2 year anniversay

Ok, so I'm a bit late. Our 2 year at Mariposa anniversary came and went at the end of June. I have to admit, I seem to be blogging less because there is generally less to report. Our lives have settled into a nice routine.

Our second year here saw a decent garden harvest

Increased egg production:

A few visits from loved ones:

Connecting with our neighbors through a GMRS radio network:

And a whole lot of "the same old, same old".

We did add a few things such as a beautiful hand woven Navajo rug, the cold frame, a tent to cover the chicken coop in the winter, a washing machine, a burn barrel, and an honest to god wood front door:

We experienced sadness in early 2016 with the passing of both Zeke (joint related issues) and Zuno (cancer).

After a short (and very weird) period of owning no dogs, we paid a couple of visits to the animal shelter in Grant's and rescued Matty:

And Louie:

One of the successes of our life at Mariposa has been the humanure composting. After 2 years, we have filled our first pallet box. No bugs, no stink, and in a couple more years I look forward to working the compost into the garden:

Since its reopening, we have become regular members of the Fence Lake Community Church. The building isn't much, but the fellowship is amazing:

I have been having fun setting up ranges, reloading, and shooting, but I think I will start a separate entry for those activities.

Well, there you have it; a brief update of year 2 at lovely Mariposa. We are very pleased with our life and the area we landed in!

Spring 2016

A nice month of March followed our amazing month of February. As the days got longer I definitely got spring fever and started in on a few activities.

Purchased and spread some more gravel:

Hung a couple of bird houses that our neighbor Kenny Monday made:

Started getting the garden ready:

Had a nice visit from Austin (we rebuilt the fire-pit):

Rigged up a new burn barrel for Jill's favorite chore :)

And a lot of normal springtime activities that didn't rate pictures, such as re-stacking the woodpile and moving the portable solar system from the pump-house to the man shed.

We have had some serious wind in April which caused me to take pretty extreme measures to keep the side panels from blowing off the chicken coop (the magnets just weren't cutting it)

While the weather has been nice, we suffered the loss of both Zeke and Zuno within a month of each other. It has been over 20 years since I have gone without a dog of some sort living with me, and it was both sad and weird not having one around. We decided to roll the dice and adopt an unknown quantity from the animal shelter in Grants.

When we walked into the first cell block, one little dog really sold herself. Throwing caution to the wind, we brought home a little mongrel named Matty. She is very sweet, but very high energy. I am glad we got her at this point in our lives while we are still reasonably fit :)

This is February?

It is sooooo nice out, I decided I should save this screenshot for posterity. I doubt we will see many Febs like this one.

Chicken Update

It has been a while since I have mentioned the chickens. We started with 4 Plymouth Barred Rock pullets, and one was soon killed by Zuno. Fortunately it happened right in front of us so proper correction was applied. Nowadays, Zuno is a model citizen around his feathered sisters.

We lost another chicken in January. We suspect one of the smaller hawks killed it since there were no condemning paw prints, and whatever killed it didn't haul it away. We have had both Sharp Shinned and Coopers hawks immediately in front of the house, and on one occasion actually up on the porch.

That brought us down to 2 chickens. Even during the shortest days we were still getting on average one egg a day. The coldest night we have had thus far showed negative five degrees (-5!) F on my porch thermometer. I am pleased to say the chickens seem to be weathering the winter quite well. Keeping fresh unfrozen water available has been the biggest chore so far. Since there is no natural forage left, we have been feeding layer food supplemented with treats like alfalfa sprouts (spouted from seeds) and freeze dried meal worms. The chickens MUCH prefer the treats over their regular food, and have become every bit as bad of beggars as the dogs.

The tent is holding up well, despite some pretty extreme winds. The chickens will come out even on the coldest days and make their way up to the porch where they hang out. It is a mystery to me why they don't want to stay in their nice protected coop tent, but there you have it. Jill did line a couple of plastic crates with some straw, and they will hang out in the straw boxes when it is really cold.

Recently our neighbor Laurel asked if we could take one of her hens. She and her son are breeding Australorps, and this particular hen has gold flecks which leads them to believe it is not a pure bred Australorp. Jill calls the new hen "Blondie" (from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", not from the insipid cartoon comic). We are following the chicken guru's advice and are keeping Blondie physically separated from the other hens for a few days. Fortunately we have big dog crate which serves the purpose admirably. 

We do plan to add a few more pullets in the spring to keep ahead of the attrition that is part of owning free range chickens in a remote area with plenty of natural predators. 

Rural Comms

I may have mentioned that we have no cell signal and no phone lines at Mariposa. Obviously our options for communications are limited. Across the course of the last 6 months or so, our neighbors Dan and Mark have been instrumental in getting a radio network up and running.

Most of us are licensed through the FCC as General Mobile Radio Service operators. As such we are limited in the power of our equipment, the height of our antennas, and the frequencies that we use. The Mariposa call sign is WQWS907. We currently use 3 radios; a Maxon mobile unit as our base radio, an Icom handheld, and a Baofeng handheld. Dan did find us a great deal on an Icom mobile unit, which will live in the truck once it has been programmed.

Our antenna isn't particularly sophisticated, and is attached to our roof with a magnetic mount. It does give us pretty decent range though, allowing us to talk with pretty much any of the other Fence Lake residents who are in the network (most of whom live within 10 miles). We have talked to Dan on his mobile unit when he was on the road close to 30 miles away, but it was hit or miss depending on whether he was at the top of a hill or down in a hollow.

Speaking of hollows, our neighbor John lives in one. In order to reliably communicate, he bought an old 40 foot tower to mount his antenna on. On a calm morning before the roads had thawed, about 8 of us gathered at his house and got the beast upright. Now we can hit his repeater and all is well.

While we originally thought of the radio network as an emergency tool, we find it to be practical in a social fashion as well. It is nice to be able to get in touch with the neighbors.

Winter is coming!

First snow was on November 4th this year. Of course we HAD to go to a town meeting that night :(

Starting in September, I began to prepare for the upcoming months of winter. A few of the tasks were:

Cutting, hauling, splitting and stacking firewood...

Shifting the portable solar kit and heat lamp to the pump house...

And adding some extra weather protection for the chicken coop...

Our chicken guru (Harvey Ussery, who wrote "The Small Scale Poultry Flock") suggests that cold hardy breeds such as our Barred Plymouth Rocks do quite well without an auxiliary heat source as long as you protect the birds from drafts and humidity. I initially thought about building a winter coop, but ultimately decided on a wall tent that I could set up in the cold months and pack away during the other three seasons. Time will tell if my plan is successful.

Recent doings

I have fallen a little behind on the blog and I apologize. This post should bring us up to date on our recent activities here at Mariposa.

We attended the 4th of July parade in Fence Lake. We met a few more neighbors and had some more good food. The parade of course was awesome :)

Parade video

We helped our neighbors with the branding of their new calves. Our contribution was at the "unskilled" end of the spectrum, moving the cattle around and keeping them in place. All in all it was a fun morning. After the branding.....more good food.

In late July came the Fence Lake reunion. An amazing number of folks showed up; there was a car show, a chainsaw cutting contest (I was the official timer and served with honor), a dance, and of course..........more good food! For a LOT more pictures of this event check out the official Fence lake Facebook page: Fence Lake Breeze

In addition to the various fun activities, we managed to get a few projects done around the place.

Using reclaimed lumber which I got from our neighbor Kenny Monday, I built a cold frame. Hopefully it will extend the growing season for the Swiss chard and tomatoes much later into the fall. I will cover it with plastic and a tarp when the temps start to drop, and heat it with a Dietz oil lantern (designed back in the day for heating greenhouses) when it gets really cold.

We moved and leveled the chicken coop. I plan to cover the whole thing in a 8'x10' canvas wall tent in the winter to help protect the hens from drafts.

Using sophisticated tools (shovels and a wheel-barrow), we hauled several more tons of road base and finished out the circle drive in front of the house.

We have been enjoying the fruits of our garden, such as potatoes, beets, radishes, zucchini, squash, and lettuce. The chard is coming along and I hope to be able to harvest it before the serious cold sets in.

We still manage to find time to walk the dogs, shoot the guns, read our books, and sit around on the porch. Life is good.

Next on my agenda is cutting more wood for the coming winter, never a dull moment here at lovely Mariposa :)