The Flicker Haven Farm Files-Homestead Hodgepodge

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My motto this week so far has been: When life gives you unseasonably awesome weather, you get after it.

And boy howdy, have I been doing so!

One night after chorin all day, I was feeling so invigorated by the sudden excess of vitamin D in my system that I grabbed the Toy-yippee and drove it over to my RV spot that we rent out. The pine trees there have been very generous with their needle blessings, and I had used my mower brush vaccum thingy and made two huge piles of needles, sticks, and cones.

As it has been a bit warm and dry, I decided to load all the tree detritus and make one giant pile to burn later this fall over in the barn yard. Or compost, we'll see how it goes😉.

I put on my trusty rose gold head phones, told the Corg to load up, and we rocked out while loading two jubilee loads of pine needles. I'm sure the eleventy-billion turkeys that are currently haunting the homestead appreciated my glorious rendition of Where Is My Mind?.

And I have to give Cora some props here, that little cowboy corgi managed to bite every single rake full of pine needles. Talk about dedication!

Many years ago we made a fountain out of concrete, and even had the kids press their hand prints into said fountain. It had to be moved one year and has remained non-installed in its new home ever since. Well, yesterday the hubs lined and concreted its new home in the rose bed and gravel garden area that I am in the midst of working on. I can't wait to hear the water trickle over the edges of that wheel of concrete again. Plus, it gives me a marvelous place to show off all the rocks we have collected over the years. Everything from bacon jasper to star garnets sit on the fountains grate. So sparkly...

Speaking of sprarkles, my eyes had a gleam of frugal elation in them this week because the hubs reminded me of the most awesome thing ever, that we have our own gravel!

You see, when we built the house in 2008 our logger friend who dug the footings discovered that we have perfect, d-minus size gravel about eight feet down. Considering that d-minus is $313 a load right now, well, the existence of gravel right under my feet brings me joy.

The hubs took the tractor with its backhoe attachment back to the hill and did a bit of prospecting. Sure enough, the gravel was there. Of course, he had to build a screen out of some stuff we had around the farm because there are some bigger rocks, but I'm fine doing some extra work because then I don't have to spend all that money! I need at least three loads of gravel around our house, not to mention what we need for the road, so this is a pretty big blessing indeed!

We also have a vein of blue slate that we discovered over on the southwest side of the property, and the hubs brought some slices over for the new firepit. Okay, he really seemed to enjoy hauling those giant boulders over with the tractor too, I might have been all smiles as I heard him shouting at the boulders to get in the bucket. His Hawaiian yells of triumph when he got them loaded surely pleased his ancestors.

With the temps soaring into the lower 80's, everything has come alive. And I mean everything, even my muscles! The peonies are reaching for the heavens and my flower bed looks right dandy. Not a weed in sight thanks to my composted shavings from last year's duck bedding Yay!

At the end of every night, however, I tend to look like this:

Cora goes so hard with me doing all the chores that when we go to bed she goes full Rigor Corgus, her little legs stick straight in the air and she resembles a belly up guppie.

I get it though, because to be honest, with all of the spring chorin going on, well, let's just say I look mighty similar by the time I stop working for the night...

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's pine scented and rather well vented iPhone. The text divider image was made in Canva.

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