evan's ant village log

Day 183

There were some gigantic stumps in the way of where the road needed to go, but with some persistent digging I pulled them out and threw them off the edge of the cliff. The turkey leg is now complete.

When I arrived at the plateau marking the end of the turkey leg, a flock of turkeys was there to greet me. A few of them leapt from the cliff and flew a hundred feet or so where they landed in the tops of some giant ponderosa pines.

The duck of the day is Melian. Besides being a golden 300 hen, she is also one of the Maiar, the spirits of power. Taking physical form, she is the queen of the Elven kingdom of Doriath.

Day 184

Fred and Chris dumped a whole bunch of sand from Arrakis into the parking lot and driveway, and then I went down and piled it up onto the berms. Next will be to bring some topsoil down from the lab to top it all off.

I also almost finished the raspberry leg of Volcano Rd. The road goes all the way up to the saddle of raspberry rock, where it cuts through a solid rock outcropping and there stops... for now.

The duck of the day is Varda. Besides being a golden 300 hen, she is the queen of the stars. She's one of the Valar, from Valinor, the place the Elves go when they leave Middle Earth.

Day 185

Mike Oehler came to visit! He looked at my half-finished house, Siesta, and said, "I'm glad to see you're starting small. You can always add on later." He also approved of the fact that there will be windows on two sides, and of the structure being earth-integrated. He went around and looked at the other structures that folks are building here at the lab, and he offered some helpful advice. Thanks Mike! Check out undergroundhousing.com where you can buy his awesome books!

Thekla, a permie here for the innovator's event, brought loads of seeds and plants for the ants! Kai and I put some blackberries in the ground in Anarcadeah, and the other plants Thekla brought include comfrey, mint, holy basil, and pomegranate, plus more I'm probably forgetting. Thanks Thekla!

The duck of the day is Smeagol. As he wears the ring of power and is therefore invisible, he was very hard to catch.

Day 186

Sharla and I scythed and gathered up lots of mullein and sweet clover and spread it on the hugel berms all over Ava. Since there were still tons of tiny seeds in the heads of these plants, it was like a simultaneous planting and mulching. And since the very process of gathering the seedy mulch involved lots of shaking, we probably planted several thousand times as many plants as we took. How's that for sustainably stacking functions?

The time on the rental ex is up, but we're not quite done with all the things for which we need an excavator. Fortunately, Tim Barker was able to repair the Millennium Falcon, I drove Rex onto the giant trailer, and Jesse drove it all down to basecamp. Once there I got right to work finishing up those berms along the driveway and around the parking lot.

Everything just feels so very autumnal lately, what with the larches and all the other deciduous growies changing colors. Here's a little poem I wrote about this time of year:

Leaves the color of fire, nature's reminder,
First frosty whisper of winter urges haste, warns of daylight's waste,
Seasons unsympathetic towards the unprepared.

The names give ant village such a mythic quality. I love reading about it.

And my young permie kids love the photos, especially the ones with heavy equipment.

I just uploaded a video of Evan using some heavy equipment! I hope your kids like it, Matu.



It will not be the last excavating vid, be assured.

Thanks Sharla! They love it.

My son (2 years old) also loved the video! He wanted to watch it over again, and saying, "He dig, dig, dig!"

He also, when I read through Evan's posts, spots every single shot of the excavator (even when it is waaaaay off in the distance with only part of of the excavator showing), and he loves all the pictures of ducks and mounds, too .