Can Ya Dig It, Baby?

Here in the mountains, at about 8200 ft, we're buried under snow as deep as my waist, but 1000 ft down in town there's no snow and a nice warm sun. It's so nice to be able to enjoy the magical, beautiful mountains and still get all the sun of the Southwest. By the time we make it 10 minutes down the road we are all stripping off our coats and hats for a warm trip when we get to town.

It's such a lovely town too. At the store today Quinn talked to 5 of his friends (and we their parents) and we met several others that we know; as is always the case here. You chat with the people you know (and the one's you're just meeting) at the store, say good-bye, then see them 15 minutes later at the post office, and again at the library. We know all of the employees at all of the places we frequent (swapping info, numbers and SCOBYs) and they know us. There is an amazing sense of community here... rather like a modern day Pleasantville. We love it.

Around the cabin we're working through our garden, greenhouse, poultry and dairy plans. We have a lot of obstacles to overcome. As one of the farmers at the market put it: If you can farm in the canyon you can farm anywhere. Not only are we dealing with arid conditions, but also weekly summer hail storms, near daily thunderstorms, intense sun due to high elevation, freezing nights throughout our short growing season and regular wind gusts of up to 45 mph. If that isn't enough to make you throw in the towel, there are still the coyotes, elk, dear, bears, chipmunks, crows and wildcats.

Now wait! There's more! We're also subject to very strict rules imposed by the Land Trust contract. We cannot so much as put a fence around our garden without submitting a written request (including plans) and obtaining their approval. We need to fence the garden, and build a chicken coop/goat house, and surround it with a fence capable of at least making the coyotes, bear and wildcats think about it before eating said livestock. We also have to figure out which means of protecting the garden from all aforementioned threats is most likely to recieve Land Trust approval . Aaaand, we need a woodshed so that next year we don't have to spend an hour shoveling our way down to the woodpile, an hour hacking logs out of the frozen pile and another 30 minutes hauling it up to the house... just to do it over again three days later. Yeah, a woodshed would be nice :-p

And we need to figure it all out now because it's time we begin ordering chicks and starting seeds. Oy!

And people thought we were crazy for wanting to homestead in Vermont!

Heh.

But, alas, it is life's challenges that make it worth living, and I'll take these over traffic, commutes, pollution, crime, poor water quality, lines, crowds and the isolation of our former city life any day.