Adventures In Homesteading (Day 37)

Hello Everyone!

Failed wound repair, Eyeing the road for runoff solutions, Another gulch, I do have good neighbors too & Tidying up the temporary dog yard!

Alright, I am running about forty-five minutes behind schedule with my writing routine... and have yet to do my late day chores... or feed the critters... so I am unsure just how much that I will get spelled out here. It has been another super long day given that I yet again woke at four-thirty in the morning... and instantly began my day... but at least I squeezed in a nice nap this afternoon.

Early this morning, I was super bummed (and more than a little panicked) to see that during the night my boy dog licked all the super glue off of the wound on his leg that I had so painstakingly sealed up. Having used that technique countless times on the dogs (and even myself) over the years I never had that happen before... so maybe the glue that I got was not all that good or something.

Thankfully he is not running a fever, there is no swelling and no discharge... but given the heat, humidity and general 'dirtiness' of our current living conditions... I do not want to count on that remaining the case. In short I am now scrambling to find the money to get him to a veterinarian as soon as possible... because the cut is so deep that I can see his muscle which sounds bad but at least none of the muscle got damaged... and it is just the skin.

Anyways, once the sun was fully up I hiked out to the road... yet again... to see if I could figure out a way to perhaps get the runoff water that flows down it to flow onto this property... before it hits that neighbor's drainage system. Not to get too caught up in the details or anything... but I think that what needs to happen is that I need to try to get the water moving off the road (maybe into a D-box) at the furthest uphill point... then send it down one of my numerous gulches.

I do not know if I mentioned it in yesterday's entry... but once I found out where that southern boundary line is... I also discovered that I have a whole other big gulch that I previously thought was on a neighbor's land. That particular gulch is kind of interesting (and challenging) because given all the trash that is in it... I am pretty sure that it gets runoff water from the road during intense rain events.

The challenging part to that is that the water might be 'feeding' stuff that is growing in those folks yard... and I am hesitant to fiddle with it given that it might affect them somehow. I know that is way more consideration than most folks give to things like that... but that is just how I am wired... and I would feel awful if my actions somehow negatively impacted some of my good neighbors.

It is worth noting that I do have some good neighbors around here... and although I have focused on the bad neighbors in these entries... I have not mentioned the good ones very much. For instance today that fella that has been helping me do supply runs, get water from the spring (and even took me to that lake to go swimming) dropped me of a bag of vegetables (along with a few apples) from their garden!

I gotta say that I wolfed down most of the small (cherry) tomatoes that he brought me in no time flat... and am really looking forward to seeing if the seeds that I planted from them start growing. He had said that they were 'volunteer' tomatoes that keep coming back every year... so that gives me a lot of hope that either late this year or sometime next year that I will have some of my own.

On a different note. I did not do much in the way of physical labor today aside from setting up a new clothes line near the temporary dog yard... so that I could hang up the blankets that I had for the dogs in their tent. During all that rain the blankets had gotten quite mucky... and since it is in the shade they had not dried out at all... and had begun to smell funky as hell.

Of course, I also raked up all the wet straw from the dog yard... and got some fresh straw laid down... before hauling the old straw to that area where I made that compost mound the other week. As far as the compost mound goes... I am still unsure if I want to keep it at that location... but I need to figure it out soon because the chickens keep getting in it and spreading it all over the place.

One last thing worth noting before I wrap this entry up, is that there is still water standing in that large new hole that I dug at the spring site... and since it has not rained in several days... I am taking that as a really good sign that I am on the right track. Given that I expect it to take a very long time (maybe a few years) before I can actually 'tickle' some flowing water up out of the ground there... I am super stoked that the standing water is remaining there so long!

Well, I think that is all the words that I have in me for this entry... and since the sun is rapidly setting I need to get this all edited and posted so that I can get my late day chores done. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.

I found some morning glories by the road!

Another morning glory flower!

I found these too late to be sure but I think they are oyster mushrooms!

I had to look this tree up but it is a Red Mulberry!

The standing water at the spring site!

The bag of produce that good neighbor gave me!

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All content found in this post is mine!