We’re about to begin Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Set in the year 2454, the Earth of the Terra Ignota quartet has seen several centuries of near-total peace and prosperity.
They aren’t going in yet, hopefully slowly over the next week, still need to harden off my starts, but didn’t want to be left with nothing for options either....
Having never owned a house or really had a yard of my own, I got pretty excited and decided to do some ad-hoc landscaping. Built some raised beds for vegetables, and just laying in some organic shaped in-ground beds for low water decorative plants. Gonna fill the rest in with gravel. Any pointers?
It's been such an active season, which feels really wonderful.
We've finished cleaning up the West side of the house, allocating last year's compost. We also built framing for, sewed, and hung custom shade sails that make the house cooler -- summer is officially here in the high desert -- as well as which make that previously underutilized space another communal/hosting/patio type area just by virtue of being there and creating spacial separation.
My gardens are doing okay, something keeps eating my potato plants' leaves. I thought the birds that nest in the honey mesquite tree at first, but it keeps happening despite the chicken wire I've hung over the infiltration basin. My hunch is some insect, though I've yet to see the culprit in action. My white, black, and violet sages I replanted into the infiltration basin are doing great, though, as are the green onions and garlic I planted. Our nopales are slowly coming back, also, now that we've dug them infiltration basins and moved them to the shade of one of our mesquite trees.
We now have a water storage tank, a critical step in enabling us to get bigger livestock. It creates water resilience if the power goes down and our well pump doesn't work, and enables us to take some pressure off of our aquifers for minor irrigation projects.
A straw bale and adobe bunk house for guests and guest bathrooms are in the works, which will add to our capacity for hosting. A good thing, since we're grateful to be booked with visitors and loved ones from now until January.
We're planting five new trees to attract pollinators, some of our date palms are fruiting (despite being too immature to eat this year), and the infiltration basins on the North side of the property that were on hold are in progress again.
Our broody hen got confused when I moved her to her own coop the first time and abandoned her first clutch (that was my fault) but has successfully been sitting in the broody coop on a fresh clutch for a week now, so we're expecting teeny cluckers soon!
There are other projects that are set to begin soon, as well, but I'll have to update on those later on!
A reminder that if you ever want to support what we're doing here at the ranch, my Kofi directly funds projects like these and contains some sustainable goodies and unique art in return 🤍
@evan to be honest I’ve never looked closely to see. Most of the plant is toxic and fruit only edible when fully ripe so I’ve never tried it. I leave it for the wildlife.
@IcooIey fair enough! I've read about them but never eaten them. I guess the ripe fruit are not poisonous. I've read a couple of accounts that they used to be a summer fruit beloved by children. Anyway, glad you're staying safe!
Monday morning trail run had an unexpected "private land" sign half mile down one of the trails. Never fear, I've been practicing bushwhacking for years! #TrailRunning#mushrooms#salamander#bear
#CyngorCaerffili#CaerphillyCouncil sent this as part of their usually 'Newsline' update. Sounds great doesn't it? Except the first they thing did this morning was send a lawnmower man down to completely obliterate all the #WildFlowers growing in the wild area at the bottom of our bank. It's literally cut so low I can see bare earth. 🤦♂️ #NatureIsntNeat#NoMowMay
(You may need to click on the photo to see all of it).
Went to a town called Sutton’s Bay in Michigan, USA this last weekend. Definitely solar Punk leaning. Solar: a lot of people drive EVs, bike paths throughout the town and connecting other local towns, rain gardens are interspersed throughout the town, some business stops nearby from the local intercity bus network. Punk:...
Daikon goes boom. Pak choi is on the way up with it. Gotta solve my soil issues before I put these down. Speaking of soil issues, I probably gotta start over on my squash bed. Nothing looks too happy in there and instead of watching it die a slow death, I’m just gonna direct sow everything after I get some amendments in with...
