Today was a day of manual labor, mostly involving lots of wheelbarrows full of dirt and a bit of grass cutting, and a little Monkey-B too.
Every day there is always plenty of Hive work to do, but there is also plenty of labor that needs to be done to improve our property. We have no grazing animals and no lawnmower, so all mowing is done by sickle and machete. Occasionally I burn the cuttings if they are full of thorny plants, otherwise I try and use the dried cut grass as mulch.
In the above photo you can see the highway at the top of the hill. On the opposite side of the highway there is a very deep concrete ditch, and it is always full of silt and dirt from the hillside above it that you can also see. I get free dirt from inside this ditch and also the bottom of the hillside, fill my wheelbarrow and run it down the hill to wherever it is needed. Monkey-B decided to see how well she could manage an empty wheelbarrow, and quickly learned it's not as easy as it looks.
I've noticed on most nights that I make fires at the scenic overlook near the cabin that the family rarely joins me. I think this is because it's a bit far from the house and also the top of the cliff is very windy at night. I've been slowly backfilling the former fish pond turned snake paradise with free dirt from across the highway, and today I was able to relocate the firepit even though the space isn't completely finished yet. Eventually we are planning an outdoor kitchen for this space, but for now it's a more convenient, closer, and less windy firepit.
It hasn't rained for several days, so one of today's tasks was watering the garden and various plants. As we don't have running water, we achieve this by running the water pump at the river until the job is done, then shutting it off. It's not convenient, but it's the most troublefree way we currently have to water plants. Monkey-B was apparently playing the role of supervisor as you can see.
Monkey-B is Steung Kach's unofficial pyrite collector. It seems to be abundant in the parts of our land that are backfilled with gray clay form across the road. She hasn't gotten tired of collecting it, and I have seen her massive pyrite stash that she keeps in her bedroom, pretty impressive.
The hose is long, old, stiff, and full of holes, so a future upgrade before we have running water will be a new hose. This would at least make the job of filling the barrels and the basin in the bathroom much easier. Our land isn't huge, but there is sure plenty of work to do at any time. Relaxing by the new firepit will be a nice reward for today's work, and hopefully the three ladies of this household will be more likely to join me now.
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