As always, when there is silence on the blog, you can rest assured that there is a lot going on. Lets see, since the last blog, our garden has grown, but most surprising, the garden at the farm supply has exploded. A few days after publishing blog, I was told to go ahead and plant a garden out in the warehouse yard, something I had given up on, aside from a few onions and garlic, due to a lack of interest from other workers.

In a wild chain of events, we went from “lets plant some stuff and make raised beds” to “lets buy a skip loader and sell bulk soil.” Then on to, “Hey Spicer, go buy a tractor, build a soil bin, license a few of the guys in back, and think about a trailer so we can take the tractor out to our own houses, and rent you out to customers.”

Then, last Monday, this article his to front page of the local paper. The article prompted a few new customers to come in and ask me questions like, “why doesn’t my garden grow?” Wednesday, I got a phone call from the boss, who asked me if I’d be in on Monday because the head of the ag department at the college wants to meet with me, and that we’d also be working out a plan for a community plot for the local senior center.

Our wonderful neighbors, The Donners, are moving back to England again, and I spent last week working with the patriarch of the family helping him finish off projects before his departure. I spent the week mostly holding things and minding the fire on a small forge as I picked up a bit more practical experience in blacksmithing. Upon their departure, we’ll be moving their forge and anvil down here to my place to keep a blacksmith on the hill.

Yet another neighbor moved, but this time he moved his whole house. Having spent nearly two decades in a tipi, he was able to move the house and have it set up in one day, a mile deeper into the hills, finally getting him out of the dust channel of living beside our road. After helping him move a 1000 gallon water tank down a half mile foot path, he asked if I wanted his old tipi, which he had replaced a few months back. So, now we’ve got a 20 foot tipi that will be residing in the west side of the garden.

He also threw in an old box stove, some chairs and planters, and anything else he didn’t want to drag down to his new place. If anybody wants one of those dangerous folding plastic chaise lounges, he’s got one for you cheap. And a little cooler.

Finally, the fourteen month odyssey into experimental wind power resulted in a 30 foot erection as our new slavonius turbine went vertical, producing a whopping 20 watts before choking out and getting set back down.

Our neighborhood watch program got kicked into high gear with the arrival of trespass growers on the timber parcel beside our place, with a neighbor and I tracking them down the river road far enough to make sure they weren’t out in our backyard. A few days later, the security manager of the parcel arrived and we spent about an hour going over the tracks, and being shown the survey markers that mark the limits of our property.

A few days after the trespass growers went driving down our road, I ran into a guy in our driveway with no good business and a downright bad attitude. Being unable to encourage him to leave on my own, the neighbors got called into action and we managed to run him off the hill. Later that day, he enjoyed a 60mph high speed chase down a road I have trouble going more than 20 mph on, flipped his 4runner, and proceeded to defy police as he sat in the wreck. He was found to have a switch blade, tear gas and an empty flashlight containing just over a pound of meth. One of my buddies up here on the hill described him as a spunion, a word I will be using as frequently as possible when encountering tweakers.

Just a normal everyday hillbilly life.