Adventures In Homesteading (Day 57-59)

Hello Everyone!

So long stumps, A big rain event, The enigma of the sand layer, The gravity-fed holding tank is finally full & Dastardly bills!

Alright, it has been a few days since I was able to make time to do any writing... which has mainly been a combination of bad weather... and being too wiped out each day to alter my schedule to accommodate it. Mostly though, the timing of the thunderstorms rolling in... and me needing to stay near the dogs during that time... and throughout the ensuing storm... just takes precedence over everything else.

It has been a busy few days.. and I am super stoked that I finally got those two tree stumps removed from the main spring development site. I will not recap what all that entailed... but suffice suffice it to say that neither tree's taproot... was a match for my 'root axe' and axe-wielding capabilities.

The following day a monster of a rain event occurred also... and whoa I dunno if it was the amount of rain... or the lack of tree stumps soaking up water... but there was way more water in the pools than there has been before. At this stage of things, it is looking like all I need to do is a small amount of digging between two of the pools... and then it is time to fill the entire cavity in with gravel.

I have yet to decide on what kind of gravel that I am going to use... or if I am going to use some bentonite clay beforehand... but whichever route I take I want to do it soon. The reason for the sense of urgency with the next phase... is now that I know that I can hold water in that area... I want to shield it from the sun and help ensure that it all stays as damp as possible.

Anyways, I did not work on the cellar hole or the earth bridge today... but I sure dove into it all with real gusto a few days ago... and got the bridge a few inches taller. As for the cellar hole, I am waiting for it to dry out some... before I begin exploring more of that sand layer that is in the hole (not the trench) at the top of the larger hole.

Finding that layer of sand was really interesting considering just how deep down it goes... and how I did not find any other similar sand layers while digging the rest of the hole. It is quite obvious from looking at it all that a lot of water has flowed through that layer in the past... and I think that if I removed the pile of brush just above it in the gulch... that I would find that vein of sand continuing uphill from where I first located it at.

All in all, my projects are progressing quite well... and now that the gravity-fed water system's holding tank is full... I have even been able to begin enjoying the conveniences provided by having some pressurized water. Just today I emptied out my white fifty gallon barrel (the one I tend to wash things in) and was able to get it setup downhill... so that I could stand in it and take cold showers... or fill it up to take a dunk in it during the heat of the day.

Being on a site without water has proven to be challenging in many ways... but now that I have been able to collect a good amount of it 'the stress' of having only drinking water on hand... has been largely alleviated. In other words, I finally feel like water is not quite as much of a precious commodity as it was for my first many weeks here.

In other news I found out that my electric service has a thirty dollar fee each month... and everything after that is what I am paying per KWh (kilowatt per hour) which was a huge relief. If all my math 'checks out' the service itself is actually pretty cheap... because I am only paying around seven cents per KWh.

Well, I am going to wrap this up... and painstakingly get these images uploaded over my throttled data connection! My frigging phone bill is due today but I am at odds over keeping my current plan... or reverting to the one that is ten dollars cheaper... so that I might have enough funds to also pay my electric bill... which yup is also due!

I hope that everyone is doing well. Ciao for now.