Simple Living and Simple Travel

These six bucks come by from time to time. I’ve dug through an awful lot of caliche since I bought this Tinderbox acre in 2017. Caliche is a sedimentary rock, a hardened natural cement of calcium carbonate that binds other materials. It generally is found on or near the surface and layers vary from a few inches to feet thick. The depth of the caliche layer is sensitive to average annual rainfall. Caliche forms where annual precipitation is less than 26” per year and the mean annual temperature exceeds 41 °F. One can look into why this is so, as well as, how plant roots, carbon dioxide, calcium carbonate, bicarbonate come into play. Eventually a mixture of calcium carbonate and clay particles accumulates, first forming grains, then small clumps, then a discernible layer, and finally, a thicker solid bed. But I would guess you would rather do just about anything else. I used a pick to dig through this layer and a couple more. Through trial and errors, many errors, I learned to ...

A local young buck. He’s a regular. If you remember, I first used an artillery knot when I first started dragging logs. This year I came up with this rig. It is much more efficient, well, at least for me. I stand facing the log, squat down, stand up while leaning back and shrugging my shoulders. Lifting most of the length off the ground greatly reduces friction and it’s pretty much a total body exercise. The log moves 1-3’ depending on the slope. It’s a keeper. Not bad for 71. I got this idea from a couple I met this past winter. The sun shade mesh makes a noticeable difference with inside temperature. But when the sun moves to the front and the other side, pretty much worthless. But one out of three, sometimes is not all that bad. I might have heard this bird’s song last year but do not recall seeing one. This year I got binoculars on the bird and looked it up. A brown-headed cowbird. A parasitic bird, laying eggs in host birds’ nests, leaving others to raise its young. Gene...