Issue Six

Fire has a way with wood. It can turn it into light or it can make it better at heavy-lifting. Three hundred years ago the Japanese discovered a technique for weather-proofing cedar siding. Shou sugi ban. We decided to use the method for our roof timbers. It turns out scorching the surface of wood makes it water resistant, bug repellant, and fire retardant. Plus it was a fun and easy way to give our timbers the rich chocolate color we desired. An added bonus, we can look up for years to come and remember that a little bit of pain and suffering can bring a wealth of good.

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Issue Five

Somebody or the wind buried treasure in our cornfield. We discovered it by accident on a trek out to the back of the property to check on our bees. A tree. And then another and another and a trio! Bravehearted little saplings testing their newfound liberty. Our neighbor said he was astonished that the seeds survived and made their home on land devastated by decades of insecticide spray. Some kind of resilience. In just a year, here’s the beginnings of a forest on 10 acres cultivated for generations.

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Issue Four

I bet they knew the storm was coming before we did. 42,000 bees newly tucked into our 4 Warre hives. We’d decided to wait to strap the hives to the stands until we had finished 2 or 3 weeks of feeding the bees and taking off the roof to change the feeders. It takes the bees a little while to glue the hive body boxes together, but we knew that the hives wouldn’t be top-heavy since they would just be starting to build comb. Not super high risk for blowing over. We thought. We hadn’t counted on 50mph wind gusts in those two vulnerable weeks.

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Issue Three

I was starting to get a little lot worried about finding a wood stove in time. Buying used meant we could get great quality within our budget. It also meant we might need to order some parts to get it working perfectly.

And I didn’t know how long that would take.

I told Robert I was checking Craigslist three times a day and trying not to feel anxious. It seemed like all the good ones had come and gone before we were ready to get one...

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Issue One (and a half…)

The surveyor’s office looked like a moving crew and a bunch of toddlers had collided. It wasn’t pretty, and neither was the timeline. 4-5 weeks. Yikes! Even if we were willing to shell out the $700 to have our boundary lines marked, it was going to cost us a month. Every surveyor in the region had stacks of work higher than a forest. Austin’s sprawling like a sunbathing cat, and the lack of rain over the summer meant that the building industry hadn’t taken a siesta.

I texted Robert the news, and he wrote back that he was working on a solution.

Our driveway and utilities were all waiting on one little line...

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