evan's ant village log

Day 65

Gathered some more stone so that the masonic master, the castle-crafting cardinal, the hardscaping hero, the rock god Devin Devine, will have some material to play with when he arrives, (and hopefully he won't stone me to death with it.)

Also put together a bit of the fence around Hamelot, and got interviewed by some kinda tv crew from the History channel maybe, (don't know if anything will come of it, but I hope I didn't sound or look too stupid, and hopefully the layers of dirt on my skin will just look like a tan on camera.)

And got a chance to talk with Zach Weiss about my projects. It was awesome to get some advice and help from a Holzerian agro-ecologist. Among his words of wisdom were that analysis paralysis is not my friend, and work with the materials I have. So my ideas for my shelter have changed yet again, and are kind of a hybrid of a lot of the things I've already said, but I won't explain exactly how until I actually do it. Suffice to say it'll be sweet.

James has been super helpful, and so I tried to help return the favor just a bit today by helping him help his aunt move. It was kind of amazing how much stuff she had; one storage unit wasn't enough. But ants gotta help aunts out.

I couldn't help but notice that the "lil hedgehog bug" looks a lot like one of the stages of life of the Mexican bean beetle. If that's the case, I'd squish it or feed it to a chicken!

Day 66

The fence around Hamelot is coming along. I think I might actually finish it before Sir Chops arrives. But if not, it'll definitely be close enough by then that I'll be able to temporarily cover the gaps with the calf panels I haven't integrated yet.

Remember when I planted those taters back on Day 7? Well they're finally coming up. It's nice to wake up and see my potatoes growing just a few feet away from where I sleep.

This little mouse is just one of the dozens that Fred has been gently evicting from wofati 0.7 over the past few weeks. All he wanted was to munch on some peanut butter, but then he got stuck in a bucket and Fred deported him to a strange and distant land.

Day 67

James and I cut, limbed, and skidded some logs for the berm shed today. The support poles will need to be at least 14' tall and at least 10" in diameter at the base, so we were grabbing some big ones.

So many plants are flowering right now, and some are setting fruit. I've been doing my best to keep up with taking photos of the new plants as the seasons change, and I've got quite a backlog still to be released, but I'm sure I've missed some ephemerals already. It seems like I see new species every day!

Day 68

Today I made a lot of progress on the fence around Hamelot. No pics of that today, but check out all these plants!

The majority of trees on the labs are either doug firs, ponderosa pines, or tamaracks/larches, but recently I saw a decently sized lodgepole pine. Their needles aren't as long as the ponderosa's.

Not sure what the other two plants are, yet. Fred's really good about identifying most of the species he photographs before posting them, but I'm totally not, so my pictures are usually less educational. I am, however, building up quite the catalogue of existing species for my own records, and when I find the time I intend to go through and identify them. And I can't say enough how much I appreciate the lovely permies who take the time to try and identify the species pictured in this thread. It's gonna make going back and filling in the missing info so easy! Thanks y'all!

thanks for the posts, photos, and photos of posts.
hope you are having fun.

Day 69

Curtis arrived yesterday afternoon and this morning he hiked up to the lab from basecamp and offered his assistance as a gapper. He got right to work hauling saplings and then limbing them up for the fence. With Curtis' and James' help I made loads of progress on Hamelot. Two posts, two panels, two gates, and just about a thousand filler poles to go. Shouldn't take much time at all.

Remember those mysterious flowers from yesterday? Well, they also come in purple.

My farm grate hangs from a Douglas fir tree beside my driveway. It hangs from hinge pins which screw into the tree like lag bolts. The sides of a tree do not grow upwards only outwards therefore as long as you leave enough space for the bark to expand over the bolt it doesn't change the hang of the gate. If you have to screw the pins out to accommodate growth it only moves the gate toward the latch. Therefor I highly recommend using a tree for a gate post it never sags.

Good on you for using bitcoin Evan. It's a way to get donations without using soulless corporations like paypal and so forth.