dirt – The Hermits' Rest

Can you dig it?

Yes, I can. Today a lot got done around the house, and some of it was by me! I can dig that. I managed to go to the #1 Cameron meeting place, the bakery, and not be late. That’s because I mis-remembered the meeting time. So I got to talk to all the employees and other friends while I waited for Mike and Martha. We discussed our upcoming trip to Ruidoso (for longer this time).

My view as I waited. There’s a kid quietly playing in the kid area. A nice change of pace.

I steeled myself to be cheerful and positive as I did all the errands I was too slothful to do last week. I paid more for gas today than I ever have in my life. For some reason that inspired me to give the random sad-looking person sitting outside the station the change from buying my soda. Maybe it balanced out my irritation at the gas prices.

The first cheerful sight today was three Great Egrets all at once. That’s unusual here.

On my way to Tractor Supply to get animal feed in Rockdale, I passed all my favorite political candidates and waved. I also noted yard signs and a billboard. Wow! That cheered me up enough to enjoy the folks at Tractor Supply even when I had to wait to get loading help (I have tweaked my back). I got a shirt that says “Positive Vibes” to commemorate my improved mood. ) I could dig that, too!

Next I headed to the pharmacy, because I couldn’t drag myself over there to pick up a prescription before it expired. The bonus was my expensive prescription my insurance won’t pay was also ready. AND they had time to vaccinate me for flu and COVID, which we elders need. The new pharmacist is a very sweet young man who’s fun to talk to. He has a button earring. It’s so cute. I’m glad one of the new pharmacists is nice, since my favorite one finally escaped (I’m going into all this detail to show I made an effort to be a good influence in the world today.)

There was actual digging at the ranch today! The next phase of our water retention setup got into motion. It was great to see our ancient backhoe finally fixed and back at work! It’s more than a lawn ornament!

The dirt has to be dug away to build the foundation for the water tank next to the house, as well as pumps and filters. It was interesting to be reminded just how much dirt we brought in to create our foundation and get the drainage right. The black at the bottom of the reddish fill is the black land clay.

The white pipe is the sewer line that must move.

All went well with the digging except the sewer line out of our bathrooms got nicked. It was going to have to be moved anyway, it turns out. I’m relieved to report it’s fixed enough to work until the line gets moved into its new position.

There’s a lot of precise measurement required to do all the digging correctly, and I’m really impressed that the huge machine can be made to do such fine work. We’re lucky to have a resident tractor ballet expert at our house!He can dig it, very well!

What did Lee and I do during all the digging? We’ve been watching Lee’s favorite YouTube channel, which is a guy in Canada who does bookbinding. (Find the videos under Four Keys Book Arts.) What a complex process that is! The guy has a very pleasant demeanor, so calm and relaxed that you almost miss his puns.

Three books the guy bound for the author Andy Weir. The video series was called Project Hail Andy.

My favorite parts are when he does paper marbling and leather tooling, but it’s all more interesting than you might expect. I do think it’s funny that we’ve turned into people who spend their weekends watching stuff like this, but it’s certainly less stressful than the news.

And I can dig that!

Dirt. Wet Dirt. Dry Soon.

Well, there’s no longer a stream flowing through the front of my property. The water company finally found out about our little oasis and fixed the broken water line. I am glad for their sake.

Goldie found it a great opportunity to bark. Good thing I was not recording today.

We enjoyed watching them work. My favorite part was when they dug up the very wet dirt to get to the broken pipe. The dirt was so much warmer than the air that it steamed! Have I mentioned we have had a cold snap? There was frost this morning.

I think you can see steam if you enlarge it. Pretty dirt, though!

They dug and dug and it sure was wet.

I didn’t see this, but I heard they threaded the new pipe through the old pipe, which seemed like a smart idea to me. Then, boom, they cleaned up. It really looks good. Our soil in this part of the ranch is sure pretty, if a bit on the clay side (that’s ok, we also have sand and loam).

I went and checked, and yep, no water is flowing into the usual spot the stream starts from. Now it will only flow between now and spring when it rains. Poor little wild animals will have to drink out of the ponds. I guess I worry about them needlessly, since the ponds didn’t dry up this year after they got enlarged last year.

Pitching in to Get Apache His New House

After taking a few days off for other stuff, we’re back in the final stretches of finishing the new horse pens over at our covered shipping container at the Hermits’ Rest. While I haven’t done the heavy digging or lifting, I’ve contributed more than the dogs have.

Why work, when you can relax beside the new giant porch fan?

Humans have been quite busy, though. Yesterday the trench was dug (by hand!) and the water lines put in for the two horse troughs and a sink/horse washing station. Doesn’t that sound fancy? No, I will not wash the horse in a sink; those are two separate things.

My contribution was laying the water line in the trench.

Once the water lines were in, it was time to move some dirt. The idea is that the ground should slope away from the shipping container, so that no pools of water will form if it rains hard from the south, or an enthusiastic drinker splashes a lot. So, more dirt was needed. Where did it come from?

The dogs won’t have their hill to climb much longer.

There’s a reason for making that small pond up by our garage. We needed to move some dirt and add it to low spots, and this stuff does the job. It’s certainly pretty soil, but rather clay-filled. Maybe that way it will shed water.

Goldie helped, when not trying to make friends with cattle.

At one point there were three supervisors and one heavy equipment operator, though in my defense, I had done some piddly little helpful things. Nonetheless, it was fun to watch the attempts at smoothing out those clay clods. And it was cool to see nothing under that shelter for the first time in many years!

While this was going on, and while I wasn’t off horsing around, I did things that I could do. For one, I picked up a bunch of horse and donkey poop out of the pen where the equines currently spent much of their day, and brought it over to mix with some chicken poop compost to make some fine fertilizer for plants Kathleen is going to plant.

Bucket o’ poop, which was bigger before I drove it over. Apparently, it settled. Harvey did NOT help.

The other stuff I did was small, but saved some time for our tractor operator. I picked up a lot of the little pieces left over from the fencing rails. Some of it can be recycled into pieces of gates and such, and I have a feeling even the little things will be useful someday, somewhere. This was the second time I picked up scrap, and I brilliantly noted it was easier to put them in a wheelbarrow than to carry pieces in my hands. Guess what? That stuff gets hot in the sun.

And I picked up the larger pieces of rock and concrete that were hanging around the area, causing us to trip, or potentially bruising a horse hoof. They will be used in the planters, as well.

I was impressed my arms still worked after picking up all the hay on Sunday, but I was only a little sore. I even made my back feel better by riding Apache a bit, which was stalled by an unfortunate encounter with a moving utility vehicle. Apache thought it was Evil Personified. Sigh, all my fault, too. I’d forgotten there was someone down the race moving cattle. At least I enjoyed finding nature stuff to enjoy over by the new pens.

Mockingbird with bug in its mouth, photobombed by another bird (top right)

BUT. Through everything, through the rain, the heavy lifting, the horse challenges, and even some work shit that’s about to go down, I’m doing remarkably well. I did just knock on a wood product after typing that, though it was a piece of petrified wood.

Have a fun day. I plan to.

What’s Digging Up Dirt around Your Place (or a load of bull and dillo dirt)

Perhaps my title is better than this post will come out to be, but this points out to me that I need to stop trying to write about two things in one post, just to not appear to be blogging crazed.

Bull, Big Load

Yesterday, Vlassic and I went to feed the horses after work. He was happy, because I gave him his yummy heartworm pill, so we had a nice time on our walk. I looked up and said hi to Apache, then turned to say hi to Spice and Lakota, when something moved in the holding pen. WHOA. It was big.

Yep, there was a bull I’d never seen before. He was, to say the least, beefy, quite a load of bull. I was like, uh oh, he probably won’t like me going around messing near him. I could see that he’d been upset and dug the dirt and mud up in the pen. So I said hi.

I went ahead and fed the horses. Every time I walked by the pen, the bull followed me. It occurred to me he might be a NICE bull. When Vlassic went up to him and they just sniffed each other, I was pretty confident.

I got him a bit of fresh hay, and he walked right up and took some out of my hand! Then he poked the water tub. It was empty. Ah, someone is thirsty. As I filled the water tub, I checked out his ear tags. It appeared he was an All American bull.

Here you can see he has TWO labeled ear tags. And a nose ring. Obviously he is used to being handled.

We chatted for a while as he ate and drank, and he seemed happy to hang out with me. That’s obviously someone’s former show bull or something. And wow, he sure has big feet. I wondered why he suddenly was in the pen, all by himself. As we know, I am NOT a part of the cattle operations, but I still wondered.

As we walked by, the people who would have the answers happened to drive up. I said I gave that All American bull some hay. They laughed and said that is actually his name! He had just been brought over, and probably just shoved in the pen and left alone. No wonder he was lonely and craving company, poor guy!

When we got back, Vlassic had to tell Gracie Lou ALL about his adventures with the gargantuan being. Or at least I prefer to think so.

I’m hoping All American has been led to his harem by the time I get to feed horses today. I look forward to some very pretty golden calves in the fall!

Dillo in the Dirt

And now for another mess. When I looked outside this morning, a part of the field in front of the house looked suspiciously blackened. What could that have been? I hoped it wasn’t hogs. I was at an angle to where I couldn’t see exactly what was going on.

We went out on the porch later, and could see that there wasn’t massive upheaval, like hogs would create. But there was definitely a disturbance in the dirt.

After my morning meetings, I headed out to inspect in person. DANG. It looked like a wild pack of armadillos had come through and feasted on something.

That’s way more concentrated than the usual armadillo holes.

I have my suspicions that the delicacy is whatever is making tell-tale piles of castings all over the property. Earthworms or grubs are my guesses. In any case, the feeding frenzy has done a great job of aerating the soil.

Thanks, dillos!

Now It’s Chicken Heaven

Today Chris and his dad did a lot of work on a new water line for the chicken coop and new barn area. That required digging a trench.

Chickens like freshly dug dirt, a lot. Not only is it fun to explore, it has new and exciting bugs in it.

Carlton wanted to help. the blue stuff is the future water line.

Every time I checked on them today, they were all excitedly climbing around.

One good thing about the water being cut off is that I had to fill the chicken water in the garage. That gave me a chance to scrub the water dishes. I think they liked it.

Like the chickens, Rip and the new heifers also explored their new territory a lot. The other bull calves ate and ate. Eventually the new gals figured out where the cubes are and came up to the pen, but it was too dark for a photo. But I got portraits.