Looks like there's a whole mess of photos on my wife's camera so there will be some non-cellar related material in here.
Some days are more productive than others.
Not a dead cat. This is Nemesis, our house kitty. She spends about half the day loafing under and around the cabin and then the nights inside. She used to like to roam at night and then she heard the yip-yip of the hungry coyotes and now prefers inside.
Those two above photos are from when we had some friends staying the week in their bus. It was a good time. Bluegrass and gospel under the desert skies at night and great fellowship all week. I hope that the Lord brings them back to us soon.
Little River Lily is walking now and we can't keep her out of anything. She's got a cute little farmer's tan going from being out in the desert sun.
It was so desolate when we first got here, but now the desert has bloomed and is very beautiful. As far as I can see on almost every day there is something different blooming. One day the fields are all purple with clover, then the next week they are all yellow with wildflowers. Such a wonderful place.
Every day we are treated to a unique and beautiful sunset over the ridge. About this time we gather to eat dinner and fellowship as a family on the porch where we can watch this sight.
And now for the main show. The root cellar has an entrance on the downslope of the hill. It's not much of a hill and only a slight slope, but we'll berm all the sides and water should stay out.
The main support beam. All of the side braces will come off of this one. I got a great deal on some identical logs that had been cut in half. It's a little stronger than a 4" X 4" post would be and I've got enough of them to place one every 6 inches.
There's some spillage inside the hole and some loose dirt I'll have to haul out by hand, but that's no big trick. It will have bare earthen walls and a bare floor for now. I might put something up later if the mood suits me and neccessity illustrates. It's such a dense clay though that it may not ever be needful.
Joshua thinks the root cellar would be a great place to fill with rattlesnakes and scorpions to toss in unwanted guests. The boy has a seriously twisted bent, but I think that's a fine idea. Maybe we need a separate hole for that.
4 comments:
Thanks for sharing the pictures Ernie. I LOVE the sunset over the ridge, very calming and peaceful. God is Good! I can't believe how big Lilly is getting :)
Nice pics! Everyone looks happy.
At least you have trees. Im trying to figure out why everyone
thinks thats a 3rd world country.
Thank you both for your kind comments.
Pearl, we love the land here. There's a rocky outcropping where some old Spanish oaks have established and we've sort of build along that ridgeline with the cabin and soon the badger hole (starting on that today). They only grow where there is strong rock in fractured layers, so that's a good sign. Does not the bible tell us to build our house on the rock?
For the rest of the property it's mostly mesquite trees. They are small and thorny but I don't mind them so much. They have uses.
As to the third-world country comments, well, there's a number of people who would never do what we're doing in a million years and they magnify every hardship (of which we've had plenty) into a giant obstacle of fear to justify why they wouldn't do this.
We get frustrated and weary sometimes and we're not always happy but we are always joyful, if you understand the distinction. A simple life is a blessed one.
If you held a lump of iron in your hand, would you hate it because it had not yet been worked into a knife? No. It's the raw material. That's what we were when we came here. And we're being transformed into what God intends us to be. You can't change metal without heat and pressure, of which we have plenty. Yet many people look at the forge and the anvil and tell the Lord, "no thank you."
It looks like paradise on earth to me.
Karen
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