Weekly Update: 6.3.23
It's been a hot, slogging week -- and it's just now June! We have been waking up with the sun in order to get plenty of work done before it gets unbearably hot. We have also found ourselves making excuses to stay out of the tent at night until it cools off inside -- something that takes longer than we had hoped it would.
The big event of the week came on Wednesday when we had the electric run to our portable office and our bunkhouse site. We hired Mike Davis to do the work. He was recommended by his brother David Davis, who installed our driveway entrance. We didn't really need electric run to the bunkhouse yet, but it was more affordable to pay the electrician to come out with his digging rig once rather than twice. The work took a better part of the day, as Davis also filled in some old trenches left from where we had previously planned to run our electricity.
While he was working, Davis commented on how rocky our soil is here. I told him, having owned property in Boone County, Arkansas, we are thrilled that we have dirt with the rocks. Still, the work left a rocky mess outside the bunkhouse and office, so clean up is another bullet point on our to-do list. But for now, we are so thankful to have our refrigerator and freezer plugged in properly. We have been running them off of appliance extension cords, which was far from ideal. Plus, we now have more outlets available for our construction project -- something we are already enjoying.
At our request, Davis left a big hole right outside the office so we could hook into our water lines there. We have an old ice maker from when the building was an espresso shop, and once we run water into the office, we will have all the ice we could want. In this heat, endless ice is something I am very much looking forward to.
Another piece of excitement came Thursday when we got a new pressure tank for our well house. Not long after having our well installed last fall, our water started smelling like sulfur. It tasted fine, but there is nothing like taking the lid off your water bottle and smelling -- stink. We finally talked to our well company, and they suggested a different sort of pressure tank. The water smelled better immediately, so we are hopeful the problem is resolved. Before leaving they had to shock the well with chlorine due to the work they were doing, so now the water tastes like bleach. Yuck. But, at least it's clean and hopefully we have tasty, stink-free water to look forward to.
We stayed busy the rest of the week, mostly working in the garden and building site. Digging holes has been the priority for both jobs, and the rocks here don't make it easy.
It's a test in perseverance for sure. Bonnie-Jean and Grace have both taken turns with the digging. I've been working on more organizational tasks -- mapping out our foundation on SketchUp, fine-tuning all of our measurements, preparing to order the supplies. On Friday our dad used the tractor to work on leveling the site for the pool. There were so many rocks that he had to scrape a bit, then he had to stop while we moved the unearthed pile of rocks. We repeated this routine for half the day, but thankfully we made good progress toward a level pool pad.
Aside from rocks and heat, the pests have been out in high form this week. The flies are making us almost batty. We clean our porch daily and deep clean it often, but the flies still congregate there in droves. Every time anyone opens the tent door, several flies swarm in, which makes swatting flies in the tent an almost full-time job. We tried some fancy-looking fly paper, but they only worked if a fly happened to land on them. So, we ordered some stink traps to see of those help.
The wasp problem we have has also continued to grow. We knocked down several nests on our tent this week. We have tried some essential oil blends that are supposed to deter them -- peppermint and geranium, but we can't tell so far if it is helping. Our refillable traps haven't been working, so we are going to try a new type of wasp bate to see if that helps.
Once the sun goes down, then the plague of beetles begins. We think they are attracted by our lights. It's so bad, once we get settled inside the tent, no one wants to venture outside, as the beetles fly around the porch and dive onto people's heads who walk by. They seem to particularly like people with long hair. Every morning we have to clean them out of anything stored on the porch -- laundry baskets, totes of drinks, bowls of fruit.
And for the first time this season, I got mosquito bit while playing guitar one evening this week. I hadn't seen any mosquitos yet, but they are definitely out now. I guess it's time to hang the mosquito traps we ordered earlier this spring.
As annoying as the bugs and heat have been, it's nice to be living in a place literally buzzing with life. The wildflowers are blooming everywhere, with each singing its siren song to whatever fauna hear its call. Our favorite such creature so far might be the Snowberry Clearwing moth, which mimics a bumblebee in its appearance, but has clear, hummingbird-like wings.
Along with all our busyness, we have been starting work early enough that we can quit during the warmest part of the afternoon. We have used this downtime to read, work on personal projects, blog (like I'm doing right now), and even take some walks in the cool of the woods. Bonnie-Jean took our nieces and nephew for a tree identification walk one afternoon, and she was thrilled to find abundant sassafras growing along with some other beautiful specimens.
Grace took some time to photograph some of the feathered inhabitants of our homestead. She caught our Red-Headed Woodpecker that lives in a dead tree just down the hill from our campsite. She also captured some Goldfinches bathing in the spring, and a Northern Parula resting in some willow.
It was a productive and enjoyable week. It feels good at the end of the day to see what we have accomplished, to see things getting better, to see ourselves moving forward. Nothing ever is as simple or as quick as we hope, but I think we are getting used to it. We are embracing the process, learning as we go, and having fun -- even while we are working harder than perhaps we ever have before. It's a good life, and I am so thankful for it.
