Such a Dirt Bag!

So I got an e-mail this morning from a Tiny House blogger and he was talking about Earth Bag houses!  You tamp earth (the clayish type) into poly bags (kind' like sand bags) and stack them for your walls.  You put barbed wire between the courses to keep them from sliding and when you're done, you plaster them to seal it all and smooth it out!  It's a LITTLE more complicated than that, BUT......... It costs about $11 a square foot to build one of these as opposed to $100 a square foot to build a "stick built" house!  It's a pretty awsome house when it's done.  Quiet, solid and insulated!  Now to talk the hubby into considering such a thing.  I could see myself living in a cluster of connected round rooms.  I could soooooo see this!  I'm hyped!

Here's a link to an instructable if you want to see what I'm talking about: click here

Back at it!

Wow! It's been a long time since I posted last.  A lot has happened!  We finished the shed.  It's closed up nice and tight and the last few times we went out to the farm there were no mice in the traps!!!!  We'll see what spring shows.  I'm getting the itch and am gearing up to plant seeds for the garden.  Still trying new things and this year will be no different.  I haven't quite got the gardening thing down yet.  It's hard when you can only weed once a week, so you have to outsmart the weeds instead of out muscle them!  Lots of newspaper going to be used as mulch this year.  Yet another experiment.
We have to get out there for the first time this spring and prune the hundred and some apple trees.  That makes for a rough day.  By the end of the orchard, my cutting hand is pretty tired!  Pruning marks the opening of farming season and I'm looking forward to it again!
Did you notice a new look to my blog?  My daughter is getting into graphic design and web design and she did some work on it yesterday.  I think it turned out pretty nice!  Thank you, Rhyah!

Jeff 2 Mice 2

Well, it's a slow hunt, but Jeff has gotten two mice now.  Amazing how when he tells the story, his chest seems bigger!!!  Last weekend, when he closed the hood of the tractor to pull it out of the shed, a mouse dropped to the floor from the engine compartment.  Jeff gave it a kick as it ran and it ducked under the plywood ramp at the doorway.  Jeff pulled the tractor out of the shed and went about hooking things up.  During this time, one of the dogs was sniffing and digging at the ramp.  Duh!  The mouse ran under there!  The insistent digging continued for so long, I pulled the ramp aside to find.......a flat mouse!  He ran for cover, only to be squished by the tractor's weight!!!! Jeff 1 Mice 2.
This weekend Jeff went to the farm alone.  He had his traps loaded and set and when he checked, one was sprung but no mouse was in it!  But there was a dead mouse under the tractor!  Jeff 2 Mice 2.  I don't know what happens in that shed when we're not there, but it's weird.  I'll be glad when all the holes are closed up and we don't have to worry about this anymore!
Some farmer I'm gonna be when I don't even like killing mice!  What will I do when my hens quit laying and Jeff wants to cook them?  I'll be buying eggs at the store and putting them under the hens!!!!  I hate to see things die.  Why am I not a vegetarian???????

Mouse Hunt

For the last two weeks, Jeff has set four mouse traps in the shed baited with peanut butter.  For two weeks, we opened the shed to find four traps un-sprung minus the peanut butter!!!!  Mouse 2.  Jeff 0.
I'm afraid the score is going to even out this week though.  Jeff bought a heavier, more sensitive trap.  I won't enter the shed until the evidence is gone.  I can't stand the idea of their cute little bodies crushed in the traps.  I know it has to be done.......but I can't be the one to do it!  Yes, I'm a softy.  

Found in the Hidden Creek

The Butterfly Effect

Something happens each year in early August that is so neat.  After a good rain, when there's still moisture in the gravel on the road, the Sulpher Butterflies congregate in SWARMS.  If you walk or drive down the road you do so amidst a yellow cloud of fluttering wings.  I've not seen it anywhere else.  That's not saying it doesn't happen, but I've not seen it before.  It's just so cool!

Future Monarchs of America!

We leave a stand of Milkweed just for this purpose.