evan's ant village log

Day 357 (part 2)

An awesome clafoutis for dessert! Like a thick blueberry pancake/pie but better!

We also filled cascarones, aka "confetti" eggs, with wildflower seeds and flower petals! Onion skin was pasted over the holes with wheat paste to seal them up!

Day 358

We had a cascarón-cracking good time up at the labs, hopefully spreading wildflower seeds all over the place!

Sharla and I got a log cut and peeled! Thanks Sharla! It's definitely easier this time of year. I'm hoping to take advantage of the flowing sap over the next few weeks and get a lot more logs peeled.

Days 359-360 (part 1)

Another log peeled. Well, mostly. It was pretty curvy so I couldn't roll it and get the last quarter peeled. With a little help it should be easy though.

I let the ducks go on a field trip to the pond, which they enjoyed thoroughly for a while until they decided to go try to eat some of the seeds I planted. I ushered them back towards their house, but on the way they found their way up onto the earth roof of the ministry. Silly ducks!

Days 359-360 (part 2)

Jim and I tried out the new well-drilling bit. It did an alright job of pulling up small rocks, but we couldn't seem to make much progress on the holes we had drilled in the draw, so we headed over to near the Abbey where there's a big hole from where dirt was pulled up to bury the Abbey, and tried drilling there.

Since the hole we started in was already maybe 8 ft deep, and we drilled down another 25 ft from there, that means we're over 30 ft deep and haven't hit rock yet. Exhausted, we quit for the day. But here's hoping we can get deeper when we pick it back up, and maybe even find water. Fingers crossed.

Day 361 (part 1)

With Kai and Sharla's help I got the rest of that curvy log peeled. And then Kai and I got to work on building fence.

This swedish natural pole fence style is pretty sweet. Kai explained that the sticks should be roasted until golden brown to make them bendy. And he's got the twisting and wrapping of them down to an art form!

Day 361 (part 2)

Fred's back! Fred's awesome! Remember Fred's thread? I'm sure he'll be posting more pictures here soon: Fred's photos from Wheaton Labs

We had a pizza feast to celebrate Fred's return. That's two feasts in one week! Yum! Thanks again Paul and Jocelyn!

Kelly Ware brought Fred, and also brought tons of plants!

Many of the plants she brought last year, like this imperial bulb, aka frutillaria, are coming up and looking great. Thanks for helping to beautify and enliven the labs, Kelly!

Day 362

We got all those plants from Kelly Ware into the ground! About half went in at basecamp and the other half went in up at the lab. A bunch of them were planted on Ava! Kelly, Fred, Sean, Sara, Kai, Sharla, and I all worked together to get them planted, watered, and mulched. Kelly also shared lots of her cover crop seeds and spread them all over the place. Thanks again Kelly for all the fabulous flora and thanks everybody for helping to get it all planted!

Kai and I made a little more progress on the fence too. We better finish fencing the perimeter of Ava soon if we want all these plants to not get munched by deer.

evan l pierce wrote:Day 11

The calf panels alone won't be tall enough to keep out deer, but I reckon I'll start planting anyway, and maybe I'll find the time to make the fence taller before my seedlings start coming up.

Hi Evan. I am obviously a few months behind in reading your log, but thought to tell you something that has proved so useful to me. A most effective way to keep deer away from your produce or orchard is with fish gut strung from pole to pole. It is invisible to the deer, and they try walk there, and feel it, and it unnerves them. I first read this on Mother Earth News and then tried it because local antelope were eating my young kale plants. I have kudu and eland here that can stand jump 5 foot [and higher] fencing. Never after stringing the fish gut have I lost my plants to them again like that.

Thanks Chelle. We were considering stringing some fishing line or maybe something like that as a temporary measure across a part of the fenceline that we'll need to take down to get the excavator in, and maybe also across some of the gateways so that we have a complete perimeter even as we work on building the gates. Seems like it will be an easy temporary fix, but ultimately I think the aesthetic of our all-wood fence will be really nice and worth the extra effort.

Day 363

Hans had sent a canthook to ant village a while back, which Jesse crafted a wooden handle for. Jesse reminded me about this tool, which is super useful for rolling even the giant and curvy logs I'm peeling. Thanks Hans for sending that canthook! And thanks Jesse for making the handle!

Got another log peeled, and Kai got some more fence put together. Spring is springing right along!

Day 364

Felled a big doug fir in western Avalon that was leaning towards the fence line. We wanted to make sure it didn't fall on the fence, and it was casting a lot of shade in Avalon, so we decided it had to go before we built the fence along there. It'll make a couple pretty sizeable posts or beams once peeled.

Amazing feast day at basecamp! Applewood-smoked beef, grilled zucchini and squash, crock-potted beef, braided bread, mashed potatoes, carrot salad, cinnamon rolls, banana bread, and more! Thanks for the feed, Paul and Jocelyn!