Wetfish LAND Party

Is that year round?  If so thats some nice power generation capacity.

There is water flow year round. However the flow rate varies wildly. Sometimes it's just a trickle, other times it can be several feet deep. Colorado has been in a drought since we started looking at the property last year, but despite that there has continued to be water flow year round. The neighbors have told me stories about times where there was so much water that they could see and hear the stream flowing from their house at top of the mountain

Went up to the land over the weekend with Bubbles, Sonder, and Sonder's friend Dominique. Each of us brought a tool and worked on the trail as we walked down the mountain. Dominique and I dug up a couple flowers that were growing in the middle of the trail and put them in pots.

There was a rainy snow storm earlier this week and the water level in the stream has risen even higher. Woodcat and I went up to the property yesterday and hiked around the entire length of the stream on the property. You can see in this picture that the amount of water flowing has almost doubled



(Woodcat for scale)

The trail is starting to become more developed now. It's 2-3 feet wide at the top of the hill and there is an erosion barrier made of rocks and logs. We are working on digging out the rest of the trail to the bottom, it's approximately 60% finished so far.

BEFORE: AFTER:

New video recorded after the snow storm we got a couple weeks ago

Back in January the trail down to the waterfall started out pretty narrow. At that point my focus was getting a path as far down the hill as possible. Large rocks were simply dug around and left to be dealt with later.



Over the past few months the trail got wider and large rocks were slowly moved out of the way. However this one rock at the beginning of the trail refused to budge.



Little did I know how far down this rock went when I started the trail. What we were walking over was just the tip of the iceberg.



For weeks I have been taking my friends hiking up on the land and each time we would spend a few minutes digging out a little bit more around the rock. At least 5 people on separate occasions had all taken turns using the mattock to dig around and try to pry the rock from the ground, but still it refused to budge.

Today things were different. Kiiada and I both took turns digging out the rock for about 30 minutes until we reached a part of the rock that had cracked. We were then able to hit the rock with the mattock and pry it apart. Despite breaking the rock into pieces we were still unable to get the whole thing out of the ground. We ended up just smashing the part that was left above ground and leaving the rest to be covered up with dirt.

Went up to the mountain a couple days ago and...

1. Put some netting around the trees to keep deer away
2. Mixed up the compost pile
3. Made some stairs out of the rock that kiiada and I dug up
4. Transplanted 7 specimens from the trail into pots for study

The trail is starting to become more developed now. It's 2-3 feet wide at the top of the hill and there is an erosion barrier made of rocks and logs. We are working on digging out the rest of the trail to the bottom, it's approximately 60% finished so far.

BEFORE: AFTER:

that looks amazing, and a lot of hard work, i hope you're not destroying your body again rachel

that looks amazing, and a lot of hard work, i hope you're not destroying your body again rachel

Thank you, it has been a lot of hard work. I appreciate the concern. I have been making sure to take breaks, stay hydrated, and run the AC in the truck so that I don't overheat. I stopped taking those psoriasis meds about 2 months ago, which were a big reason why I got hurt in the first place.

Anyway, the feeling of accomplishment when I smashed that rock with kiiada was pretty fuckin good.

Introducing... an annotated map of the property!! :D
Especially useful for reference when hiking with new people.

Watching storm clouds swirl around is so awesome

It's been a while since I posted any updates.

Last month my neighbor and I came to an agreement. He wants all of these logs removed from the access road on his property. In exchange for moving them, I get to keep 'em.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


You can see in the after pic I also started digging out some of the rock on the uphill side of the road and using them as a barrier on the downhill side. Before building the barrier I accidentally drove off the side of the road and got stuck, my neighbor had to come tow me out. After that happened I went to the hardware store and bought a bunch of those reflective markers.

More tree hauling pics!

I've been cutting up smaller logs and putting them in the back of the truck. But anything over 8 inches in diameter gets a tow strap wrapped around it and dragged up the road.

Now you're probably wondering what in the heck we're doing with all these logs.



Well, the plan is to make giant hugels! Hugelkultur is a horticultural technique of burying logs and organic material to create raised beds and terraces. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCgelkultur



By burying logs and using them to build terraces we can significantly increase the amount of moisture that gets trapped in the soil. We'll also be preventing the logs from burning if there is another forest fire, and putting the carbon back into the soil where it can be broken down by fungi and turned into nutrients to help restore the forest.

wow i look good from behind. lol but yeah seeing all that mess turned into something nice was great, although i'm curious as to how they're going to get buried, i think we were talking about generating massive ammounts of compost, by taking food waste of sorts from grasses and the like.