To The Surbiton Manor Born

  The Steepmeadow urban homestead is the result, in part, of an interest in survival that started in January, 2017.  The thought was late in coming, but it seemed to me that without some planning for the worst, a person could find themselves in a lot of trouble very quickly in the face of myriad threats.  We're more vulnerable than we'd like to think to dangers of real political upheaval and unrest, economic depression and hyperinflation, hunger, disease, not to mention more common dangers like hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, tornadoes, ice storms. And then there are the truly catastrophic dangers of nuclear war, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack - where the airburst of a single smallish nuclear device could bring down the entire power grid of the U.S. and destroy every electrical circuit in less than a second. No computers. No electricity.  I dove into reading a lot of nonfiction and fiction about the subject. If you want to read a terrifying group of novels to read that

  Snow has arrived at Steepmeadow. It's a tick early this year. But most of the hatches were battened last weekend. This morning we brought the second car in for snow tires, but we won't get it back until tomorrow, because the people delivering the tires to the Firestone stopped delivering them in the late morning because of the snow. Who knew? From where I'm sitting, it looks like about six inches, and it is still falling. It was Zipper's first snow. He's a young cat. He's only been around since April. A view down the slope to the deeper two raised beds The beds where only weeks ago giant sunflowers were being visited by goldfinches. 

With little time to spare, we completed the raised bed construction project, moved four yards of dirt to fill them, and covered the soil with a shredded leaf mulch.  This was no mean feat. I figured we were covering a lot of miles in that back yard, marchin' hup and down the hill with a heavy wheel-barrow. So I turned on my Garmin. It turned out that speaking just for myself, and not counting Kiki's at least equal effort, I covered 2.21 miles. We'd started the day with our yearly pilgrimage to the top of Wedge Hill in William O'Brien State Park where I'd proposed that we get married on MEA weekend seven years ago. Best decision ever. Also worth mentioning, as I mowed the back yard to mulch leaves this afternoon, is that little job involves 1.28 miles of hiking. Not a big deal, necessarily, as I ran six miles this morning, but not negligible, either. An action shot of Kiki whipping her hair while shoveling dirt We had our first really solid, hard frost last night.

This weekend saw the building of the penultimate raised bed of the year down in the lower garden, which now appears as a veritable forest of 4x4's. A sad zucchini stands a lonesome vigil over the last, drooping tomatoes. Next weekend, those tomatoes must verily fall as well, if they are not taken by frost during the week, for it shall be the day that the final raised bed of the season rises from the soil in triumph. A lone figure (I) stood, surveying the fruits of the labor of these last...nine weeks in amazement. The summers work has changed the face of Steepmeadow. About those leaves which nobly hung from the trees all this past summer. There are a great many of them. And it seems that, in the end, they must fall (as described in this memorable comic bit by Jim Gaffigan). And it must be noted that they fall indiscriminately, in vast numbers, from the many mature trees that we inherited on the property. What to do with them all? Shredding them with the lawnmower and leaving them i

This last weekend was an opportunity to do something a little different with the raised bed construction and to re-purpose our store-bought Wayfair bed. Last spring, we were not keen to dig too close to the garage, so we purchased an 8x4 10" high bed from Wayfair. It was roughly the cost of the lumber to build one. It was easy to put together. It was split into two 4x4 sections. That said, I've not been entirely happy with it. Just one season later, the boards have been slightly warped by the weight of the dirt inside, and are showing signs of weathering. Given that the cost savings are minimal, I think it's best to stick to the home-made ones for the future. Below, you can see the half of the bed that still needs to be moved or adjusted.   We discovered, as the summer went on, that it was difficult to reach the back of a 4 foot wide bed from the front or the side to do any work.  At the same time, we determined that we wanted to lift and consolidate the blueberry bushes.