Setting Up a Homestead

This cottage at the bottom of our property is a complete blank canvas. I am living a dream that is unfolding into whatever we make from it. The first threshold of happiness is accepting your magick can create anything you choose. You really do hold the paintbrushes to the canvas of your life and it’s best, at least for me, when there’s a bit of elbow grease involved.

I don’t like cleaning but I love organizing. A little cannabis high enhances the creative process of putting things together, making order, creating beauty and pursuing the possibilities that arise. A madrone branch becomes my jewelry holder. I grind eggshells into a powder, which is called cascarillas, a magickal protection agent that I add to soapy water to clean the deck while singing Goddess songs. Altars are made for my gratitude for this joyful opportunity, including the new shower curtain and cushy rugs on the floor. Writing ideas bubble to the surface while I clean and organize that would elude me if I was to stare at the blank page and wait for Muse to arrive. Instead, I see miracles and marvel at our blessings.

Joey’s mother gave us her childhood wooden dresser and an old ice box that we will attempt to use for refrigeration instead of coolers when we come for 7-14 day stretches to work on the property and cottage. His brother Tony gave us propane cans for the heater because nights are so chilly your breath is misty. Cindy gave her patio furniture. We brought my dad’s burl table and plan to affix burnt orange branches as legs from the fallen madrone tree. We sleep on the queen mattress pad and frame from Aunt Elaine. Tapestries have been repurposed. The 400-square foot room where the former owners dried the cannabis has no windows or doors, nor floor insultation so that’s next on the list. Let the sun shine in.

At night, I would love to have power to just flick the switch for the canned recess lighting. But I don’t want to deal with the noise of a generator, so until we can buy the quiet generator or a solar power system, I move around the camping solar panel to charge up a battery that we plug in our cell phones and camping lights for illumination at night. We can also charge phones while driving into town or while eating lunch and catching up on emails at the Brickhouse coffeehouse. I love that all day long all I hear is birds and the sounds of my beloved making a homestead with me, but town is just ten minutes away.

Joey and our friend Brennan took down about fifty metal 8-foot t-bars and together we unplugged the irrigation for the cannabis planted over the leech field, a new term that I recently discovered having lived in cities or suburbs most of my life. I dumped 13 soil pots for the start of a wildflower garden, since we won’t be eating those and the roots won’t damage the septic system. Joey weed whacked the poison oak, berry bushes (don’t worry berries are everywhere) and ferns to create defensible space around our house, firefighting skills coming in handy, plus he made a path to the water tank on a hill above the cottage and fixed puddles in the road from wisdom gained in two-plus decades at CalTrans. Culverts and French drains are also on the list.

We cleared the dirt away from the foundation of the cottage, which rests on stilts, so the wood wouldn’t rot. I dumped one pot of soil to create a small herb garden of two rosemary, an English lavender, calendula and chamomile. We have hundreds of grow pots so shared some with Brennan along with the t-bars used for stringing line to help the cannabis grow. On the hill outside my kitchen window, we’ll plant a terraced garden of herbs and vegetables and in two tarped hoop houses at the hollows we’ll plant artichokes and other veggies for the farmers market when we move permanently to Willits.

The plan is in 2-5 years, we will build either a log or cob house at the top flat spot which is right next to the gate at the beginning of our property. This gate is one mile from Highway 20 uphill and one mile downhill to the hollows. There is sun at the top spot all day, the view is pretty, and the road is good. In all honesty, the middle flat spot just above my chakra meditation chair, has the best view, but the road to it is far too steep to make it the “forever home.” There’s another hoop house here that has been taken over by Russian thistle. We will employ goats (I hope) to eat the weeds, then I plan on building a solar powered hot tub made from cob and a spa garden with roses, lavender, rosemary, red clover and other herbs good for bathing.

I could get a cell booster and probably make a call from the kitchen, but my 200 paces walk up a dirt road to get a single bar on my telephone is good for my soul. I placed a sturdy metal chair next to my new tree buddy for a place to rest and take in the beauty of nature. Before I check my phone, I do a chakra meditation, imagining each rainbow light illuminating at its energy center along my kundalini. I give thanks for this dream come true.