“Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” William Jennings Bryan

Monday, August 15, 2011

August 15, 2011


Allen found and caught a young blacksnake in the hay barn on Saturday and brought the little guy over to the house to show Griffin, who was here volunteering with his parents. Like most Saturday afternoons, Griffin had a pretty good day here picking vegetables, checking on the chickens, finding bugs and wild flowers, swimming, petting the cats and horses, feeding Snoops, touching a snake, and helping Allen change the farm truck’s battery. I wish I had all that energy. I think I used to have some of that energy a while back before the years crept up behind me and hit me over the head! Even so, what’s cool is that this kid reopens and renews all the things that I find myself taking for granted. Griffin rekindles all the wonder that I had stopped wondering about. Even the wonder of snakes.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

August 11, 2011


Its been a few days more than three weeks since Snoops broke her horn, and she’s finally beginning to act like the stubborn, mischievous, and hungry goat that she was.  She’s back out on her leash and hanging by as I do all my farm stuff, taking swipes at Kath and the volunteers, eating everything including the stable broom, and getting into the chicken coop to scarf up the cracked corn. She’s basically back to being the pest we love….really glad she made it!



Wednesday, August 3, 2011

August 3, 2011


Monday I called the heating oil company and closed our oil delivery account. Monday was the same day that our geo thermal heating/ cooling system was started up.

Geo thermal is simple – water is drawn from a well, piped through a heat exchanger, and returned to the aquifer through a return well.

I recognize that I still drive a car and use oil in other ways, but at least I can eliminate up to a thousand gallons of oil per year from our footprint. The next step will be a wind turbine to supply us with electricity, but that’s still a few years off, and will require a bit of research and planning. All in all, we are patiently taking a more sustainable direction in our lives, and it feels good…and it feels right.


Well boring rig in place for main well




 
Well supply truck

 
Main well finished and capped
Return well and piping trench
Running the electric wires
Prepping the submersible pump for installation
 
The heat exchanger during installation
Finished!