Day 136
A hazy day from all the forest fires burning nearby. While I was digging just a bit deeper to see if the flow of water down there was just a bit better, the same track came off the same side of the excavator... again. Ouch. Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to operate this machine. In my defense, I was just backing up the steepish ramp I built in an attempt to not fall into the 24ish foot deep hole I was digging. But don't worry, faithful readers, we'll get back on track as soon as possible.
In an attempt to keep the baby ducklings warm during the cool august nights here in montana, I've been staying with them in
the solar leviathan the past couple nights. The waste heat from the batteries and inverter goes a long way towards keeping them warm. Add in my body heat and a bit of
incandescent light in such a small space, and those ducks are toasty. On the downside, the leviathan is quite a ways from my plot, in almost the exact opposite direction of the excavator work I'm doing no less, and this spatial decentralization of my efforts is a bit of a drain on my efficiency. I could spend some candy on having the leviathan parked closer, but I think it makes more sense to put up with the commute temporarily and hustle towards completing my
shelter, for both the ducklings and my own sake.
During the day, I've been keeping the ducklings nearby in a place where they have access to both sun and shade as they please, and checking on them regularly to make sure they're topped off with food and water. I hear knapweed exudes niacin from its
roots, (which can slow the growth of other plants within its
root system, hence why it's considered allelopathic,) so I gave the ducklings a couple uprooted knapweeds to chew on at their leisure. I've been trying to give them access to as many different plants as possible in the hopes that they will instinctively consume a relatively nutritious diet, generally, and that's also the idea with providing them with numerous paddocks planted with perennial polycultures. Of
course, I still need to build and plant these paddocks, and until then keeping critters will be more expensive and difficult, but still hopefully worthwhile and certainly mind-focusing and motivating. Acquiring duckling-specific organic feed is high on my priority list, as the first few days and weeks are some of the most important in the development of any lifeform, and I want these ducks to be as healthy and happy as possible. Along the same lines, not much further down the list, is a duck hollow, an earth-bermed duck shelter in which they can comfortably spend the coming winter, once they feather out and can leave my nest, so to speak.
For many reasons, I'm looking forward to finishing building Siesta, and towards that goal I gathered up a decent pile of cow pies to mix together for my roof cobbery. The cob that's up there so far seems pretty dry and is still basically holding together, so far.
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