Well, whaddya know?  The HeartSong land had another treasure to share with us.  The other day  I went on another walkabout to fully acquaint myself with the full 13.52 acres that it is, and lo and behold, I came upon another “road” that we didn’t know about!

I went walking down hill instead of up that day which is the part of the land that goes down to a point, and ends very close to the road and to the track where we come onto the land through our neighbour’s land, past a house there.  I had only been down into that area of the land once before when the whole tribe went down there along the stream, down in a big deep gulley.  It had been quite an adventure and we even saw a small waterfall down there.  That day, we had walked back up the access road.

This day, I went a little way down the gulley, but then I decided I wanted to see the area to the south of there, so I climbed up the hill in that direction.  Suddenly, I came to the top of that bank and found what appeared to be a bit of a trail, although it had a LOT of rhododendron growing wildly across it and both sides of it.  It still looked like a road though, so I decided to go down it to see where it went, and then to come back up it and see where that way went.  I clambered down under a lot of rhododendron – it was hard to get through some of it, there was so much but I then found myself at the bottom point of the land and could just see the (County) road ahead, and to my right, I could just make out our neighbour’s access road that we currently use to get onto the land.  Well, that was cool.  So, I then hiked back up this trail, and the rhododendron was growing thick and fast everywhere, but I truly could see that at some point in time, someone must have dug out a trail/road just below the ridge which is the border of the HS land.  I cut a few branches of the rhododendron so that I could pass through, but sure enough, after cutting a bunch of rhododendron branches, I as able to clamber through the bushes and stay on the trail.  Lo and behold, the next thing I knew, I was close to camp, in an area I had traversed often, but I had never taken this one trail because it was blocked by rhododendron branches.

A couple of days later, I went back over there with Cindy (Lopper -we call the loppers “Cindy”!  LOL!), and a bow saw and machete.  It took me a while, but I managed to clear the trail so that it now looks as it does in the video posted below – don’t laugh at me huffing and puffing up the trail – it looks like I’m walking a straight level path, but I assure you, it is plenty steep!!  😛

So, just a quick update on the doings on the land – as you can see from the picture above, our big “basecamp” tent has been relocated onto a (relatively) level area.  This is an area that Rodney leveled for us with the digger – it is at the end of our “Newold Road” and directly above the Heart Space base building site.  This means we can store our spare stuff AND have plenty of room for tools and materials (such as earthbags and barbed wire for the building of the dome) and also still have room if we want to hang out up there or even camp up there the tent is so big.

The video below is of the road as it is now and the tent, then looking down at the site as well as a view of a path/wagon trail, that I made so that we can wheel stuff down from the road/storage area to the building site.

This is a photo of the area before raking it into a New Wagon Trail down to the building site from where the tent is at the end of the Newold Road as seen in the video above.

After working on the New Wagon Trail

We are almost ready to get started with the foundation of the dome, and to start with buillding one of the small “pods” which will be the “bedrooms” they will be 9 foot diameter earthbag adobe domes.

More soon  ❤

Three months in, we have “running water” at the Heart Song land.  Yes, we have “tap water” – that is, water flowing from a tap, but it sure ain’t anything like most “tap water”!  It is pure mountain spring water – well, as pure as is possible in these days of pollution!
We have properly captured the springs and piped the water into a 600 gallon tank and we have piped it to a small tap at our camp – the pressure is super amazing after our catching the water as it came out of a large pipe as it flowed down the hill from the springs to the camp area.

Here is Spring head 1 going through stages of catchment:

The second spring is a little higher up this hill, and went through similar process for us to pipe it to the tank:

The two springs are joined by a T joint as they then flow into the spring box.

This pipe then runs underground to the infamous 600 gallon tank which is now buried!

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Finally, all that was left to do was to open the valve that allowed the spring water to flow into the tank.

There was great excitement when we found the water had reached camp from the tank and we were able to open a tap to allow it to flow – boy is the pressure strong!!

The Tap!

Today it is Thursday 6th July 2017 (or so they say), and the Heartsong land is now allowing a satellite dish to stand on the land.   Although this is something not organic to land and Earth, we are most grateful to this amazing land to accept this way of connection to the outside world.

We find ourselves in a world of our own here on this land, where we are communing with nature and each other, and are most content doing so.  However, we wish to share this amazing journey with our so many virtual friends, so we appreciate this opportunity to connect with our friends and family out there.  This way, I will be better able to post updates with photos and videos to share.  This journey is so wonderful and we love sharing with any who enjoy watching this inflowment.  We also are more than willing to support and encourage any others who are looking to take this sort of path.

There have been challenges, of course, living on raw land, long distances from the usual outlets for food, utilities, supplies etc, but all in all, each one of us here is glad to be in this environment, far from commerce and the so called “civilization”!
We have a beautiful supply of water from our springs which flows constantly.  Currently, we catch the current as it flows down the hill past our camp down to the river below the land.   The water comes in fairly clean, but we filter it through our 5 gallon Berkey filter that Eagle brought along with him.  This way, we have clean water to drink, bathe in and wash dishes etc.  We have black shower bags which we fill with the spring water and lay out in the sun, which warms it, and then we hang one of the bags up on our shower frame and the water freely flows down for a nice fresh shower – I’ve got to say, showering in this spring water feels SO good!

We have been doing a fair amount of work on the land – yesterday we started a second digging for the underground water tank.  The first one resulted in our finding a massive rock two and a half feet down, which was not going to be shifted, so we had to find another location which is also lower than where the spring water emerges.  With any bit of luck, this new location will be perfect.  Once we get the spring catchment screen set up, along with the springbox, we can guide the water into the 600 gallon tank.  Then we can pipe water down to the Heartsong Hideout which is located here at camp.  This way, we will have even more water to access.   We have had a lot of heavy downpours from passing storms the last few days, so water is abundant!!  This is something we have no complaints about!  Water is the basis of everything, so a bit of mud and wet tents etc are not an issue!  Talking of tents, aside of a little dampness from under, the tents are sound and we have had all dry nights – a big storm the second night we were here had us awake some of the night, but not because of  dripping tents, but because of hefty thunder and heavy drumming rain!   Due to there being so much rain – often in a very short length of time, we have dug drains across the roads to catch the fast running water and guide it across into the stream and the coverts to help lessen erosion.  Keeping active is something that is quite easy around here and we are getting very fit!
Also, we cleared a part of the area where we will start our garden.  The earth is SO rich and beautiful – we call it black gold!!

We  have a good area cleared where we will soon start building the earthbag dome for Heart Space Base,

as well as our clearing an old logging road that was covered with leaves, mulch, young trees and ferns.

We will be able to access our building area via the open logging roads which are in good shape, and this road that we just cleared.  It is uphill the whole way, but we are getting strong legs as we walk up and down, and we have Black Beauty, our Toyota 4WD truck who is well able for negotiating these roads when it is dry.  I don’t like the trucks going up and down when it is wet, I am all for preserving the roads as much as possible.
We keep on improving our camp, what with our firepit shelter, so that we can still sit by the fire when it is raining!  It has taken a while for it not to hold water on the roof, or to drip heavily from the edges splattering us, and to create a chimney that works to help keep the smoke going out – but it is in pretty good shape now.  We have a channel dug across the front which catches most of the runoff from the area in front.

Camp in general is brilliant though – we have the Hideout, which we use basically for cooking and storing stuff.  Then we have our tents for sleeping.

And the campfire, as previously mentioned.  Then we have the water passing by.

It’s perfect and I am loving my life here, as are all the tribe members.  I am so very grateful to all that has occurred to enable me to get started with this project, as I am to all who are participating, and all who will do as we move on.
Further reports will follow – and much more frequently, now that we have internet!
Love and appreciation to all.