SPOON: on the land

[kellan_the_tabby]

[Flat land, sparsely covered in brown tumbleweeds, leads up to rugged, snowy mountain peaks.]

‘Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered …’

… okay, no, but we _did_ manage to get the van stuck within a hundred feet of our borders, & by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’, & it took us four days to get it unstuck, so, uh, there’s been a lot going on.

But the view is like that! So that helps a lot.

… except for the dust storms, but, well, that’s just how it is here. Tom’s been enjoying the dust, at least. He digs holes. Diggy diggy hole. We’re pretty sure he’s related to Bifur & Bofur.

[Major Tom, a big grey tabby wearing a purple harness, sits at the far end of a long trench dug into loose, sandy ground. The trench is probably two feet long. Tom looks pretty smug. The van’s wheels are in the background.]

Both boys have been having a lot of fun. Now that we’re on the land proper, there’s not a lot we can do until the storage container shows up, so we’re kinda marking time, but that does give us lots of time to let the boys — & Sigdis, who’s learning the arts of Leashcat — wander, under supervision. There’s really nowhere they can go, fortunately.

Tom, to nobody’s surprise, spends a lot of time rolling. A LOT.

[Tom’s flopped on his side in the dust. There’s a whole thicket of tumbleweeds at his feet. His normally-grey fur is mostly vaguely brown, same as the dust.]

& in the meantime, we humans have views like this:

[Flat land rising to a snow-covered peak, but very tops of the mountains are covered in clouds.]

It really is gorgeous here.

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Comments

[siliconshaman]

It is very gorgeous... but my internal biologist is looking at all that brown vegetation, dry dusty soil and how little snow pack there is given the time of year...and muttering about climate change, 100 year droughts and habitat destruction.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Yeah it's a PROBLEM, is what. We're composting already, & we're gonna start planting local clover & perennial grasses; it's not much, but we'll do what we can.

[siliconshaman]

Agreed, that should help a little. If you're using local seeds I would also suggest seed-bombing as well when you go out and about. Give nature a leg-up as it were.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Oh hell yeah, seeds are cheap & we're shameless.

[siliconshaman]

Given how degraded the environment is, I'd do some research on coloniser plants native to your area. They have to go in first, think of them as the 'boot-up' plants to repair the ecosystem so you can then introduce other native species.

I suspect you'd need to look into succulents or drought hardy species too, to make do with what little water there is for a start.

[kellan_the_tabby]

*scribbles notes* *pases them on to ag department* thank!

[danabren]

If this were Failbook, I would Love this comment and thread.

[danabren]

I have questions - the van got stuck over your property line, and you lived in it for 4 days without being able to go anywhere for supplies? You were prepared for this?

This is the acreage you have purchased and you will be building a home here? Whence water and sewer?

What are the things in the foreground of the final image, is that close-up trash or far away building ... stuff?

[kellan_the_tabby]

Fortunately we had Other Roommate's car to get supplies (mostly food & gravel tbh). Woulda been SCREWED otherwise.

& yeah, that's our land. Eventually there'll be a well & a proper septic system; for now we're refilling jugs at Mall Wart &, well, using a bucket.

The stuff in the foreground is a couple things we pulled out of vehicles & just hadn't stuffed back in, plus an outdoor carpet I snagged from a nearby abandoned house which was very helpful with getting unstuck & is now sitting outside Tyrava's door.

[danabren]

*frowns* Okay, seems to be under control.

I would be overly dramatic about a lifestyle like this lol

[kellan_the_tabby]

Yeah, it's not fun, but we're getting there.

That said? There's a LOT of whining going on, I'm just not posting about that so much.

[thewayne]

Our first mutual poodle, Celeste, we took her to White Sands, I don't know if you ever made it there. She'd dig about a 4" hole, stick her nose in there and sniff sniff sniff, run a few feet away, repeat, rinse.

Very happy.

I'm very familiar with getting my vehicle stuck! First year I moved up here, we traded my RWD SUV for an AWD Toyota Matrix and put snow tires on it. And it didn't really snow. The NEXT year, I pretty much got stuck in every spot my wife ever got stuck in, only I did it all in one winter. We traded that Toyota in ten years later for my Subaru in '15 and I haven't stuck that one yet.

[kellan_the_tabby]

I never did make it to White Sands! One of these years, though, Tom would LOVE it.

Our impending fourth roommate should be here sometime next month, with a 4wd pickup. I. Can't. WAIT.

[thewayne]

Yay!