Homestead mailing list

[Tom <tom AT honeychrome.com>]

Maybe climate change, or just a general variation, but rather than  
the yearly rainfall being pretty evenly distributed as it 'should'  
be, it does seem like it has become drier in the late spring and  
summer in the past two years, so our water storage strategies will  
probably have to be modified.  Particularly dry already this year.  A  
long-time (well, longer than us) local said there were supposedly  
four springs on the property that ran most, if not all, of the year-  
I've only found one that is still flowing now, plus the stream which  
is pretty low.  Last year the springs were still running in August  
and September.  I think the logging on the top of the hill hurt the  
water retention.  The lay of the land causes the water to concentrate  
and run off during wet times, so some some on-contour swales will be  
in order to get more of the water into the ground when its there, and  
hopefully as the forest up the hill slowly recovers the springs will  
run longer.  I was hoping to get away with doing without a tractor  
and a lot of land-forming, but I'm starting to think now we might  
need to do some.

I had hoped to make the switch to the humanure 'system' already-  
designed the renovation of the bathroom so there is a pocket door  
down into the basement which has an exterior exit so buckets could go  
easily down and out, and built a damn nice, bead-boarded 'throne'  
too, but the wife wouldn't go for it.  I think if/when the old septic  
goes and the reality of the expense of putting in a new system just  
to retain the luxury of a flush toiled hits she'll be game to go  
'humanure.'  Still, its a shame to see all that potential plant food  
go down the drain in the meantime!

Short growing season- average May 20th or so to Sept 30th, at least  
according to the USDA.  Orientation, trees, etc. on the site gives us  
some advantage over those averages.