Loving Logandale!

The busy old life here in the USA has really got me running around like a chicken with it’s head chopped off! Speaking of headless chickens and chickens with heads, we have got seven of them growing rapidly in the utility room. In time, I would love to see that room turned into a pantry, which would make it a great place to put the chickens. Meanwhile, I am outside these days building a little chicken run onto which I would eventually like to see a proper coop added. IT is a fun project, and it answers a lot of my questions about my own ability to build a structure. While I am first to admit that is neither a heavy structure, nor a free standing one, as it leans against the shed, it is my first structure of any type, and it is coming along swimmingly!

My PC has been crashed due to Windows 7 suddenly deciding that in-spite me buying my netbook with it on, it was not a legal copy. So I have installed Linux in the form of Ubuntu, and am trying it out. So far it is fine, with few exceptions, and I am tempted to put it on the desktop computer for a dual boot system.

The house here in Nevada needs so much work that I hardly know where to go next. Just yesterday we had to fix a broken water line out in the garden near the vegetable patch. It was easy but it did take time that could have been spent doing other things, such as working on the chicken run.

Every day we keep so busy with things that either pop up, or that take priority, and yet there is an ever growing list of other things that need to be done. I do have the smarts though to force things in , such as the chicken run, or the compost bin, so that we are sure to be ready for the things that will be required later.

The compost bin got put up just over the first fence behind the house, in easy reach of the vegetable patch on that side, but also in easy reach of the kitchen from the inner yard. The next trick, of course, is to pile up food and let it rot in there, and put in the requisite amount of horse shit as provided by the horses! Between us people and the horses, we should be able to provide for plenty of compost for the spring garden. More on all of that though at http://www.theprosperingpeasant.com

I see that the last posting on this blog came before we flew to America. Has it really been so long? The trip from Britain went pretty well, even though we had a few moments that we were not sure we were going to make it. There was the delay on the first flight because someone kindly loaded their luggage, but not themselves, and there was the plan that landed just before we finally took off, and left debris of some sort on the runway, either from itself, or from the fire crews that had to attend to it. Then when we got to Paris, we were just not sure we were going to make the connecting flight. We did make it in the end, and that was in spite of security nightmares and everyone under the sun checking closely on our paperwork because of the VISAs we were traveling on. Of course, seeing Greenland from the air for the first time assured me that unless I brush up on my severe weather survival skills just to make a summer afternoon alive! Dying, but alive..!!

The trip over Canada was not inspiring, but once we came into America we were at least excited. I was especially excited when we got over Salt Lake City, and turned around south of the airport in order to come in for a landing. My wife was pretty excited at that part too, but because of the sight of houses out her window more than the thought of finally arriving!

Our first couple of weeks in America were spent in southern Idaho at a house that made out place in Portefields Road look pathetically small. When we finally came to southern Nevada, we warmed up again, and moved and settled into a house that is smaller in ways that the one in Idaho, but is also certainly a nicer and more modern layout. We are determined to make a life here, and to get involved with the community and the living from the land ethos, even though there is hardly a drop of water to do it from. Time will tell you how that goes!

Off to find something to do now, which could only be difficult if I get distracted by something else that needs doing while I am on my way to it!