Reading.
Been trying to do more of it. Or more accurately, been trying to do a higher quality of it. I need to break up my steady procession of rather mindless adventure books with more meaningful fare. I am partial to paper books but as of late have been reading almost exclusively on my phone and Chromebook. The library is a great source of ebooks. There is a lot to learn.
The three books above constitute my most recent non-fiction readings. The images a pretty small, but they are:
Mini Goats: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Miniature Goats in the City, Country, or Suburbs – This was a very practical book that further increased my desire to won goats. And now I think that mini goats would be ideal. They are just so cute! The book covered all aspects of ownership, from acquisition, feeding, housing, milking, breeding, and more.
The Farm then and now: a model for sustainable living – I have known of The Farm for a long time, but have known very little about it. This book helped rectify that deficiency. A pretty interesting some of some folks who definitely blazed their own trail. Located not too farm from Columbia, I might try to visit before too long.
The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007 – I am not a big movie person, but I have always loved James Bond. I have read all the books too, not just the Fleming originals but the ones by Gardner, Benson, Boyd, and others. They are a very nice diversion and always entertaining. This book covers much of the background and worldview that went into making Bond who he was and is, along with charting how he adapted to the times. Not a great book but still rather interesting, if only because of the subject matter.
I would like to get back into reading “literature”. I have always enjoyed classic novels, but it’s been a while since I picked one up. I just downloaded “Jayber Crow” by Wendell Berry from the library. It’s doubtful that he would approve of the medium, but he did authorize ebooks for his works. I also downloaded a book on small scale organic farming. I’ve got a house to build before that information becomes relevant, but it would be nice to get a head start on some knowledge. I am toying with the idea of getting some audiobooks from the library as well. They could be nice on the drive to and from the farm, but I do like listening to music while driving. Also I’m not very patient, and I wouldn’t like listening for a while then having to take a long break until driving again. I have a print book about the Enneagram that I started a little while back and just now brought out of hiding. The truth is that I am Team Myers-Briggs though, and the Enneagram is a little kooky for me. It’s Liz’s go to mechanism though, so it would probably benefit me to learn that language. The problem is that every time I take the test I am a different number. With the M-B I am consistently an INFP (the best type).
At some point I would like to start building up a library. Before going to India I had about 800 books across all genres. I had to get rid of almost all of them though, due to lack of storage space. Now I have but a few dozen scattered throughout the Nashville area.
Baby goats.
We made a quick run up to Monteagle early yesterday afternoon. I decided to take the interstate the whole way because we were both quite hungry, not having eaten lunch. So we arrived at the Mountain Goat Market around three. It was still rather busy, but we did get the patio to ourselves. After a typically delicious meal we headed over to campus to see the goats. I had seen on Instagram a few days ago that the heard had been expanded considerably. About a dozen baby goats had been born this week. So naturally we had to go check them out, and they didn’t disappoint. I lost track of how many times we went, but it was at least five total. The first time provided one of the highlights. The guys who were looking after the goats and pigs let us come into the barn to see the youngest babies, some of whom were just a day old. They also patiently answered a number of our questions about goats and the farm in general. Unfortunately I facetiously asked if the goats were headed to the cafeteria next, and the answer was yes. Liz got a little bummed about that.
The one negative of our trip was very overcast skies with intermittent rain. That made it hard to do too much outdoors for any length of time. However after our second goat visit of the afternoon we did go on a little driving tour with stops at Green’s View overlook, the Cross, and the Templeton Library (pictured below). We also went by Hallelujah Pottery, located next to the cottage, and chatted with Debbie the owner of Full Circle Candles. She makes lovely all natural candles and Liz bought two spruce and one birch scented. It is always really cool to hear how her business is progressing.
We picked up a few things for dinner at Piggly Wiggly, which as you may have ascertained from the picture at the top of the post did not include chicken. The rest of the evening was pretty low key. I did a couple of crossword puzzles and we just relaxed. I woke up super early this morning, but went outside and saw that it was raining, and so tried to go back to sleep. After another trip to Piggly Wiggly and a cobbled together breakfast we went back to see the goats again. A few of them were eating on their round bale out in the pasture, but most were presumably in the barn.
We decided to drive through the back side of the domain and into the forest. It really still felt like winter back up in there. There was no green anywhere, not even in the underbrush. It sure will feel different in a few months, especially with all of the lightning bugs this summer. When we drove back by the farm it had ceased raining and many of the baby goats had come out to run around and eat. I got out my real camera and we watched them for quite a while. They are so entertaining – jumping, messing with each other, climbing things, and just being cute. Hopefully we will get some for ourselves this fall. We went back to the pottery store and talked to Debbie for a bit longer and then had another late lunch at the Mountain Goat Market. From there we took the long and slow, but scenic route back to the condo. That involved going through Cowan, around Winchester, near Lawrenceburg, into the heart of Shelbyville, through Nolensville and into Nashville.
All in all it was a very nice trip, despite less than ideal weather. I’m not sure when we will be able to return. Congratulations if you have made it this far. Below are some goat pictures as a reward.
Blah blah blah.
It’s been a very lazy Saturday thus far. The gray skies and intermittent rain have kept me inside. I’ve messed around with my photos a little bit, watched last night’s episode of Taken, and pondered the possibility of doing something more productive. Unfortunately not much comes to mind. I do need to rework the house plans slightly and prepare them for printing. More than anything I would like to go camping. It has been several months and I sure miss going. That doesn’t seem to be in the cards though.
Map time!
I have spent a little time on the Maps page recently. It has been nice to look through all of my old pictures, but also a little sad. One thing is for sure – I have a ton of photographs to sort through. There are plenty more to delete. I use Picasa which I really like for organizing, but Google has of course discontinued it, because that is what they do to cool products. I am rather passively searching for a replacement. Ideally one with more editing features that isn’t too complicated. Anyways, the Ile de France, India and Nepal, and Spain maps are now live. Each pin leads to a gallery. All photos are unedited. Hopefully at some point I will become skilled at image enhancement. They aren’t necessarily my best or favorite pictures, just some that I selected as representative of the areas. Looking through all of the photographs was surprisingly tedious. My goal is to have all of the maps done within a month or so.
Restaked.
The above picture shows a beautiful building site punctuated by a multitude of small orange stakes marking the boundaries of the house and garage. There is a chance that the footers will get dug tomorrow, but I’m not getting my hopes up. But it sure would be great if it happened!
I spent a bit of time at the farm today, continuing to clean up the property and crush things with the tractor. The weather was perfect and it is nice the the ground is finally dry. The forecast for the next couple of weeks looks decent. The cold would pretty much seem to be gone.
Graded.
Progress is slow and inconsistent, but still present. On Monday the surveyors came and staked out the building envelope. Yesterday our friend Grant used his brand new track loader to grade the site. He moved around a lot of dirt with an efficiency that Annie could never match. Hopefully the surveyors will return tomorrow to lay out the exact locations of the footings. Then digging, pouring, laying block, framing, roofing…
Quick trip up the mountain.
We actually didn’t end up going to Monteagle until yesterday (Saturday) morning. Things got a little hectic on Friday night and so it was better to briefly postpone. The drive was uneventful – I took my typical route of the interstate to Manchester then Highway 41 up to Monteagle. It was a pretty drive, as usual, but not yet as green as I was hoping for. We didn’t have much of an agenda other than relaxing and of course visiting the goats on campus. We drove to see them and it was really cool because they actually left their big, round bale of hay and came to check us out. That thrilled Liz and she took lots of pictures and videos. I also snapped a few photos with my phone.
We had lunch at the Mountain Goat Market and really enjoyed sitting out on the porch. The afternoon was spent reading and napping. We went to Lake O’Donnell for sunset. I used my new camera for the first time and really enjoyed it. I haven’t put the pictures on my computer yet, but will try to this evening.
We returned to the Mountain Goat Market for dinner and again enjoyed the serenity of their patio. Being there is always so nice and relaxing. We went back to the cottage and read and talked some more until bed time. This morning I woke up at the crack, but it was super overcast, so I didn’t go out to photograph. We took it pretty easy through the morning before coming back to Nashville. I have no idea when we will be able to return to the mountain, but I hope it won’t be too far from now. Of course it will be a little more complicated with the coming third member of our party.
Papery party.
Today has been a thoroughly unexciting parade of paperwork (and alliteration, apparently). More in the figurative since though, as it was mostly online/computer type stuff. I updated my expense spreadsheets for the house and nascent business, paid a couple of bills, and really organized a lot of files and folders on my computer. I also did a lot of cleaning and organizing on the condo. Mostly boxing things up. On the fun side, I was able to start setting up the two external computer monitors that Liz got me (for free!) from her office. And yes, they know that she took them. They are 23″ Asus full HD screens. Not top of the line by any stretch, but still quite nice. And free. I’m not sure if my laptop will support running both at the same time. One is connected via an HDMI cable, while I ordered an HDMI to DVI cable for the other one from Amazon. We’ll see if that works. I promise that I am done with acronyms for this post.
This evening we are headed up to Monteagle. There is a chance of thunderstorms this evening and tomorrow morning, but other than that the weather should be glorious. I hope to hike some, relax, read, take a lot of pictures, and eat at the Mountain Goat Market. There should be lots of pretty blooms both on campus and in the parks.
“To the man with a hammer…
…everything looks like a nail” – Mark Twain, possibly
That is a nice saying, but I have an updated version. “To the man with tractor and front-end loader, everything looks like a target for destruction”. After today I can verify the truthfulness of that statement.
Getting the fire started this morning took more diesel fuel than I would have liked, but eventually the big pile got to burning pretty good. All of the house debris burned along with most of the tulip poplar that was on top. I also threw on some old cedar logs. I debated saving them, but they were in fairly rough shape.
Annie and I also uprooted a number of trees. Below is one of the bigger ones. The still soft ground makes pushing over certain types of trees pretty easy.
As the pictures show it was a glorious day. Hopefully spring is here, although I wouldn’t mind one more good snow storm. I’m worried that a relatively mild winter will mean lots of bugs this year.
More Sketchin’ Up.
I have kept messing with the SketchUp plans for the farm house. Below are new (and blue!) updates to the design. The final house will be white, but I decided to make a colored version because it makes it easier to see details.
Today wasn’t as productive as I would have liked. I broke the quick attach handle on my loader. I guess it will need to be welded back on. I bought a crescent wrench and a pipe wrench at Lowe’s, but neither of them worked really. I eventually got the bucket off by beating the pins from the bottom. The pallet forks went on easily. I dug up a few stumps and moved around some cedar logs. Tomorrow will be another beautiful day and I will try to burn the last of the house debris as well as a lot of the recently downed trees. I’m not sure if I will attempt to burn the stumps or just throw them into the dumpster. There is a bit of space remaining, but weight could become an issue. We are restricted to 8000 pounds.
I was hoping that the engineer would come today to lay out the footings, but he didn’t. Maybe tomorrow. The sooner the better so we can take advantage of this nicer weather and get to work.