"When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships. As a result his men were well motivated."

Each step is bringing us closer to moving on to our property; whether it is throwing the moldy old mattress out of the bus to be replaced by a clean, functional futon, or working towards developing our property through cutting down brush and trees and digging up mud. We march forward to our exciting future and enjoy the journey. 

First try with the strap

When we last left off, there was a 'widowmaker' hanging over our future home that wouldn't come down. We finally decided the only way left to try was using straps and the excavator to pull the thing down. 

Second try with the strap a little higher

Ariel was recording a video of the momentous tree felling, but we pulled and pulled and it didn't come down! ...So Tim moved the strap a little higher...  

Third try with the strap higher still

...and a little higher. And finally the tree came right down! No there is a big pile of a dozen trees sitting right on the (future) fence line. Clean up is a project for another day.  

The gate in and survey line strung to the South for fencing (right)

While Tim was focusing on tree-clearing and land-clearing, Ariel was focusing on putting up a front gate to make our property safe for all our animals. Some neighbors came by and exclaimed "We've lived on Whidbey 35 years and don't even lock our front door! You don't need a gate!" I explained the goats and dog and chickens might think otherwise when they saw all those cars zipping by. Unfortunately, our neighbor was wrong about Whidbey and we noticed some things missing from our woodshed a few days later.

Tim installing surveillance

We got busy increasing our security measures, which ended up not revealing any intruders but being a great way to document our work on the property.

A "before" picture of our property pre-gravel in the driveway

Our next big goal (aside from those falling trees and the gate and related fences) while waiting for the electric company to get back to us about installing power has been to work on extending our driveway around to the future home-site.

The mud pit that was the entry of our property

Tim did some initial mud-making/road clearing with the excavator, then we called in the gravel trucks.

The first gravel load arriving in a very big truck

The gravel man took one look and said "No." then put the gravel in a pile at the top of the existing driveway, passed on some instructions for leveling the road before spreading gravel, and left. Ariel was home alone for the day and got busy trying to use the excavator (second time ever running it and the first was only for a minute on that first day...) to further flatten the driveway. Minutes later Eldon The Hero arrived; Ariel's fire station lieutenant and a frequent co-contractor with Tim's work. Eldon had been told by his truck driver that we had no idea what we were doing and desperately needed help, which pretty much summed it up.

Eldon scooping gravel directly from the back of his truck - definitely an expert-only move

Eldon demonstrated the proper and expert maneuvers for spreading gravel, left Ariel briefly to practice while running for more gravel, then came back to fix what Ariel had done and continue the excavator lessons. With this demonstration and supervision, Ariel has been improving steadily with the excavator from the initial stress and self-doubt to smoothing out the road bed in ways that don't need fixing and redoing.

Tim's time-lapse video of the driveway project

After three days of working together, the road is drive-able and looking like a driveway! Houses need driveways. It is far too easy to under-appreciate a driveway, but it is such an essential thing. What good is a house you can't get to without sinking knee deep in mud?

Driveway to road (right) and future-house (left) meeting at turn-around (foreground)

Finished-enough driveway, park-able and drive-able for the week while we wait for the rest of the mud to settle

Mama Hen (right), chick (center back), and Speckled Hen (left)

Back at the Honeymoon Point Farm across the road, there were too many hens in the nest. One nest in particular. Dear Mama Hen did all the good work of sitting on some eggs for nearly three weeks, then days before hatching, speckled inexperienced hen stole the nest! With chicks potentially in peril, it was too dangerous to try to switch them back. The white mama tried to stay close to the nest for the next week, especially when she heard a chick peeping, and briefly it looked like they might be sister-mothers and raise the single chick together, but then the white mama gave up, the speckled mama was still focused on the eggs and not the lone chick. 

Speckled Hen being very broody and the lone-chick

Tonight the chick has vanished. Our next barn will be rat-proof, and our next barn will have a separate area for broody hens and new moms. 

Dad-Rich in the workshop building a laundry-center platform

Dad-Rich was here since before Christmas and here more than in Juneau for the last six months, but finally finished with appointments down here and got the all-clear to head home. Before leaving he accomplished a great deal around the house like chopping up trees, building new trellises, installing a full set of blinds upstairs, adding a new washer and drier, moving the old washer and drier downstairs, and building a platform for the new set.

Dad-Rich's lattices

The last day Dad-Rich was in town, Joe-Dad and Roni came for a visit as well. Grandpa taught Roni how to play bridge. Rowdy has now returned to Alaska as well, leaving Nemo to no-longer need to compete for Grandpa's attention and hot dogs.

Can you spot the arborist?

Also at the big house, the arborist has been back to hide in trees and make them healthy and strong through selective pruning.