Preparation and One Use for a Pocket Knife

I'm trying to get prepared for moving the dome in a couple days.  Today I went and finished disassembling the platform that was inside the dome, and carted the lumber over to my land.  It might become a chicken coop someday, lol.  

I borrowed a couple ladders so we can reach the top of the interior when it's time to start taking down the struts!!

I'm still debating whether I want to use the pressure-treated platform that's currently under the dome, or whether I want to build a new one.  I'd better decide soon - Domesday starts on Wednesday!!  

Part of the issue is that a bunch of things fit together, and have to be moved in sequence - for example, the current platform runs underneath at least one of the two little shed/hallway thingies that are attached to the dome, so we would also have to disassemble those before we could even get to the platform.  It would be kind of nice to have a platform already set up on my land so that we could get the dome up faster...but that's an extra expense, and I'm not sure whether that's the wisest use of my limited time, money, and energy.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get back out to my land and get the cinder blocks leveled.  I guess that will need to be when I decide for sure about the platform, as the cinder blocks would need to be placed differently if I built new rather than re-used!  :P  

Anyway, I hope everyone has had a great start to their week!  :)  

Oh, and if you ever forget to bring a fork out to the boonies when you've brought a salad for lunch, don't despair...as long as you have your trusty pocket knife along, you can simply whittle a pair of chopsticks from a Maple twig!  :D  

Happy Monday!!

Domesday is Coming!! (Next Week!!!)

It's time. 

:D

Monday and Tuesday of next week, I'll do whatever I can to prep the dome and the future site of the dome for the big move.  Wednesday and Thursday, I have a couple helpers available, so those will be the two days that I'm hoping we can get the dome disassembled, transported, and reassembled in its new location on my land.  

If anyone local is willing/able to help, I certainly would not turn you down!  There will be many, many bolts to unfasten....metal struts to keep organized....flooring to be unscrewed and labeled...a generator and a woodstove to be hauled...and a couple wooden hallway-thingies to be disassembled and moved.

And if the pressure-treated platform currently under the dome is too challenging to disassemble and reassemble in such a short amount of time, I may build a new square platform out of regular 2x8s.  (I would work on moving the pressure-treated platform later and save it to be a barn foundation or something.)

I'm sure there will be at least a couple more weeks' worth of work after that, but it's super exciting to think that, Lord willing, the dome could be set up on my land by this time next week!  :D  

Friends, Frog Eggs, and a Driveway!

Yesterday some friends from church came and wandered all over my property with me.  I received lots of great knowledge about various plants and trees - especially which trees I should cut for firewood, and which ones I should give plenty of space so that they can grow nice and tall and start to branch out.  We only spotted a few Sugar Maples, and they're mostly way over on the other side of my lot, but I'll have to mark them at some point in case I ever want to tap them.  I have TONS of Red Maples, which you can tap too - they just have a lower sugar content.  Probably many of the Reds will end up as firewood.

There are lots of interesting small plants, too - we ate Wintergreen berries, and admired the Mayflowers that are all over the place:

Apparently Mayflowers can't be transported - they need very specific types of bacteria in the soil that can't be replicated.

This one is a mystery...I'll have to keep an eye on it and see if it flowers at some point:

We saw what might have been Moose bones!  They were scattered over a wide area, doubtless dragged around by the coyotes.  

Lol, you might need to trim your Moostache a little, Randy....  ;) 

Frog or Salamander eggs in a little pool down by the creek:

After my friends left, I used my new little cart to bring a load of cinder blocks from the old dome site in the back corner up to the current site.  It works okay...I'd say it's nearly as much work as pulling the sled, lol.  One of these days I'll have to save up and get an ATV...or a horse.  :D  

Today, one of my friends came back and cut out a driveway for me!!  All of us discussed the driveway yesterday, and we decided to mostly abandon the little skid trail - it's super rutted, and has lots of giant stumps sticking up.  It was actually easier to put a driveway in off to one side because most of the trees were little.

Here's the "before" shot:

After a couple hours of work, with Joe wielding the chain saw, and me dragging the trees and branches away, voila!  A driveway!!  :D 

We've got a few more little stumps to shave down, but isn't that awesome?  This is definitely an answer to prayer - I'll be able to back the truck in very close to the dome site, which is to the left of those light-colored pallets you can see in the center of the frame.  I'm definitely grateful to God for sacrificial friends, who have taken the time to help and encourage me in this project.  

I was actually thinking on my way home yesterday....there was this little part of me that almost didn't want the help.  It's kind of satisfying to be able to post on here saying "I did this," and "I did that"...but God doesn't want it to be that way.  Even the homesteading term of living a "self-sufficient" lifestyle isn't really Biblical - God wants me to find all my sufficiency in Him, not in myself.  And yesterday and today He provided fellowship, encouragement, and physical help for this project.  

Anyway...I'm not trying to be preachy...that just kind of struck me yesterday.  :P

I hope everyone had an awesome Tuesday!!  

Thea's Frisbee Obsession

This afternoon, after church, my sister Rachel helped me out by throwing Thane and Thea's Frisbees for a few minutes so I could get some pictures and videos from a side angle.  Interestingly, I feel like Thea's level of intensity comes across better in the photos than in the videos.  

Lol, I'm hoping that when I have livestock, I'll be able to shape this intense little bundle of muscle into a helpful farm dog!  I think she'll enjoy having a real job.

Whatever her job is, whether it's guarding chickens from hawks, or eradicating mice and vermin from the homestead, I know she'll participate with enthusiasm!  

(Thane will probably be in charge of snuggling baby animals or something, lol.) 

What Lies Beneath....

I visited my dome today...in case it was lonely for me. 

Lol, just kidding.  I actually went to see what the frame underneath the dome was like, since all the snow is gone, and to see if there was anything I could do to start prepping the dome for its big move.

Here are some pictures that show what's under the dome:

Looking up from underneath:

Lol, looks like maybe I'll want to make my cinder block circle a cinder block square instead??  ;P

There's a line of caulking where the dome meets the addition.

These two small, dark brown sections (one in the foreground, and the taller one behind it) come with the dome too.  I'm not sure yet whether I'll connect them to the dome, or use the lumber to build a shed. 

Anyway...I guess this is a rather boring post, lol, but hopefully more exciting stuff will be happening soon!  :P  

I hope everyone had an awesome Tuesday!

Cinder Blocks Unite!!

I got in a few hours on the land earlier...finished "clearing" the dome site.  This is an interesting process, because parts of the perimeter look like this:  

You have to figure out which tree is on top, and remove that one first.  I experimented today with using a bow saw instead of the axe, and it worked beautifully.  Lol, it'll be even nicer when I get around to dragging my chainsaw out there!

After that, I spent a good long while lugging my cinder blocks up to the dome site, and placed them in a carefully-measured 20 foot circle.  Doesn't it look kind of like a giant fire pit?  ;)

It occurred to me afterward that I might want to move the blocks a few inches further out, so that the beams holding up the dome are resting on the center of the cinder blocks, rather than on their edges.  Plus, they'll need to be leveled quite a bit.  But it was fun to lay them out and see how it looked.  

In the photo below, I'm standing on the dome site and looking toward where the gray water system will go.  You probably can't see the neon pink tape in this small photo, so I circled it the approximate location.  By my rough measurement, it's about 50 feet away.  Apparently there's supposed to be 1/4" drop for every foot of pipe, but that shouldn't be a problem since the dome site ended up being a bit higher than I had originally planned.

And here's the view to the road, with my parked truck circled.  I'm happy with the privacy of this location; it should be even better when the deciduous trees leaf out.  

I'm not totally sure what the next step is....I guess maybe leveling the cinder blocks, and bringing a few more in.  I should probably also see if I can smooth out the skid trail a bit so vehicles can get closer to the dome site.  Once those two things are done, I think we'll theoretically be ready to work on moving the dome!  :D

Anyway, I'll keep everyone posted...hopefully Domesday will be soon!!  ;P  

Clearing the Dome Site

Well, maybe the title isn't 100% accurate...the site I've picked for the dome is actually somewhat cleared already...it just had a bunch of little trees tip over onto it, lol.  The sunshine was calling me all day long, so I went over after work and put in a couple hours moving fallen trees.

Here are a few before and after shots, though the angles for comparison aren't always perfect:

Before.  The dome will go somewhere behind that big stump.

After.

Before.

After.

Looking down the skid trail toward the road.  The dome site is on the right.

After.  See my nice brush pile?  All that brush will be the start of another part of my natural fence, probably running along the road.

I know it's kind of hard to see what's going on in these photos, but I'm happy with the progress that was made today.  :)  

Here's a shot from near the brush pile...as you can see, the dome site isn't too far in from the road.  The dome will be tucked into the trees somewhere over to the right of where I was standing when I took this photo:

Some poor bird got eaten...what kind of bird has feathers like this?

Oh, and I got to try out my axe!  :D  It works quite nicely.  (Also, do you spell it ax or axe?  I'm getting conflicting information....)

And one pretty photo to end the evening...I think this is a Red Maple.