In our first post from Habitable Spaces, I mentioned how when we first arrived and the van got stuck on a tree stump, it seemed like a sign of how would be rooted and grounded here.
It turns out this was more accurate than we knew – our planned three and a half week stay has transformed into a two months, as plans fell apart with the next two farms that we’d lined up.
This could have been a minor disaster, but for two things – we like Habitable Spaces, and they like us.
We’ve been having a great time settling into to the space, getting to know the people, the animals, and the area … here’s some of what we were up to throughout January!
(they’re not really in order, I assume no one really cares ….)
This is Scout, breadloafin’.
where’s Kristin?
the mysterious trophy in the window at Dean’s bar in Kingsbury. Karate racing?
Cleo don’t give a duck
of course we had to build them a rocket stove (this one is for boiling pots of water to dunk chickens in for plucking)
Kristin & Ali working on the bottlehouse walls
bottles must first have their labels removed, before being cut in half, taped to a matching size bottom, and mortared into the walls – here Seth & Kristin work the de-labelling step
Shane peers through the new hole in his home’s roof, in the midst of the wood stove installation (oops this pic is actually from the last days of December)
Shane putting the finishing touches on the new woodstove chimney (oops this pic is actually from the last days of December)
Lynx spider helping us roof the bottlehouse
Kristin working on the bottlehouse roof
Ali & Kristin scavenging free manure
scavenging beautiful big glass doors for a future kitchen addition
every time we go for a walk with the dogs, Mina finds a mud puddle to lie in
harvesting the fruit of prickly pear cacti for making preserves (for some reason these are called “tuna fruit” which is just weird)
Scout and her brother Mister Pettibone
Cleo beholds Bertha in her newly-built enclosure
chicken in the herb garden
Kristin deep beneath the Texan surface
returning to the daylight
BBQ in San Antonio with Jess
RIVER SWIMMING IN JANUARY FOR THE WIN! (the San Marcos river is 73 degrees all year long)things you see out the car window
herding Bertha across the farm to greener pastures we fenced in
Ali mortaring bottles into the wall
excavating the ruins of an old homestead from the cacti it was buried in
seed starting
Sunny & Cleo in the kitchen
the newly-cleaned and organized tiny kitchen, ready for seed trays
Widget tries out the arboreal life
leveling the foundation for a new structure
clearing cacti from the new field
beginning the fencing of the new field (to keep out deer, dogs, wild pigs, etc – and temporarily contain Bertha)
new building rising
Kristin found a wild boar skull, which would later become the center piece of an art project
Jacob’s Well almost claimed our souls
on our walks, Mina usually manages to find a deer leg to parade home for gnawing
metal detecting for cool old garbage out among the prickly plants
decorating a cacti with found rusty debris
Kristin and I enjoy fetching firewood for the house’s woodstove – we like knocking over standing dead snags best …
Mina mauling Ali, affectionately
basking in both sunshine and satisfaction, after completing the bottlehouse roof
Bertha flinging dirt
Widget greets the day from the cabin’s loft
feeding the neighbors in Jess’s friend Ray’s backyard
injured or ill vulture out in the wasteland
Lily enjoys the newly-accessible platform after we took down the old cable spool tower
the petrified wood collection so far, gathered on our walk abouts on the property
preparing the new field for planting
adding a gate to the new field
returning from an attempt at making the entrance culvert a bit more accessible
the rocks n stuff collection is outgrowing the spool tabletoprocks and artifacts and bones outside the cabinpool at Dean’s in Kingsbury
remains of Shane’s grandmother’s old house
unearthed an intact Presto glass container with lid from the 40s
Mr. Pettibone squeezes into the dog food container he knocked over, as Scout observes
exploration
archeologistizin’ the old homestead
the Kingsbury Aerodrome museum is next door … they have many many cool toys
Ali chameleoning
whitewashing Craigslist Free section fence wood for purty interior paneling
colorful western San Antonio
Jess at the altar of an abandoned church
panorama from the bottlehouse roof
So that was January! We’re going to be here through February 19th before we start making our way west toward Arizona – and from there, home again in mid March to get the farm kicking! Its coming fast now … woo hoo!
I love Bertha.