few more pics from HK

 peaches and plums!

 apples, fig, grapes, more blackberries, yacon, and poplar (thank you Humboldt Permaculture Guild!)

 no flush, or...any kind of fittings on the barrels...yet...? hate cutting into these beauties, even though they smell like fish meal...eww (thanks Bayside Park Farm!)

February update

One section of free gutter catalyzed the purchase of a full system.

 ready for rain!

 new (old) arcata school district cabinet! thanks JC!

...and a functional file cabinet, perfect for boxes of misc.

 yet to identify

 making room for veggies!

got a bunch of blackberry planted, a bunch of willow cuttings stuck in the ground as well as some alder and a couple mystery twigs. grafted a dozen rootstocks, still waiting for buds to push for fruit trees. ordered chinese chestnut, black locust and sea berries!

Getting closer

Greenhouse locked

Greenhouse covered

Got the lid on. Then got the truck stuck in the mud last night. Left it overnight and the kind neighbor pulled me out this morning. Then the wind almost blew the plastic off but i managed to weigh it down with pallets...stormy week ahead

Greenhouse going up

update

 beautiful stormy skies the other day

one of the resident bucks

we harvested rainwater!

 i'm still sore from moving all that rock. ugh

the buckwheat rises!

Plot plan submitted

Hang on tight! This ride is now departing. Pre-site inspection tomorrow morning.

The neighbors cleared out their old fence and are getting ready to put in a new one along the entire (shared) property line.

Saw some friends passing through town and had a nice visit.

I guess I missed a few days. What a whirlwind of activity. In the meantime, I've managed to get 9 bulbs of garlic in the ground, broken up into individual cloves, of course. a bunch of cover crop broadcast and lightly raked, and rained on! that worked out nice. I scavenged three truck loads of broken up concrete to use as fill and base for natural building projects such as cob oven. pruned the trees, but not completely. just enough to get the truck by the tree on the east side. scrounged 10 free tarps from the lumber yard. 9 were lumber wraps, which aren't really substantial but one was an actual grommeted tarp! Apparently there is a constant stream of these lumber wraps getting tossed out in the trash. Also found out that the Millyard does trusses, so I might have to get that done soon.

Oh, took the truck to a diesel mechanic in Eureka, its got at least 1200$ worth of issues, but is still running ok. I put in 5 gal of "soy release agent" which is how Renner's sells B100 biodiesel, into a separate container, which I poured (laboriously) into the tank. Something about California road and or fuel tax...I think the truck likes it. It was cold last night but this morning she fired right up without the recently encountered hard starting in the morning. Looked up doing ball joints on youtube. It seems totally doable.

Fence down

Crank n yanker is gold!  Thank you BPF! Barbed wire rolled up.

score!

Today I realized a dream I've had for over a year. Ever since going to Bayside Park Farm, I had my eye on this concrete bench. Its just like the ones in the skatepark, except this one has a broken foot.

I checked out the Tommy Gate website and their weakest model was capable of 1000 lbs. I did some rough math and figured this thing weighs 750 lbs. With some help from friends we slid it onto the tommy lift at an angle and that thing did its job! so now I have good weight on the rear wheels and a future skate ledge. Thanks BPF! But the dream is not complete until grindage occurs! gnar gnar

 ripples for miles

I picked up this huge tarp on the side of the road in Michigan. Its got a few clean cuts but mostly good!

evening stroll with HK

put buckwheat seeds in the ground!

 Unusual helicopter carrying a bag (look close!)

 Dug up some nice looking topsoil around the dead tree with buried fencing, where the driveway will be so topsoil will have to be scraped off eventually.  Drove the soil out to the field and spread it out in a row. sprinkled buckwheat generously. sprinkled some in the pasture as well, continuing the line. hope to grow more seed

 resident great blue heron.

rain on sunday for four days! won't be driving down for awhile.

Here we go!

 A new chapter begins in our lives. We purchased a newly subdivided 3.45 acre lot in Humboldt County. I took this photo after the subsequent photos as you might tell from the weather.

looking back from the lot up the future driveway. I hope we can save that pear tree.

 looking south west

looking north west

 looking east from western edge (cows not included)

looking east from the north west corner

so its been a few days now and I got some free pallets and dropped them off the other day. As I unloaded them it started to rain lightly. That bit of moisture prevented the truck from having enough traction to make it back up to the road. So luckily today it dried out and after going to the dmv to register the truck (after I forgot about the appointment I made) I made this rickety camper shell stand. and shed the camper and drove up the slope. We need a driveway. Still waiting for plans to submit to the county. So ya, my life has become very busy after being not very busy for awhile.