Homestead mailing list

[Bevanron <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Lynda wrote:

> Well, a little history.  DH is a city boy, born and raised outside Boston. 
> The country to him was going to a park <g>  It has taken years and baby 
> steps to get him into "real" country.

Isn't that an amazing process to watch?
Ron was never exposed to the country or farming or camping or anything 
like that either.  He originally opposed our move to the country.  I 
think he only did it to appease me and to get to dark skies so he could 
get a nice telescope. He had never fired a gun, never operated a 
chainsaw or anything like that when we moved here, but he learned fast 
and he liked all the new "toys".  He liked having a real workshop, and 
of course, he ended up liking the outdoors as much as I do.  He learned 
to hunt and butcher animals and found that he was good at it.

  It has been a real interesting process
> to see him now scavenge and not waste anything and complain when he sees 
> people throwing "perfectly good stuff.  I could have used that to . . . ."

Well, if he has this epiphany, he has made the transition, IMO.



> The weather and land here is WEIRD!  It is dry in the extreme!  No humidity 
> to speak of even in the winter.  So these "soggy" spots really surprised us. 
> In the summer it is dust dry but given a little rain it becomes a bog.  Most 
> peculiar but we are getting used to peculiar <g>  

Hmmm.  It almost sounds like you have some kind of gypsum or clay layer 
under the surface.  have you trenched out an area to see if you can 
determine the problem?
I had a neighbor that tried to grow a garden on her side yard, but had a 
similar problem with standing pools of water when it rained.  They dug 
down and discovered a construction pit complete with about a dumptruck 
load of roofing shingles.  They dug out the shingles and other crap, 
backfilled the hole, and voila, problem solved.

Bev

--
erthnsky AT bellsouth.net  BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm      NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W