Posted on

a machete is a girl’s best friend

where's the homestead?

Have I bought forest or jungle?

It’s been more than a month since my last visit and the undergrowth has taken over. I got halfway down the trail to the homestead site and… completely lost the trail. A sea of some kind of crop confronted me, waist high and swarming with ticks. Fortunately I had invested in a machete before making the trip and so I was able to cut myself a path through this jungle. I’d never wielded a machete before, but when faced with the choice of wading through tick-infested weeds or walking a nice mown path to one’s cow barn, one quickly learns the way of the machete.

a way in

As I hacked my way through, all sorts of interesting flora and fauna were revealed. First some wild strawberries, hiding in the grass. The fruit was round, bright red and ready, though not very sweet. Still, that firms up one plant identification! (If you remember, I thought I recognised strawberry leaves back in March.) The fauna was much more of a surprise. I was swinging my machete, and oh!

 

turtle in the grass

So nice to see this turtle (probably an eastern box turtle) – it made up for all the ticks. And even if it turns out to be a snapping turtle and will one day get big and vicious, today he/she was very calm. In fact the little beast stuck around for quite a while as I admired it, photographed it (sorry about the slightly wobbly picture quality – my arms were so tired from swinging the machete), slashed my way past it and on to Base Camp.

 

base camp established at the cow barn

You can see the trusty machete leaning against a tree to the left of my pink backpack. The green bucket contains my (by now very decomposing) compost… oh no, I was NOT going to waste that compost.

In the relatively tick-free environment of Base Camp, I ate lunch, and wondered whether to call it a day. But where would I put the compost if I left now? No, onwards and into the homestead site… where I managed to uncover half the fire circle. Note the crop around it, but mostly grass inside.

 

fire circle, grass circle

By now I was getting really tired, but that compost needed to go somewhere. I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to machete my way round to the official compost bin. Instead, I decided to clear a path to the tyres (still waiting for me to plant them up with herbs) and leave the compost in one of them.

 

clear to the tyres, but then...

And that is where I left it. I need to go back in a day or two and cut away more undergrowth. I think I’ll also plant out my tomato and pepper plants in the raised (tyre) beds. Some herbs can go in with them too. That’s a huge simplification of the original plan, but I think it will be more manageable… especially given the time I’ll need to spend taming the vegetation.

Posted on

compost

When I’m not in meetings, or otherwise tied up with the day job, I’m trying to work out a composting routine, so that I can be up and running, compost in hand as it were, when the land finally becomes mine. (Bumped into a colleague this morning – someone I hadn’t seen in a while – and she made my day by being so excited about this land… she had heard from someone else that I was buying new property, but didn’t know the details). Anyway, compost. I’d like to take advantage of a 20% off Gaiam deal that’s going on at the moment, but to make the most of that I should go for one of their more expensive items… Now once I’m on the land, I can make a compost pile and/or rig something up with scrap wood. But realistically, I’m not going to be living on this land day-to-day for quite some time. (Imagine it: commuting into work from my tent with its portaloo; home in the evening to a meal cooked on a firepit, shower rigged up from the rainbarrel… *exciting* but not practical! I have a job where I need to look a little bit put together, clean and vaguely professional). So I need a system that will start the compost close to my apartment. I know I need a simple bucket with lid for my kitchen, but I think I also need some kind of transportable compost bin, so that I can transfer the kitchen scraps to that (and shredded paper, and whatever else), and then schlep that to the land. I’m tempted by the spinning composter. It could sit outside in my garage, or downstairs in the cellar. But then of course I made the mistake of doing a price comparison with something similar on Amazon (no different once I’ve got my 20% off, but perhaps I should check the shipping…), and came across reviews from people who’ve struggled with it. One really glowing review, and the rest saying “don’t!”. Hmmm.