Welcome to July, 2024: The heat is on, and rain has arrived.

It feels great to have the gardens planted and growing well. Having all the water they need is a gift. In 2022, our first summer here, we were hauling water while working on the cistern and well, but it rained so much that year my small effort at a garden was a success. Last year, due to the severe drought, only enough rainwater for drinking, and a lack of filtered well water, I avoided gardening. This year, finally having good well water and 2700 gallons of rainwater in 2 cisterns, I hope that, barring hail, frost, bunnies and deer, we’ll see some real food out of it. Throughout June, the plants were burning up in the heat and being pummeled by the wind. Now, they are in danger of being beaten by hail, so I added shade/hail cloth to protect the peas, lettuce, spinach, and some of the tomatoes and squash plants. I put PVC tubes over the celery to help them stay cool and grow tall. Peas hate the heat and didn’t grow much, but we already have potatoes and spinach. The heavy mulch seems to be keeping plenty of moisture in and most of the weeds at bay, at least so far. Bindweed, however, is persistent! I have set up a watering system for when we are gone, too.

Pippin’s awning ripped off and was utterly destroyed during a violent microburst 2 weeks ago, so we moved the camper to a more protected and permanent spot that also boasts a cozy shade area under a juniper tree. I’m doing some repair work on the interior, as, in addition to losing the awning, it has been experiencing some serious entropy from hard use. The fake wood paneling on the cupboards has chipped and scratched, so I am painting them, which brightens the interior up wonderfully. I’ve built new latching doors to cover holes left from removing the (non-working) radio, improved the storage shelves, and replaced the shower head. They don’t make campers like they used to, that’s for sure. There are whole YouTube channels about the poor quality of many newer RVs and travel trailers. Apparently, since 2019 (Covid) the quality has gone downhill across the industry. Pippin was built in 2018 and doesn’t have any of the major issues (leaking roofs, rotting floors) that seem so common, but the finish materials are pretty shoddy. We’re planning to keep the camper here this winter and not put it in storage, and have moved it so it will be easy to hitch up when needed. It will also continue to be our spare bedroom.

Alan continues to dig in the never-ending effort to find our gray water drain. In spite of months of every kind of effort, it still drains slowly and backs up on occasion. The ditch is now 5 1/2 feet deep and about 20′ long, going past the front of the house where we are pretty sure the drain pipe emerges. It has to be down there somewhere, right? …so Alan digs for 1 hour every morning before the sun heats up. Every morning, hope springs eternal that he will hit it. (Hasn’t happened as of July 1.)

On a more fun note, during the hot spell, I cooked chocolate chip cookies and boiled potatoes in our solar oven: and with greater success than finding the drain line! The cookies bake perfectly, needing 2 hours to get done. The potatoes boiled in about 30 minutes and later turned into potato salad. It’s a great alternative to using the oven on a hot day and helps keep the house cool. If we are good about monitoring the windows and shades, the house stays wonderfully comfortable, about 72 degrees. Who needs air conditioning in a straw bale house?

Our Milk Paint has arrived in a dozen 5-pound bags of powder and I have just begun painting the house. We chose the second from the top above “test patches”: a 1:2 mix of “Marigold” and “Snow White” from http://www.milkpaint.com. I imagine it will take all summer and well into the fall, as we are going to do it by hand to be able to stop and start when we want, minimize waste, and avoid having to mask everything. It’s great to have a product that is easy to mix and clean-up, and is completely non-toxic. Milk Paint allows breathability in the straw bale walls so that mold can’t grow. So far, it goes on easily and looks great.

The rains finally arrived during the last week of June and have offered relief from the suffocating heat and dryness. The grass had turned brown and crunchy, but now in just a week, is lush and green. The earth was so thirsty, it has soaked up every drop (3″ and counting) without any flooding until this morning, when the creek began to run for the first time in a year. I moved the truck across the arroyo just in case it gets deep. Our Zeedyk structures (one-rock dams) seem to be doing their job in slowing down the water and allowing silt to stay in place instead of rushing toward the Pacific Ocean. You can see 3 of them below. Of course, they won’t work if it truly floods, as it does on occasion (6 feet deep in 2022!), but they are simple and easy to rebuild, which is why they are popular lo-tech solutions to limit erosion.

We are headed out on a short road trip after the 4th to check out Taos and Santa Fe with our grandson. Looking forward to some “urban life”. We’re going to explore the Earthship Community in Taos on our way.