden.

Rick Howd wrote:Sometimes your garden will grow things other than vegetables, they shouldn't be dissuaded rather encouraged. It might take a different person to harvest protein but it often grows in the same garden.

We used to put our kitchen scraps on the hillside in view of the kitchen window over the kitchen sink and we took to calling that window "turkey TV." Though as we were attempting to plant and mulch and grow things on the 10- to 12-foot tall hugel berms on the other side of the house, the turkeys were a HUGE problem.

They loved to walk along the top of the berms, and since they prefer not to fly, the way they dismounted the berms was to "ski" down the sides, pushing all the mulch, dirt and seeds down the side of the hugelkultur with them. Their feet are LARGE. My feet are a woman's US size 10 or 11 and their feet are almost as long as mine! After the hugels were built, I started putting the kitchen scraps under mulch in the garden beds around the house to improve the very poor, sandy soil there. The turkeys were so used to eating our kitchen scraps that they would find them under the mulch and dig them out, spraying the scraps, mulch and dirt more than 10 feet behind them! Talk about destructive! Let alone all the pea seeds, baby plants and sprouts they devour.

Here at base camp we have about 20 acres, and we have one paddock, about two acres, fenced in so far, which is to protect a large portion of our tall hugelkultur berms. Once we have enough forage, and more paddocks, we will be housing chickens in the paddocks, eventually maybe pigs, or other critters, too. We're still building soil and forage and fences though. It's a painstaking process that doesn't need the destruction of wildlife just now. Of course the chipmunks, squirrels, wood rats, rabbits, and various insects do their fair share of damage even though we've mostly kept the deer and turkeys out!

We are happy to have the wild turkeys here and roaming the rest of the acreage - just not in our one and only still under development paddock. Some of us are happy to eat them, too, though there are issues with hunting permits and such that I usually leave to others.

The rocket kiln with wood stacked behind it in base camp's berm shed getting ready for the RMH jamboree that starts this Friday!