City to Gritty

Second weekend at the property! This is truly my peace place, it is official.

First thing first, the DRIVEWAY! It looks so good, machine neighbor really knocked it out of the park here and we are so excited to work with him on future projects. It took 8 dump truck loads of gravel and a day or two for grading, trenching, and graveling. Now we have a great loop that requires no backing in for camping! Also – machine guy just opened his off grid cabin for short term rental, click here if you need an off grid experience in the Painted Hills / Mitchell area of Oregon.

Next we collected our trail cams! The camera pointed at the driveway had a nearly dead battery and 1900 pictures, mostly of machine guy. We placed this one here to get an idea of what kind of people traffic there might be on our driveway when we aren’t there. The other was a little further in and closer to where we are thinking for a homesite. We wanted to see what kind of creature trails we would be interfering with if we chose to build in this spot. Not many, mostly the blue bird and a couple deer. Only 450 pictures on that camera, still full battery! We saved the good shots, cleared the memory card, and reset them. One camera is at a higher elevation and at an intersection of multiple game trails, the other is set over our ravines close to where we saw the cow tracks on our rock seeking hike we set on to add pizazz to our firepit.

Saturday we spent the day water witching, shooting archery, digging out the firepit area, and clearing brush around our campsite area. Steve also got a chance to explore our local mountain range just 30 min from our homesite to scout the local wild game scene!

The water witching was so fun and I absolutely felt the dowsing rods moving no matter how tightly I held them. Greyson proclaimed the same. Steve called us crazy. He is just jealous because he doesn’t have the touch! Water witching was recommended to us by everyone we know that has ever drilled for a well. Our real estate agent also recommended one to us when we were talking to him about well drilling companies in the area. My best friend’s mom was the one who actually suggested we give it a go ourselves. “Just go get some wire hangers, bend them, and go for a walk!” So we did and it was a blast! I highly recommend anyone who needs a well to play with this magical, non scientific, force! In our podcast I said that it has been used since the 1500’s in Germany, but upon further research I found an article from the Farmer’s Almanac website that says there have been cave drawings depicting a human holding a forked stick seeming to be looking for water. Read more about this fascinating pseudoscience here!

My amazing family got me my own lefty compound bow for my birthday so we took some hay bales out and had some family archery time. Only one arrow was lost! Huzzah! We all definitely need to work on our aim…

We hiked A LOT and attempted to bring rocks up for the firepit, but holy cow those were heavy and the hills are steep, that task didn’t last long. I think it prettied up the firepit for sure, that and Steve’s excavating to make it safer, but to really finish this area the way I see it in my mindscape, we will need way more rock and digging… To be continued here.

Next trip is scheduled for end of June. We are going to invite our parents out to finally see the place! Steve’s mom and step dad are going to bring out a few of their horses and establish a corral for them – our first animal area on the homestead – so exciting!