soil building

delilah helping out

i can't remember whether or not it rains here. seriously. i lived here from 2001 to 2003 and have been gone until very recently. someone asked me yesterday if i remembered how the rain fell... i have to admit that i do not. this past week it has rained in a perfect circumference all around us, but not upon us, and it makes me wonder. as i practice my quiet watchfulness, observing the land and her patterns, the wildlife, the many natural swales, i wonder...

and as i wonder i make soil. this morning, early because of the heat, i completed the pallet compost bins and finally moved the kitchen scrap to one, building upon free horse manure and weathered yard pilings in another. i chuckled to myself as i was working - to date i've only purchased a roll of bailing wire. i love bailing wire. but the point is that everything else has been "free" or radically recycled as i am fond of saying. the wood pallets, the manure, my trusty red wagon (all terrain vehicle), fencing, posts, rain barrels... the list goes on and on. and on my budget i've spent $5 on bailing wire, $35 on baby chicks that should arrive any day now... but that's about it. i am grateful for the gifts of the cast-away. they make for beautiful, and cost effective, farm infrastructure.


grace decorated the all-terrain-vehicle


cardboard, composted leaves and manure, topped with straw


only the beginning