I haven't accomplished much this week - between work and various levels of laziness I only got the garden beds dug and one of the trees for the wall posts knocked down. Well tonight I chopped three 10' sections off it, too, and discovered that the axe needs sharpening.
I don't know how I'm going to get the poles placed, though - the logs are a lot thicker than I had planned on going for (about 10-11'') so it's probably going to be a three person job to get them set up. Maybe I should make a sign and go wave it on the side of the highway.
I've taken a lot of pictures recently, most of them irrelevant, but I'll get some of them up soon.

Well, the digging/leveling is done. *yay*  I finished it yesterday, with the help of about 2 inches of rain. As the bottom of the house foundations are made of clay, the water doesn't drain away and I had a perfect picture of exactly what parts of the house still needed to be dug level. So I spent a while on that and proclaimed myself done when everything was underwater. I celebrated with a small whoop that stopped abruptly with a nervous glance toward the neighbours. Apparently I'm very shy of making noise when I'm by myself. I hadn't realized.

Unfortunately, having a clay foundation where the water doesn't drain can also be a problem, especially for straw bales that aren't supposed to get their feet wet. I'm going to have to fix that - dig a small channel and fill it with stone or something.
The final depth of the back of the excavation is approximately 5'9'', for anyone who's interested.
The next task on the list is to dig post holes (only about 1' - 1'6'' deep, so not a huge endeavor) and cut down suitable posts. Once that is done, I can work on either putting a layer of gravel on the floor, continuing work on the frame, or building a retaining wall. It will be nice to know I have a choice instead of just shoveling. :)

This picture marks my favourite time of year - when the dandelions bloom. There isn't much prettier than a lawn sprinkled with yellow, in my books. Before they bloomed, I'd been trying to acquire the taste of dandelion leaves (makes sense to me - there's not much point trying to grow lettuce for the deer around here.) They're very bitter, but edible. After they bloomed, I decided to try the flowers. They're a mix between bitter and sweet and fuzz, and not bad once you get used to them. I'm working on that. I also found out that they turn your saliva yellow. Benita almost threw up when I made this exciting discovery.

I've started digging a garden near where Grandpa's old one behind the garage was. Mum benefits from this more than she knows - I was wondering where the easiest place to get sod for the roof would be, and now the back lawn is no longer first choice. :)

This is a picture taken about halfway along the path to the hobbit house. I've decided to call the tree Tane Mahuta Mate. Tane Mahuta is the Maori name for the biggest tree in New Zealand, translated to 'Lord of the Forest'. 'Mate' means dead. This tree is easily the tallest one in Hobbitvale, so it seems fitting to me - the only difference is that it looks like it hasn't worn leaves in a decade or so. Oh well. It's a very interesting tree. The bark has slid off it in large sheets, something is likely living in that cave under its roots, and worms have covered the wood in runes.

And this is a picture of the little creek that wanders along in front of the hobbit house, where my bridge (two stepping stumps and a tippy log) crosses it.

I've got just time for a quick post before I go off to work. (This may mean going to Tim Horton's for lunch, but oh well.)

This is where we were at about a week ago. Lily (Brad and Rosie's dog) was on lookout, protecting me from mad squirrels and ravaging seagulls. One little chirp about a hundred yards away and she went berserk. However, she watched the deer approach to about thirty feet without making a noise (completely out of character for Lily). Maybe she's never seen a deer before and doesn't know she's supposed to bark at them.

And this one was taken yesterday. Looks kind of like a crater, I know. The bottom part (to the right) is as low as it's going. I just have to clear the rest and level it. My friend Spencer is going to come and help tomorrow, so we'll hopefully get it done. I say 'hopefully' because it's ridiculously hard clay, and it's put my goals back a week already.

Ying-yang?

Missing you guys in Saskatchewan! Wish you were here! :)

Hmm, seems this is horribly outdated. I just realized the last picture of my hobbit hole is over three weeks old. I shall take a new one as soon as possible - the hole is almost done, half the bottom floor is showing, and I'm a little euphoric. However, the prospect of hauling everything I'm going to need (gravel, sand, rock, etc.) down the trail to Hobbitvale dampens that a little bit. I'm considering skipping the retaining wall again - perhaps using chain link fence, for all the good it will do... I don't know, really. I shall write to a friend of mine who is a civil engineer - if anybody can tell me what to do, he can.
...I should have thought of that about a month ago, at least.
I have two new companions in my little valley, too. A piliated woodpecker and his mate seem to think the trees nearby are absolutely scrumptious. The deer are getting used to me now too, and it's more of a surprise than a scare when I come along. Yes, Wendy, I understand that making friends with deer is tantamount to vegicide, but have you seen their eyes?
I also saw beaver kits (pups?) for the first time tonight, down by the creek... cutest little things ever! They're like miniature beavers with skinny tails, and they swim around up and down the creek like motorboats on patrol, squeaking the whole time.

Hmm. Exactly one year ago, give or take a few hours, I was in Christchurch, New Zealand. Forgetting I was in a backpacker hostel, I sat up too fast in the middle of the night and whacked my head on the bunk above me. I must have scared the poor girl to bits. Then when I went to get a drink of water, I came back in the dark and tripped over the ladder, which probably woke everybody else up too. Good times...

Oh, and in case anyone's interested, the partridge is still on the same log doing his mating call. Moss has grown around his feet.

I'm not sure why the dodo is extinct and he isn't.

Hmm, maybe ten days wasn't that long after all. I haven't said much over the last while cause I haven't accomplished much - I managed to strain my arms and then pulled a big smart and worked on them for another week, and it took a week after that without digging to stop them from being tingly every morning. So I became a computer dwarf and sulked in the basement trying to ignore the perfect weather outside - which is a waste of good sunshine, I know, but if I go outside I'll want to go to the hobbit house, and if I go to the hobbit house I'll feel like a wimp for not doing anything, and then I'll really total my arms.

So yeah. I started doing stuff again yesterday, and apparently blew it again - more pins and needles again this morning. I'm starting to feel rebellious, though - there's not a whole lot of digging left and I've been at this a month. Kind of ridiculous. I might just do it and say oops later.

So me and Brad went to get the gravel for the retaining walls and floor base yesterday. When we came back from paying for it we found one of the tires on the trailer having a meltdown. So we went across the road to Canadian Tire and picked up an air compressor, as well as a free sample of smelly black goop from the auto shop to fix the tire on my wheelbarrow, which is also having issues. When we went through the checkout line, Brad tried to pass it off as Espresso, but the cashier didn't buy it. Good thing it was free.

Most people at work know I'm building a hobbit house too. Lots of people ask if I'm going to have a round door, and I must say I think it's a requirement for any self-respecting hobbit. I'll at least give it a try. Lots of people have also started calling me a hippie - while I wasn't particularly fond of the term to start with I'm becoming resigned to it and I may end up liking it yet. I guess it is accurate. It mostly started when I developed a fondness for bandannas - Emma (my sister's friend) laughed hysterically and told me I looked like... whatever... but when I took it off a few hours later she told me to put it back on cause 'my head looked empty without it'. I'm still trying to decide whether to be insulted or not. When I put it on at work today my boss laughed so hard he almost plowed the bobcat into a transport truck and told me I looked like Jerry Garcia. I have no idea who that is. Perhaps I should google him.

...okay. Not super flattering.

I won't bother with a picture today as it is still only a hole in the ground, and probably not much different from the last picture. I hope to be done with the digging sometime next week (although I have 40 hours at work too... we'll see). So I'll post a picture when that's done. Estimated dimensions of the finished hole are about 17' by 17' by 5' deep at the deepest point, 1'6'' at the shallowest.