Adventures of a little elephant

We went to the city a while ago to get some materials needed for the cistern. On our way back, we stopped at a rest area so that Leo could get out and run around a little.

In his hand, as usual, was his favorite toy, a little elephant. He and the elephant are never far apart, even when he sleeps. He was running around a shrub-like oak tree that had been planted there, and before we could stop him he threw his elephant into the tree. He often does this with toys - he'll throw them somewhere and then enjoy getting them. We have tried (obviously with less than 100% success) to curtail this irritating little habit.

We looked for the elephant for over half an hour, with Leo mournfully, and repeatedly, asking for it. We couldn't find it. We eventually gave up and left, with a very teary Leo.

At home, we showed him his other two little elephants (these are all toys that Abe had as a child), but he didn't want them.

Over the next 10 days, Leo would ask if we could go get his elephant. When we said no, he'd lost it, he would point to the truck and say we could go get it in that.

Well, about a week later, we went back to the city. We had had a huge amount of rain, so we decided to stop and see if the rains had shaken the elephant out of the tree. And sure enough, there it was, waiting patiently for us. Leo was so happy and excited, though he did not seem surprised - that was exactly where he had left it! Sigh.

Videos of Leo

I have just uploaded a BUNCH of videos of Leo. Click here if you want to see them.

You gotta love 'shrooms

Last night we ate the first mushroom grown on our place. You expect homegrown veggies to taste better (and they sure do), but we never thought it would make that much difference with a mushroom. It does. Neither of us have ever tasted such a delicious, great textured button mushroom.

We have two types of button mushrooms as well as oysters growing. One type of the buttons is starting to fruit.

It was super easy.

• We put horse manure and cut up hay in an ice chest and added water.
• We turned this mixture every couple of days to speed up the composting. As it composted, it got super hot (you couldn't even hold your hand in it), thus killing any unwanted critters.
• After about 20 days, we put the compost into plastic lined boxes, and added the spores.
• Once the spores filled the soil, which it has done with the one type of buttons, we added a sprinkling of peat moss onto it, opened it up and spray it with water every day. The mushrooms are our reward.

We plan to build the mushrooms their own little underground house when we get a chance. Right now we have them in the power house, which stays a pretty constant temperature all year around. This is key with mushrooms - you don't want it getting too hot or too cold.

Cistern

Our current project is building a 7200 gallon water tank. We have had 12" of rain so far this year (3.5 last night!!), which would have filled the tank had it been ready at the beginning of rain season. Still, we have more than enough rain left to fill it.

It is 8 feet tall, 12+ feet diameter and about 40 feet circumference.

• We had to dig it down about a foot and a half extra from where we had previously had the hole, so that the intake for the tank would be a bit lower than the downspout for the gutter. This extra foot and a half was in almost solid rock, which makes for a super stable base!
• We added a few inches of sand over the whole area.
• We marked the center of the hole with a rebar, where diagonals from each corner meet.
  
• We laid bricks in a level circle for the metal of the tank to sit on. We attached a string to the center rebar and marked a circle which would show where to lay the bricks.
• Using a jig we'd made, we drilled holes every 6 inches on both sides of the sheets of metal. There are 10 sheets of metal, each 8' x 4'.
• We bolted the sheets of metal together into a circle that sits on the center of the bricks.
• We welded and attached a frame for the roof.
• Painted everything with primer and Rustoleum.
  
• Filled dirt in around the cistern on the outside. This must be done evenly all the way around, so as not to shift the circle of metal.
  
• Attached metal to roof. The edges of this we bent inside the walls and screwed it into the walls. This allows water to run off the roof into the tank.

And that's as far as we've gotten so far. Next week we should be able to attach the pond liner to the inside of the metal and then do the pipes from roof and to house.

For photos of it all, see here.

Sex changes

It can sometimes be a little tricky to sex young rabbits, especially if they are squirming around. With that in mind, we decided to re-sex our rabbits, just in case, before the young ones get old enough to breed (they can breed when they are 3 months old, but we want to wait until they are 6 months).

Obviously no need with the adult females, Reina and Coco, who have both had babies since arriving at our place. Likewise with the adult male, Socks, who has a big old pair of testicles.

However, with the others, we discovered two mistakes. It turns out Obama is a female - I guess she now becomes Mrs. Obama? And Frisky is a male - the name can stay. Hopefully Frisky isn't yet old enough to have bred Reina or Coco so soon after they gave birth. We'll see in a few weeks.

A day in the Life of Leo

I've had a few complaints from family about not doing any updates on Leo recently, so here's one for the grandparents - be warned, it's kind of long. I'm afraid we haven't taken many photos or videos recently, but I will try and amend that over the next week. For this month's photos (both the ones we have and will take), click here.

A typical day for Leo begins at about 6am. He wakes up, grabs his water and the toys I place by his bed after he falls asleep at night, and comes into our room. He clambers up into our bed and will either snuggle up and fall asleep for another hour or play with his toys on our heads and bodies. The toys in question are his favorites of the moment, the ones he falls asleep clutching. Right now, they consist a small elephant, pig and truck.

We all go downstairs and have breakfast. Of course, the elephant and pig have to eat some of whatever he is eating, and they seem to especially like submerging themselves in milk. Every once in a while, one of them will fart (the sound having been faked by little lord Leo), and Leo will then exclaim "Oh, oink!" and then laugh heartily with his father.

While we do a few morning chores, Leo watches one of his movies on the laptop. It is really a credit to some of the movies out there that we can see them OVER AND OVER again and still find them entertaining (examples: Cars, Horton Hears a Who, Sesame Street videos, Shrek, Jungle Book).

We go outside and play with the dogs and rabbits. It's amazing what both will put up with from the two year old terror.

Abe and I then take it turns to work and watch Leo. Work currently involves prepping for building the cistern, planting, digging trenches, and other rain season jobs.

Leo spends a lot of time outside and we encourage him to "help" us with as many of our chores as possible (dishes, laundry, planting, making rock swales, feeding, watering, etc.). He loves to go hiking, especially if a water feature is included. We'll often hike over a mile each way. He runs half the way there, over pretty steep hills, and walks the other half. However he usually wants to be carried a lot of the way back.

Inside play involves hide-and-seek, running like a madman all over the place, tipping out all his toys and then putting them back again (minus one or two "chosen ones"), shapes, alphabet jigsaw, number cards, jumping and somersaulting on the bed, jumping and somersaulting on us, looking at books, talking to his talking Elmo. The list goes on.

He has a nap after lunch. Every once in a while he won't take a nap, but that usually leaves him super grumpy in the evening.

And grumpy also usually rears its ugly little head during the day too. He's only had one tantrum so far, which we're thankful for. However, he does whine or cry some when he doesn't get what he wants. Listening is pretty selective, which is normal I guess, for a male of the species. When he doesn't listen on something important (like don't go near the electric fence without us), he gets a smack or harsh words, at which point he gets very upset and wants to be cuddled.

Language is helping with the frustration he must feel. His extent of comprehension, both in English and Spanish, is impressive, and very recently he is starting to say a lot more words. After talking very little up til now, he is suddenly taking off. He's also putting up to three words together for more complex desires. For example, "Car, wa-wa, shoes" means "let's get in the car, drive down to the river where you can put my water shoes on and we'll get in!". However, the flip side of that is that even though he can make his wishes much clearer, we still sometimes refuse to give him what he wants - so he'll just repeat it over and over, looking at us as though we are deaf or stupid.

In the evening we go feed the animals, and here comes his favorite chore. He gets to help us pick worms out of the worm bin, and it is then his job to feed them to the chickens. He LOVES this. He especially likes to hold the worms out of reach, so the chickens have to jump to get them, and believe me, they will jump HIGH for worms.

We have dinner. He eats great overall. He is a little tricky to feed, as he loves something one meal and won't touch it on the next. He also tends to snack a lot in between meals - fruit, yogurt, nuts. All in all, if you can't get him to eat what it is we happen to be eating, he will always eat meat then fruit (pretty efficient way to get your requirements I suppose).

In the evening, we'll often watch a movie. When it's not one he's interested in, he contents himself with climbing all over you and running around. We usually have to watch a movie 3 or 4 times before we have seen it all.

He falls asleep in my arms between 9 and 10. You know he's asleep when he finally releases his elephant, pig and truck, which he has had in his hands throughout the day. I am sure to put them by his bed once he's asleep, as they are the first thing he looks for when he wakes up.

Rain Season

The rains have now officially started, with three days in a row of heavy downpours. And they are very welcome.

Everything has cooled off and has been well and truly doused. Within a couple of weeks, the land will go through its biggest transformation of the year - it will become blindingly green. It already seems to have a pre-green sheen.

Yesterday was a big storm. The rain was so thick you couldn't see two feet out the window. Luckily, we had walked around the property right before it rained, broadcasting extra seeds that we had (squash, oats, beans, herbs, corn, sunflowers, wheat, etc.).

This morning, we planted the rest of the garden - all beds are now seeded. For photos of the garden and trees so far, click here.

Our pond also got a lot of water. It never filled up last year. The grass on our property is pretty healthy and we have very little runoff, except on roads and paths. So this year we have made a couple of trenches to help guide water into the pond, and they made a big difference. We will be digging a few more soon.

Our tanks are all full. We are currently digging out a hole for a new cistern. We had made the hole last year, but we are making it an extra foot and a half deep. As soon as it's all dug out, we will begin construction on the tank.