Homestead happenings

We now have a driveway that isn't completely mud and one foot deep ruts! We got two loads of sand/gravel yesterday morning, and in the evening a neighbor brought his skid loader and smoothed it all out. Needless to say, Joey had a good time watching the dump truck and the skid loader work. And, much as I deplore the misuse of heavy equipment in shaping landscapes to human ideals of perfection, I am thankful for the hours of manual labor that were saved. It was fun to watch this neighbor work the skid loader; he moved quickly and with great agility, almost like a dance. Kind of odd, though, I don't even know this guy; Russ was referred to him by another neighbor. He arrived, drove up in the loader, and went right to work, and I was watching, expecting him to stop and talk at the end, and I was ready to pay him. But as soon as he was finished, he took off at high speed down the driveway, loaded up the skid loader, and disappeared down the road. Not much for conversation I guess.

Speaking of heavy equipment, the guy who brought the gravel said he had a large backhoe and could double the size of our pond and dig it down to 20 feet in depth. We might take him up on it; if fish rearing is to be part of our food production, we could use the extra space. The area we want dug is an old gravel pit anyway; it would not be changing or destroying a pristine piece of land.

The muffler finally fell off my Honda Accord wagon yesterday as I was leaving work, so after I got home we brought that and the other Honda Accord, which needs some kind of ball joint replaced, in to the garage and picked up the Astro van, which was having an alternator transplant. When it rains, it pours! Thank goodness we have a dependable local mechanic who charges a fair price. A necessary evil of country living, this dependence on automobiles.

We got a new member of the family yesterday, a 5 month old male Siberian husky puppy named Togo. He seems pretty well behaved and good with the kids. I wasn't thinking about getting another dog, but a friend was giving him away and I've always liked huskies. He needs to run, though, and I need the exercise, so he may be my new inline skating partner.

Russ is getting some fencing ready for the three sheep we are getting soon. Sheep are something new to me; who would have thought ten years ago I'd be raising sheep and chickens? Who knows, I may even take up spinning and knitting; I'll take a good pair of wool socks over cotton athletic socks any day.

We won't be getting the chickens until next month; with all that's going on, and the cold weather, the chicken coop wasn't quite ready for them and neither were we.

I am hoping to take the day off on Friday to get some serious gardening done. The weather is finally supposed to cooperate.