Ian McGimsey

Water- The best water I have ever tasted comes straight up from my well. My family drinks more water now than ever! We do use a lot of water on our animals, especially the ducks. I do not collect rainwater, but I know I need to. It is on the list to get started this summer before the wet weather hits again.

We buy a majority of our produce at the Hood River Farmer's Market. Most of the vendors are local (within 20 miles of HR) and a couple are a little further away. Not all of them are certified organic, but I believe all are pesticide-free and are working toward their certification. All of the produce we buy is amazing, and we go through a lot of produce! If we can't find it at the FM, we have a tiny market that we go to called Treebird. They are very specific with their produce and try to keep local as much as possible. The farm community out here in the Gorge is so great. I've never experienced produce and farmers like these in my entire life!

I took a picture similar to this last year and I ended up getting it tattooed on my hand. This is happening right now. The moon headed to set behind Mt Hood is not something we see often, but it is spectacular when it does. The tattoo has a lot of meaning to me and my family, but I will spare y'all the details. The pic of my hand isn't the best but you can see the moon near my thumb. This is my forever home. My paradise.

I have been throwing my old chicken bedding out into the chicken run for about a year now. The birds love it. They roll around in it and scratch in it, and it just becomes part of the soil. This past weekend I was going to do the chicken bedding and I decided to take a shovel to the soil to see how it looked underneath a few layers of old bedding "soil." Y'ALL!!! I have the most incredible manure/soil! It doesn't stink like I thought it would. There is so much life underneath the top layer or two! I only scraped part of the run and got a small trailer full. I took it down to the proposed future garden site where I used to haul the old bedding, and was able to cover it generously. Oh, and the old bedding has quite the life underneath as well. I do still compost most of the food scraps, or they get divvied up between the pigs, chickens, and goats. When I do get this garden going, it is going to produce some gangbusters produce, hopefully!

My solar setup is pretty rad. (Sorry for the technical terminology there.) I can check the status of my batteries, generation, use, and so on. I wanted to share with y'all what the impact of living off grid looks like. This particular system was installed less than 2 years ago. I do need to let everyone know that I am a stickler for turning lights off! I am that dad who goes through the house asking if we are trying to light up the whole neighborhood. The family just laughs at me because our nearest neighbor is 1/4 mile away.

I want to circle back to the food post. We do primarily focus on sustainability for ourselves, for our future, but I saw this live action going on the other day and it really got me to thinking about the sustainability of the life we don't see, or we think is creepy. This was a real struggle. That snake wanted that lizard as a meal. Period. It fought with all its might, yet the lizard eventually escaped. That wasn't the end, though. The chase that ensued right after the escape was amazing! The struggle to eat is real in the world all around us, and we take it for granted or refuse to see it. You don't have to watch Nat Geo to see it. Pay more attention to the little critters around you, fighting to stay alive.

Last week I did a couple of things I don't normally do outside, here on my property. One of them was to sit and admire the oak forest I have right in front of me. I did have the goats with me, and they were grazing. It was quiet. Chickens were being quiet. The ducks were napping. The dogs were inside. It was the wind, the songbirds, the insects, and the occasional chomping of grasses from the goats.

I always pay attention to the conifers, because they are so towering and stand out so much. This day was about the oaks. The white oak is a beautiful tree. Very odd shapes in each one. They don't grow straight. There are no low branches, unless the tree is very young or is leaning to the side for sunshine. They grow in clusters, I'm assuming because of how the acorns fall very close to the trunks. I have some that are so large that I can't get my arms halfway around them! I can't imagine all that those oooold trees have been through and "seen" in their time. It's just fascinating.

Another thing I did and have been wanting to do for a couple of years since we moved to this property, was to start digging into the vein of petrified wood I have directly behind my house. I see it every day and want to see more than the little that is exposed. My daughter had several friends over that are around the same size and pitch. (preteen). One of them has a little brother who is very quiet and her grandma was with them. She immediately noticed the petrified wood and started asking questions. Long story short, her husband is a super rock lover and her grandson thought some of them looked cool. He and I spent over an hour with tools and brushes, exposing more of the surface of the tree and marveling at the colors and shapes. As far as I can tell, from what is exposed, this tree was about 30 feet tall...

Evenings from my living room or deck are spectacular. The bats come out. We get painted skies. Crickets singing, turkeys letting everyone know they are roosting, owls hooting and screeching. Chickens shut up, ducks get quiet, pigs start squealing, and now the goats are baaaaaaahing. I wouldn't have it any other way. It is a wonderful time at the end of each day to be thankful for the life I have with my incredible family. It has taken a lot of work to get us here, and it is so much work to sustain life out here in the sticks, but evenings are a great way to sit back and be thankful.

Saturday morning, I spent a couple of hours at the local cemetery cleaning up for the Memorial Day ceremony. I am a member of the American Legion, so it was me and a few other veterans weed-eating, placing flags on the headstones of our fallen brothers and sisters, as well as lining the driveway through the cemetery with flags. This is such an honor to be part of. During the parade on Monday, I will be carrying the American Flag. The top honor. I can't describe the emotions...